Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 211 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're doing great and that you're ready to practice your listening comprehension with another episode.
And in today's episode...
I'm gonna talk about my new house because we just moved.
This is a really big thing for us.
This is big news.
I don't think I've talked about this yet.
I can't remember whether or not I've already mentioned that we were planning on moving this year, but we moved.
I'm not the owner of this new house.
We didn't buy a house, renting it, but obviously we consider it our house right now in the sense that we're living here.
So in this episode I want to talk about our move.
First I'll talk about the house itself and the area where we are, and And then I'll talk a little more about the moving process, about what it was like to move.
And honestly, we're not completely finished with this process.
We're still trying to fill our house with all the necessary items.
So we're still kind of moving in that sense, but we're living here now.
And we're really happy.
So I'm excited to talk about this today.
And I want to remind you that you can get my training, my listening practice seminars and my pronunciation seminars for those of you who want to practice your pronunciation with with my training.
And also, you can get my advanced podcast episodes in which I speak fast.
You can check out all of that by clicking on the link down below.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
And you can also check out my US Conversations podcast, in which I talk to people from all over the US about their city, their region, the culture there.
And we talk about a lot of other things.
And the conversation is at normal speed.
We don't slow down or modify how we're speaking.
And so it's great practice for your listening.
And I provide the transcript for each conversation with the definitions of key words and phrases.
So If you want to check that out, that link is also down below.
That's patreon.com slash us conversations.
And as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let me talk to you first about my new house, the house where we're living, and then I'll talk a little bit about the moving process.
So we're not living in San Diego anymore.
We're living in a different county.
So states in the US are divided into counties.
So when I used to say that I lived in San Diego, What I was saying was that I lived in San Diego County.
I didn't actually live in the city of San Diego.
So there's San Diego County, Orange County, LA County, for example.
So we're in a different county now called Riverside County.
We're still in Southern California.
We're not very far from San Diego County, but it is a different county here.
So things are a little different.
It looks a little bit different and obviously it's not the same as living in San Diego.
But I think all of Southern California shares a lot of different characteristics and traits and elements.
So it's not a huge difference.
But That's where we are now and we're living in a house and we're really excited about that, because when you live in a house in the US, you usually have more space than if you live in an apartment.
And so the house itself is not a new house.
It is fairly old, not really old, but it wasn't built any time in the last 30 years, let's say.
So it's not a new house and it's not a really big house, but It's definitely big enough for us.
It has enough rooms for us right now, enough space for what we need at this point in our lives.
So we're really happy about that.
And it's got... a pretty big living room, which is nice.
So when you're in the common area, the living room, it feels spacious.
It feels like you have a lot of room there.
I think that it will be a good space to entertain guests, for example.
And we have a garage, a two-car garage, so we can fit two cars in this garage.
And there's also a little extra space in the garage, a little nook.
I'll call it like a little extra part in addition to the space for the cars.
And this is actually where I'm working right now.
I'm working in the garage so that we can have more space in the house and so I don't have to take up that space with my desk and stuff.
I don't have to deal with all the noise of my family.
And, of course, seeing as I record podcasts and videos and give classes online.
Obviously, I need silence, or not complete silence, but I need it to be not noisy.
And so it's a lot easier to achieve that if I'm in the garage.
So it might not sound like the best place to work.
And admittedly, it's not the most comfortable thing, but I'm liking it so far.
And like I said, I have relative silence here.
Of course, I can hear the birds chirping outside, but I like that.
And we live in a very residential area.
And our street is not a street that anyone really needs to drive through to go anywhere, except if they're going to their house.
So because of that, there are barely any cars that pass by, which is really nice because, of course, if there were constant traffic outside the window here, you would probably hear that in my recordings.
So I think that I've found a good workspace here in the garage.
It gets a little cold in the mornings and of course, it gets hot in the afternoons, but I try to work in the morning, so I just need to make sure I'm wearing warm clothes and that's enough.
So we've got a garage here, a nice living room, we've got bedrooms, of course, and the really big attraction of this house, the reason why we wanted to rent this property, was because it has a big backyard with grass and dirt, and this is amazing when you have kids, especially small kids like mine.
This is really the number one feature of the house.
When I saw the pictures of the backyard when I was looking at the listing.
A listing refers to an advertisement for a house, a job or something like that.
So when I saw the pictures of the backyard, when I was looking at the listing of this house, I thought wow, that would be a great place for us.
That would be a great place for our kids to play.
And not only that, but also this house is located in on a hill and it's actually kind of right on the edge of the city, and so we can see these beautiful hills right behind us and in the distance, in the other direction, we can actually see very tall mountains, not very close to us, but in the distance, and It looks really cool.
So we have great views from here.
And there's also grass in our front yard as well.
There are beautiful flowers in both the front yard and the backyard.
We're really just in love with the way things look around this neighborhood, because there are so many flowers and there's a lot of grass and trees.
Actually, right across the street from us, there is a big grass field with a lot of beautiful flowers.
Actually It's like a perfect setting for a quiet, family style living situation.
It really is.
And I'm extremely thankful for that.
This is why we wanted to live here, mostly because of the location. the backyard, the space.
It's just a really good area for us.
I'm sure that for some of you, it might be kind of a boring area.
You might want to be closer to all the action and everything.
You might want to be closer to the middle of the city, for example.
But at this point in our lives we really want to, to just have a good space for our family, for our kids.
And so that's why we're renting this space.
It is a nice neighborhood, like I mentioned.
It's residential.
It's kind of secluded because, like I said, this street is not an important street that people would take.
And I feel pretty safe here.
I think that That's the feeling I get when I walk around.
I don't think that we need to worry a lot about crime or danger here, which is really nice.
And like I said, it's just an ideal place for us at this point.
So we're extremely excited and happy about this.
I thank God every day that I have this place, now that we're able to rent this house in this neighborhood.
So we're very happy about that.
And now let me talk a little bit about our move, our moving process.
So first of all, we needed to find a house.
And so we We went on different sites where they show different listings for houses and apartments.
There are a few really major sites that have these listings, and then there are plenty of other sites that kind of just copy the same listings of these main sites, i think.
So there are a lot of sites for this, but really most of the listings kind of overlap, meaning you'll see the same listing on different sites because they just get copied to other websites.
So we spent weeks probably just looking at different listings Not very seriously but in preparation for our move, just to get an idea of what places there were and see which ones we could afford or that we couldn't afford.
And unfortunately, in 2025, things are expensive and so it's not easy, it's not cheap to rent a house.
And so we really had to make some sacrifices.
And obviously there were many places that we just couldn't consider because they were too expensive.
But there were a handful of places within our budget in this area.
And this place now that we're renting, was kind of right on the edge, right at the limit of our budget.
It was honestly a little hard to commit to it because it was at the very top end of our budget of what We were willing to pay, but we really loved the yard and the space and the neighborhood.
So we committed to, you know, paying this rent.
And of course we had to contact the, the owner, the property owner, and thankfully we didn't have to go through like a property management company, like it was just the owner directly and we were in contact and we She allowed us to tour the house.
So you usually do that.
You take a tour of the house or apartment that you want to rent.
And so we toured it.
And then, after touring it and meeting the landlord and talking to her, telling her what my job is, talking about my income and and other things like that, because that is really important in the US.
They want to see that you have enough monthly income to pay the rent.
And not only that, but you're supposed to have like three times the amount of monthly income as the amount of the rent.
This is the case in many areas.
So I had to show that and we got to know each other a little bit.
And she liked us, but she had to see our credit score.
This is a really big thing in the US.
Everyone has a credit score which shows how reliable you are as someone who can pay bills on time and manage debt, and all of that.
And so we had to fill out applications both my wife and I on WhatsApp, the website where the listing was, and we had to pay to send in applications it's not free and then through those applications, the landlord was able to see our credit scores, and so Once she saw that we have really good credit scores, she called me and said you got the place.
I want to rent it to you guys.
So we were very thankful about that because this was the only place that we actually toured.
It was the first and last place.
So That part of the process went really smooth.
We were really happy and thankful for that.
And so after we signed the lease, which is the contract that says that we have to do these certain things and pay this money every month and it lasts a certain amount of time, and All of that, that contract is called a lease.
So after we signed the lease, we had to set up all of our utilities, all of the services for the house.
So gas electricity water, trash removal everything, the internet there's a lot of stuff that needs to be set up.
And the price of these things are not included in the rent price, unfortunately.
So you have to factor that in when you're trying to think of your budget.
So I had to set up all of these different services.
It wasn't easy to do all of them.
Some of them are hard to deal with because they're government services or whatever, and their websites don't work well or things like that.
So it's not the funnest thing, but we had to set up all of those services so that the day that we were going to move in we would have electricity and running water and all of that.
So I had to do that and we had to hire a moving company to help us move.
It wasn't 100% necessary, I would say, in our case, because we didn't move much, to be honest.
We didn't have our own furniture, really, just a bed.
And besides that It was just other things that we were moving.
But it was still worth it for us to hire the moving company just for the bed alone, because if we wanted to just sell that bed and buy a new bed here, we would have spent more money than just paying for the moving company.
And with the moving company we were able to just put all of our other stuff in the truck and they moved it.
So it was worth it even though we didn't have a bunch of furniture to move.
The movers were kind of surprised at how little we had.
But it was worth it.
So we hired that moving company to do that for us.
And it's cool because they disassemble the bed and then put it back together for you here in your bedroom.
It's very convenient and they work really well and they're fast at that stuff.
So that was great.
But the negative is that we had to buy all new furniture.
Like I said, we didn't have our own furniture.
We were in my father's house and because of that we were just using the furniture that was there, and so we were moving from his house to our own house and we didn't have any of our furniture from mexico, from when we lived in mexico.
So we have just been buying all the furniture for the house these last couple weeks.
And you can imagine how much money this is.
It's a ton of money, unfortunately.
However, there are a couple good things about this.
Number one is that after we do this, we will have this furniture for our next move.
If we move again in a few years, we will have our furniture now and we don't have to buy it all next time, right?
Like we had to get our furniture at some point, right?
And so it's OK.
We're just getting it all now.
It's just hard because normally you don't have to buy everything at once.
And so that's what's really hard about this.
Obviously, we have to be really strict with our budget right now because we just have tons of bills to pay because of all of this stuff.
But the other positive thing is that my wife's dream has always been to furnish a house.
She's never had the chance to do this.
Obviously, she has furnished apartments in mexico, but it's different when you have a house and a patio and more space and you know you just have a, A different environment and you can furnish it in a different way.
Perhaps when it's a house.
And so my wife has been having a lot of fun doing this.
And I think.
Personally, she and I have really good taste in furniture and style, and so I really like the way that the house is turning out right now, as we're putting more and more furniture in it.
We don't have a lot of furniture.
We're kind of putting the bare minimum, let's say, meaning just what's essential, and maybe...
Later on, we'll add some more pieces of furniture.
But right now, we're just getting what's essential.
So it's not like the house is completely full right now.
But I really like it.
Everything is turning out.
I think it will be a great space for us and to host guests, so I'm happy.
But there's one other big negative about this and that is assembling the furniture, putting the furniture together.
This is not my favorite thing and And I have issues with my back unfortunately.
So it's hard for me to be bent over building furniture.
I need help with this.
So my wife does a lot.
I do a lot.
Our friend has helped us.
So the assembly of the furniture is is not my favorite thing.
It takes a long time, so that's one negative, but when you're done it's very rewarding, when you see the furniture in its entire form and then you're done with it.
So uh, After you assemble it, it's great.
But in the moment, it's not very easy and it takes a long time.
So overall, the moving process was not easy.
However, I'm very thankful that we found this house so quickly.
That made things a lot easier on that front, as we would say like that part of it, but everything else has been um a lot of work.
Uh, not easy physically speaking.
Um, and unfortunately I haven't been able to work uh, normally because of all the stuff I've had to do.
I haven't done, um, Practically any language learning in the last couple weeks.
I'm going to try to start today again, but I had to take a break for like half a month from learning French and I'm not happy about that.
I'm really tired, to be honest, of all the assembling and just all the stuff we've had to do.
But overall, I'm so thankful.
I'm really happy that we have our own space now.
My wife is really happy.
Like I said, it's always been her dream to furnish an apartment.
And it's been our dream to have some space for our kids to play and to grow up in and And we're just really excited for the future to watch our kids grow up here, at least for a time period.
I don't know how long we'll be here.
And it's great to have this experience in the US, living on our own, figuring things out, starting things on our own.
Obviously, we're We did that in Mexico, but this is really our first time doing it in the US.
So we're very thankful that we have the opportunity to do so.
And of course, some things are complicated and obviously things are expensive right now.
And not everything is easy, let's say, but that's okay.
The challenge is part of the fun.
We're excited for this.
I have faith that God will provide for whatever we need here.
And I'm just really happy, as you can tell.
So I hope that you enjoyed hearing about our move and the house where we're living right now.
And I hope this episode was good practice for your listening needs.
And remember that you can access my training, my seminars, either for listening pronunciation, my sound training, my advanced episodes.
All of that you can check out by clicking on the link down below.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast.
That's probably a good next step for a lot of you to start listening to real conversations in English.
So check that out as well.
That link is also down below.
And please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can.
All right, thank you all so much for listening and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
