Did you see that thread on Reddit a while back where a guy tracked his lease vs no-lease months in a spreadsheet? He found his income dropped almost 30 percent in the months he had a place because he kept turning down short trips. I remember one comment saying a lease is basically a bet that nothing better shows up. That stuck with me because your Medellin story is the same thing, just with a nicer view. The guilt part is real too.

The wet sand pile thing is the real killer nobody talks about. A shovel of soaked sand can weigh half again what a dry shovel does, so your 3 to 1 mix is really 5 to 1 some days and the wall pays for it. I keep a bathroom scale in the truck and batch by weight too, usually 5 lbs cement to 15 lbs sand for small stuff, and I add water by the pint instead of the hose until I know the sand. One tip if you are new to it: write the weights and water amount on a scrap of plywood for each job so you can repeat it if you need more mortar later. Also weigh your sand damp but not dripping, and check a few batches for how they trowel before you trust the numbers on a new sand pile.