A New Mission

Through out the years of our marriage there has always been a mission of some kind for us. David's mom thought it was hilarious. We'd be heading out the door and Thelma would ask where we were off to and I would turn and say "A Mission". I'd ask her to come with us and she'd just laugh and say "I think I'll pass". She had a great laugh. David's mom lived with us for 7 years before she passed. Miss her everyday. We've been on mission for cars, race cars, tile flooring, trailers, wood flooring, counter top material, homes and landscaping. Why do we call it a mission? Well we don't just look at say 10 or 15 samples oh no that's not enough. We must have lots of options. LOL  We looked at enough floor tile that we had enough samples for a whole room. Our mission for land had us traipsing all over looking for the one that made us say "This is it" After over 300 propertieswe found the One. 
Which lead to us to a mission for a tractor, a bushwhacker, and a 4 wheeler. Now we're on a hunt for a place to stay over nite or longer on the farm until we can build a permanent home. Oh and the biggest thing is a bathroom. Closest one to the farm is nature but not much cover or drive 5 miles down the road. We've looked at RV's, mobile homes and small cabins are on the list. We're discussing a plan and time line of how all this is gonna work.  David loves Missions. And the best deal for the buck.
It's always an adventure around our house.
With all this rain it's driving all kinds of things out of the ground like frogs. I went outside with Lilley to see if I could get her to take a potty break before bed you could hear all the frogs. I looked over to the pad David had poured to store the trailer on and I counted over 18 frogs of all sizes. 
The next morning when I went out with Lilley I saw something rather large crawling across the grass. I was curious so I walked a little closer and this is what I saw. A mud bug. Darn thing's tail was bigger than my thumb. mmm made me want so spicy crawfish.

This weekend I thought I'd find time to take some pictures of Pamela's new place but that didn't happen. We went back up on Saturday to help some more. While David and Pamela hung pictures and curtains I proceeded to open some more boxes and put things away. Pamela had made a pretty good dent in the boxes but I was able to put 4 more away for her. After that I go busy and set up my sewing machine and sewed up a dust ruffle for her guest room for the new quilt that I'm in process of fixing. Thanks to Mandy and Nancy at Quilters Crossing for helping me pick the perfect coordinating color for the dust ruffle so I'd have something to even sew. I took the quilt top up to show Pamela my fix and she was very happy with it. Winner! now to just finish it. 

Oh and the reason I didn't get any pictures.... well this wonderful photographer, NOT so much let the battery go down and my spare battery was in my purse at home. Good place for it don't you think? Then I had this other obstacle called Pamela. She didn't want me to take pictures of it at this stage so it was just as well that my battery was dead.

Today is a short and sweet blog post.

Until next post...Life is a patchwork of memories.

Pamela's big Move

  Friday was a big day for Pamela. She signed the papers on her new home. She couldn't be happier and neither could we. More space, a yard and bigger bills but after 3 years of throwing money away on rent she was ready for something she could call her own.  Don't we all know about that.

After an hour or so of signing papers they handed over the keys... YAY it's official she's a homeowner.    The next step is a bite of lunch at the Chicken Oil, a couple of errands then the fun stuff...    We headed back to her apartment to change clothes and get busy loading her car with what we could since our cars were already full.  We had planned on loading the trailer with her belongings from our house but the forecast of possible rain made us think twice. We didn't want to ruin her new mattress and bookcase so all we could do Thursday night was load both our cars to the brim with what we could. Even managed to load her queen size bed frame and rails in my car. 

By 5pm Friday she was putting the key in the lock of her cute new home.  We unloaded our cars and went back for a couple more loads of what we could fit in our cars.  By about 9pm we were all hot and sweaty and exhausted so David and I headed back to Tomball and Pamela headed back to her apartment for a bite to eat good night sleep and we all meet up again at the house early Saturday morning.....

Friday night before going grabbing a very late bite to eat and going to bed David and I loaded the queen mattress, box springs, a small bookcase and dresser in the bed of his truck and then parked the truck in the garage until Saturday morning. We got to Pamela's house early enough to unload the truck before I was to go to the apartment. I had to be there by 9am to meet the movers. And Pamela and her Dad stayed at the house to meet all the delivery trucks, security folks, etc. Boy it was Hot.  3 young men showed up from I believe it was Little Guy Movers. They worked quickly and seemed take care with the furniture and boxes. The lead guy got hurt though. They used rubber bands to keep drawers shut but it didn't work and one of the rubber bands popped and hit him right in the corner of his eye. Made my toes curl thinking about the pain. Poor Guy was in pain but he sucked it up. I don't know how he did it because you could see he was hurting. 

They didn't take any time at all. They finished at the apartment and headed to the house and by noon they were done and off to their next move.  And we were left to start unpacking. First task was to make the beds so when we decided to stop we'd have a place to lay our heads. We were to be Pamela's first over night guest. LOL. Pamela ordered us Pizza for dinner. Tasted pretty darn good. Pamela was dying to have a glass of champagne for a celebration drink so she and I had a glass and her Dad had a beer.

Seeing how Sunday was Father's Day she didn't make him work so hard. No heavy lifting at all.  We all slept in for a while. It felt good. We grabbed a bite to eat and headed to Bed & Bath for items that Pamela needed and to one of David's favorite places, Home Depot. Time flies when you're having fun. It was after 5 by the time we got back to the house and it was time to take David out to a nice Dinner. We surprised him by going to Nappa Flats there in College Station. They have really good food. He and I had the pork chop special and Pamela had a filet. So Yummy.

I didn't take any pictures of the disarray which I guess I should have so you could see the progress when I go back next Saturday but I didn't.

Before we knew it it was almost 9pm and David and I had to head back to Tomball and go to work Monday.

For a sneak peek of the quilt that I thought I had finished for Pamela's guess room. Big problem.... some how I didn't make it big enough for a queen size bed and it's already quilted. TEARS and lots of cuss words.

The lighting in her room here isn't that great for taking pictures but the quilt did not drape over the edge of the bed like she wanted and wasn't really long enough either so now how do I fix it. God only knows. 

In this picture I have pinned a piece of the fabric from the backing to the border but how was I suppose to attach it and get it quilted without the raw seams showing. Clueless. More Tears.

I was even so bold to turn the quilt the other way to see if maybe she could just use it as a topper. Of course that's not what she wanted to do.  So I started calling my much more experience quilters for ideas.  

Well while at Tshirt Quilts of Texas getting some backing for tshirt quilt blocks I got to talking with my friend and the owner Betty about my dilemma. She goes why not do like the Quilt as you go method. Huh? So she explained how I might be able to salvage my screw up.    Guess What!?!  I believe it's gonna work. I hope to get most of it done this week before we go back to help Pamela with some more unpacking and hanging pictures or whatever. 

If you need a tshirt quilt contact Betty and she also does quilting of all kinds. Click here or on the name above in green.

Okay I couldn't pass up a chance to not share of a couple of pictures of my coworkers daughter Aria. This little gal plays hard and doesn't give up. Nope she just falls asleep in motion.   She also likes to share her swimming pool with Phoenix and Bandit.  Too too cute

This morning Pamela sent me this picture. Welcome to homeownership!

She walked out this morning and a neighbor from across the street decided to plow through her freshly sodded yard and park. She had to snap a picture then head to an appointment then come back to deal with. Even without the picture it was easy to figure out where the truck belonged. The muddy tires left a track to the house across the street.. She went over, introduced herself as the new neighbor that his truck just tore up her new yard. Young kid.. He did keep apologizing and said it would be fixed. Wanna place your bets? This is not how Pamela wanted to start out getting to know her neighbors. Cross your fingers all turns out well.

Until next blog post....A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart. 

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY at least for while

Well finally we got relief from all the rain. It's a little over a week of no rain but it may start again this week. Awesome.  David finally got to mow at the house but we haven’t been able to mow at the farm. It’s gonna be a jungle by the time we get to. He hopes to go up this Thursday to meet a couple of folks for some quotes on septic and set a meter for city water until we get a chance to test a make sure the well water is safe to drink. While there he hopes he can hook up the bush whacker to the tracker and mow some of the property. 

This is what I was facing trying to drive in the first morning of the heavy rain back on the 26^th 



and 

the clearer blue skies is what I faced coming home. While the rain had stopped the creek and the rivers were still coming up. 
This is the main road to get to my house about 4 miles down the road. I was able to hug the inside curb to avoid the high water on my side to get home.  The oncoming traffic had more of an issue since that side is lower.


Then just outside my subdivision there was a truck load of boys having 
some dangerous fun plus the fact that it was at 5pm traffic and cars were trying to navigate thru the water that was flowing quickly across the road.   I pulled into my subdivision turned around so I could pull up to stop and take this video. Look closely at the The white truck coming at ya. It's pulling a boy on a wake board. What they don't realize is somewhere along there, there is a broken of piece of wood with jagged edges under the water.

Back on the 28^th I went to my book club meeting where only 5 out of 20 of us made it. But the 5 of us had a blast. Our book was Food..A Love Story by Jim Gaffigon. The gal that picked this book said she wanted a book with no real plot and this one fit the bill. The author is a comedian who tells you his take on food(s). For instance he says most seafood reminds him of insects like spiders or cockroaches. Oh great.  He also felt you shouldn’t trust a skinny food critic and if you think about it that makes sense. Some how after talking about the book our conversation ran a muck or maybe that should read in the muck.  
As I told the folks that didn’t make it for the discussion….What happens at book club stays at book club! Me and this group laughed so hard and long that night.

Then my dishwasher stopped working. This sucks. Remember the old fashioned way of washing dishes. You know in the sink by hand. So much fun…NOT. The repair guy came out and it’s the control panel. Really it’s only been 2 years and 1 month since I bought this one. The last one the control panel caught fire in the middle of the nite. I woke to the sounds of popping and then the flames. That wasn’t so much fun either. So the control panel is almost but not quite the cost of a new one but for now we aren’t in the market for a new dishwasher so we have elected to go ahead and fix it. With any luck they’ll be back this Friday to install. I sure hope so.

We also changed internet providers. We don’t have a big choice in our area yes but our current provider lost their tower contract so they will officially disappear on November 6 but if you ask me they have been gone for the last 90 days. Our service has been almost non-existent. So we went from Clear to AT &T. That didn’t start off real smooth. The day they install everything was great but the next day when we signed in we had a very week signal. Oh great here we go.  But with the help of the Original Tech via text message we were able to get a Tech to come back to help fix the situation after 3 days of trying to work through it with the original tech via email. Apparently we had a bad modem plus needed a WIFI extender. Haven't had a problem since. YAY!

Would you look at this picture of My grandpuppie Sophie has got to be the most spoiled lovable little pup. Pamela took her in to get groomed and they did a photo shoot. She is the cutest little pup well just as cute as her Momma Lilley. My groomers don't do things like this. I need a new groomer. LOL  The groomers get Sophie to pose with no problem.

Had to share a couple of my favorite pictures my sister shared on Facebook from a recent Dance competition. My Tiny Dancer (my niece Emily) I love this picture. The point shoes are my niece and the other are her parents.

Then there's the Father-Daughter dance. My Brother in law is great. Would your husband get on stage like this for his daughter? 

This past Tuesday was Pamela's first walk through at her new home. Everything went great. The biggest problem they encountered was this.
Big Oops!
That's from Pamela falling thru the ceiling in the garage. Luckily she didn't fall all the way to the floor. She had no clue. David has our attic all decked. First lesson of the new home only walk on the studs until the attic is decked. My smart-ass husband looks at the assist superintendent and goes...."Do we put blue tape on this?"
Superintendent: "No, I think I got this"
Poor Pamela was so embarrassed and already starting to bruise. She came on this weekend with her pretty bruises and she was pretty sore. Poor darling but the good part is the house looks good.

This past Wednesday we hit Main Street Crossing to Listen to Jesse Dayton. This is the 2nd time he's played here which is close to the house. He was smokin those guitar strings. He was awesome that night. He played a bunch of new songs along with a couple songs he hadn't sung in a couple years. It was a great night..

Pamela came home Friday so we could get our hair all touched up and then we ran a couple of errands then headed back home to pack up her things in her room that need to go to her new home next week. Okay she hasn't lived at home in over 4 years but packing up made me all weepy. I actually started crying and she looked at me like I was crazy. Which okay I am but now her taking things from her room make it all seem so permanent and real. She'll always come home to visit and in a couple of years we'll be up her way and closer so it's not a big deal but it just hit me kinda weird.

I have been working on another quilt for a friend plus the one for my daughters new guest room. Well I got the quilt back all quilted so I was on the home stretch then when I laid it across the bed I realized I had totally screwed up. I had not made the quilt wide enough for a queen bed. CRAP CRAP CRAP. Tears more cussing then more tears. How can I and How do I fix this???? More cussing.  Well after many calls and discussions I went to a friend to buy some Tshirt backing to make a Tshirt quilt and she solved my problem so this week I will be fixing Pamela's quilt so I can hopefully have it ready for the bed next Friday. Cross your fingers and say a quilty prayer.


Until next blog post....Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way. ~Dr Seuss