Found: One House

We found a house. Actually, it's one of the ones we saw on Monday, but my daughter was not impressed with hearing that the washer and dryer are outside on the back porch. Then she saw the house which is cute and has been decorated well and decided it was worth the inconvenience of doing laundry outside to get the rest of it. It is very nice. It has hardwood floors through most of the house. It's tiny and my daughter loves the stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. My son's room is the only one with a concrete floor instead of hardwood, but that works for leaving his dog in there while they're gone.

We had one very funny incident during the leasing process. My son's friend was with us on Monday and again on Wednesday. My daughter was with us on Wednesday also. She and my son both wear cross promise rings. The realtor showed us the house both times and when we got to his office to sign the lease, he called the owner to ask a couple of questions and said, "I have a husband and wife here leaing your house." There was stunned silence from all of us. Finally, I said, "They're brother and sister." Bless his heart. He turned beet red!! We laughed so hard.

Well, we're off in search of glasses. We might also include some frozen custard in the deal. I guess it depends on where we go for the glasses. If we go to the nicer store, we won't be getting any frozen custard. If we go out of our way a bit, we can make it worth our while.

House Hunting Resumes

We are headed back to Waco today to try again to find suitable housing for my son, daughter and the dog. Each presents his own set of unique needs that makes finding the right house at this late date a challenge. And it is supposed to be near 100 degrees today. Just our luck.

Meanwhile, my son has registered for fall classes, we hope to get my daughter's application in to the local community college while we're there today. He has to get his student i.d. and parking sticker, so we're going to have several odd things to do in addition to looking at houses.

Meanwhile, a friend of my daughter's returns to Iraq today after a 2-week leave. It is hard to know what his family is going through today. I hate it for them all. But I am so grateful for everyone like him who has volunteered to do this job of keeping the terrorists off American soil and rebuilding a country whose former leader made life wonderful for himself and lived the life of the truly decadent rich and famous at the expense of 95% of the rest of the population. For more on real-life in Iraq, see the blogs to the right of this entry.

My cousin's husband returns at the end of the week. That is even harder. In addition, his unit is undergoing a major overhaul that may require them to move to a suburb of Nashville from Knoxville where they've lived all of their lives. Believe me, that is hard to face, too. But nothing could be as hard as this year has been with him in Iraq. Please pray for all of them there.

I've turned into a plant-killer myself this week because I've been too busy to water plants, so I've got to go move the hose to a different tree. Then it's off to Waco....

Look out, Waco!

My son got his acceptance to transfer to BAYLOR in the fall, so he and my daughter will be living in Waco! Congratulations, Son. We're proud of you!

This and That

It's always something, you know? Today it is plumbing repairs and then repairs to walls following the plumbing repairs to come. Yikes!

We've had several thunderstorms this week. I like rain, and I don't mind thunderstorms if I'm at home. My daughter came dancing into the kitchen this afternoon saying, "It's raining." I pointed out the window and said, "And your car is up on the road so that if it comes a thunderstorm and hails, it's going to get hit." Her eyes flashed and she said, "Oh no! My windows are down!" She took off at a dead run to get her keys and go move her car. I really laughed.

She goes by the name Buttercwup online and our voice program calls her But-TER-cwup which cracks me up. She was playing Frank Sinatra to us on the program this afternoon and I told her we all have the same CD, so we could listen to it if we want to without her forcing it on us via computer. Then my son kicked her off the program. While she was gone, I told him she's Buttertwirp - just as she signed back on and heard me. More laughter. Just can't help myself. She gives me too much ammunition!

I finished a cross-stitch piece I started years ago and put away apparently because I'd made a huge mistake on it and discouraged myself. I know it had been over 4 years since I worked on it, but I picked it back up a couple of months ago and now it's done. I have one more piece to do and then I can get them all framed and put them up. It is fun to work on and it's a change from all the photo albums I've put together in the past 3 1/2 years. I'm glad to have the albums done, but I was so rabid about getting caught up that I let everything else slide completely.

So that's it for This and That today. Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by.

Water Problems

I have always planted flowers in pots on our back porch, and my husband has always taken on the responsibility of watering them every day. And I rarely scrutinize how things are going. After all, it's pretty simple. However, recently, when he left for Europe, I discovered two crepe myrtles in extremely dry conditions and 1 of the 4 new hedges I'd had planted recentlywas dead and the other three in dire straits. The flowers weren't much better off. I had my work cut out for me, but I tackled the problem and have over the past 4 weeks or so, improved everything except the dead hedge plant.

I wrote my husband an email while he was gone and told him I loved him even though he is a plant-killer.

I went out late tonight to water everything. A little too late. We live in a town, but it's pretty country-fied out here and the water is unbelievably expensive, so we water out of the creek and one section is watered by the anaerobic septic system. Suffice it to say, you don't want to get hit by a sprinkler. The sprinler system was already on when I went out. You would have enjoyed watching me water darting around the sprinkler out there. Even the dogs were participating. Just what I needed. Anyway, I think my husband just turns the water on more when he waters and it runs through the pots without really soaking in. At least that's my theory. Most of the time, I do it now. But if I get behind (or on the weekends I have to work all weekend) he does it.

My daughter's computer recently commited suicide by falling off her bed in slow-motion. So, in the days since then, she has shared my computer. Usually, I'm careful about who's signed in before I post a comment anywhere, but today I messsed up and posted a comment on a blog under her name. I logged her out, logged back in and "`fessed" up and then I told her. She was chagrined by my mistake, but then a couple of hours later, she did the exact same thing on someone else's blog. Sometimes we're too much alike!

When Tragedy Strikes

London is dealing with tragedy today. But for the grace of God, America could be in the same situation. Thank you to all of our military personnel who stand between us and terrorists, for the police officers and Homeland Security forces who work so hard every day to maintain our safety and freedom to come and go as we please. Thank you to my cousin's husband who arrived home today for a brief 2-week leave for your incredible attitude about what you do so well and so willingly. God bless you. I'm proud of you.