Today was quite the busy and productive day. We got up at 6 am and left the house by 6:45 to get on the road to Fort Worth to take one last walk through of out FW house and do a couple of last minute things before heading in to Southlake for the closing. Everything went smoothly and we were out of there in less than 30 minutes, and a whole lot less stressed. No more house!!
Then a quick lunch and off to the Chevy dealer to finish the trade of our Tahoe. Everything was pretty much ready for us there too and we were out of there in little over an hour with a brand new black Impala and left the Tahoe behind. Even less stress now, with a lower payment, and just a generally better deal.
We were back home in the garage by 5 pm. I couldn't believe how smoothly everything went. We were lucky I guess. I always dream of the worst case scenario, but thankfully in this case it didn't happen.
Let the savings begin now!!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The greatest thing about living in Tyler
Trees!!! Glorious, green, tall, bird-inhabited trees!! This is what I see when I look out my windows. I love it! And I had forgotten what a ruckus trees make when the wind blows. It's beautiful how loud it is, and all it is is leaves banging against each other. It is really awesome, and I never knew what I was missing until I came back. Isn't that how it goes usually?
We also have these guys that hang around the yard quite a bit. It is fun to see thing living in trees. We lived for a long time in a desert-like concrete jungle so we forgot that animals actually can coexist with humans, and not just in the zoo next door to the apartment complex. Nature!!!
Many thanks to Google Images for these pics.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Best thing about being a Texan
I never realized this until I met one of my neighbors from "up north." The best thing in the world about growing up and living in the South is definitely fried fish!! I say that as I stuff my mouth full of the leftovers from our small fish fry last night. The best part is that only 48 hours ago, these guys were alive and swimming around in Lake Tyler. Greg (and his dad) caught them up out of the lake, chopped their innocent little heads off, skinned 'em, de-boned 'em, and I fried 'em for dinner. I believe a close second to the fish is deer. MMMMMMMMM. It's nice to have fresh meat when you know exactly where it came from, instead of some random beef farm where they eat some unknown concoction of hormone-laced feed. I know wild animals (and fish in public lakes) probably get a lot of strange things to eat, but unless someone dropped their HRT or Birth control pills out in the woods, I'm not as worried about ingesting aftificial hormones. Ha!
The reason I now realize this awesome fact about living in Texas is when I told my neighbor Greg had killed a deer, she gasped in horror, and made a huge bug-eyed face when I suggested they come over and try some of the meat. The same thing happened when I mentioned fried okra ("What's okra?" I'm serious!) and catfish.
I love my foreign friend from Chicago, and I LOVE TEXAS!
The reason I now realize this awesome fact about living in Texas is when I told my neighbor Greg had killed a deer, she gasped in horror, and made a huge bug-eyed face when I suggested they come over and try some of the meat. The same thing happened when I mentioned fried okra ("What's okra?" I'm serious!) and catfish.
I love my foreign friend from Chicago, and I LOVE TEXAS!
More smellyness
This morning the house still smells like the inside of a pickle jar. Not quite as strongly, but still quite disgusting. I've baked several batches of ribbon so that helps a little. Yes, baked ribbon. It's for making hairbows, which I know sounds crazy. It looks crazy too, to have a bunch of wooden rods wrapped in ribbon in your oven. Greg thinks I'm making him something yummy, only to peek in and find ribbon. Probably pretty dusturbing to him!
The good news in all that stinkyness is that it rained last night (apparently with thunder and lightning although I slept right through it, a rarity for me) and the back door did not leak! I don't think the ceiling did either. The guy is coming back today to do sheetrock work and tomorrow to texture and paint. I hope this is the end of the water problems, but something tells me we'll be dealing with this until we move out of here.
Caleb just came up to me and said, "Beese Bah." Possible translations include Peace Pipe, Beach Ball, Police Bag, ooohhh, I know, Bouncy Ball. Gotcha!
Greg went to our Fort Worth house today to clean up and get another load of junk from the garage. He also has to take apart Carly's crib that we were borrowing and transport that to Grandma's house. He might stop by the Chevy dealer in Grapevine one more time to try to get a deal on a cheaper car with better gas mileage. He's making the trip all in one day so I expect him to get home late.
I'll be playing crafts all day today when I'm not feeding or wrestling the babies.
The good news in all that stinkyness is that it rained last night (apparently with thunder and lightning although I slept right through it, a rarity for me) and the back door did not leak! I don't think the ceiling did either. The guy is coming back today to do sheetrock work and tomorrow to texture and paint. I hope this is the end of the water problems, but something tells me we'll be dealing with this until we move out of here.
Caleb just came up to me and said, "Beese Bah." Possible translations include Peace Pipe, Beach Ball, Police Bag, ooohhh, I know, Bouncy Ball. Gotcha!
Greg went to our Fort Worth house today to clean up and get another load of junk from the garage. He also has to take apart Carly's crib that we were borrowing and transport that to Grandma's house. He might stop by the Chevy dealer in Grapevine one more time to try to get a deal on a cheaper car with better gas mileage. He's making the trip all in one day so I expect him to get home late.
I'll be playing crafts all day today when I'm not feeding or wrestling the babies.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
ehhhh, nevermind.. and stinky stinks
It turns out it wasn't me! Whew! If you know what I'm talking about, good, and if not don't worry about it.
I am sitting in a very stinky house right now. The "handyman" (I use that term very loosely herre.) came and did some caulking or something in our outside sunroom, and it smells awful! It seriously smells like burnt vinegar or something. Maybe vinegar on speed. I don't know how to describe it, but it really smells BAD.
I am sitting in a very stinky house right now. The "handyman" (I use that term very loosely herre.) came and did some caulking or something in our outside sunroom, and it smells awful! It seriously smells like burnt vinegar or something. Maybe vinegar on speed. I don't know how to describe it, but it really smells BAD.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
On the Schedule
The Rice Family is officially on the schedule at the title company to close the deal on our house for April 30th! Which also means, we never have to pay that payment again!! Which also means, we can now save money again!! Which also means, we can get on with our lives and start planning to pay cash for a car (someday), make a huge down payment on a house (someday), and have ten more kids. One of those is a joke! (Not a very funny one to some people!)
Anyway, I am again breathing a guarded sigh of relief. (((((whew)))))
Anyway, I am again breathing a guarded sigh of relief. (((((whew)))))
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
We're here! (or there, depending on where you are)
Now that I've got my own computer hooked back up, I feel like we are finished. We are all moved in to our new-to-us house in Tyler. It is a cool older house with the neatest nuances, like brick floors for one. Pretty neat. The move went well, and there were only a couple of dings on my furniture.
Carly doesn't know we moved, but I think she likes her new room/bed, because she is sleeping well!! Two nights in a row of 10pm - 8am. Fingers crossed, knocking on wood, salt over the shoulder, etc.!!!
Caleb is not adjusting all that well, which doesn't really surprise me. Every time we leave the house and are on the way back I tell him we are going home to our new home, and he says, "mom-o?" thinking we are just visiting Mom-o's house or something. His room is all set up and we tried to do it similarly to his old room layout-wise. I think it has made it a little easier for him, but his room has a tile floor so he can tell it's not quite right. He has woken up about 2am everynight so far (three) crying. The first two nights Greg had to go to him and calm him down and last night he put himself back to sleep. I think he's getting the picture that we aren't going back to the old house. This afternoon he asked for his favorite friend Madison and it broke my heart to tell him he can't see her anymore. It took all I could to not cry until he went outside, then the tears came. Man, now I'm crying again. Little ones really tug at those heart strings don't they? If you'da seen the look on his face when he asked for his "Cubbie" (what he calls Madison) you woulda cried too. It was just too cute, and then the look of utter confusion when I told him no was horrible for me. I hate disappointing my child! I guess the only good thing here is that he is too young to remember that we ripped him away from all of his little friends. Maybe he won't hold it against us for the rest of his life.
I think the next order of business for me is to find all of my old friends so I won't feel like I'm on a desert island here. I miss my Fort Worth friends!! This is the first opportunity I've had to really think about it, I've been so busy. But now that I am thinking about it, I am sad.
Carly doesn't know we moved, but I think she likes her new room/bed, because she is sleeping well!! Two nights in a row of 10pm - 8am. Fingers crossed, knocking on wood, salt over the shoulder, etc.!!!
Caleb is not adjusting all that well, which doesn't really surprise me. Every time we leave the house and are on the way back I tell him we are going home to our new home, and he says, "mom-o?" thinking we are just visiting Mom-o's house or something. His room is all set up and we tried to do it similarly to his old room layout-wise. I think it has made it a little easier for him, but his room has a tile floor so he can tell it's not quite right. He has woken up about 2am everynight so far (three) crying. The first two nights Greg had to go to him and calm him down and last night he put himself back to sleep. I think he's getting the picture that we aren't going back to the old house. This afternoon he asked for his favorite friend Madison and it broke my heart to tell him he can't see her anymore. It took all I could to not cry until he went outside, then the tears came. Man, now I'm crying again. Little ones really tug at those heart strings don't they? If you'da seen the look on his face when he asked for his "Cubbie" (what he calls Madison) you woulda cried too. It was just too cute, and then the look of utter confusion when I told him no was horrible for me. I hate disappointing my child! I guess the only good thing here is that he is too young to remember that we ripped him away from all of his little friends. Maybe he won't hold it against us for the rest of his life.
I think the next order of business for me is to find all of my old friends so I won't feel like I'm on a desert island here. I miss my Fort Worth friends!! This is the first opportunity I've had to really think about it, I've been so busy. But now that I am thinking about it, I am sad.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
No retaining wall!
(This is the Family Rice's 100th post!)
The option period expired yesterday with no word from the buyers.. today our agent called and said they are just going to go with the recommendation of the engineer, which said only a gutter and some hardy ground cover instead of a retaining wall. Yippee! This means we don't have to fight the darn builder about it anymore. Thank goodness! Now they are wanting to close later in April, like the 29-30th. I don't know why, but I can't complain. Of course we were hoping for earlier, but as long as we have paid our mortgage up till the 1st of May we're good. I don't want to have to write that check ever again though!
Let's see I have what, three days to get this house packed up? HAhahahahahahahahahaaaaaa, that's funny. I packed 4-5 boxes in Carly's room yesterday, thinking I would only need two. This is a bigger job than I expected, and I expected it to be pretty bad. So what does that make it? Horrendous I guess. Maybe Stupefying. Yeah, I like that one.
The option period expired yesterday with no word from the buyers.. today our agent called and said they are just going to go with the recommendation of the engineer, which said only a gutter and some hardy ground cover instead of a retaining wall. Yippee! This means we don't have to fight the darn builder about it anymore. Thank goodness! Now they are wanting to close later in April, like the 29-30th. I don't know why, but I can't complain. Of course we were hoping for earlier, but as long as we have paid our mortgage up till the 1st of May we're good. I don't want to have to write that check ever again though!
Let's see I have what, three days to get this house packed up? HAhahahahahahahahahaaaaaa, that's funny. I packed 4-5 boxes in Carly's room yesterday, thinking I would only need two. This is a bigger job than I expected, and I expected it to be pretty bad. So what does that make it? Horrendous I guess. Maybe Stupefying. Yeah, I like that one.
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