A familial visit

DH and I went north this weekend to visit family. Most of our family lives in the Dallas area, although DH's parents live on the south coast of Texas. It was a nice visit with my folks, my Bro, SisIL, nephew #1, and my SisIL's parents. We hung out and visited most of Saturday and ate a lot. Nephew #2 will be arriving in late June, so we'll be going back up to see him when he gets here.

My SisIL is the youngest of seven kids; her parents are about 8-10 years older than mine. They were missionaries/translators with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea for over 35 years (my SisIL was pretty much raised there). When they retired several years ago, they ended up in a the same neighborhood as my Bro and SisIL. They quickly became a part of our family (I don't know if that's good or bad) and we enjoy them.

But today, it's back to work on the new house for us. Besides the usual Monday laundry duties, I need to research where to sell this old Farmall tractor that was left on our property. Our realtor gave us the name of a guy who buys them for parts, and I need to get all the specifics. No, it doesn't run.

My bovine WIP

I have stitched a bit this week. Not lots, but a bit. So, I'm posting a picture of my progress on "Texas Longhorn."

Ippity Blippity Bleepin' BOVINES!

We love our new property. It is a beautiful country setting. We're surrounded on all sides by pastures. However, these pastures contain...COWS! We have a pond at the back of our acreage that is apparently very attractive to cows. So attractive that they have pushed down the fence to get to it. This results in cows all over our property and LARGE AMOUNTS OF COW PATTIES.

In Texas, the livestock owner is responsible for maintaining the fencing in order to keep his livestock on his own property. So...we had to chase down the property owner. He no longer works the cattle as he is elderly and lives in Houston, but his nephew oversees his cattle. His nephew has a day job. So the nephew sent out his handyman (another elderly gentleman) to check it all out. Turns out the handyman lives down the road and is a neighbor. And the fence will be fixed this weekend.

In the meantime, I'm still chasing cows off our front lawn and watching where I walk. :-)

Summer is here

Our new house has only window units for air conditioning (AC), and only one works. We haven't been using it while we've been out there working. And DH's shop has no AC either (yet). So after spending all day sweating like the proverbial pig, we came home, showered and went to bed early only to discover that the AC in the rent house was dead. *SIGH*

After a sweaty night, DH went over and told our landlord this morning about the dead AC and he got someone on it right away. Our landlord lives in the house to the west of us, and the AC guy lives to the east. The AC guy said the only reason he came out on a Sunday on Memorial Day weekend was that he didn't have to drive to the job and he likes our landlord. (And I got to stitch more grass in my "Texas Longhorn" design while it was being worked on.) Anyway, it's fixed and we're cool.

So, we went off the the new house, and worked and sweated like pigs again until supper time. DH ripped down the ceiling in the bedroom and bagged up six trash bags full of old, torn, damp fiber glass insulation. YUCK! I'm very thankful for a DH who will tackle nasty jobs without a whine or a whimper. He says he's glad he has a wife who will paint just about anything without a whine or a whimper.

Here is DH's shop. The yellow/white color scheme is what we will use for the exterior of our house as we get it renovated.

I hate it when...

...I run out of paint before I run out of project. Since DH hates painting with a passion, I am painting the bare wooden floor of his shop. I a-l-m-o-s-t got it primed today, but ran out of paint. Phooey.

We spent the day out at the new house. DH began work on gutting the bedroom down to the studs before the contractor comes out in about ten days to start the addition to it. Here are before and after pictures of the back wall where the addition (a closet and bathroom) will go:

I stitched about one row of grass (DMC 503) on my "Texas Longhorn." At this rate, I'll be finished with it by December.

Held captive by two guys with toolbelts

Well, if that ain't an attention-getting title, I don't know what is! Anyway. Yesterday, I spent the whole day out at the new house.

When we lived in Oklahoma, we had a large detached garage with room for all of DH's woodworking tools. Here at the rent house, DH's tools are crammed in the carport shed and are mostly inaccessible. This makes him whine a lot and heave great sighs. It would be like a stitcher with all her stash packed away. So, when we bought the new house, we also bought a 16' x 20' workshop for DH (and his tools). It's a Tuff Shed we bought from Home Depot. We priced lumber and time for DH to build one himself, and then checked out the Tuff Shed. They deliver and build it on site in one day. It was a much better deal than DH doing it himself.

The only thing is, you have to have an adult on site while they build it. So, I spent my day cleaning the kitchen more, putting shelf paper in all the upper kitchen cabinets, and pulling up the moron-installed tile floor in the kitchen while two guys built the Tuff Shed. I was there from 9:00 a.m. until 5:15 p.m.

The guys worked like well-oiled machines, each doing a specific task to erect the shed. I never saw them speak to each other. I wondered how many sheds they had built and if they could build one with their eyes closed. One guy never spoke to me at all, the other guy only spoke 11 words - three "yes, ma'ams," a "sign here, ma'am," and a "thank you."

I'll post a picture of the shed tomorrow. For now, here is a picture of a part of the railroad tie beams that frame the kitchen doorway. DH and I are not amused by these and plan to remove them ASAP. In the picture, you see "natural wear holes" and fake moss stuck in these holes for ambiance, I guess. I think it is silly.


I did get to stitch a teensy bit yesterday, and plan to stitch more today. I will post a WIP picture this weekend.

More kitchen pictures

I really appreciate the comments y'all leave for me on my blog posts. Thanks! I've found new blogs from reading your posts, too. And LoriRay, I have several blood relatives who are Baylor alumni, so I have built up a tolerance to Bears fans.

Here are the other "before" kitchen pictures we've taken. The first one is of the sink location. Note the "head-banger" cabinets over the sink (Moron!). The second is of the refrigerator and stove area. Note the drop-in stove sitting on the floor with a "lovely" brick backsplash. We ended up with a houseful of old useless appliances which are all being hauled off for scrap metal. The third picture is of the tile floor. It is not grouted in. The tiles are merely sitting on the wood subfloor. All the countertops are made of concrete and are about three inches too high from normal. As I am vertically challenged anyway, this is not good. DH and I plan to gut this kitchen down to the studs in the next year, but we do need it to be functional and CLEAN for awhile.