August - long, picture heavy post

August was a long, stressful, frustrating month. That's the short story.

If you have been here before, you know we have had our house on the market. Our house we lived in and worked on for 24 years.

The boys (now 29 & 25) brought these pine trees home from kindergarten as seedlings. (baby boy's didn't survive)

There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears here. It took 20 years to get this porch. I love this porch.

When we bought this house it had green carpet everywhere except the kitchen - it was even in the bathrooms! The floors under the carpet were oak in the living room and master bedroom (the others were pine) The side windows in the living room were single hung windows and the right one had a huge a/c unit in it. When it quit working and we went to take it out, we discovered that it was larger than the opening and they had cut into the frame to install it. We lived with foam stuck in the cracks for several years, then I spotted these stained glass windows at an antique store and they were a perfect fit! (we added central air and heat)

I wish I had before pictures - from when we bought the house. The walls were all flat white paint (sheetrock - or if you aren't from the south, drywall) The trim and doors looked really good but it didn't take long to discover they had painted latex over oil and we soon had peeling paint everywhere. (on the floor - our beds for Sunday night) Hard to tell in this pic, but that is bead board paneling - I love that stuff!)

This room was originally a closet. We converted it to a bedroom when it became clear the middle and youngest could no longer share a room. Baby boy 'lived' here until we took in the attic and then this became my little office.

More oak flooring that had been covered with ugly green carpet.

These two pictures are what was once the unfinished attic.

We gutted the kitchen (the old upper cabinets went to the garage - I'll show those in a minute)

Dining room - the stairs are where there was once a pull down stair for the attic. Where the door is (should have taken a better picture) there used to be 4 windows. We took those out and put in the French doors. This floor was pine (covered with ugly green carpet) It had places that needed to be completely sanded and refinished - I painted it instead.

See those ugly cabinets - they were in the kitchen (except for the tall one - it was in the bathroom - it didn't have the yellow drawer when it was in the house. The drawer was used on a play set when baby boy was in high school and they painted it yellow)

Why am I showing all these pictures? Believe it or not - out house finally

I could go on and on here about what a nightmare it was. I resisted all month about coming here to post about how inefficient these people were. It was never just one person, but the combination of all parties involved. (I'm not naming names but boy would I like to) If I could go back and change some things I would - starting with when the buyers went on vacation without signing the papers - they were first time buyers and their agent new they were going on vacation but she didn't make it clear to them that it wasn't a legal contract until they signed it. They thought a verbal was good enough. We should have stopped it right there and let them present another contract when they got back if it was still available (of course since they had a contract working, if someone else called to look at the house that is what they were told - that it had a contract working, which basically meant our house was 'off the market' since no agents wanted to show it then) We got the contract in early July (although by the time everything was signed, it wasn't dated until July 15) and it was set to close on Aug 18. We already had a trip planned for the first week of August (that is another post or three) We couldn't change the date of the trip so we cut it short by 3 days to get back and get everything done in a timely manner for the closing on the 18th. Apparently we were the only ones interested in doing things in a timely manner. By the time we got back from our trip there had been so many delays I was only willing to do so much without a firm closing date, but we started moving stuff out. Oldest had already secured an apartment so we moved him on the 21st (the day we would have had to be out of the house had it closed on time)

If I had a dollar for every excuse or every time I heard 'it's out of my hands' I could pay cash for a new house. I swear sometimes I thought we were dealing with Donald Duck and Goofy. (I'm sure they could have done a more efficient job) We also heard a lot of 'we just need one more thing', of course when they got that one thing, they needed one more thing. We ended up signing 3 extensions on the contract. We finally had a closing date of Friday (the 28th) at 10:00am. At 9:50am they were still waiting on 'one more thing'. I was pretty much done with this contract by now - the last extension expired on Friday and I was ready to put the house back on the market on Saturday. They finally got the last 'thing' at 10:10 am on Friday and set the closing for 2:00. By the time we got out of there it was 4:30. On Friday. We had 3 days to vacate - that was not so much the problem since we had already moved so much, but how do you contact utilities on the weekend? I could keep going. I still have a lot of pent up frustration over the whole thing - and trust me no one had any doubt about how frustrated I was . (Hubby says I don't handle stress well)

I thought when all of my things were out it wouldn't seem like 'my' house anymore, but as I walked through taking pictures, I still love every inch of that house. I wonder if she will miss me as much as I will miss her.

Anyway - after filling 3 storage buildings and Brian's apartment, not to mention all the stuff we already have in our apartment (in 7 months we never came back from a trip with an empty car - and we went 'home' at least twice a month!) plus all the stuff we hauled to Goodwill and who knows how many trash bags went out, we came back to Houston Monday completely loaded

See that blue thing in the bottom corner

that is all the space Autumn had to ride!

We have a contract working here on a house, but after all the crap that we went through the past 6 weeks, I'm not counting any chickens until the eggs hatch. (and getting this far on that wasn't a piece of cake either) I'll tell you about that when it is a done deal. Keep your fingers crossed!

Things here are still a mess - boxes everywhere and no place to put them. I'll post about our trip sometime in the next few days.

Hope you are all having a great week. Me - I'm just a little tired!

Just a note

Just thought I would drop a note and let you know I'm still alive and kicking (and screaming).
August has been a LONG month and it isn't over yet.

I will get back to those of you who have left comments and/or emails - just not sure when. I've tried to visit a few blogs but I haven't had time to leave many comments - I'll get back to that soon too.

Have I mentioned it has been LONG month?

Since I hate to do a post without a pic, here is one of Autumn

I do believe there is a squirrel in that tree!

Taking a break

I have decided to take a little blogging break. There are a lot of things going on right now, some good, some not, but all stressful. Stress does not play well with my migraines. I'm going to take at least two weeks, maybe the whole month of August. We will see how things are going at the end of the two weeks. (if you go by the last few months, we really aren't talking about very many posts, are we?)

I will check my email as often as I can and I will try to get around to visit as many of you as I can - I may or may not leave comments depending on how much time I have.

I thought I would leave you with a picture of this house

Can a house be sad? I think this one is. I have passed it every time I drive to and from my house for the past 24 years. (At one time there were two similar - but not quite as interesting - across the street but they both burned long ago) It usually has someone (renters, I think) living in it but the best I can tell the only maintenance that has been done over 24 years are a few porch board that were replaced and part of the roof.

It is dark around the door area (you might be able to click and see better - dunno) but there is stained glass in the door. (which I'm pretty sure is original) It would take a small fortune to restore it but can't you just see it all spit shined? Makes a person just want to cry. Every time we are out of town I always wonder if it will still be standing when we return - so far, it is still there.

Hope you all have a wonderful few weeks.

Don't forget about me!

Weekend escape

I escaped over the weekend


to hang out with friends.


We ate.


We stitched.

We had visitors - but they were hard to get pictures of. We saw at least a dozen or more over the weekend. They were right in the back yard - we could watch them out the windows. I wanted pictures of the babies but as soon as I went outside they ran away.

This was my project for the weekend. Yes, this is all I managed to stitch in two days. It is hard to keep count when you are laughing!

I hope you had fun over the weekend!

The old fashioned way

Around here, we (I) do things the old fashioned way. I guess if I was a blogger that had mega comments I might have to learn how to do one of those random thingies, but as it is I just wrote the names down and put them in a jar.

Terry - email me your mailing address and I will get your bag holder out to you sometime this week!

Two years ago today

I posted my first post on this blog, along with this picture.

I have 'met' so many nice people through this blog - a few I have even had the pleasure of meeting in person.
A great many things have changed in my life since I made that first post. If you had told me those pillowcases would end up here


- okay, maybe they are a little hard to see in the picture, they are behind the shams that match the quilt/spread, and it really isn't the bed that I'm talking about - it is where the bed is. Two years ago I could not have imagined that I would be trying to sell my little yellow house and living in an apartment in Houston. Moving from a little town of just 13,000 to a big city is like moving to another planet. Thankfully, I don't have to get too far from 'home' to do what I need to do. I don't do Houston traffic - and I don't plan on ever doing it! If there is something we need that I can't get w/o getting into that mess then it will just have to wait until hubby can get us there. I can get to Wal-mart and the post office - I'm good!

Baby boy was still in college (just an hour from home) when I started this blog, now he has graduated and he and his bride are getting ready to move to Minnesota. Such a long way from home. I'm not sure exactly what the other two boys will do when we finally sell the house. (they are still living there until it sells - keeps the house occupied and keeps me from having to have a dog in an apartment with no doggie door!) I'm sure there will be many more changes in the months to come. It seems impossible that my 'kids' are all grown men at this point. I guess as a parent they are always your babies. I really, really can not believe that my oldest is just a couple of months away from thirty! How is that possible?

I know I haven't been a very good blogger lately - or a very good blog reader/commenter for that matter. Trying to live in two places at once is just more than my brain can process I guess. I truly appreciate those of you that check in to see when I make my oh-so-infrequent posts these days. Someday - eventually - hopefully - this unstructured life will get back on track and I hope to get back to a more regular schedule - and I hope some of you are still around by then!

So, a couple of weeks ago, I came across the instructions to make a grocery bag holder and since I didn't have one here I thought I would give it a try. While I was at it, I made two.


and to celebrate two years of blogging - and my upcoming birthday

I am going to give one of them away. My 'plan' is to draw a name from the comments between now and sometime on my b'day (which is Monday the 20th) I say that is the 'plan' because things are a little up in the air as far as our schedule for the next couple of weeks, but I won't draw a name before Monday and I will try my best to make sure to do it sometime before midnight on Monday. Assuming that I actually make another post between now and then, I will only draw from comments on THIS post. So, if you would like to be in the drawing, leave a comment. It isn't much but I wanted to do something to say thanks for stopping by. Please make sure I have a way to contact you when you leave a comment. If there is no link back or no email so I can contact you I'll have to leave your name out of the drawing, sorry.

Maren who commented on the last post - that chart is called Silent Sampler and is by Rosewood Manor. The copyright date is 2005 - I hope it is still available. It is stitching up nicely - when I am actually putting stitches in rather than taking them out!

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!

Hugs,

T

A start and a snippet

I started this piece a couple of weeks ago

Yes, I should be a lot farther along, but pretty much everything you see has been stitched at least twice. Seems every time I would stitch on it, I would have to go right back and take it out. (operator error - I guess I can't count!) I think I'm on a roll now though. (cross your fingers)


Here is a snippet of a piece I finished this week. It is a gift so I probably shouldn't even show this much. After seeing the close up shot - I really shouldn't show it at all. I need a lot more practice with Bertha! It is the thought that counts - right?

Hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend!