What another busy weekend we had around here. Bobby had Friday off and we spent our time finding more things to do around the house. Our realtor has been preaching curb appeal with a punch of red. So we’ve carried on with red mulch in the front flower beds. We left the house early Friday afternoon to do some shopping and have dinner out. Then we came home and started in on some more landscaping. I planted more flowers and Bobby worked on unloading all 20 bags of red mulch from the truck. He then proceeded to empty all the bags while I went behind him spreading out the mulch. We worked outside until 9:00 PM when we ran out of mulch. We were about 5 bags short. Oh, the best part is that we had a showing Friday. Don’t think the people are going to buy but we have to start somewhere.

I made a mulch and flower run Saturday while Bobby was lining out a repair man to fix our stone wall out front. But we waited until around 6:00 PM to start work on the flowerbeds and then flew around here with our mowers. Bobby then took over the edging and the blower while I took over the weed eater. We were able to get everything done by 9:00 PM but we’re still trying to think about what else we can do. Perhaps we’ll start more flower beds out back or then again maybe not. Depends on what comes to the top of the priority list.

One of our favorite indulgences over the weekend was to grill filet mignon along with an onion, a mushroom, a baked potato & asparagus packets. I seasoned all the veggies in each of their packets with butter and seasonings and that turned out to be a lovely treat.

It was another pretty evening to be working outside. Bobby attacked this sprinkler head as it was annoying us each time we ran the edger. The head was right up next to the sidewalk not allowing sufficient room for the edger. Bobby made a Home Depot run for some parts he needed and I tidied the house. Then when he got home he started in on his little project by digging out around the sprinkler and then putting a little spacer between the sprinkler head and the sidewalk, problem solved.

That precious little tree is thriving just fine. It seems to be sprouting by the day and it’s growing up to be a beautiful tree.

Bobby and I met for a nice little lunch date at our favorite mom and pop BBQ restaurant. Our lunch was wonderful and hanging out with Bobby was just lovely. When I asked if I could steal him for the rest of the day he promptly said “no” and then immediately followed with “you can steel me away for the rest of our lives.”

After lunch I made my way to Garden ridge where I did some shopping and then on over to Ross and Kohl’s where I found a couple dresses. Then I found some other goodies at Tuesday Morning and finally got home with all my loot around 5:30 PM. It was so nice not to be in a rush and just leisurely shop until my heart was content.

I found the little treasures on top of the sofa table at Tuesday Morning

Bobby left for work sometime around 6:30 this morning and got home early enough this evening to paint the fascia on the front portion of the house. While working outside we got to enjoy a lovely sunset that we took a timeout to watch. While we were out working in the front, there were a few kids flying down the hill on their bikes. As one of them was approaching the very top, we heard him say “I can see all the way to Six Flags” which is approx 40 min. from our house. Then we heard his buddy say “I can see to Arkansas”. He was stretching it a bit but the view of the sunset was so pretty.

The Mid Summer Sunset In Texas Tonight

We’re scurrying around here getting the last min. things wrapped up and we’re almost finished with our projects. The realtor lined up a virtual tour for our home and they’ll be here Thursday morning at 10:00 AM to get that done.

Chop, chop, chopin’ away over here. Over the weekend, Bobby worked on getting some trim work finished on the crown molding and I must say he did a wonderful job! I worked on getting some more painting done as I painted the white door that leads from the house to the garage. The paint on the other side of the door was pretty scuffed up but now it looks brand new. I also painted some windowsills and baseboards. We’re diligently working to have things ready for the virtual tour of our home this week and hopefully it will help generate the sale.

While Bobby and I were out working in the garage, we heard the old familiar sound of the ice cream man coming our way. Bobby asked “How would you like some ice cream” and with that he ran out to greet the Ice Cream Man. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember the last time we purchased ice cream from the Ice Cream Man. I must have been a kid. We were right in the middle of our project so we put our ice cream in the freezer and forgot all about it. This morning I asked Bobby if he had his ice cream and he forgot about his too. Question is, “How can anybody forget about ice cream?” I have no idea, but we did.

Bobby purchased another piece of furniture for me this Saturday. The furniture that we purchased back in April for the family room did not come with a sofa table that I so desperately wanted. Bobby and I scoured the Fort Worth and Dallas area several months ago looking for a close match. One day Bobby surprised me as he found just the right match for our set. The only problem was, we didn’t particularly like the price tag on it. Bobby gave the sales lady our phone number and asked if she would call us when it went on sale. So, the nice lady called a few weeks ago to let us know it was 15% off. We were not interested and decided to wait. Then she called Friday to say it was marked 35% off and that the floor model was the last one left. Bobby told her that we would take it. We went to the store and were so happy to see that the sales lady had even put a tag that was marked SOLD on that piece of furniture. That’s the kind of sales lady we like, taking such great care of her customers.

Today I’m off to Hobby Lobby and Tuesday Morning to look for some pretties for our new sofa table. I already have a lamp for it but it still needs a little oomph. I also have some more painting to do in the garage and I’ll also be running the steam cleaner to hit a few small spots in the house. Things are taking shape and coming together over here.

Picture taken this past march of Jeff, Lisa, Liz and Dean. This picture was taken in the Fort Worth Stock Yards when they visited with us this past March.

We were never really close to my cousins on the West side growing up as we didn’t really see them all that often. True we had a blast whenever we would visit as I still remember building a snowman with them in the winter, I remember Uncle Jerry giving my brothers and me lessons on how to shoot his rifle, I remember setting in the living room with my cousins getting to watch the ole forbidden TV (I felt so guilty but loved every min of it) where I became acquainted with the Flintstones for the first time and the list goes on… But then we would have to pack up and leave and they were back in Ohio and we were way away in Florida. So, we grew up and they grew up and moved on to our separate lives. This past March Lisa called from out of nowhere to say they would be in Texas and wanted to spend a day with us. We ended up having such a lovely time with her family and Lisa and I bonded very tight and it truly stuck. We’ve been calling each other on a regular basis and e-mailing too.

A couple months ago Lisa told me that she was a perfect blood type match for a friend in need of a kidney. She was having her tests done in preparation for the kidney transplant when she learned through her mammogram that they needed to do another mammogram and magnify it the next time around. They found something so tiny and they wanted to proceed with a biopsy. She didn’t think too much of it as there was no need for alarm. Last Thursday Lisa had her biopsy and learned a couple days ago that it’s malignant. She’s having a consultation with her doctor on July 27th and I pray all goes well for her.

The Doctor caught this in the very earliest stages and gives her so much hope which has helped tremendously. She’s so thankful for all these tests prior to the kidney transplant she wanted to do, otherwise they wouldn’t have caught it this soon. Her friend in need of the kidney transplant was able to get another perfect match and is in the process of getting their new kidney.

Lisa and I just finished a long 2 hour phone conversation and had such a beautiful visit. Thank you God for your continued watch and care over Lisa and her beautiful loving family.

Since we made our decision not to go to Alaska this week, we are both so very much more relaxed. Yesterday things just seemed to fall into place. Our furniture was delivered and it’s finally right this time. Our home had the ole termite inspection and it passed with flying colors. I took a nice little afternoon nap that I so desperately needed. I planted more shrubs in the front flower bed. Bobby and I went shopping last evening and then stopped by Brahms for some ice cream. We like things going at a slower pace and so glad everything’s coming together on this end. That was the best decision we made all week to stay right here. And we were in bed by 9:30 last night. Oh what a wonderful day!

Today, instead of flying around shopping for our trip, I’m having my neighbor over for lunch and a nice little afternoon visit. I’ve already vacuumed the house and cut the front portion of the lawn, ran the weed eater and swept the sidewalks this morning. Bobby hired a lawn crew from here on out to take care of the lawn and they will be here Friday to take over.

This weekend, Bobby is having some work done on stone walls that surround our home. Some of the stones have cracked and we’re looking to have someone out here to get the walls fixed up nice and pretty. Our lists are getting shorter and shorter and our stress has melted away.

Why not, we just called off our trip to Alaska as of this evening. There’s too much to do and too many details to think about while trying to go on vacation. We’ll make another plan to go sometime when we can really take a vacation away from home. That took so much pressure off and now we’re able to focus on the things we want to accomplish before our move.

About the time I finish crossing things off my to do list, more and more things crop up. Today Bobby and I have a telephone conference with the company to get our final details all lined out. They will be going over our benefits as well as setting up our house hunting trip, and scheduling the packers and movers.

So, today I have our conference call and my hair appointment (shhh, don’t tell anybody, my roots need a little color).

Tomorrow we have our family room furniture delivered again for the 5th time, no joke. We purchased our coffee table and end tables way back in April. Every time the stuff gets here, there’s something wrong with it. Either it’s not the right color or it’s damaged. Fingers crossed for a smooth transaction tomorrow as we need our furniture before the packers get here!

Thursday and Friday I have some shopping to do for our trip.

And each day this house needs to be in show room condition at all times. I run the vacuum once every other day and keep on top of the dust and whatnot. I’m keeping fresh flowers around and have soft classical music filling the air. Now we’re waiting for our first customer.

Ready or not we have our summer vacation this Saturday to Alaska for two weeks. Ayy yii yii! We planed our trip back in February and purchased our tickets before we knew anything about our move. I keep telling Bobby that we need to just relax and enjoy our trip. And when we get home we can pick up where we left off. That sounds so easy but it’s hard for me to do. Sometimes I get myself all worked up into a frenzy while Bobby patiently calms me. He’s my rock and I’m ever so thankful for him.

One of our many tasks this weekend was to sand, primer and paint the front door. Here’s before and after pictures.

Oh the joys of matching paint were endless, for us it seems. We brought the expert painter over to get a bid on painting 2 bedrooms, the garage, re-staining or painting the front door, and painting our sofits (sp?) and fascia trim work around the outside of our home. The painter told us that he would have the same problem matching the paint as we did as the paint would have faded over the course of 5 years. We were a little down over this as he then told us the whole inside of the home would need repainting. The house would need repainting due to nail holes in the walls and the new paint would leave nasty old tracks everywhere the brush stroked. So, the bill to paint the inside of our home and paint the trim work outside and the front door came to a whopping $8,000.00 bucks! Bobby and I quickly said no thanks.

The painter told us to use Kelly More paints as they do awesome work getting paints to match. So Bobby took a hunk of plaster from behind our refrigerator, the size of an electrical plate cover in with us to Kelly More. We left it with them for several hours for them to do their magic. The sample tricked the eye and when we got it home, the color was just not right. Another wound added to the wounded. At this point we had tried 3 different places to match our paint and getting horrible results with all of the above.

We were back to square one so we both agreed to go back to the store where the builder purchased the paint and plunge in head first with a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff. Even though the builders paint was just a shade too dark, Bobby and I were going to “TRY” to mix it with white to get the perfect match.

As we march into the store the guy there to help us asked “How can I help you”? Bobby replied “We need the Bone White Flat Paint, the same as Centex (the builder) uses.” Then the guy hollered back to the guy I spoke with the other day saying “I need the Bone White Paint for a Centex home, which one, the 1290 or the 1260?” Bob and I both knew at that very instant that our problem could be solved!!! Bobby said, “Wait a min. The sample he gave me the other day was too dark. What do you mean the 1290 or the 1260?” The guy then asked Bobby “How old is your home” Bobby said “5 years”. Oh, then you need the 1260 color the young man replied as Centex changed their color in 2004 to the 1290.

These paints are both Bone White but the 1260’s base color is yellow (the one we need) and the 1290’s base color is red (the one that was too dark). That was my problem, when I was trying to get it to match. The base red was the devil in disguise, not allowing me to get a perfect match. We quickly purchased a 5 gallon bucket of the yellow base kind and hit the road. We were two of the happiest people at that point. As we pulled away from the paint store Bobby rolled down his window and hollered out to the world “WE MATCHED THE PAINT, WE MATCHED THE PAINT!!!” We were both laughing and carrying on about this 5 gallon bucket of paint that we finally had in our possession. As a matter of fact, it felt like our most prized possession as it put our painting anxieties to rest. We brought it home, splashed paint on the walls immediately and what do ya know, IT’S THE PERFECT MATCH!!! This just solved a world of problems as I can now carry on with my plan to paint, save the money and I don’t have to paint the whole house!!! You have no idea just how relieved we are around here as Bobby and I keep saying “Thank you Jesus, Thank you Lord!” Bobby even woke this morning saying, Honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, WE MATCHED THE PAINT!!!

We’re sailing around here as we’re going to sand down the front door and paint it a red color that I picked out. Fingers crossed we like it.

I’m continuing to clear my studio out completely as I want to get that painted today. Did I mention We Matched The PAINT! It makes it so much easier for me to touch up instead of masking off the entire room and trimming around the corners ceiling and baseboards and so on.

Bobby used a vacation day on Thursday so that he could stay home and work, Friday was his off Friday and we are busy conquering this house!

We met with the realtor yesterday and it went really well. And our home officially goes on the market Monday, July 16th at 9:00 AM.

We spent two days trying to get the right touch up paint for our walls as we need to fill nail holes and paint over them, paint the garage and Kristy’s old room. It was a daunting task to say the least. We had a smidgen of paint left over that matched our walls perfectly so we used that to get the match. They put a sample of our original paint on a stir stick and then applied their match right next to our sample. The color matched perfectly on the stick and away we went touching up. When that color dried, it turned out to be darker on our walls. The sad news is that I have no more sample left as I poured the new dark color into my old sample mixture and it’s all gone!

I went online to find out how to get a perfect match. I found I needed to create little samples of the dark color and add white to it. I used small styrofoam cups and plastic teaspoons to create my samples. I added 1 teaspoon of the darker paint to 1 teaspoon of white, added to another cup 2 teaspoons of dark to 1 teaspoon of white, until I had 5 different combinations of colors. I took a marker and wrote on the cups so that I knew the equation of each. Then I took a brush and put these swatches of paint on the wall. I used the blue painters tape on the wall and marked the equatoin on the tape next to each sample.

For the tricky part… The one that seems to match just right when you look head on looks lighter when you look at it from the right angle and dark from the left angle. Sounds crazy, I know! The old paint on our walls is flat, so we are using flat paint, so that can’t be it, how can this be so hard?

Then I called the company that built our home to see if they still use the same paint color. Come to find out they still use the same color they used when they built our home 5 years ago! They gave me the name of the store to purchase the color as well as the color and brand of paint they use. I thought I was really on to something so Bobby stopped by the store last evening on his way home from work. The store gave him a little test sample so that we could give it a try and to no avail. The color is still too dark. What to do, what to do?

Bobby has the perfect solution. He’s going to hire the work to be done and have the same professional we’ve used in the past to paint our garage and Kristy’s old room. This guy has matched this color in the past and we’re going to leave it to the pro to get this job done!

In other news, our house will officially go on the market this Friday the 13th! My trusty little magic wand will have us looking spotless for pictures and ready to show.

The tree that I thought died is starting to blossom and bud all over! I’m pretty shocked at this little wonder that stands just over 5 feet tall. The little oak is slowly coming back after its little shock of being replanted. I took the first picture just 10 days ago where that tree had two green leaves and now it’s exploding with beautiful green blossoms!

This picture was taken of the tree with the sky background so that the full image of the tree could be seen clearly.

By the looks of the sky this morning, I think we’re going to get more rain again today.

I used the stone wall for the background on this picture so that the lush green blossoms would show up.

I plan to do a follow up in a week or so as I’m sure this little baby is well on his way to becoming a strong majestic oak tree.

The steel piers were finished late Friday evening and here Bobby is with one of the crew right after he got home from work Friday evening.

That sure was quite a job for these guys as there were nine guys here Friday. And the Forman told Bobby they went down 40 feet to reach rock!

After they hit rock bottom, one of the guys came into the house with a HUGE level to see how much they needed to go up, and then he would go out and have them raise the house. While the house was being raised, I could hear the moans and groans of the home as it was being lifted. The guy kept coming in to check both ends of the home from the inside with the level until they had it 100 % level in both directions. Finally we are on solid ground as our home was lifted to higher ground.

Our upcoming move to NY came about with many details. When Bobby was first contacted I sent my friend Jennifer (Brown) Olsen a note regarding the issue and our trip. I didn’t realize at the time that we were actually going to the same Lockheed plant where her husband John works! There’s a total of 3 different Lockheed plants in NY.

We left for Bobby’s interview on April 26th and arrived in NY that evening. Bobby left the hotel bright and early the next morning for his interview and my buddy Jennifer picked me up and took me to breakfast where we shared a delightful cup of coffee too. Then Jennifer was so kind to escort me around the area pointing out many places of interest and then gave me a tour of their lovely log home. Then she drove me over where I was to meet the realtor ‘where Jennifer and I had our picture taken’.

My time spent with the realtor started off just a little bit sticky. Jennifer and I were gathering up our things in the office and saying goodbye and I’ll have you know the realtor was no where to be seen. Guess she was in a rush and had already made her way out to her car. Oops I thought and then we were off. She turned out to be so friendly and we had wonderful conversation both days.

After house hunting for two days, we made our way back home where the patience had to kick in. At the time of Bobby’s interview he was told that his offer could take anywhere from 2 months to 6 months. Talk about a rollercoaster ride. It was the not knowing that was killing me, I just wanted to know ‘are we staying in TX or moving to NY.’ And the thought of waiting for a total of 6 months had me in stitches.

It was just short of a month when he received his offer on May 24th, I was beyond excited AND relieved. Then it took a while for Bobby and Lockheed to reach an agreement and finally Bobby received his next offer and he was pleased to accept the offer yesterday July 6th.

Now the wheels are officially turning as we endeavor to get our home on the market next week. Bobby and I have tentative plans to take our 5 day house hunting trip the week of August 13th. Then the packers will arrive Monday August 20th to begin to pack up our things and the movers will come a few days later to load up and transport our things to storage in NY. And Bobby’s first day of work in Owego will begin on Monday August 27th. So let the party begin!