We are down to the bare minimum at the house now and we leave for the first leg of our move to Texas in the morning. We are stopping in Birmingham, AL for the night which should be a little over half way to Baytown. If Google Maps is correct, we should be to Birmingham in about 11 hours. On Saturday, it should take us about 10 hours to get to Baytown. The cats are not going to be having fun the next couple days. We did get a tranquilizer from the vet, so we will try those out. This is not the Valium that they had last time so hopefully this one will work better and not have many side effects. Half a day is a long time to be screaming in a car!
On Monday, I was replacing a pane of glass in a french door at our house. This pane has been broken since moving in and we had planned to fix it, then tried to get a new door and when that plan didn't work out, we went back to trying to fix it. I removed all of the broken old glass, took off the trim work around that pane, cleaned up the inside of the wood and got it ready for the new pane of glass. I was being safe and wearing gloves this entire time. Well, once I was ready for the new pane, I had to put in this puddy to make the glass stick so I removed my gloves. After placing the puddy inside the wood, I put the pane inside and was trying to maneuver it into place when it shattered on my right hand. I immediately had the thought that if I didn't get cut by that then I was really lucky. About the same time I started bleeding from my thumb. When I looked down I realized that I had a large flap of skin that was slipping back and forth beneath my other hand trying to grip it to stop the bleeding. I managed to get to the back door and call for help from Mike. Luckily he was home when I was doing this. All the blood and what I had seen on my thumb was making me queasy, so I laid down outside while Mike got together everything to head to the hospital. We got to the hospital around 9pm. Four hours later around 1pm I was discharged and had 11 new stitches in my thumb. They had gauzed and splinted me up and I was unable to take off the dressing until this morning. It looks pretty gross, but it really doesn't hurt. The only time I feel pain or discomfort is when the stitches get pulled or my thumb gets bumped. I get to have the stitches removed 10 days from the accident. I'll need to find a new doctor quick once we get down to Baytown!!!
So, I'm going to close this blog now. We will have no internet starting in about 30 minutes, so I will blog again once I'm an official resident of Texas.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Busy busy busy
Our trip to Costa Rica was a fun time. It was good to see Jamie and the family. Little Allison is very cute. She looks just like her daddy! Nathan is very smart. But he's still very small. He also thinks that the world is his toilet as he showed no qualms about pulling out his penis at any moment and peeing. Probably OK in Costa Rica. No so OK in the USA.
When we returned from Costa Rica, we had one day before leaving for Beaumont on our house hunting trip. We went that Sunday to visit the cats at the boarder's house. Well, upon arrival, the cats were being crated and looked so scared. They were not supposed to be in cages as the room I was told they would be in was a large one. No mention of ever crating them. They also had a bowl full of dry food (something I never mentioned in my feeding schedule) and a bunch of opened cans of wet food but no bowl to put the food in. After apparently insulting the lady who had been taking care of them, we immediately grabbed them up and took them home. Sabrina had acquired an eye infection so we had to bring her to the emergency clinic which is opened on Sundays. Whether the viral infection was present and never came up before, or she got it there, Sabrina's right eye had conjunctivitis. The vet told us that it was probably herpes viral eye infection so she sent us home with instructions to watch her. Since we were leaving the next day, I instructed the cat sitter who was coming by twice a day, that if she was not looking better by Wednesday, that she would have to be brought back to the vet per the emergency vet's instructions. Well, I was comforted middle of the week when I received a phone call that Sabrina's eye looked great. A couple days later I received another phone call with the same information. When we returned home the following Sunday, her eye looked worse than when we left and we had to bring her back to the emergency vet. I don't know if the cat sitter just didn't know what she was looking for, or if she just wasn't looking at all, but her eye was obviously NOT getting better. This time at the vet, they diagnosed her the same way, but sent her home with an antibiotic/antifungal/steroidal eye drop to fend off any secondary infection and help her red and swollen eye to go down. After day one, her eye began looking better. We are 3 days in, and although a little crusty still, I think we are on the right path. She will be on this for another 6 days. Hopefully at that time, once the medicine stops, her eye will be better.
Our trip to Beaumont was kind of a success. I hated Beaumont itself. We got there on Monday morning, drove around some and looked for things to do. We found nothing. There were hundred's of chain restaurants, and tons of Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants that I can't eat at because their food is not vegetarian friendly, so I was not a happy girl. On Tuesday we met with our realtor and looked at homes. We did the same on Wednesday and had narrowed our 20-something home choices down to 4. The houses were very nice and relatively inexpensive compared to the market we are in now in DC. By Thursday morning, I was mad at Mike and he decided to search for other cities to possibly live. He found Baytown, TX. This city is about 50 minutes West of Beaumont and about 25 minutes East of Houston. We cancelled our appointment with our realtor that morning and went out to Baytown. The few houses Mike had found online looked very nice and were even cheaper than in Beaumont. Once we got to Baytown, and looked around a couple communities of new houses, we decided to drive into Houston and eat some dinner. The first restaurant we came to I could eat at. I felt so much relief!! The next day, Friday, we informed our Beaumont realtor that we probably wouldn't be using her and had our relocation company find us a Baytown realtor on the fly. We searched around Baytown by ourselves again, and thought we had found the house we would buy. It was 2200 sq ft, on a little lake, new construction without any upgrades, for $150K. We figured, at that price tag, we would be saving like crazy living there. Plus the lot overlooked the lake which was a nice feature. And the neighborhood is close to everything we would need in the city: grocery store, Subway, Quizno's, etc.
While we were waiting to hear back from our new realtor, we made a search around the area one more time. We went to this one neighborhood a couple interstates stops East which was a more upscale neighborhood, but not as close to the grocery stores and little restaurants. We looked through the 2 homes that they currently had built and were not sold, and we really liked the model home that was in the beginning stages of being put on the market. It was big. Too big. But the upgrades were what we wanted. The downstairs is hardwood, the kitchen has stainless steel appliances that stay, the colors on the walls were nice, the master bathroom has two sinks and a separate jetted tub, the utility room is downstairs near the master bedroom, the house has surround sound built in, underground sprinkler system outside, and the upstairs has 5 other nice sized bedrooms and 2 more baths! In all, 6 bedroom, 3.5 bath 3823 sq ft home. And, if I had a way to make a drum roll I would, for a price tag of $260K. I think we are planning to put in an underground pool in the backyard which, by the way, is already privacy fenced. And is big. I think we did pretty good.
Obviously that is the house we decided to go with. Saturday morning we drove back to the house after taking a night to think it over, met with our new realtor for the first time, and signed a contract. I think that was the easiest commission that lady ever made. But I think she will have her work cut out for her on the back end since we aren't in town to do our dirty work for ourselves.
After signing the contract, we went to this little area on a Bay about 30 minutes away. There were a couple rollercoaster rides, several restaurants and some little stores. All of this overlooked the water. Pretty cool little place. Then we drove down to Galveston. We think from Baytown, it will take about an hour to get to the ocean. What another nice feature of living in Baytown!!! I think we made the right choice, but we'll see once Mike starts having to make that commute everyday.
This week back in Springfield, we had 3 showings on the house yesterday, and already have one scheduled for today. While we were out of town, we had numerous showings, and even an offer, which we ultimately denied after a couple counters. Hopefully one of these people will want this place. There must be something turning this many people off. Or maybe there are just a ton of people in this city so it just appears that we have a lot of traffic, but in reality, when compared to the population in other cities, this amount of traffic is not a lot.
We move to Baytown next Friday morning. The movers will be coming on Wednesday and Thursday to pack us up and start moving us. After cleaning up the place one last time, we will probably leave on Friday morning. A straight shot says it will take us about 21 hours. Yikes! I don't think we've figured out exactly the plan as of yet, but it's looking like the cats will have to be in their carriers the whole trip. I was hoping to get an SUV to let them run around the back, but it may end up being too expensive.
When we returned from Costa Rica, we had one day before leaving for Beaumont on our house hunting trip. We went that Sunday to visit the cats at the boarder's house. Well, upon arrival, the cats were being crated and looked so scared. They were not supposed to be in cages as the room I was told they would be in was a large one. No mention of ever crating them. They also had a bowl full of dry food (something I never mentioned in my feeding schedule) and a bunch of opened cans of wet food but no bowl to put the food in. After apparently insulting the lady who had been taking care of them, we immediately grabbed them up and took them home. Sabrina had acquired an eye infection so we had to bring her to the emergency clinic which is opened on Sundays. Whether the viral infection was present and never came up before, or she got it there, Sabrina's right eye had conjunctivitis. The vet told us that it was probably herpes viral eye infection so she sent us home with instructions to watch her. Since we were leaving the next day, I instructed the cat sitter who was coming by twice a day, that if she was not looking better by Wednesday, that she would have to be brought back to the vet per the emergency vet's instructions. Well, I was comforted middle of the week when I received a phone call that Sabrina's eye looked great. A couple days later I received another phone call with the same information. When we returned home the following Sunday, her eye looked worse than when we left and we had to bring her back to the emergency vet. I don't know if the cat sitter just didn't know what she was looking for, or if she just wasn't looking at all, but her eye was obviously NOT getting better. This time at the vet, they diagnosed her the same way, but sent her home with an antibiotic/antifungal/steroidal eye drop to fend off any secondary infection and help her red and swollen eye to go down. After day one, her eye began looking better. We are 3 days in, and although a little crusty still, I think we are on the right path. She will be on this for another 6 days. Hopefully at that time, once the medicine stops, her eye will be better.
Our trip to Beaumont was kind of a success. I hated Beaumont itself. We got there on Monday morning, drove around some and looked for things to do. We found nothing. There were hundred's of chain restaurants, and tons of Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants that I can't eat at because their food is not vegetarian friendly, so I was not a happy girl. On Tuesday we met with our realtor and looked at homes. We did the same on Wednesday and had narrowed our 20-something home choices down to 4. The houses were very nice and relatively inexpensive compared to the market we are in now in DC. By Thursday morning, I was mad at Mike and he decided to search for other cities to possibly live. He found Baytown, TX. This city is about 50 minutes West of Beaumont and about 25 minutes East of Houston. We cancelled our appointment with our realtor that morning and went out to Baytown. The few houses Mike had found online looked very nice and were even cheaper than in Beaumont. Once we got to Baytown, and looked around a couple communities of new houses, we decided to drive into Houston and eat some dinner. The first restaurant we came to I could eat at. I felt so much relief!! The next day, Friday, we informed our Beaumont realtor that we probably wouldn't be using her and had our relocation company find us a Baytown realtor on the fly. We searched around Baytown by ourselves again, and thought we had found the house we would buy. It was 2200 sq ft, on a little lake, new construction without any upgrades, for $150K. We figured, at that price tag, we would be saving like crazy living there. Plus the lot overlooked the lake which was a nice feature. And the neighborhood is close to everything we would need in the city: grocery store, Subway, Quizno's, etc.
While we were waiting to hear back from our new realtor, we made a search around the area one more time. We went to this one neighborhood a couple interstates stops East which was a more upscale neighborhood, but not as close to the grocery stores and little restaurants. We looked through the 2 homes that they currently had built and were not sold, and we really liked the model home that was in the beginning stages of being put on the market. It was big. Too big. But the upgrades were what we wanted. The downstairs is hardwood, the kitchen has stainless steel appliances that stay, the colors on the walls were nice, the master bathroom has two sinks and a separate jetted tub, the utility room is downstairs near the master bedroom, the house has surround sound built in, underground sprinkler system outside, and the upstairs has 5 other nice sized bedrooms and 2 more baths! In all, 6 bedroom, 3.5 bath 3823 sq ft home. And, if I had a way to make a drum roll I would, for a price tag of $260K. I think we are planning to put in an underground pool in the backyard which, by the way, is already privacy fenced. And is big. I think we did pretty good.
Obviously that is the house we decided to go with. Saturday morning we drove back to the house after taking a night to think it over, met with our new realtor for the first time, and signed a contract. I think that was the easiest commission that lady ever made. But I think she will have her work cut out for her on the back end since we aren't in town to do our dirty work for ourselves.
After signing the contract, we went to this little area on a Bay about 30 minutes away. There were a couple rollercoaster rides, several restaurants and some little stores. All of this overlooked the water. Pretty cool little place. Then we drove down to Galveston. We think from Baytown, it will take about an hour to get to the ocean. What another nice feature of living in Baytown!!! I think we made the right choice, but we'll see once Mike starts having to make that commute everyday.
This week back in Springfield, we had 3 showings on the house yesterday, and already have one scheduled for today. While we were out of town, we had numerous showings, and even an offer, which we ultimately denied after a couple counters. Hopefully one of these people will want this place. There must be something turning this many people off. Or maybe there are just a ton of people in this city so it just appears that we have a lot of traffic, but in reality, when compared to the population in other cities, this amount of traffic is not a lot.
We move to Baytown next Friday morning. The movers will be coming on Wednesday and Thursday to pack us up and start moving us. After cleaning up the place one last time, we will probably leave on Friday morning. A straight shot says it will take us about 21 hours. Yikes! I don't think we've figured out exactly the plan as of yet, but it's looking like the cats will have to be in their carriers the whole trip. I was hoping to get an SUV to let them run around the back, but it may end up being too expensive.
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