Don't Fight City Hall!

Our search for a home in the Texas hills was lengthened by the requirement that a large outbuilding or place to build same existed on the property.  We settled on a small home in the community we always dreamed of inhabiting with a lot large enough for the additional building.
Prior to purchase, we visited the city planning and development office, reviewed homeowner association requirements and even visited with some of our potential neighbors already sporting similar facilities on their homestead.  We happily made our purchase and son came with his big toys to remove unwanted trees and dig out large boulders in order to level the majority of the back part of the property.  I had a mental plan, Ol' Abner had another!  Little did we know, the city had much more detailed requirements than first thought.  Our major stumbling block was the requirement for an engineered slab design!  Sounds simple enough, but barn builders, garage builders, shop builders do not work with an engineered slab.  We were finally told those are used primarily for the heavy duty, multi-level commercial construction!  A large part of our budgeted funds were depleted in an attempt to get plans and designs to suit the city powers.  Guitar Man got involved after about a year of frustration.  He brought in an engineer co-worker who designed the slab.  Guitar Man drew up the site plan set to scale per city requirements.  It finally began to take a visible shape at that point.  Ol' Abner decided to revisit the first builder we had attempted to hire, the one who refused to deal with city hall. With plans in hand, he encountered a willingness to deal. 

Day 2-Crushed Granite fill is in!

Day 1-Man and Dog checking progress

Wise Words

Bits of wisdom shared by mentors from my youth have stayed with me throughout my life.  I have surpassed the age some of those people lived and aspire to reach the term of life that others reached.  At times I find those same words spouting forth almost involuntarily from my mouth when it seemed my thoughts were private.  Today I think I'll just put some of them out there as they come to me.

• Better to spend your dollars at the grocery store than a doctor's office
• Self-reliant children are the best evidence of good parenting
• If you do not understand the need for government, look at a parking lot covered with snow as cars park
• There is a time and a season for all things, not always recognized until it has passed
• You cannot unscramble an egg
• Any experience is only as important as the memories that thrive from it
• Don't sweat the small stuff, and afterward it's all just small stuff (yes I was told this long before it became a best selling book)
• Somewhere in every family, there is a renegade
• Small children and dogs are the best judges of character at first impression
• Be loyal to your personal convictions and you will never regret your actions
• Value learning or be taught the lessons anyway
• ...to be continued

Long Awaited

It looks like Ol' Abner's garage may actually get built.  The building permit has been issued, the electric connection for construction has been set and approved.  Yesterday the workers showed up unexpectedly to deliver equipment to begin work.  Anticipated start date was Tuesday, but apparently they will be here this morning to begin the process.  Ol' Abner and a friend were out and about most of the day at building supply stores, hardware stores and piddling around in the back yard.  He hasn't said so, but I think he is excited.

Laughter in the Evening

Last week we joined Hardtime Man and Spoiled Rot'n Girl for dinner at one of our mutually favorite restaurants.  Grumpy Man was here helping Ol' Abner with some manual labor and came along to hear the tales from their recent trip.  They usually spend late summer and early autumn down on the gulf coast, fishing, boating, swimming, golfing and riding motorcycles on back roads.  Their routine was changed this year for many reasons.  They left the boat at home and planned to fish from the docks while spending days enjoying balmy weather on dry land.  Posts from the coast on social media were filled with tales of rain and chilly days.  Movie reviews and photos posted of Rot'n eating ice cream with a less than welcome pose were the usual missive.  The rains arrived just as our travelers settled into their temporary digs, and apparently continued throughout most days of the stay.  A backdoor message warning that home would soon be on the horizon  arrived a couple of months earlier than expected.

We talked and laughed over our Italian dinner, then occupied the table long after the wait staff was ready to turn the table. The dairy dessert stop a few blocks up the street was a logical progression for five people unwilling to part.  Despite the luxury of the new "camper", long days of listening to the rain had them both suffering from "cabin fever"  incumbent with boredom and frustration.  As we were regaled with stories of three elderly ladies in the care of our friends, Grumpy Man was ever so grateful for his own mother, still active and self sufficient in her late seventies. Hardtime Man's aunt is bedridden and suffers dementia from her nursing home.  His mother is well served in an assisted living facility, and Rot'n looks in on her mother living just three doors down in the hometown.  Both mothers are on the verge of needing a higher level of care.  Antics of telephone calls never made  amid complaints that she cannot get in touch with family, service providers and even the telephone company make Rot'n throw up her hands and walk away from her mother.  Hardtime's mother always feels the need to make a trip to the emergency room when he is a half day's drive away.  This time was no exception, but she called other family members urging them to keep her "ailment and care" a secret from her son.  The next morning she called to fill him in on all the details.  Their badly needed respite had turned into a soggy series of wet sand in unspeakable places, but the telling of the tales gave us all a light hearted release with the sharing of experiences.

Oh how we missed our frequent outings with these friends.  It's good to have them back in the area!

Paper No More

After so many years of moving at the whim of a corporate regime, Ol Abner became quite a talented wallpaper hanger.  With limited time to make a move, we often overlooked cosmetic deficits in a potential home.  If the furniture would fit and the kids could stash their stuff out of sight, we could look past wallpaper that looked like old men's pajamas.  Before we even moved in I was usually checking out wallpaper sample books to pour over for each room.  He knew a couple of weekends would be spent painting and papering, sometimes in a rush before new flooring was installed.   Before he assumed the role of paper-hanger,  I tackled a couple of simple papering projects with a modicum of success.

One newly-finished house we bought  had what looked like grandma's housecoat on the master bathroom wall.  My frugal spouse refused to change out brand new wall paper, thus I lived with it for several years.  When he was traveling I found a sale and bought new paper after a reasonable time of suffering the ugly environment,  Dancing girl dropped by one evening and after a glass of wine, we concluded we could remove the offensive paper and replace it with a fresh new covering in one evening.  

Just as we began to coax the old paper off the wall, Ol' Abner called.  We usually chatted five or ten minutes each evening when he was away.  It didn't take long to catch up on most day's events.  This particular evening, he suggested I call him back when my guest left.  Now he knew it always took the two of us several hours to "catch up" on any day's  events.  I told him it would probably be late, and he assured me he had enough paper work to do that he'd be awake for some time.  I hung up the phone and we went back to work.  Forty five minutes later he called. Paper work was done and he was sure I  had just forgotten to call him.  No, but I was willing to chat as my friend steamed the walls.  Mind you he didn't know she was slaving in our bathroom. He again told me to call when we were through with our visit.   His calls became closer and closer together, to the point that he was totally disrupting our progress.  A project that could have been completed by midnight stretched into the wee hours and we had to leave the medicine cabinets for him to re-install.  Every time he called we would sit down where the phone cord would reach and have another glass of wine. If something was of great importance, he never did get around to that point in any of those conversations.  He was never fond of that wallpaper, but it really was lovely.

He remarked recently that he is so glad that wallpapered walls are no longer in vogue. I do hope it hasn't taken him fourteen years to notice we aren't buying wallpaper.

Return of the Natives

How do I cope with that awful moment when the bathroom scales show a sad truth!  The five pounds I struggled to lose last spring have returned and brought along fifteen close friends.  I should've known Saturday when I donned a pair of long jeans not worn all summer.  They were more than just a little snug.  I blithely concluded the dryer had snapped the denim fabric a little tight and would soon adjust back to my "voluptuous curves".  Since I do know better than to step on scales wearing heavy denim, I avoided the weighing until this morning.  There they were; glaring at me with wicked condemnation!

Just when I am in the mood to bake Autumn favorites and curl up with a blanket and a good book, I find myself planning the trip to the gym and counting calories.  Why does pie always have more of the creeping little bundles of energy than the crisp apple?  Who ever determined that calories were "measurements of energy"?  Why don't I feel particularly energetic after I devour half a loaf of freshly baked pumpkin bread?   I fear these questions have no good answers.  Hmmm, the dog seems to be getting a little chunky, too.  Maybe we better go for a walk!