Running Around Like....

...a chicken with its head cut off!  That is how I feel!  What a two weeks we have had around our "neck" of the woods!

Well...all I can say is you never know how quickly things will change.  Michael and I had a plan to wait to move when the house here sold.  Then two weeks ago, Michael and I started looking at building a new home.  We were going to take this time to look at different neighborhoods near his work...this would help us make the final decision for the new home quickly once the house was under contract.  Our thought was...less time thinking about options when we were busy packing.

If you read my last post, you might recall that I came home from San Antonio to a round of drama...I could have stayed at my mom's for an additional week, but opted out and came back.  The idea was that Michael would come home for four day weekend and help complete projects that I could not do alone.  I still think that was the right choice, BUT...

On Wednesday of that week, Michael and I were looking at neighborhoods and I noticed an interesting property.  Michael and I reviewed the listing several times and he decided to have a closer look.  However, in his curious mindset, he also decided to call our bank to ask about us taking out a second loan.  The bank agreed to pre-approve us for a second loan as he was walking through the house with our realtor!

Let me just say that Michael is not the photographer in the group...and yet he took over 80 pictures of the rooms in the house!  He was excited and wanted me to come to San Antonio.  I told him that after looking at all his pictures, I had seen enough to know the house was right for us.  I did not need to see it person.  If he wanted to make this leap of faith, then I was willing to go with him!  However, that night I went to our bank website to look into our options.  That is when I saw a builder incentive plan for a local builder, so I told Michael we should hold off and I would be on my way in the morning.

The highlight of the house for Zaira...the play area under the stairs!

I left Amanda with the younger boys...took Sean and Zaira...and was in San Antonio as Michael was getting off work.  We drove to a subdivision with their model homes.  Although the house was OK, there was no room to breathe in between houses...the houses were so close together!  We were fortunate that our realtor joined us and offered to take us back to the house we had originally been drawn to view.  He never told us that we should not buy the new home but after we reviewed the original house, and we both agreed we should make an offer, Bobby let out a breath of air and said he was glad we choice the best house.  (And for those who are a little leery of realtors..the houses were priced the same...so not a factor.)

Michael and I made an offer and signed a contract the next day.  Then I raced back home to try to beat the rush hour traffic and not drive in the dark.  Michael was delayed because of work and that rush hour traffic so he was about 3 hours behind me.

There was a big Pro-life celebration in College Station (Home of 40 Days for Life) on Saturday.  I had really hoped to be there to celebrate the closing of our clinic (along with others!), but I knew I could not make another trip or stay the night.  SO...I called a good friend of mine to tell her the circumstances and to ask her to give everyone a big hug from me.  She told me they were all going to be at daily Mass that just happened to coincide with my arrival to town.  I chose to stop...worship with everyone...praising God for the joyous news...and visit with everyone afterwards.

Still two hours ahead of Michael, we continued on the road to home.  I was able to make it just in time to pray with the children before sending them to bed.  Then I sat down and made the list of honey-do's for Michael.  Here is what I hoped we could accomplish over the weekend:

Fix sink in upstairs bathroom
Replace faucet in downstairs powder room
Create fence at entry driveway
Clear the area around the pond
Fix the flowerbed by the pond
Add remaining skirting to the porch
Fix towel rod in downstairs powder room--I completed this later
Fix hole in bedroom and paint wall
Paint door frames throughout house--NOPE...another time perhaps!
Fix lock on kitchen door
Clean up and pack his part of the garage (AKA the tool benches)--This did not happen!

Long list...right?  Most of the work should not have taken a long time and we had almost everything within our finger tips...only a quick trip to our local home improvement store for about $25 worth of items, and we were ready to get the job done!

EXCEPT...dear Michael was confused about why we were doing all this work...ESPECIALLY the fence at the entry.  He fought me on this all day Saturday...it only took digging three 2-foot holes to complete this task but he did not understand the importance of this project.  My thought was that it would distinguish our property as you drive down the road...our drive way is missed all the time...it is hard to turn around on our road.  By placing a white picket fence with our address numbers, we stood out just enough to be noticed.  Not to mention it gave a nice hiding place for our trash can when not in use.  After much discussion, the job was done...he did work on other projects while he balked...and it was AWESOME!!!!

The other project that just did not seem to be completed was the sink in the upstairs bathroom...it was such a pain to get the plumbing to not leak....Michael has done similar jobs without any problem but this sink did not want to be fixed!  Finally, on Monday night, he got it done!  YAY!!!

The last job completed was painting the wall in the upstairs bedroom.  Michael had fixed the door knob size hole in the wall earlier in the day, but other items took priority over painting.  It might not seem like a big deal to paint but there is an issue that I just could not get over...the molding and built in desk in this particular room are a bright bold blue and I could not see any paint job helping to subdue this color.  The thought of painting trim and desk had no appeal...SO we put off painting this room...for the last SEVEN years!  And it looked bad...the paint work done in the house before we moved in was all flat paint so this room (the only room in the house) still had the flat paint.  It was dirty and boring, especially next to that bold blue.  Thankfully, Henry likes to paint and he offered to help Michael.  They decided to just paint the wall with the patch...it happened to be the biggest of the walls because there was not a window or door to break up the surface area.  They choice a tan (we already had in the garage) and make it an accent wall.  It turned out FABULOUS!!!!  The tan really helped the blue and just freshened up the entire room.  I am so glad we got that done!

Notice Hank joined them in this project...and several others!

Flower bed now intact!

Michael...I am sure...was just glad to get it ALL done and headed back to San Antonio to sleep (he started working night shift that day!).  But I don't think he will need to come back and do any more projects, so he should be proud of his hard work.

On top of all the projects Michael was working to complete, we also had two outside sources coming onto the property.  Bright and early Saturday morning...the young man came out to repair our broken window.  We have worked with this family business since we moved here ten years ago.  I sure wish we could take them with us to San Antonio!  They always do a great job!  SO...if you ever need a recommendation for home improvement work...let me know and I will share their name.

Then Sunday afternoon, we had a man come and assess our trees.  We had hoped to just take out a few of the troubled trees and a few additional ones to make it worth his time.  However, he said he would have to take out all our mature pines to come out...so we opted to hold off on that project.  Maybe if we still have the property next spring.

One project that was bugging me was the powder room downstairs.  It is a small issue but would have required re-painting the room and I had no desire.  So I got creative.  The towel holder had come off the wall because it was not originally placed on a stud, so Michael repaired it a few months back...he placed it at a stud but that left the original holes exposed.  It bugged me because the room is so small it was the first thing I saw every time I went in the bathroom.  SO...I created a little frame with stained wood and placed the towel holder back on the wall in the center of the frame.  I think it turned out nice and matches the decor in the room.

After Michael left, the last week has been a flurry of running and making phone calls.  We have already had inspections on the new house and made arrangements with our bank to have appraisals and surveys complete.  We seem to now be on the fast track to moving.

I just ask that anyone who reads to say a special prayer for the house here to sell.  It is going to be a lean until this one sells.  We are taking a huge leap of faith but I know that God has us covered.  I feel better about the move now that I know where we are going.  We have already picked out churches and parks to discover.  We have found the closest library and other activities for the family.  Michael is already looking forward to the shorter commute and having us with him.  It will be good!