The Countdown

Time always gets away from me.  I'm always surprised by how long it's been since I posted last.  We've been busy.  I feel like we're down to the final countdown on the house.  For a while there, it was in days (and very stressful), two days ago, we got an extension on our construction loan.  I believe that Dennis asked for six more weeks for us.  We had about three weeks to go, so I think that gives us a total of nine more weeks.  Hopefully, we'll be done before that.  Anyway, in other news....

Lexi - checking out that baby on the Pampers bag.

Random day at home.

 As you can see, this blogger thing is still tricking me, but I'm learning.

 I believe I mentioned this before - Summer, this would be evidence of the pee on the floor.  She was close, at least.

Summer has a good life, napping during the day with her sippy and a bag of cookies over there.  My, my.

 Almost all of the hard floors are installed at the house.  This is an upstairs bathroom. 

Currently working on the trim.

Something about this picture (the living room) makes me feel like we have a long way to go.

 Anyway, lately Lexi has been accused of looking like an Asian.  She's been accused of a lot of things.  I'm not really seeing the Asian part.  (Hello people, did anyone notice that her dad is a Native American?)  Scott = able to get a tan in the shade.

 So I listened to "To Kill a Mockingbird" on CD lately.  Forgot what a great book that is.  In fact, I think that book was wasted on me in high school.  I recall getting really distracted by the whole concept that the kids called their dad "Atticus".  Hello, that would be "dad" to you.  And that their names were so weird, anyway.  Atticus?  Jem?  Scout?  Spell Jem with an "i" at least.  Sigh.  Anyway, so I would recommend it.

Indoors, when Miss Maudie wanted to say something lengthy she spread her fingers on her knees and settled her bridgework. This she did, and we waited.

“I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.”
“Oh,” said Jem. “Well.”
“Don’t you oh well me, sir,” Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem’s fatalistic noises, “you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.”

A man stands in the gap and does what must be done.


I was trying to share some of the wisdom from this book with Summer.  "Courage is not a man with a gun."  Summer, being a deep thinker, ran off and started shouting "gun!"  This is great - I'm sure this will come back and haunt me someday.

Yes - major victory for Summer.  Two paci's at once. 

Apparently she's learning the concept - "if some is good, more is better."  (I heard that one from the so-called ultra-running world.  This is how marathons and such things came to be.  My other favorite line from those people:  "Moderation in all things, including moderation.")

This picture is not photo-shopped.  She actually fell asleep on the couch!!  Usually getting Summer to go to sleep is an all day job, and it requires perfect conditions.  Her room - no distractions, white noise, paci, blanket, etc.

 So, speaking of books, while I was listening to books on CD, I thought I'd catch up on the John Grisham books I haven't read.  What is going on with that man?  I recall reading one of his books that I couldn't put down.  Many late nights on account of his books, and now I have one that I've renewed three times already.  It's just not interesting.  Too bad - he appears to be going off the deep end.

Ahem, evidence.  Summer bit Lexi on the arm.  Hope this habit is short-lived.

 If we were anywhere near a beach, I would truly have buried my head in the sand yesterday.  Out of the blue, Scott said to me:  "do you want to know where the Jeep is now?"  (resounding no!  No, I don't want to hear about the Jeep.  I know there's no good news involved there.)  Anyway, the whole story - back in October (October!!), the Jeep was putting out black smoke, so I was going to take it in to get looked at, per Scott's recommendation, to Need 4 Speed Automotive in downtown Bastrop.  (Scott:  "I know those guys there are all kinda...Harley guys, but they're really nice.")

Intelligent conversation between me and the owner, appropriately named Danny:
Danny: So, what's the problem?
me: Well, there's like this black smoke.  I mean, it's a diesel, so there's always black smoke, but it's really serious black smoke.
Danny:  Is the check engine light on?
me: Well, yeah, but that's always on, so that's not like anything new.
Danny: Ahhhhm, yeah, I think you need to bring that in as soon as you can.

Sometimes, it takes saying things out loud to realize how dumb you are.  We had been driving around with the check engine light on for about a year or so.  Stopped at AutoZone a few times, and every time they checked it, nothing really came up.  In hindsight, I think it's because their diagnostic thing couldn't communicate with our very strange vehicle.  The Need 4 Speed guys kept the Jeep for a day and said they couldn't fix it because they were not familiar with our strange little 4-cylinder diesel mobile.  (Apparently, these diesel Liberty's were only made for two years, so they're a little unique.)  They told us we'd need to take it to a Chrystler dealership, but not the one in town (Benny Boyd's), those guys, apparently, are crazy.  So we took it to Southpoint Dodge in Austin.  They had it a month.  They, too, are crazy.  And bad customer service.  We brought the Jeep back to the country to Bastrop Auto Works.  They said they were familiar with that type of engine.  They've had it for a couple months now.  First they said it was the fuel injectors (all 4 of them are bad!).  Fixed them, still not better.  Trying this, trying that.  And now, (drumroll) they took it over to Benny Boyd's.  (Insert theme music "Better buy from Benny and you'll get a better buy.  Come to Benny Boyd's in Bastop, blah, blah, blah....and then the very enthusiastic sign off "Beeeeennnnnnnnnnnny Booooooooooooooy'ds Y'aaaaaaaaaalllllllllll."  and i remember that we are in Texas.)  Anyway, back to the real story, so the Jeep is at Benny Boyd's anyway.  Sigh.  For a long time now, I have quietly been accepting the fact that I may never have a vehicle of our own again.  Still borrowing the Rassi's van.  (As Miss Nancy said "What would yall do without your pastor?")

 Anyway, moving on.  Today, I am contemplating whether it matters if we have a vehicle or not.  We don't have roads around here.  Lane called the other day and said he couldn't get home - the road was closed and there was no detour.  Me, believing in common sense and other idealistic things like that, thought maybe he was crazy.  No.  Not crazy at all.  The main road is closed.  Washed out in a flood we had.  Oh, I totally forgot to write about that.  Six inches in one night.  Drought = officially over.  Heard people talking in town about the need for flood insurance around here.  Seriously. also heard a story about a house that had burned, they are currently rebuilding, and were flooded.  Maybe this is a sign.  Or maybe that is a case of "when it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year".  Sometime I feel like I'm about to put myself in that category.  Anyway, so now, if I were to go to town, in the borrowed van, it requires driving through bobcatville, a third world country, and an unnamed mountain range.  All this, just to get a gallon of milk.  Maybe I should just stay home.

More on the "good luck moving into this house anytime in the next two months"

Vanity that Scott made for the bathroom, sorry I didn't get all of it in the picture.

Doors and trim

Better picture of doors and trim.

Okay, seem to be overloaded with sleeping pictures.  One very true excuse is that neither of these babies poses for pictures for me, and our camera is being weird about any picture that I take when the camera is not perfectly still.  Anyway, maybe I should run along.  Usually I do posts at night, but now I'm writing in the middle of the day and have Lex on lap and Summer tromping around in Lane's boots.  (Yes, they reach the very top of her legs.)  Have a very happy week!

Back to the real world

Humbug....after my last post, I was hoping to post again soon because that one was so messed up and I was too lazy to try to fix it, but just now I see that this crazy thing is trying to mess up my pictures and words again!

Anyway, so it's been a while. The rest of the world celebrated Christmas since I last posted.

(This is Summer cleaning up a mess she had made the day before. Yeah...the corn syrup story, it was all over, and I cleaned it up. The next day she got out some towels and started cleaning the floor. Very sweet. Too bad she wasn't a day earlier. Or better yet....just don't pour corn syrup on the floor.)

Today my brilliant morning started with, actually started last night when we got home from church and found a message from the 80-year-old landlord saying that she wanted to show the duplex to someone this morning at 10:30. Good thing the entire place isn't a giant disaster.

(House....hardieboard = painted. Desperately needing some landscaping and shutters.)

So, of all the noble intentions of wonderful things I wanted to do today, and all the things that I needed to do today, my first priority suddenly became....at least do the dishes before these people arrive.

So that's what I was working on when they got here. It wasn't good. I don't think they were impressed. Lexi was sleeping when they got here - they woke her up, so I wasn't impressed either. ("We're so sorry for waking up your baby." "Oh, it's no problem. Not a big deal." As I'm walking toward the gun cabinet....)

Okay, so maybe that's a little drastic. I would not have done anything crazy. Now if Summer had been asleep....

In other news...Lexi is currently in stage owl. Trying to hold her is like lassoing a hampster. She spins her little head around and always wants to see whatever is directly behind her.

In other news....I sent out a Christmas picture that would make the hair stand up on even a mediocre photographer's neck. And I didn't even have Penelope in there. And speaking of photographers, someone recently told me, "anyone can be a professional photographer these days with these digital cameras." I gave him the squinty-eyed Forrest Gump glare. (He was not scared.)

Also, speaking of photographers, twice recently we've had good photographers visiting with those fancy cameras. I was jealous.

Summer - still not brilliant at eating - especially yogurt.

Sometimes I don't know why I bother feeding her. Nothing goes in her mouth. Somehow she is still alive (and always energetic....except for when she's not.)

Everyone around here has been sick lately. So life is quiet.....especially for me because my nose being all stuffed seems to help my ears not to work, so I can't hear anything anyway.

Ahhhh, isn't this a charming little thing? My first ever thing that someone asked me to knit for them. Shella took a little sweater like this that I knitted for Summer to show one of her coworkers and that lady wanted one like it for her 6-month old granddaughter. So I finished it, and was looking at it and thought, I shall try this on Lexi. Lexi, who has only spit up three times that I can think of in her five-month long life. She puked on it. In the two seconds it took to put it on her....covered in puke. Seriously.....

And, while I'm complaining, maybe I'll mention that the Jeep is still getting fixed.....after two months.

Maybe it's a good thing I don't have a vehicle to drive or I would run away one of these days.

In general, though, can't complain. The house has been kinda fun for me lately. I've been having fun picking some things out and ordering them. Yesterday a sink arrived on our doorstep here, and a garage door opener was delivered to Glass Lane. My list of things yet to pick out is getting shorter.

This is Summer, posing (yes, posing) for Scott one Sunday morning.

She also let him put hairclips in her hair. (She never does this kind of stuff for me. I have to chase her around the duplex spraying detangling spray at her, and thinking that is as good as it gets for her hair for the day.....hopefully it will lay quasi-flat when it drys. No chance of combing through it or anything.) Maybe Scott and I should switch roles.

(No, Summer, I'm not saying it looks like you have a mullet. Your dad did grow up in the 80's though.......maybe that's where he gets his fashion ideas.)

(This is more like the real Summer.)

I'm running out of things to say.

Forgot to mention however long ago that was that Summer went to Illinois...when she came back, I went to pick her up at Rassi's. She was playing on the back patio. I went to get her and left Lex sleeping in the vehicle. Asked Summer "Where's Sissy?" And she got all excited and went running to go find Lex.

I think it took about four months, but now they really love each other.

Painting the hardiboard = not for the faint of heart.

Glad I did not see him climb up that ladder.

Summer is apparently potty-training herself. I'm not sure what this is all about, but she has been doing this lately.

Today's non-success: She sat there for a little while, then got distracted, ran off, peed on the floor. Twice. I thought that was bad. Was cleaning that up, when I heard that dreadful sound. (Did I mention that Summer has had diarhhea all week?)

(It was gross.)

Christmas - delivered to our duplex. I called Amy in all my excitement and said "It feels like Christmas!!" and she said "it is Christmas."  (Very perceptive - that girl.)

Was sad when I drove to town the other night and noticed that all the Christmas lights are down. The park & riverwalk were all decorated up and I loved it! As I was driving over the bridge, for the past several weeks, I could see all the lights from the riverwalk reflected in the water. Now they're done for the year. Back to the real world.