ON A WING AND A PRAYER

Tomorrow morning they are going to pour the concrete. This is out of my hands now.



You are looking at the plumbing for the kitchen island and the laundry room.

Phil the Phoreman and Bill the Architect

This is a King Ranch Foundation of Belief Cross made of four nails, copper wire and stones. I have had three crosses since last summer. One to put in the foundation, one to hang in the house near the one placed in the ground and one to give to the builder. It is hard to believe this is actually happening. It used to be a dream.

If you can't read the prayer, these are the words.

Our Heavenly Father, we ask your blessing on all those whose hands will build this house, everyone who will walk through its doors and those who will dwell within its walls.

We pray that every going out be in the company of the Holy Spirit. May every coming home be a welcome into the heart of Christ.

May the Father of all life be the foundation in the lives of those who live in this home.

The prayer will be placed in the foundation in the middle of the kitchen/living/dining area.

In the morning at dawn, this will become a part of our home.

Nervous Nellie

AM I NUTS?

Think what you want, but please don't post your answer!


What a whirlwind week. We sold our house, approved the placement of the new house, leased an apartment for the next 6 months....AND....today I purchased the very first items for the ranch house. If anybody can tell me what this is, you will win an all-inclusive package for a 7-day stay at Edgecliff Casa. We will pick you up at DFW.

Those of you who don't guess correctly have to stay for 14 days. That would mean suffering through an extra week with Nervous Nellie so you might want to do some research on this!

Couldn't resist the comforter set that was on sale. They almost gave it away. I can picture it with dark, heavy, bedroom furniture in one of the upstairs guest rooms. I can't believe I'm buying things for the new house already. Am I nuts?

In his sermon today, the pastor urged us to jump off the cliff. I turned to Tex and said, "Has he been reading my blog? He wants me to jump?" The message was to dream your dreams and God would be there to help you through. Don't be afraid of the future, embrace it. Jump off the cliff and God will catch you. It was his "farewell" sermon before going to another church. From now on I will try to look forward without so much trepidation. Thanks, Jason!

"See," I said to Tex as they rang up our purchases, "I'm confidently embracing the future." He just rolled his eyes.

Nervous Nellie

P.S. Remember to enter the contest. Answer in next post.

SOLD!

Our house sold to the first person who looked at it the first day it went on the market. We close July 21. Now we go apartment hunting 'cause we can't live here yet.

Tex couldn't wait until Phil the Phoreman left so he could hop on this backhoe and play!

Yesterday, the day after we signed the contract for the sale of the house, we galloped out to the ranch to approve where the house is staked out on the pad. We're rock'n and roll'n now. I should be calming down at this point with the house being sold and that behind me. So, can you tell me why I got up at 3:30 this morning because I couldn't sleep?

Nervous Nellie

MELTDOWN

My neurosis has reached critical mass. I can't deal with this. The "for sale" sign goes in the yard tomorrow and today my bathroom looks like this.

Last week my Super Savvy realtor, Stevie, suggested we might want to take off the wallpaper in the master bath. She said that was the only negative in the house. Super Savvy Stevie said the house would sell but might sell faster with the wallpaper gone. The walls have been textured and primed and are being painted as I type.

Yeah, I guess I haven't kept up with the times. Being current in my decorating has ceased to be forefront in my priorities over the last several years. When I was younger and "up on everything" I can remember going into older people's homes and thinking to myself, "Good gawd, why don't they replace the green shag with a berber?" Now I'm on the other end and I know why.......old people could give a rip what other people think! IT IS LIBERATING! But, alas, not so good for resale. We did put in new appliances recently. That was my only attempt at updating.

Tex and I are nipping at each other like two rat terriers. (Latest episode was over him wanting to keep something and me insisting we donate it to a thrift shop run by a children's home in Keller. If I went into the particulars, you would agree that I was soooooo right!) I don't like this feeling, bickering and antsy. I'm a complete wreck. Don't get near me......I'm rabid and I bite!

This blog is saving me thousands of $$$ in therapy sessions.

Nervous Nellie

CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Before we "get down and dirty" out at the lot, I thought I'd put up pictures I took Wednesday of these innocent, unsuspecting wild flowers on our property. Little do they know what's going to hit them. They are going to be turned under and trampled by heavy equipment next week.

The next picture posted will be a mass of dirt smoothed out, making up the pad for the house. Next week they will put in the culvert, make a rough drive back to the build site and form the pad.

We chose a realtor yesterday and the FOR SALE sign goes up the first week in June. We're under way and I'm under the bed! I'll try not to sneeze and frighten potenial buyers off when they come to look at the house.

"Dear God, please send people to buy my house." I have a fear it won't sell. Well, I wouldn't be Nervous Nellie if I wasn't fearful, would I?

These yellow, low growing weeds are right smack dab in the middle of our outdoor patio, fireplace area to the side of the house.

I empathize with these purty little flowers because I feel like I'm about to get my block knocked off, too!

Nervous Nellie

PRIZED POSSESSION

Our house is going on the market in a couple weeks. This forced us to spend 10 hours last Saturday in the garage sorting, pitching and cleaning. I'm going to show you before and after pictures. We wouldn't need so many receptacles along the wall if we didn't have paper recycle, glass and can recycle and plain old garbage. On top of that, we crush and save the aluminum cans to take someplace, which we have yet to find, to turn them in for $, which we have never done.


Don't you think we should be paid to sort for recycle? Somebody is making money with my free labor! And, what really ticks me off is that half the people on our street don't recycle. If it was me, I'd throw it all in the "regular garbage" but Tex is almost anal about recycling. If I throw a toilet paper holder in the trash, he takes it out and puts it in the paper recycle. I'm pretty sure they don't have recycling out at the ranch. Heck, I don't think they have regular trash pick-up. You have to contract with somebody. Do ya think anyone would notice if I just threw the trash off the cliff??? Sorry. Got sidetracked. Back to the subject.





When viewing the photos, I want you to try to pick out the "prized possession" that Tex refuses to part with. I believe you can see it in all but one picture. Ready? Here we go.





BEFORE

AFTER

Did you spot it? Now, here's the story behind the prized possession.

We have had that file cabinet for as long as I can remember and we've been married 43 years. We have a newer (by newer, I mean purchased within the last 15 years) black file cabinet in our computer/office/bonus room. We have three desks in our house....a built-in desk, a roll-top desk and a huge computer desk. All-in-all, we have 8 FILE DRAWERS in the house.

Tex refused to put this file cabinet out for the neighborhood garage sale last fall. "I'll put some hunting things in it," he said. "Yeah, like that's a great place for hunting items. You can file the guns under "G" and the ammo under "A" so you can easily find it," I fired back. When the spring garage sale rolled around several weeks ago I begged him to get rid of it because--HE--HAD--PUT--NOTHING--IN--IT--SINCE--LAST--SEPTEMBER. It has been sitting in the garage with nothing in it for 15 years.

I could not persuade him to let it go. Again, he said he could put his "things" in it and promised me he'd get it out of the garage, that he'd take it to our rented storage unit. Oh, great! More junk in the storage unit so we can save the junk to take to the ranch house!

Here is a close-up of Tex's prized possession after he'd put his "things" in it.

There are better places to put a game camera, solar power unit and the 40 year old, tarnished, out-of-style, aviator sunglasses (in the black case) that should be pitched! Tex does not need this file cabinet. Notice the scratches on top and the broken key that is secured under the piece of duct tape? Why keep a key that is broken? Why keep a beat-up, 40 year old file cabinet that we don't need? Sometimes Nellie is so right and Tex is so wrong. It all evens out, doesn't it?

Nervous Nellie

PRETTY POSIES

Tex was in Washington D.C. all last week. I had a very trying last half of the week. It started off Wednesday morning at 9:30 when I pulled up to the gate of a self- storage complex. I had made an appointment to meet the owner and sign the papers to rent a unit for 6 months. My car was loaded and I had an 11:00 appointment elsewhere. We are going to put some of our "stuff" into storage so we can move our "stuff" out to the ranch. We are certifiable and need to be committed.



After many phone calls and messages left in voice mail, I finally got the owner's daughter and she met me 45 minutes later. She didn't know where her mother was or why she didn't answer the phone. We had met the owner previously when we'd gone to look at the place to see what it was like. She seemed very capable and very nice. I guess being hot under the collar for 45 minutes paid off to the tune of 66 cents per minute. The daughter felt so awful about me waiting that she gave me the unit for $50 a month rather than the $55 normal charge. I would have rather paid the extra $30 and been on my merry way. Math is not my strong suit, so if the numbers are wrong, forgive me.



Later that day it was a trip to the bank...the first of many. I won't bore you with the gorey details, but a check not signed (ahem...not Nellie's fault) led to a wire transfer being sent, wire deposit returned because wrong beneficiary (ahem....bank's fault, not Nellie's), wire returned because they wouldn't accept a check from a bank account in a trust name and on and on. I finally had to open a NEW account in my name only. I had to keep going back to sign the paperwork on new attempts to get the dang money where it was meant to go.



When I walked into the bank on Friday afternoon, I told the 12 year old man-child that I'd been dealing with that I came to rent a room at the bank. Nice fellow, but geeze, when did they start hiring 7th graders to work in banks? So young! As far as I know, the matter is finally settled.



Tex knew I was NOT a happy rancher and came home with these when he returned from his trip.

Whew! I got through a post without mentioning food! It was a close call, tho. Last night Tex had to wrestle the camera from my hands as I attempted to snap a picture of the pasta dish I'd prepared. "Enough is enough, Nellie," he hollered. Sometimes Tex is so right and I am so wrong.

Nervous Nellie

P.S. Tex left today for Oklahoma City. I sure hope he doesn't have to bring me more posies when he returns on Friday.