NOT OUR FIRST RODEO

Why am I such a basket case? We have done this twice already.


1987

Piece of cake! I was 41 and nothing fazed me. Live in Indiana and build a house in Texas? NO PROB! Flying back and forth to keep on top of things, a seat mate asked me as I was studying house plans, "Are you an architect?" I was excited and confident. The hardest part of that experience was leaving my first born at Purdue as a college freshman.....how could he live without his mama? We literally dropped him at his dorm and headed to Texas with our 8th grader in tow. At least I had one child left to smother.


House being built on Tall Oak. We moved into the house in late September.





The 8th grader



Boilermaker after his freshman year. Free slave labor!




1995

A bit older at 49, but still game to tackle building a home. Our house sold fast and we had to move into a rental while the new house was being built. Go to Hawaii for a week with my mom and sister just before we moved out of the house we sold? NO PROB! I got home from Hawaii and started moving the next day.

House on Canterbury Lane under construction

This is Tex and me in March 1995 at a luncheon during an all day session at American Airlines. He'd made Captain six months before and this was a "Captain's Duties and Responsibilities" seminar. We moved into the house in July.

After we moved into the house, I remember saying, "They will have to carry me out of this house feet first." I was surprised at how wiped out I felt. This might have been when the first-ever thought of its kind popped into my head.....I THINK I'M GETTING OLD.

2010

I won't give you my age this time. You do the math. But, old enough to know better. BIG PROB! I have a theory. Building a house is like having a baby. Shortly after giving birth you forget all the pain which allows you to stupidly do it again! At my age I need a surrogate. Any volunteers?

P.S.

This is that 8th grader now

By the way. That college kid? He did just fine without his mama. He has a family of his own. This is his beautiful wife and our adorable grandson last Thanksgiving.

Nervous Nellie

EXCEDRIN HEADACHE NO. 99

Tex took off work early and galloped up to the house to get me for another meeting with the architect. I swung up behind him onto the horse and we trotted off to Lewisville.



This is all I have been looking at for four months. Pages and pages of stuff like this. Makes my head swim and my eyes cross. My head hurts! I am in need of a seriously strong analgesic.

















It takes us 45 minutes to get to the architect in Lewisville, which is north of here. It takes us 45 minutes to get to the builder in Rendon, which is south of here. The ranch is an hour and 20 minute drive west of here. Do we intentionally make things hard on ourselves?




We sure don't look like future ranch dwellers, do we? NO, NO, TEX! NOT A TIE!










I kept it authentic. You can't see it in the picture above, but...............under the table I was wearing jeans and my Ariat cowboy boots. Just like athletes do, "visualize over and over and it will happen just like you see it in your mind," I'll dress the part and convince myself that someday we will live on the ranch.

No, I did not wear them one leg in and one leg out. Just wanted to show you my purtty "Sunday-go-to-meet'n" cowboy boots.

Nervous Nellie

WHY THE BLOG NAME?

In May 2008 we purchased a beautiful one acre bluff lot with a 30 mile view. I was excited about the prospect of building a new home out in the country on Clayton Mountain at the 7R Ranch. Later that year the economy started to tank and we got nervous. About seven months ago Tex decided we WERE going to have our "last hurrah" and nothing was going to stop us.


Tex and me on the ranch




Sunrise from the lot

I am not as gung-ho as Tex and have been slow to work up any enthusiasm whatsoever. Oh, the name of the blog? Well, the house will be on the edge of a cliff and I may very well jump off the cliff before this is over. I'm on the edge right now. Hard time sleeping and a mantra of "what-ifs" on a loop in my brain. The house plans are in the final stages with the architect right now---no dirt has been turned so we can still back out.

"Why the Casa?" you ask. Well, here in Texas everything printed is in both English and Spanish. I don't have time to do this blog in both so I'm compromising and going halvesies in the title...one English word, one Spanish word. At least if a Spanish-speaking person stumbles upon this site, they will know it is about a house.

(Nah. All the above is a bunch of bull. You wanna know the real reason? All 500 blog titles I came up with were already taken. Edgecliff Casa was at the bottom of the barrel. This blogging world is rougher than I thought!)

View from the road

View to the southeast

Oh, another little detail. I have never done a blog by myself....always had a blog manager/editor. My, don't I sound important!? This person refuses to do another blog for me and I am all on my own here. So, things might often be a bit screwy because I don't know what I'm doing and I apologize in advance. I did a little reading about blogging and it said you should post every day. Well, THAT isn't going to happen. I'll post whenever the urge strikes, when there is a new stage in the building process or I need to vent.

Come along for the ride and hang on tight. I have a feeling the road is going to be very bumpy!


Nervous Nellie