GOOD SIDE, BAD SIDE

Good side, bad side, front side, back side. Who knew Tex had a bad side.



Honest truth. We were selecting hardware yesterday and as we were finishing up I remembered to take a few pics. When I started to take a picture of Tex, he whipped off his glasses and he said, "You're taking it from my bad side." He was serious and a bit miffed.

(Ok, ok, I know, another Texas star. I have the star on the front door, teeny-tiny ones on the back of the dining chairs and now I have two of these. That's it, I promise. You'll have to look to see where I put these when you visit.)

Now, would you look at the picture Tex took of me sans makeup, slathered with night cream and, yes, those are my Black Friday pj's.

I don't have a good side, Tex. Snap away!

Nervous Nellie

BLACK FRIDAY??

Black Friday today? I thought Black Friday was last Friday. You talk about BLACK! Last Friday was my Black Friday. Let me walk you through a real Black Friday.

You remember that last Thursday I posted about the hole for the septic tank and me wanting to jump in. That was Thursday. This was the next day, Friday. Oh, did I mention it was a BLACK FRIDAY?

5:30 AM - Get up. We always get up during the week at 5:30. I'm one of those old-fashioned wives that gets up with her husband and makes him breakfast. I even take coffee to him while he's shaving. I pack his lunch. (If you must know, the real reason I do this is not out of the goodness of my heart......I'm trying my best to make the next wife's life miserable. Let her try to top this!)

10:00 AM - Go back to bed. Can't go to sleep so I get up at noon.

12:00 Noon - Eat lunch.

1:00 PM - Go back to bed. This time I sleep.

2:30 PM - Get up. Get out of my jammies and take a shower.

6:30 PM - Serve Tex a dinner that included yummy, home-made mac and cheese. (Just another attempt at making the next wife look inferior.)

7:45 PM - Am back in bed in my jammies again. I read until 8:15 and then turn out the light and drift off to a land where they don't build houses and dig holes for septic tanks.


So, there you have it. A real Black Friday. I am happy to annouce that I have fully recovered from my funk.......sort of. Now I'm nervous about the color of the stain. Is it too dark? Will the paint colors I've chosen look good? Maybe I should have waited to get the furniture after the house is finished.

I'm pretty sure the next wife is going to be Calm, Cool Cathy. Tex might just be getting a little fed up with the spouse he's got right now.


Nervous Nellie

OUR TURKEY DAY

What a shock. It was 82 yesterday and has been warm for a week. This morning when we left at 10:00 it was 36. I would like to ease into winter.....not be plunged into frigidity.

The empty space to the left of the white truck is Tex's parking space for his car. You can see his little truck on the far side, far left. My car is in a garage unit. Thankfully, in a month we'll be able to give up two of the three parking spaces we're paying for!

This is what the Texas fall color looks like out our apartment windows.

My chariot, with Tex driving, awaits as:

OUT OF THE PARKING LOT
THROUGH THE METROPLEX,
OFF TO THE SMOKESTACK WE GO!

This is the Smokestack restaurant in Thurber, just a couple miles down the road from the Gordon exit off I-20. We met a 7R neighbor for Thanksgiving dinner at noon. The Smokestack made 200 Thanksgiving dinners and all they asked was a donation for the food pantry. What a wonderful thing for them to do! What a wonderful thing for me. I didn't have to cook and didn't have to clean up after. (FYI, family - this is our new Thanksgiving tradition!)

This is THE Smokestack across the parking lot from the restaurant. Thurber used to be a thriving coal town of 10,000 in the early 1900's. The population now is 25. The restaurant is in what used to be the general store.

Lookie, lookie, lookie! A mailbox! Last time we were out at the house the block with the 900 was wrapped in plastic sitting on top. You can see the debris in the road from cutting out the space for the address block.

Do you think we should keep the port-a-potty? Might come in handy for parties.

Just as you come in off the garage this is what you see. This is my desk.

This is opposite my desk.....a bench with drawers underneath and cabinets and a place for coat hooks. The laundry room is through the door to the left.

All the cabinets are in. The hall to the garage is just to the right of the space where the refrigerator will be.

Another view of the kitchen. All the woodwork and the cabinets are going to be stained a dark walnut with the exception of the island and all the cabinetry in the laundry room and off the garage entrance. Those are to be painted a light olive green, distressed and wiped with a brown glaze. Who knows what that is going to look like. I'm just praying I'm going to get what I think I'm going to get. Sometimes, what is in your head turns out very different in reality.

The cabinets have to be stained and painted and the walls painted. They've put in the wood on the stairs and upper hall but have to let it acclimate for two weeks before they can scrape and stain. The light fixtures have to be installed as well as the hardware for cabinets and doors. The garage doors aren't here yet. The driveway has to be done.......but, that is the very last thing.

Who knows when it will be finished.

Hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. We sure did. Old Nellie has a lot to be thankful for! (Except for this persistent running on of the paragraphs in my postings. Arrrgggg!)

Nervous Nellie

(Good grief! The preview showed the paragraphs running together......like they have in so many of the past posts. Then I post, and see that they were fine this time. The blogging gods are having their fun with me. Well, not for much longer, you little imps! The house is almost finished, I will be done with blogging and you won't have me to toy with any longer!)

PICK'N PIECES

Saturday morning we had to make a trip to Granbury to finalize the tile and carpet choices. We had run into some glitches and needed to change a couple things. This stone for the backsplash in the kitchen is the last puzzle piece in the tile selection.

When we finished up with that we walked around the historic downtown square and courthouse. As we walked along I heard a siren's call. "Nellie, Nellie, I vant you to come to me. Come through my doors and experience nirvana."

If I hadn't hear that voice, I would never have looked to my right. The voice came from way back behind the stores on the square. There was actually a vacant lot between two stores and the Wagon Yard sat back and wasn't accessible by vehicle from the square. Luckily, there was a walkway and we headed right for the store. "Tex, follow me. I hear a calling."



I know where I want to put this piece. Hope it fits.

Procured, in our apartment and wrapped for transport.

Then I saw these pillows at a bargain price. I've been looking at cowhide pillows and they've all been so expensive. I pounced on these. We also got a cowhide rug for the floor in the office but I can't take a picture of it. Too big to spread out in this apartment. I should have taken a picture in the store but while we were deciding whether or not to buy it I saw somebody else paw it and I panicked. Tex quickly got the salesperson and they got it down for us.

We spent quite a while in the Wagon Yard and then loaded our things and moseyed on down the road towards home. Along the way we stopped at a couple antique places. Phil called while we were in one store and told us that two loads of cabinets had been delivered to the house and one more would be coming on Monday. All cabinets should be in by the end of the day Monday. Glory, hallelujah!

I found this cute little 11" high fan at one antique place. I know where I want to put this piece, too.

These are the latest pieces I've collected to jam into the puzzle......even if I have to jump up and down stomping on them.......I'm determined to make them fit. Yup, this could be one ugly jigsaw puzzle by the time I'm through with it.

Nervous Nellie

DIGGING A HOLE

Can't decide. Is it for me or for the septic tank?







I'm at the lowest point I've been in over a year. Really low.











The cabinets are supposed to be in tomorrow......running well over two weeks behind. We probably won't be in the house for Christmas. The mother and father of my only grandchild had planned to come visit the week between Christmas and New Years. The other son said if we were not in the house by Christmas he would be hunting on his deer lease Christmas weekend.




Oh.....the hole? I don't know if they're still digging or not. Yesterday they hit solid rock at 2 1/2 to 3 feet down. I think a septic tank has to be 7 to 8 feet. Isn't a grave only 6 feet? They might as well stop there. I can jump in now, save Tex money and save myself from going over the cliff. You know that the drop from the edge of the cliff is gonna be more than 6 feet.



Nervous Nellie

STRESS=NOSHING

Cabinets still not in. Over two weeks behind. Holding up everything. Christmas and moving in now looking like a head-on collision. I'm stressed and noshing constantly. This is how Saturday played out. Pretty much like any other day lately.


9:30 - Tile place. Krispy Kreme donuts on counter. No willpower. Eat donut. Tex doesn't touch one but he takes a piece of mine and it makes me mad.


10:30 - Granite place. Change mind about master bath granite. This is making me crazy. Am very stressed.






1:30 - Lunch. "Chips with that sandwich?" I say, "Sure, why not. Oh, and make that sweetened iced tea." I pout when Tex won't let me have a cookie.

2:30 - Carpet place. Stressed about picking the right color. Can't decide. No food there so we leave.

3:00 - Costco. Went for rolls of clear plastic shelf liner and vitamins. Go on grazing frenzy eating samples of peppermint bark, chicken wings, chocolate covered candies, cinnamon rolls, yogurt, flatbread with hummus and I don't even like hummus.

4:00 - Another carpet place. I am so tired of picking out things. I glance around and see there is no food here so we quickly pick out a carpet. Voila......just like that. Don't give it all that much thought. Just gitt'er done.

6:00 - Home. Eat leftover chicken tacos from Chili's that we brought home Friday night. We have eaten out more in these last four months than we have in the last four years.

7:00 - Eat half a bag of these. We buy two bags every time we go to Costco. They are sooooooooo good. Great with a glass of red wine.

If it ain't nailed down, I'm eat'n it. This house better be finished real soon or I'm two-ton Nellie. I'm already up to one ton.

Nervous Nellie

HE'S KING OF THE WORLD

Now, picture this. If Tex had just turned around and spread his arms.......and, if there was water below.......wouldn't he look like Leonardo Dicaprio on the bow of the Titanic in the movie? When I took this picture, that's what popped into my mind. Maybe I've lost my mind. What do you think?



Thank you, I'll wait until the decking is on before I venture out.

Our deck will be a "two-drink limit."

I can't wait until all this stone work is finished and the patio can be cleaned. It is still covered in white dust. I want to SEE the Oklahoma flagstone. The steel railing has to be primed and painted.

This is the view from the top of the steps looking down.

Tex can keep a good supply of firewood by the fireplace. Tex can be the one to grab a log to throw on the fire. I'm not going near those firewood storage places. Don't ya just know the rattlers at 900 Post Oak Road can't wait to check out their new digs! Oh, no. Nellie is not going near those.

I'm a tad worried about this tree that is right outside the dining room window. I think it's going to croak. We won't know until next spring, but a couple months ago it looked more yellow than it's kinfolk around the lot. The sermon this morning at church was "Winning Over Worry." Perfect sermon for Nellie. Will one time do it.......or do I need to go to the office and get the tape to listen to daily?

Most of the trim work is done. I wish I could get a good picture of the pantry shelves beside and beneath the stairs. I was flabbergasted! You talk about making good use of space! Still no cabinets in the house. Ugh. I'm wondering if we'll be in by Christmas.

This is the master closet. The cabinet maker is making a six drawer dresser that goes beneath the window. This is my side of the closet.

This is another view of my side of the closet.

This is Tex's side of the closet. Well, technically, his side is only the first section you see. I get the space on the far side of the cubbies.

Tex may be the King of the World, but Nellie is Queen of the Closet.

Amen and Goodnight!

Nervous Nellie

PUZZLE PIECES

Do you know what this building process is like for me? It's like wearing a blindfold while trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together. I've got all these pieces.

BIG PIECES

LITTLE PIECES

I'm clumsily feeling my way along picking out all the pieces and trying to fit them together. I have a sinking feeling that when I take the blindfold off there will be pieces on top of each other, pieces upside down and pieces jammed into places they don't fit. It could be ugly.

You know, consensous in the medical field is that doing puzzles is one way to keep your mind sharp. My independent research shows otherwise. This should be shown to every older person who is thinking about building a house.

WARNING: Individuals over age 60 may experience life threatening side effects while attempting to assemble house building puzzle pieces. YOUR BRAIN COULD EXPLODE FROM EXTREME OVERLOAD.

Nervous Nellie

SNEAK PEEK

Last Thursday we had to make a quick trip out to the ranch. I snapped a couple of pictures of the back porch. This is after I had them tear it apart and start all over. They should have the big posts set into the stone columns by now (those in the picture are just temporary supports) and they should be stained. See what I mean? Can you imagine those lower stone bed walls coming in to steps that are only 4 feet wide? Soooooo glad I changed that.



They were still working on the flagstone path and the two patio areas last week. The metal guy couldn't get through to the back yard with his welding machine (for the deck footing) because the side was blocked with stone. The deck is going to be on that rock outcropping at the edge of the lot.

The fireplace is going to be at the back there on the left. The stone is covered with dust and crud. It won't look so white when they are finished and it is cleaned. It is darker than the house stone.

Had problems AGAIN getting my pictures on the computer. Last night Tex finally got around to doing whatever it is he does tweaking this relic so I can do whatever it is that I do. This post would have been done days ago if I hadn't had problems. Aaarrgh! I don't need a new house..........I need a new 'puter!!!

Nervous Nellie