Life

This post is going to jump around a lot, and doesn't have many pictures. I've got a LOT to cover. 

Do you ever look back at old pictures of yourself and just cringe? Like whole body cringe? I have so many past pictures that cause involuntary facial spasms, especially from the 80s and 90s. What was I thinking? Was that the ACTUAL STYLE of the times, or was I just "eclectic"??

Yesterday I had many similar thoughts as I looked back on this blog. Why did I use that blog template? What made me chose that title? Why did I think X, Y, or Z was a good topic to post about? Did I do photo shoots in a cave?

Let's be real... some of these pictures are so bad I can't believe I posted them. Not that I'm a banging photographer now, but at least my photos aren't so dang DARK. One of these days maybe I'll invest in an actual camera setup. 

I'm leaving the old posts/photos for several reasons. It's fun to look back on and see my thought processes of the time. It's also nice because in 2017 I had a phone die and lost ALL my pictures... about 4 years worth. So it's good seeing some of these again, even if they are dark and grainy. Like the Newberg dollhouse! I was so tickled to see those original pictures in that post because it's now ripped apart and in a box.

I've decided to dust off this blog and start posting again because I like writing. And talking. I get ADHD laser focused and want to chat about my current interests alllll the time (as my husband can attest). Also, I've heard horror stories about people who have lost their Instagram account for no reason and haven't able to get it back. I don't have lots of storage available on my phone, so I generally delete pictures after I post them. It'll be nice to have all of them here as a *backup just in case that ever happens again. 

Speaking of Instagram, I've been pretty active there lately, but it's not really the place for long captions.  Sometimes I've written out a whoooole caption for a picture and then deleted most of it because it seemed more like a blog post. I don't even know if people read blogs anymore. Even if they don't, this is a good way for me to be as wordy as I like with the pictures I have.

I'm doing it for me, mkay? And also for my mom. Hi, Mom!

Moving on and catching up, in late 2017 my husband and I bought a fixer upper in Waco and made the move from McKinney. We chose Waco mostly because it was the halfway point between family in Dallas and family in Austin. My dad and grandparents lived in Waco, too, and they were getting older so we wanted to be around if they needed anything.

We found a great house with lots (to us) of room. Here's the original listing photo. 

You can barely see anything with all the overgrowth, but when that photo popped into my feed on realtor.com, I got actual chills. I. Just. Knew.

It has 12' ceilings, transom windows over all the doors, old, wavy glass in most of the 8' windows (which we're restoring, not ripping out), and is situated on almost half an acre. There's even a craft room twice the size of the one I had in McKinney! It's PERFECT for us.

Maybe not so perfect for our budget. Ha! 

So far we've gotten the foundation repaired, replaced the roof, had the plumbing and electricity redone, and gotten the brick skirting rebuilt. We're paying as we go so it does take us a while to get the funds together, which is why it takes so long between projects. All that's left really is cosmetic work (doing that ourselves) and HVAC (currently saving for). We're plugging away, slowly but surely.

Not long after we moved to Waco, my grandmother passed away. I regret that we weren't able to spend more time with her, but am so glad we were there for my grandfather ("Pop") these last few years. Pop died this year too, unfortunately... exactly 1 hour and 11 minutes after my birthday, in fact. I like to believe he waited for the next day intentionally. I sure miss him.

I bought this mug for him at a Cracker Barrel 10+ years ago. I don't know why I bought it... he didn't drink coffee and never used a mug... but I suppose I liked that it had his name on it. It spent the remainder of it's time displayed on their mantle, until I took it back to use as a paintbrush holder after he died. It makes me smile. The back says "The best job I've ever had is being a grandfather". He certainly was the best at that.

Did I mention I'm still working in Dallas? No?

We made that choice because--naively--we thought it would only take a year, max, to restore the house. <maniacal laughter> November will be 5 YEARS since we started the process.

Waco doesn't have many opportunities other than hospitality or working for Amazon/Baylor. At this point, my knees are too creaky to wait tables, I won't work for Bezos, and I don't have a degree. I've even seen entry level grunt work positions advertised as requiring higher education. I've heard that is turning around so hopefully by the time the house is finished enough not to have major expenditures, I'll be able to find... something. 

I'm not a complete psychopath so I don't make that commute every day. I stay with our daughter at her apartment in Dallas during the week and come home on the weekends. I have the option to work from home Mondays and Fridays and if we had HVAC, that would be a pretty sweet setup. As it is now, I generally only do that in the spring and fall when temperatures are comfortable enough to sit at my craft room desk for 8 hours. 

It's not the most ideal situation. Of course I'd prefer to be with my husband Every. Single. Day., but we have a vision and are doing what it takes to make it work for now. 

So if you're ever confused by a picture that looks as though it's been taken in a somewhat modern and fixed up structure ("thought she lived in a shack?!"), you can safely assume it was taken in Dallas. Like this one, which is the wonky exterior of a room box I haven't yet decided what to do with:

Likewise, any picture taken in a ramshackle place with **shiplap on the walls is my actual house. 

For now I'm just doing smaller room boxes and scenes that I can keep in Dallas. The extreme heat and cold have done a number on the glue used in various structures, so keeping things at the apartment helps them not fall completely apart. We hope to be able to get climate control soon(ish) so I can start working on my bigger projects again.

That's where I've been all these years.

*Yes, I know you can store things out on the cloud but I DON'T WANT to. It skeeves me out.

** That is actual shiplap, not just plain planks nailed to the wall. It's how this house was built in 1920.