Category: House and home Page 1 of 15

We love our new house, but our yard, all the way around the house, is a mess. It is all dirt, but not so much topsoil. There is erosion from surface water runoff in some places. And biggest of all, we have to start from scratch on a two acre yard.

Today, a group of Master Gardeners came out to the place to give us some advice. It was amazing how much information and helpful tips they were able to pass on to us. We were very grateful and Lorena hopes to join their program this coming January. Also, it seems like a whole lot more tractable problem that it did before the visit.

This is one of those Grandma Jenkins style reports. News about nothing, but fun to write. Yesterday, Lorena notified me that our box springs were too tall, so I got on line and ordered a 5″ tall queen box springs from Walmart. Amazingly, it arrived today, we put it together, and installed it. I have to admit it was quite a nice experience all the way around. There were virtually ZERO bolts or fasteners to install. We unfolded it, installed some friction fit cross braces, added the cloth covering and replaced our current tall box springs with this much shorter one. It is much more functional. A big win.

The image to the right is the view from our temporary exercise room/volunteer research office until we have time and resources to finish out the bonus room over the garage. It is nice now, but it should be a lot better when we get the lawn and garden a little more under control. To that end, we have a Master Gardner class from the Virginia Tech extension service to come and give us some tips to get us started. Lorena is hoping to start their Master Gardner program. We set up the room

Slowly, but surely, the house is coming together. We purchased a BUNCH of blinds that were efficiently and professionally installed today. It finally feels like we are no longer living in a fishbowl.

Lorena was very skeptical about the idea of composting when she first heard about. It involved table scraps, egg shells, used coffee grounds, and all other kinds of nasty stuff. She slowly bought into the whole process after I browbeat her into trying it. I think her Monterrey “thriftiness” guided her thinking–all that STUFF that went into the compost pile could reduce her gardening costs by replacing some of the fertilizer and high grade soil she bought for her raised beds. Now, after putting the first batch of organic refuse into the compost bin, she can hardly wait until she has put in enough that soil conversion starts taking place and we can buy a couple boxes of earthworms to throw in there to help the process along. Incidentally, this is the biggest composting container we have ever had and you can see she is quite happy with it.

I think Lorena is actually going to be kind of sad when the house is all organized. Right now she is playing Mrs. Fixit. First, she wanted to water the lawn, but the hose ends were loose and leaky so we ran down to Home Depot and bought a couple of repair kits to fix that. Then, she wanted to set up her computer desk in the master bedroom so we pulled the beautiful walnut desk we are keeping for Christian and is not, quite happily, putting that together–I get to set up the computer when that is done, but she will not let me touch anything that has to do with screw drivers, wrenches, pliers, and hammers. She is just amazing. Who knew I was marrying a plumber these many years ago.

Lorena has moved from fixing toilets to installing washing machines and she owes it all the the fact that I am too fat to sit on the washing machine without denting it. She did a fabulous job.

The one “feature” of our house that we have not really figured out yet is the narrow, no-landing staircase that leads to the second floor. Putting big stuff up on the second floor would require us to get a lift or a boom of some kind and passing them through an upstairs window because some of the stuff we have will not fit through the stairway openings. It is hassle more than cost, but it made us realize that there are only two of us and it makes sense to live on the first floor and use the upstairs for visitors. To that end, we have decided to eliminate a few things, put up a couple of walls to create a downstairs office, finish out our bonus room upstairs with a mini-split so that we can cool and heat a single room rather than the entire second floor, and then just use the upstairs for when the kids come and to maybe do exercises and watch movies in the bonus room.

The truck from Texas arrived and was unloaded yesterday. As always, there was a lot of broken stuff. With so much experience moving around, you would think we would have this all figured out. Actually, maybe we do have it figured out. Things will go wrong. At any rate, everything is in the house and in the garage. Now all we need is a few months to get everything put into place.

Lorena and I have been just hanging out in the house waiting for the moving truck to arrive and for broadband internet. We got notice a couple of days that the truck broke down and heard yesterday it will be two days late. If we had comfortable chairs here, that would not be so bad, but we do not. As for the broadband internet, we are still in limbo, but hope to learn next week whether any of the cable companies are willing to pull wire to our house. If they do not, our only option will be StarLink. It is a little slow and a little expensive, but we can survive with that.

Our new house is next door to what I think is just a hobby farm. The have sheep and chickens we have been enjoying very much. So far we have only seen a couple of sheep–a white one and a brown one so maybe they are a 4-H project. That almost makes it better if that is true. We cannot wait until our moving truck gets here so we can use our binoculars to get a little better luck.

The tractor for the truck with all our stuff broke down so it will not arrive until Sunday or Monday (hopefully) rather than tomorrow as previously planned. A minor setback.

Christian has a great car. Since he is living in a place where he does not really need one, we have been keeping it for him in Texas. We hope to get it licensed under our name so we can use it in Virginia. We made arrangements to have it picked up and delivered a week or two after we arrive. Only a few days left.

We are only a week and a day from our move to Virginia. We are starting to get stuff checked off in our to-do list. The moving truck is ordered, the money has been moved to the right places so we can make the payment, the airline tickets are purchased to fly from Mexico to Texas, and transportation to the airport in Mexico and from the airport in Texas is arranged. We still need to get hotels arranged for the drive. We also found out that our car is not adequate to pull a car trailer, so we will have to get that shipped before after we get to Virginia. At least now everything seems to be a little more under control.

One of our real estate agents sent me this photo this morning of the view looking out of the living room toward our neighbor to the east for the house we are working on buying.. He told us the neighbor has sheep that graze on the other side of the trees from the house. Lorena and I are very much looking forward to that view in the mornings and the evenings. It can also be seen from the screen porch at the back of the house.