Baby, The Rain Must Fall

One week and 550 miles - that's what it took to almost empty the new little Jetta. We filled it up Friday evening with 13.5 gallons of diesel, and off we go again. If we get near the same mileage (almost 41 mpg) we should not need to fill again until next weekend. I can sure live with that!!!

I worked in Fulshear Saturday morning. With the frequent morning downpours, we didn't have much walk-in traffic, so I got most of my odds and ends finished. When I left for home, it began to rain again, but not too heavy.....until I got almost to East Bernard. By then, it was raining very hard, so I pulled off into a service station parking lot. I had my iPhone weather radar and watched for a slack time in the rain. I stayed in East Bernard about an hour before the rain subsided enough to allow me to continue toward home.

Once home, I had a message from Lisa to call her. It was still raining a little, and I figured I would have better reception outside anyway, so I just stayed in the car. The rains came again, and I was able to escape from the car to the house after about half an hour!

A couple of hours later...and much more rain....I ventured out to retrieve Taylor from a birthday party. The rain had quit, but the waters were still rising on some of the streets. My new little Jetta does pretty well as a boat! When Taylor and I got home, the rains came again. After another trip to and from town for a play, we saw the water in our almost-dry creek had almost reached its capacity. My guess is that we had somewhere between 8 and 12 inches of rain around our house. I know our 5 inch gauge would not have held all the rain.

Today the waters have started to recede a lot, but the creek is still full. The corn plants close to our house must have grown 6 inches overnight! Our new grass area turned much greener with all that water. Even if it was a little much packed into a short time, we are so thankful for the rain that no one is complaining!!

Easter Comings and Goings

Travis and I took the Jetta out on the road to El Campo Sunday afternoon to see who we could find at home.

We stopped at MeMaw's for a long visit and watched some of the Astros' game. We left her a container of Travis' wonderful baked beans.

From there we went to Mimi's house and visited a while. We did some computer tax adjustment and left some baked beans for her to enjoy, too.

Mimi tried out the back seat of the new car as we went to Kim's house (Lance was flying back from Augusta, GA.) Heather and Crystal showed us the new puppies - 4 chubby little darlings - half Bassett Hound and half Labrador.....interesting. Heather demonstrated her softball pitching technique. She is taking lessons so she can start pitching for her team.

We took Mimi home and stopped by Lisa's house. We were entertained by Taylor on the guitar and Casey on the drums of Rock Band. They are pretty good! David came home from the farm in time for us to enjoy a good visit. Before we left, we talked him into a demonstration of his self-designed and self-built log splitter. That is a really great machine!

We came home to a wonderful voice mail from Laure wishing us a Happy Easter. Travis called them back and talked to Laure, Tommy, and each of the kids (I had visited with Laure quite a while on Saturday.)

It was a wonderful Easter day. We spent it with family in a way we have never done before.... and I really enjoyed it.

VW Jetta for Easter

We have been talking about checking into more economical transportation for a while. I did some research and narrowed down the choices to 3 different vehicles. Since I got off work early Friday, we made a rapid trip to Houston to LOOK at the choices. We liked all of the choices, but only one REALLY made good economic sense. The salesman was very nice, gave us a test drive car, and made us a good deal, so we signed away our lovely Town and Country minivan and purchased a VW Jetta TDI (diesel).

We picked up the car this evening and drove a little farther to have supper with Rebecca and Danny. It will take a little adjustment after the years of vans and minivans, but I think I really like this little car. It is roomy, has a few bells and whistles, and handles very nicely. The really good thing is that I won't have to fill it up as often. It is supposed to get between 40 and 50 miles to the gallon. Travis is still amazed that the little car doesn't clatter like his diesel pickups. And it doesn't stink, either. The other feature that allowed us to trade off our T&C is that four people can actually ride COMFORTABLY in the car. (Becca and Danny tested it by riding behind Travis and me on the way to get supper.)

Everyone have a blessed and Happy Easter!!!

March Madness

It is hard to believe that it has been almost a month since my last post. Things have been very busy, but I can't really tell you what I have accomplished....pretty much just home-to-work-to-home.

The past four mornings have been SOOO foggy that I have been late to work every day. I wait until the fog lifts somewhat.....our bosses are really great about stressing safety over punctuality. I'll really be glad to see the sun in my eyes again!

Our out-of-town granddaughters, Kayla and Avery, have been in and out during Spring break. I wish I could have taken time off to be with them more. We miss them so much when they are gone.

Today is daughter Laure's xx birthday. Happy Birthday, Laure!!

Common Sense

We spent this afternoon listening to Rush Limbaugh, Mike Huckabee, and Glen Beck. Why don't the other media people understand what these folks seem to be able to grasp easily? Where has our good morality and common sense gone? I pray that we are able to see the day that eyes are open to truth and that our nation can return to freedom and economic common sense.

Tomorrow will be 'tax time' as a few of us will gather to prepare tax returns for 2008. Fun, fun fun!!!

Where did Spring go? Winter seems to have returned to our area......brrrrrr. I was enjoying the balmy temperatures, although we sure could use a rain. Can you believe tomorrow is already MARCH? At this rate, Christmas is just around the corner!

Clear All Around

Wow! The difference in the pictures on our televisions is incredible! Even the non-HD channels are clearer. I guess the extra expense will be worth it with the quality. I don't think there is as much eye strain, either.

I'm glad I cleaned some before the installer came. However, I didn't prepare for the extensive work he had to do, and Travis had to help him clear a path to the attic through my sewing room.....heavens!! Oh well, at least it was not someone I KNOW.

Sure was hard being inside today.....the sun was shining and the temperature was pretty pleasant. I had to be content to view it from my desk. Maybe this weekend will be nice, and I can enjoy some time in my lovely yard.

Rushing Spring

Tomorrow we take our televisions to another technological level. We received new Dishnetwork 'smart cards' in the mail the other day, so today was going to be a short task of installing them in our receivers.....right? The first one (upstairs den) went smoothly. We were checking out the channels and began to talk about upgrading to HD. However, after almost an hour of punching buttons on the remote, we gave up trying to find out HOW to upgrade.

We went to the upstairs room over the garage where the other receiver has been. It hasn't been hooked up in over a year because it was causing problems with the main receiver. Thinking this might fix it, we decided to install the new card. When we turned the receiver on, it said it was not authorized.....call this number. After finally finding a real live person and going through several unsuccessful tries to get the machine to recognize its authorization, I asked the lady (a real nice lady) how to upgrade to HD. "Oh," she said, "you have to get new receivers. And the one like you have now will not get HD downstairs....that will take an additional receiver [at an additional $$ fee]. And to DVR on both of them, you will have to pay an additional monthly fee."  

Well, long story short....we will get two new receivers for the house. We will not replace the one over the garage. That will be for movies and games only.

Since they will be coming in the morning to install the new equipment, I began cleaning, dusting, vacuuming, sorting, etc. in the bedroom to make room for the new receiver. Whew!!!! I have stirred up a lot of dust. Guess this is just a head start on Spring Cleaning.