Well I wish I could say our whole house buying week went well.

It has not.

We closed.

The seller was "cleaning the floors" when we did our final walk-through.

To make a long story, a long-long story short.

They destroyed the floors by using the wrong product and then made it worse by using a second wrong product to try to fix it.

We are in negotiations about repairs or replacement of the wood floors.

I am NOT a happy camper.

Good thing it's green beer day.  Oh wait, I don't like beer.....

Once again I will be running to raise money for brain cancer research.

In 1982 my mom died from brain cancer.  I can't even tell you what "type" of cancer it was, at that time it was just plain old cancer.  And it took my mom.  This year I will turn 54, the same age my mom was when she died.  I am only now recognizing how incredibly young she was.

Please consider donating to the Marnie Rose foundation in honor of my mom or anyone else you might know who has dealt with brain cancer.

You can donate to our team, Team Margaret here

. Click on a team member's name to give them credit for the donation or the Team's General Donation link for a team donation.

Thank you! (and may the speediest family member win!)

There is this billboard on the highway I often drive.  It is of a beautiful young girl with a rather pouty look on her face.  Young and fresh faced yet seductive.  Purposely so.  The billboard advertises the "Joy Gentlemen's Club".  Read strip joint.

I read a story about a young girl that had gone missing a couple of years ago and her family had been searching for her.  They were told she was most likely dead as there had been no activity on her cell phone and there were other tell-tale signs that foul play had taken place.  One day they were driving down the road and spotted their daughter on a billboard advertising a phone "companion" service.  Read phone sex.  They immediately called and got the police involved and it turned out the company located in another state had just bought her photo as part of a package of stock photos.  The police determined the company had no knowledge of the girl.  The family was devastated that the picture of their daughter was now a fifteen foot image in their city and was used to advertise sexual services.  They failed in their attempts to get the company to remove the advertisement and have since discovered their daughter's image has been used online on several porn sites.

Tonight driving by that sign I wondered about the young lady pictured on the billboard.  Did she choose to have her image used in such a manner?  If so I wonder what her family thinks of it.  I can't imagine being a mom and showing my daughter's picture and saying proudly, "she's the top performer on the pole at her club and she might even get promoted to a cage....."

On a different topic I discovered the worst feature of the new house.  It is only three blocks from Mission Burrito.

Was filled with these two little blessings.

I have the joy of watching Daria and Savva this weekend while their mom and dad escape for a "pre-baby" weekend.  So far so good.  Savva is pretty much captivated with the toilet and is constantly saying, "go potty grandma" and the amazing this is he manages to squeeze something out every time so I'm reluctant to tell him no because he just went.  Hate to cause regression over the weekend.  He will be two in June so he's doing this early compared to his sister, a happy thing for his mom because she really didn't want two in diapers.  (She's due in July)

Daria is busy trying out a new lite brite that I got a while back.  She's being very creative with her picture making skills.  It's hard to believe that not only is Otto almost seven but the girls are all five.  If it doesn't rain we will be working outside moving the garden boxes and getting a new garden set up in a different, sunnier location.  That's the plan.

Life has been extremely confusing and busy these past few weeks.

We went to Colorado for a business/pleasure trip.  I was only a couple of hours from my family and was very sad that I couldn't slip over and see them but the structure of the trip prevented it.  The first few days were all social but a "required" type of social.  We were in Telluride and we were there for skiing.  My husband and I chose to ski two of the three days sitting out the middle day.  We only ski about once a year and there was no need to try to keep up and end up hurting ourselves.  Telluride was beautiful as it always is.  The town is very unique being a total tourist town.  I think most of the residents must go to Montrose to shop because the wares in their shops were not at all of the practical variety or even slightly affordable.  Even for me!  It is also full of eclectic little coffee shops and art galleries.  I was told the coffee was always excellent (I don't drink coffee despite it's absolutely tantalizing and wonderful scent) and the art was very expensive.  And sometimes odd.

Main Street View of Telluride

I went and found a park on the outskirts of town where I traipsed around in the snow and enjoyed a bit of solitude.

The bike shop we walked past to get to everything.  Telluride is not a drive friendly town due to parking so you walk everywhere, but it's all close so it isn't too hard, even at an altitude we aren't used to.  (The town sits at 8700 ft. and the ski area goes up to 12,500 ft.)

Why does every sign end up covered in stickers?  It's true of almost every ski town I've been in.

The coffee shop on Main Street.  We personally liked the head skewered on the deer's antlers.

Yes!  You can delight your senses and impress your art friends with a cardboard box covered in newspaper with a witty saying pasted on it.  All for only $20!

I just liked this little bicycle that had been left in the snow.  It seemed like it's own art piece.

This is me on the run Seeforever.  It is at the top of the mountain above the tree line.  You really could see forever.  Miles and miles in every direction.   Skiing was good.  My husband and I were basically left on our own so we just skied together and enjoyed ourselves.  Thanks to ski pants I was a happy camper.  I can't believe I used to ski in blue jeans, I was crazy.

After the skiing in Telluride we were in Cortez, Colorado for meetings.  Well my husband was in meetings.  The wives were left to their own devices.  We were supposed to be at a bar-b-que on Tuesday afternoon but I begged off and had a fantastic lunch with an old friend.  She and I lived in the same town in New Mexico for years and I had not been able to spend any real amount of time with her in years.  She has MS and is in a wheelchair and doesn't get out very often but her daughter brought her into town, picked me up and we sat at Tequila's (a Mexican food restaurant naturally) for about three hours laughing and talking and catching up.  It was such a good time.  I got back to the hotel to hear about half raw chicken and a cold bar-b-que so I think I had the better deal.  Wednesday we were in Durango and we went shopping (I went looking) while our husbands finished up with yet another meeting.  I would say about half the trip was enjoyable.  But that means it was a success.

Since getting home we have been very busy with a few life changes.  We are in the process of buying a house.  This house will "solve" a few problems with my husband's commute and also be a good rental in the years to come.  It is just six minutes from his office and is wedged onto a small lot between an interstate and a bayou. 

Yes, that is one tall house that is five feet from it's neighbor.  It will be about 2 1/2 feet from the neighbor on the other side.  When I say wedged, I mean wedged.  The selling realtor kept talking about what a "great big" yard we had.... it's about 10' x 20'.  After my acre and a half I found her definition of "big" funny.  The main selling point of this house is that it has it's own driveway.  In this part of town they are tearing down old houses and putting four or five houses up on the same lot and they all share a driveway.  That was not something we wanted to do.  We like having our own driveway and found by the sales rate of houses that had private drives that a lot of other people do too.

If you understand anything about Houston you know the bayou is more of a concern than the freeway.  It is on White Oak Bayou but they have built it up almost five feet so it is well above the flood plain.  And we have an elevation certificate to prove it.    Needless to say we will be buying flood insurance anyway. 

This is what is behind the house.  One major ditch.  During a heavy rain it will run from bank to bank.

It is in a very hot and "hip" area of Houston and it will take some getting used to living there.  The house is nice and will be a good "part time" place.  The plan is that my husband will be at the 2nd house Monday night - Thursday night and I will be there from Tuesday to Thursday nights.  (I have commitments near home on Monday nights)  Then we will both be home over the weekends.  We really struggled with this decision, for me it is hard to think of being away from my grandkids and kids even for four days.  I know that sounds kind of hokey but I'm just so used to seeing them almost every day.  But I keep being told that it will be a good thing for all of us.  Don't know if that means I'm a bit over-bearing or what but I trust it is going to be okay.  The best part will be my husband will no longer be tied up in traffic for such a large part of his day.  Traffic has gotten very bad and they are starting construction on different highways he uses (in hopes of alleviating the traffic woes) and his 40 mile commute is taking up to 90 minutes each way.  He was leaving the house every morning before six and getting home around 8:30 or 9:00 at night.  And three hours of that was driving.  I think he is quite excited at the possibility of spending more time at home, or a 2nd home.

The whole process has been difficult for me.  We are having to prove clean title (it was a builder that went bankrupt) and get the house finished, negotiate repairs, and many other "issues".  When we have bought other houses it's always been pretty straight forward and I could put a face to the seller.  In this case I can't and I'm dealing with a faceless corporation.  I don't like that.  I like dealing with people.

Hopefully we are not going to regret this but if worse comes to worse rent in this area of town for a house this size is now running about $2800 a month so we can always find renters.  (Rental property is currently in great need with only a 2% available for occupancy rate in Houston).

But until it's over and we sign the papers I think I'm going to be a nervous wreck.

I am in Telluride, Colorado.  I always remember the story that my dad told of how they would announce the city on the train as "to-hell-you-ride" and have to say that last night I felt as though I was in hell.  Thanks to my sister she reminded me it's not hell, it's just Babylon.  And thanks to her wise words and encouragement today was good and I feel better prepared for the rest of this trip.  I am thankful for someone who encourages me in God and listens to me cry.

Fergal is one year old today.  He opened his presents last night and his favorite was a book from his great-grandmother Heisler.  It made noise.

His mother's favorite "gift" was the bag I put the bathtub toys I gave him in.  She said it just seemed like a family portrait.

Next birthday.... Otto.  He will be seven. It's hard enough to believe Fergal is a year old but seven!  Wow!

monkey wrench

noun
an adjustable wrench with large jaws that has its adjusting screw contained in the handle.

verb ( monkeywrench) [ trans. ] informal
sabotage (something), esp. as a form of protest : [as n. ] ( monkeywrenching) the five defendants who received jail sentences for monkeywrenching.

PHRASES
a monkey wrench in the works (or schedule, plan, etc.) a person or thing that prevents the successful implementation of a plan : even he couldn't throw a monkey wrench into the works | a cancellation can throw a real monkey wrench into the schedule.

Ever had one of those days where you thought you had it all together and then someone comes along and throws a monkey-wrench right into the middle of your life?

That's me today.

I was all ready for our trip this weekend.  A company business trip that has always been a quiet event.  Four men and usually a couple of wives, sometimes no wives.  Some years I have gone with my husband and some years I have not.  It has always been a time when I can hide in my room, or find a coffee house to sit in and read.  I was planning on taking my camera and playing with it and had agreed to go skiing one day with my husband.  I was looking forward to the time, and possibly even the cold weather.  Today, just two days before departure, I am told that it has now become a "party" trip.  Party being my descriptive word.  Due to recent management changes it isn't just the operations team that is going, it is all the other department heads too and all their wives.  Gone is my quiet solitude.  Gone is my private retreat.  Gone is my personal space.

Oh have faith some of you say, it can't be all bad.

Oh yes it can.

I am not cut out to be an executives wife.  I am a hermit by nature.

Every year my husband is so sweet and gives me roses and sweet mushy cards.  He is a romantic at heart.  I usually reciprocate with a half-hearted joke card.  I’m not the romantic he is.  This year I was very proud of myself.  I resisted the urge to give him a joke card.  It was a simple card I rejected.  On the front cover it says, “In the whole world, each person is assigned one other person to be their special soulmate, their Valentine.”  Inside it says, “Ha-ha!  You got stuck with me!”  Now that’s a me card.  Through and through.  But I resisted and for my romantic husband I got a card that said, “You are hilarious (that’s why I love you).  You are adorable (wait, that’s why I love you).  You are brilliant (hey, that’s why I love you!).  You are always patient with me when i can’t make up my mind…. I love that about you!  Happy Valentine’s Day to someone I love, love, love with all my heart!

A very un-me card, but very a husband appreciated card.