The Family

Went to see Chris and family today. It was good… very good. Aleah smiled so big when i got there that i choose to believe she remembered me from 2 days ago. 😀 She is such a sweetie. And so expressive!!! I have not been around babies in a while so maybe my memory is flawed, but I believe she communicates exceptionally well. You can hear what she is thinking in her tones. Sadly, Christina is resistant to the idea of moving to the house across the street. 🙂 Happily, my trip to the chiropractor in San Antonio and on to Austin worked our well enough that for a while i will have a good excuse to go up there more often.

I got up this morning at 5:30 and decided it was time. I have been talking about doing this for a while. The trip there was great. Traffic was fast and the temperature was wonderful. I had no trouble with sleepiness.

Drove to Austin from San Antonio with no problem.

Drove home… just outside of Austin i got sleepy, and quickly sleepier, seriously, dangerously, sleepier. Twice I had that head-drop wake-up as i drove. Scared me. I would have gone back and napped but it was too far. I was dangerous on the road. I turned up the radio, opened the windows, and pushed a little further to Bastrop where I pulled into the Wendy’s parking lot. I made sure the car doors were locked and reclined enough so my head would not fall forward but hopefully not so much i would look odd at a casual glance. (Fortunately it was cool enough that i was comfortable with the windows rolled up.) I closed my eyes, and fell instantly asleep, started awake. remembered i was not driving. fell asleep, started awake, remembered i was not driving, ditto again, and then finally dozed for a few minutes. I did not feel like i had been fully asleep, but the few minutes had refreshed me sufficiently that i thought i was ok to drive. I looked at the clock and was surprised to see i had slept for an hour and 15 minutes. Methinks i slept more soundly than i thought.

Drove the rest of the way alert.

I think if i do this as a one-day trip again i will try to nap before i leave Austin.

Is that offer of an overnight when i go to the chiropractor still open?

It is time to upgrade our phones.  We have always had Nokia, and may again, but i was wondering what brands ya’ll have and what you have to say about brands of cell phones in general.

Does working with 4101.org seem a little slow to anyone else recently?

On my end it feels like things are getting slugish in responding, new pages take a while to load…

I ask to know if it’s just me or not.

Chris, you said you have been busy and would tell us about it.  Enquiring minds want to know.  🙂

This is mostly for Dad and for Chris, though I think it would be fun if we all played along.

But for Dad and Chris – and for no particular reason, with the understanding that asking the question is no guarentee whatsoever of any potential future action – why don’t you meander over to http://despair.com/viewall.html and jot down which 12 of these posters cause you the most pain and anguish.
And then reply here with those 12 ……..

Your dad is out in the front taking the fishing line strings out of the trees. 3 or 4 years ago he bought some little ghosts to hang from the trees… and last night somebody ripped them all down. Sad.

The good thing is they did not bother the front porch. He has the porch looking good. (Ignoring the bright door facings… we tried to match the house paint and missed badly. 🙂 but we will repaint soon…)

He does enjoy decorating for the seasons.

Christina took this picture a few days ago. We haven’t quite figured out what the best title for it is, so we turn to the family for some help.

Just what do you think she’s thinking?

(and Ramona, if she cares to accept)

We were at Central Market tonight to pick up a few “treats.” Specifically some apple juice that I like and some Mother’s Milk tea. Chris decided to pick up a 6 pack of Saint Arnold Christmas Ale and a bit of New Belgium 1554 (a dark ale). The 1554 is rather nice…dark, chocolately, nice mouth feel, kind of between Saint Arnold Winter Stout and Guinness. We got to looking on the box the 1554 came in and noticed their blurb on the bottom for their brewery tours.
Guess where they are???

Fort Collins!!!

500 Linden St. to be exact… tours are Monday – Saturday 10-6

Interested and going and reporting back to us on what it’s like??

Well.   We got an offer on the house.

It has been showing a lot – lots of interest in it.   And we got an offer (it’s been on the market since the 16th – all of one week now).

The offer is low – over 20K below asking price.   We (Kevin) did price at the high end of the middle, but still.   Wretched lowballing offerers.   We’ve countered to somewhat less than half way between their number and our number, and if they don’t take our second offer that’s it for them.   The house is showing lots and it’s really early.

But Kevin says that conventional wisdom says to take the first offer.    So that’s where we are.

If we do wind up with this lower offer, it may change the range of houses we are looking for.   Not that that’s too bad of a thing – may end up with 2 1/2 garages instead of 3 (awwww)

And if we buy up, we’ll avoid the capital gains taxes.   Not that that’s really a huge consideration, but still ……..

Well, I survived the first house hunting trip. We looked at a lot of places … 6 resale, 4 new, 2 driveby. No clear winners, but some clear trends.

What happened to all the doors?
For some reason, the prevalent style is to not have doors within the master suite. OK, so this sidesteps the entire post I could write on the existance of a master suite, but I’m just letting that go for now. But now they’re taking away the doors, and I don’t like it. The realtor says that it’s a trend that evolved after the toilet was placed in its own little room – that since that one thing was made private, the rest of it could be all opened up. For what reason, I do not know. There are a lot of things done in the bathroom that I don’t want to have witnessed or to see that have nothing to do with the water closet. And carpet. Carpet in the bathroom. Another incomprehensibility. But since “we” buy for resale, and this is the popular thing, I am willing to wager that I will end up in a carpeted bathroom without doors.

Officially upsold on the garage
Yup … it’s 3 car and up; another wager for you. There’s a house on the list – high on the list – with space for at least 5 cars, maybe more … we’ve termed it the ‘airplane hanger house.’ When we rank the houses, each one with a mere 2-car garage gets compared unfavoribly to this one .. if we can get one with 5 stalls, why consider one with only 2? Though of course, we only need 3 … Sigh

Different opinions on the basement
I am of the finished basement camp. It’s a whole other floor, and I think it’s a plus to have had someone else put in the walls and lights and bathroom and all that. Kevin is of the unfinished basement camp, that it is a storage space not a living space. I don’t think it will be a deciding factor, though.