Revival

I have been asked to start this blog back up. It might have just been my mom, thanks mom!

Within the last year the little house on the hill was offered to us to buy, and we did! I thought by now we would have started remodeling, but it has been delayed. We want to do extensive work, but apparently that costs a lot of money. Until then, I am going to try to do some small things to make it feel like it's home and not a project in the works.

Jesse is 4 and very much becoming a little girl. She is still very attached to me and likes to be my shadow. So much so that I started locking the door so I could use the restroom in privacy. Yesterday, upon jiggling the handle and realizing she could not get in, I hear furniture being arranged outside and a head pop up accompanied with a knock at the window.

I find myself attempting to act as a sibling would with her at times. Lots of freeze tag, imagination play, and talking. Her favorite thing to do is play with her dogs and do workbooks. She can read and write and likes adding and subtracting. She likes to test me which seems to have made a resurgence and from the 3 year old days. However, she can be very caring and thoughtful. She gives me compliments and thanks me all the time.  She very much wants to know everything that is going on, dates and times, and likes listening in on my conversations. 

I am trying to like the city we live in. It's been a little difficult. I have met some nice people but still feel alone here. There doesn't seem to be a wide range of diversity and I think if I ever displayed my crass humor to the other moms or middle of the road politics,  they may never let their daughter come over.  Nonetheless, most of the people I have met are warm and friendly.

My husband got called away to work this weekend....on opening weekend....and on his birthday. :(  I decided to take Jesse to Yesterland Farm, which is a great place to take kids her age. It has rides, animals, corn maze, food, hay rides, and Jesse LOVES it! I highly recommend even if you are in Dallas. 

I rode the rides with her screaming like a school girl on the kiddie roller coaster and can't help but think soon enough she will be wanting to do all this stuff on her own. She always searches for my face when she's on a ride by herself and never strays far from me. She is very calculated and careful as she navigates her way through the park, but I know in the next few years she will reach for my hand less and less....

My so very patient and gentle dad enjoying the park with Jesse.

I am no Pioneer Woman

I knew my husband wanted the house on the hilltop that is surrounded by nothing but trees, grass, and red dirt. I really did not want it, for a lot of different reasons. I cried about it, but knowing how much I knew he liked it I told him to get it. He made sure I was sure and asked again about 10 times. He shed a tear when I said ok, because he knew he was FINALLY getting out of neighborhoods. He hates neighborhoods and this is one of the farthest things from that.



I am no Pioneer Woman.  I am more of the Oregon Trail woman......you know...the one they traded in for a wheel axle and a sick ox. But here I was, with no other houses in sight and howling coyotes every night. Cattle gap and gopher trap were now in my vocabulary and scorpions were in my eyesight.

You may wonder how I could have said yes to something like this....well..it's pretty simple.

The view.




If you drive down I-20 towards Tyler,  you probably don't remember much....because you were asleep. It's boring and drab. We live about 2 miles south of 20 but we are up on a hill which gives us a fantastic view.

We get a cool breeze in the summer and a beautiful sunset every night. One day, I will wake up early and take photos with the sun behind me to try and take photos to do it justice.

Soon I will really document and maybe add video to show those out of town what this place really looks like.  It is still weird to me to live a mile from my mailbox and not see anyone or anything when you go outside, but the solitude and the possibilities of the property are exciting. 

Some of my favorite pics I've taken on the property....

A New Beginning....

A lot of you knew that we were thinking of putting our house on the market. We move slow....so I think nobody thought it would happen......but......it did!!! We listed it one day in May and off I flew to Pittsburgh to see my mom the same day! Then I got a call the next day from my husband. There was an offer. Oh wow....really??? The next day...it was SOLD. I had mixed emotions. I wasn't attached to the house, but it was the house where Jesse had been sick. Why that thought kept coming to my mind...I don't know.

I still had 2 weeks in Pgh and then it was time to come home and move.

I struggled between leaving things out I would need and where to put all the crap I have laying around that I don't know what to do with anyways. My sister was a tremendous help....but my husband was not. He was out of town most of the time "working". Just kidding...but seriously, I did pack up 90% of the house.

I hated paying for boxes so I started scoping out dumpsters. I learned that "trash will not be picked up if dumpster is overflowing". Jackpot. It was actually written on a box that was intended to be seen by the area strip mall employees. They probably didn't see it cause I took the box. The only difficult part was when they would exit through the back door and see me going through the trash. I'm pretty sure I looked pitiful.

I broke down and bought about 40 boxes from Lowes. They are about $1.30 a box and it turns out I prob spent $50 in gas gathering 15 boxes and lost some self worth in the dumpster all at the same time.

About a week and a half before the scheduled move I realized we had forgotten something....Oh ya...another place to live.

The obvious choice was to move east... but how far east. My family and friends are in Dallas but my husbands job is in a territory that covers Texarkana, Beaumont, Shreveport, and other Louisiana areas. Moving gives him less driving time and more nights at home.

We went and looked at a few place starting about an hour from Dallas and working up to about 2. I cried that day....quite a bit. I'm sure it was really annoying to my husband to look over and see his wife staring at the window with tears streaming down.

We actually looked at a few homes that I liked. They were in an older, historic, well maintained neighborhood. They had a lot of character and also great updates. Then.....we went to the house my husband wanted to see.

The one that was 40 acres.

Yes this picture is to get your attention..

This is Jesse the week before Thanksgiving. She was taken to Children's from Methodist Mansfield via her own personal chariot. You guessed it...asthma strikes again! When we found out we were being transported to Dallas I was hoping Ron would volunteer to ride with her, while I followed with the car. I tend to crack under pressure more than him and I could already imagine that she would be very unhappy the whole way which would make me terribly anxious. As I was thinking of about it Ron blurted out that I should ride with her because she is known to be a bit of a mommy's girl, beings that we are together so much.

I started thinking maybe I tell him should go home first and pack an overnight bag, and then I imagined one of my regrets in life. I do have regrets...many in fact. It always bothers me when people say they don't have regrets. I call bs on most people that say that. A year earlier...when we were in Children's and the emergency team was transporting us to ICU there was a whole team in the room and I had exited five minutes earlier from not being able to handle it. Ron was in the room and right after he came out they all came out of the room, and headed upstairs. I vividly remember seeing about 15 people surrounding her bed all walking in unison with a Dr in the hospital bed with Jesse...holding her. I told myself..."That should be me".

That memory came flooding over me and I knew I needed to take the ride in the ambulance with Jesse. It started off ok...and then she wanted out really bad which heightened her breathing and coughing. I leaned over the stretcher and tried to hold her in her car seat. I started singing sesame street songs and she started to settle down. The paramedic and I hung up her stuffed animals, baby dolls, and gloves all over the ambulance and she thought that was funny. We got there just fine and even got to bypass the ER and went straight to our room.

This is not just an update but an opportunity for someone that may be reading this. Everytime we have been to Children's we pass by patient rooms that are empty...except for the patient. Sometimes its's an infant or an older child. They are alone...sometimes they are crying...sometimes they are sleeping or watching TV. After talking to a nurse she told us that not all kids are afforded the luxury of family support. Obviously some are there long term and have a parent that needs to go to work, take care of other children, or they don't have family support. Jesse and I walked the halls and each time passed by what looked like a six month old that was alone and wailing in his crib. The nurse would come in and check on him and give him meds/bottle and finally I saw what I realized was a hospital volunteer that came in and held him till he fell asleep. There are two of us....and sometimes more!! But what about the kids that only have one parent...or none!

People tend to push charities/volunteer opportunities that have affected them...so here is my push!! It's the least I could do (besides paying our mounting medical bills) for a hospital that has done so much for us. Even as I have felt down or sorry for myself I know the greatest cure is take the attention off myself and put it on others. There are lots of volunteer opportunities out there...and I myself need to take more advantage of the time I have...I hope you will too

Boo

Halloween

Mr. Big

Looking back I wish I would have had Ron hold Jesse up to get a side by side shot of Jesse and Big Tex....oh well...there is always next year.

My camera battery died and I was having so much fun that I didn't get a lot of pics that I wanted to get....here are a few....

Looking up at Mr. Big Tex

This is where things got a little crazy....a live band and a wide open space...due to nobody watching the band. It got even worse when Jesse came to the main stage because half of the crowd (10 people) started watching her. She was running, skipping, dancing, clapping....Then we stopped for the float parade which was a Reliant Energy commercial and Jesse proceeded to go up and down the row of people slapping hands and waving hi.

 

I have nothing of substance or comical to report on so...for now..goodbye