Summer?

Summer always flies by....but seriously THIS summer flew at warp speed. Moving to a small town and starting our own business was definitely the #1 time drain on our summer. Not the usual fun and frolic of most summers, but busy and productive.

We close on our house tomorrow morning. Amen. Then Tuesday morning blonde rascal and I leave for Houston to visit my parents for a few days. Houston in August = constant sweat....lovely!

We have enjoyed our new house and our new town. The car business has been busy, a total blessing. The people we have met have been very nice. Lots of genuine, good people, very down to earth....I like that. We found a church we like. I got a local haircut and color.... and very much liked it! Yay! AND it was $40 cheaper than my big city cuts!

Our summer in a nutshell...The guys did some of this. Yawn.....


I have much more fun concentrating on these schmucks.....
There used to be a certain thrill of the shoot, photographing the steers. Wondering if I would irritate them and they would try to gore me. Now, they just ignore me and my lens.

As you know, the marine was here for a week...Sadly these are the only pictures I have of him, from the night he arrived. My camera battery died....and my charger and extra battery were in our old house. Tragic really, because I feel like I have lost an arm without my precious around. Thankfully, a trip back to the old house and I was back in business!

We were so glad to have him home...but he quickly wore out his welcome. He is SO financially irresponsible. Even worse than that, in total denial of it all and refuses to accept any accountability for it. We have held his hand (enabled) long enough...and it all came to a head. Dear parents out there in blog land....learn from our mistake and start teaching/enforcing financial responsibility to your young 'uns at an early age! He is a good kid with a lot of potential...just a LOT of growing up still to be done.

Add to the drama that ensued while he was here, the fact that 9 year old blonde rascal absorbs all of the things that his 21 year old marine brother talks about. So while the marine was here I felt like I was CONstantly reprimanding b.r. for calling things and people stupid and talking about blowing up things and shooting people....ugh. Wore me OUT I tell you.

He leaves for Iraq somewhere between August 26-29th. It is a very scary yet proud moment for us. God bless the men and women who willingly fight for our country. Blonde rascal starts school on the 24th. I won't leave him while he is starting a new school in a new town .....so hubs will be going to North Carolina to see the marine off. I HATE to miss that...but you can't be two places at once.

So, school for blonde rascal. Now this is a story. Our address is Snyder, but we are technically in a small, small ISD. An ISD that I have never heard anything really great about. Before we bought this house I went to the Snyder administration office and inquired about transferring into the district. They said not a problem, never had to turn a transfer down. The elementary school is just 2 years old and was built larger than needed.

Monday was registration for new students so we went and registered at the school and they then told us to go over to the admin. bldg. to fill out the transfer paperwork.

At the admin. bldg. I cheerily announced that we were there to fill out paperwork for a transfer. To which the sweet secretary to the superintendent, whom I had spoken with when I was there in the spring, replied "We are not taking transfers, the school is full". I was speechless....jaw hit the floor.....eyes welled up with tears....."whaaaaat???"

SO...l-o-n-g story short, we have been accepted as a transfer to a different ISD about 10 miles to the west of Snyder. Another small....I said SMALL...ISD. However, this one came highly, highly recommended by everyone I grilled about it...strangers, the bank president, teachers, friends, cashiers at the gas station, our real estate agent....everyone I came across. 52% of this school's students are transfers from Snyder. In fact in talking to friends from Lubbock, who knew about this school district, had only stellar things to say about it.

We visited the school and actually really liked it AND felt a great amount of peace about it. God is good....funny....but good! When I was near hysterics when this all went down last Monday, hubs kept telling me that this is all a part of God's plan. God has had his hand in this move and new life adventure...why would it be any different for blonde rascal's school???

It is just weird for me, the Houston girl who graduated with 850 people. Blonde rascal's school in Lubbock had like 1,000 kids in it. Now, now his graduating class will have 17 kids. WOW. Not bad, just different. Looking back though, 2 of my college roommates were from very small towns. They were more dedicated to academics and much better behaved than....uhhhhh.... me and all of the other big city kids I hung around with. Anyway....go Ira Bulldogs!

In a entirely different story of my lunacy.......this summer, is how I eradicated 99% of the points of entry for scorpions into our house. Yep, I wasn't taking that one lying down. No sir, mama took matters into her own hands. In a nutshell it involved window screen and caulk. The people at the hardware store are entertained by my dedication (or irrational fears as it may be) and my best friend the pest control man wants me to come to work for him.

We adopted 9 cats, who were on death row at the pound.Barn cats, that is. Good stuff, they are cute and they keep the mice/snake population at bay. By the way we have not seen a rattlesnake ALL summer. God knew that I was too fragile in my scorpion neurosis to be able to deal with venomous snakes. However, last week while driving about 1/2 a mile from our house I did run over a rattlesnake on the road. Intentionally ran over. But that is the first and hopefully the last one I have seen.

I have had a few moments of fun with Craigslist finds.......and spray paint. I'll show the "after" soon.


Blonde rascal has been an absolute gem this summer. He had a buddy from Lubbock come down to spend the night last week.They had a fabulous time. He has had to spend a lot of time at the office with us, but has just rolled with the flow and not complained. He is turning out to be quite the car salesman and gets paid for cleaning the office.

Since the birth of the car business I said that I would help out in the office such as run errands, make copies, etc... But there was NO way I was getting involved in the financial nightmare of it all. Well hubs and his business partner have been going along great guns since the end of May when they opened for business...selling cars...but not doing any bookkeeping.

I decided that I would eat my words and do it for them...or else it would NEVER get done and hubs would have a heart attack from all the stress sooner or later. So I am the official book keeper now. All I have to say is that I am NOT the bookkeeper type and I must give a shout out to Quick Books and to my pesky brother-in-law Mark who has been an invaluable help to us getting the books set up. Which once I get caught up from the first 2 months of business, it probably will only require a matter of a few hours from me weekly. No big deal.

I quit my last official job, when blonde rascal was born, 9 years ago!! I have a whole new respect for working moms. The house is a MESS (a lot of that has to do with unloading the final loads from our old house), we have very few groceries and I have NO desire to cook after working!!! I tip my hat to all of "us" working moms! I have to count my blessings though, because I decide my own working hours and come and go from the office as I please, with the only obvious downside being no paycheck. Ack!

Despite all of the crazy busy nutty stuff, we still had our moments of summer bliss....lots of swimming, trips to the snow cone place, adventures exploring our new area....loving being together as a family.

Whew... that was a lot of babble coming from me. Now I am caught up and hopefully can get back to more concise, meaningful, worthy, fulfilling blog posts. Bah!!