Walk, Wind, Walk, Wind

I got up this morning knowing it was going to be a tough day for me. I knew the kids next door were going out of town for the weekend and Toby had to work days. And.....there is NOTHING on T.V. on a saturday when you don't pay for cable.

I figured I would use my time wisely and get in some school time. After we got some "school" accomplished I decided, since it was a pretty warm day, that we would walk up to the Texaco.

You have to remember that we still only have one vehicle, and Toby was at work. Sooo....we decided to make the mile or so trekk to the Texaco. Mind you, if I had enough nerve to cross the rattle snake infested greenbelt we would not have as far to travel.

The day was very warm so after a few blocks Summer and I were sweating bullets (and I don't sweat). We finally made it to the Texaco and made our "treat" purchases.
Thank goodness for the relentless wind around here, or our trip back to the house may have been really hot. Thank goodness I'm not a "hair person" or I would never make it here. I don't know where this wind comes from, but it constantly blows. And I thought Chicago was the windy city. :-)

The trip to the Texaco and back took an hour and a half. By the time we got back to the house I was done for the day......unfortunately Summer wasn't. She wanted to go up to the elementary school up the road to shoot hoops. In hopes that she would wear out early for the night, I agreed to the walk up to the school. Fortunatly, on the way up to the school I remembered the neighborhood park on the way. We stopped there where Summer played basketball with a load of boys. They were just a couple of years older than her. I guess having an older brother has it's advantages, because she hung with them like she belonged there.

At the edge of the neighborhood park there is some woods. While we were there we saw some rabbits roaming around. I guess this explains the dead ones we saw in the road on the way to the Texaco.

After shooting hoops Summer wanted to play at the little park there with the boys. They had a really good time. One of the things I love the most about our neighborhood is it is very diverse culturely. You have a good mixture of mostly spanish, a lot of white and a little black. I like that Summer has been exposed to different races in her lifetime. I believe this will not make here feel that she is seperate from other human species.....after all we are all made out of the same thing.

The Pioneer Farm

Today we visited the Pioneer Farm here in Austin. After visiting the Pioneer Farm while we were in Troy Alabama, I knew that no farm could compare. But I do have to say that the farm here was very interactive. They even had people dressed up in pioneer attire, which really gave the feel of what it was like back in the day.

We also found out that all of the workers/volunteers there homeschool their kids. They were very nice and gave us alot of info about 4-H there at the farm and homeschooling in Texas. The nice lady we were talking to was also a unschooler, and after talking to her I felt much better about my slacking in "desk work" since we have moved here.

We had a relaxing time walking in the farm and taking in the information. After we got back home, Summer played with her new friends next door and Toby got ready to go into work. I really don't like it when he goes in at 7:00 at night, but somebody has to pay the bills. :-)

Scorpions, Oh My!

It's been really sunny and warm here these past couple of days. My day trip that I have planned for the week isn't until Sunday, so we have spent this week enjoying our new yard. We went to Walmart and replenished Summer's outdoor stuff that we had left behind in Mobile. Our neigborhood has sidewalks and we have a large concrete driveway perfect for a bike and a pair of roller skates. I really felt overindulgent when I bought her two new things in one day, but then I rationalized it by remembering that, because of our move, she didn't have much of a Christmas last year.

Today we went to the park down the road and played a little basketball and fished a little bit. We are not fishermen in this household. There were plenty of fish to be caught but we weren't catching them. We had fun trying anyway.

Austin has an abundance of whole and organic food. There are plenty of farmers markets and whole food stores here. Anyway, in our little town there is a farmers market every Wed. I had been wanting to check it out for a while and hadn't got the chance, but today after the park we rode up there to see what is was all about.

There are alot of farms where we live so I was really wanting to get some "real" meat and fresh vegetables. The selection was pretty good but being still winter the selection of veggies was mainly "winter" vegetables. The lady told me the market doesn't really kick-off until around May.

I was pleased to see a selection of fresh "homegrown" meat. I was looking for chicken but didn't see any. I ended up buying a lb of ground beef. Toby and I are curious to see if we can tell the difference in taste. Last week while doing my weekly shopping in Walmart I had to buy some "organic" chicken because they didn't have any of the cheap stuff. Summer ate it like crazy........she doesn't usually eat her meat so well. The natural food cult is slowly brainwashing me. :-)

The farmers market is held at a very small "park" in downtown Manor. It's more like an area than a park. There is only a gazebo and a covered area with some picnic tables. But today when we stopped in for the farmers market we noticed some new "equipment" there. I really wish I had my camera with me because it was almost funny to see. They called it adult playground equipment. It was made out of the same stuff they make the new playground equipment out of but it was in the form of excercise equipment......and it really worked! I really have to post some pics for you to get the true picture of what it was.

I moved to Austin to get a bigger city with more activities and ended up buying a house in a small town outside of a big city and LOVE it here. It's so nice to be able to access the best of both worlds. If I want activity, I go to Austin. If I want peace and quite I stay home. I hope one day I don't wake up and realize I have been dreaming!

I know I have been rambling but when I don't post for a couple of days I feel like I need to catch up.

Before we moved to Texas I had heard rumors of scorpions. Since we have been here we have not seen any....until today. While Toby was sweeping out the garage he spotted it. A scorpion, it was very small, about the size of a nickle or dime. Because we have never seen a scorpion out of a cage, we couldn't figure out if this was a baby or a full grown scorpion. I'm sure there are many species of them. Anyway, here is a pic of the one Toby found:

Comparisons

I guess it's just in my nature to compare things. Maybe it's because I feel everything that has a good side, always has a bad side. You know, like good and evil, ying and yang, etc.

Well, I can't help but notice one of Austin's "good sides". We do alot of fast food eating and store shopping and I amazed at the friendliness and promptness of the fast food workers and cashiers here. They always have a smile and they go out of their way to be helpful. This was something that I was not accustomed to in Mobile at all. You were lucky to get your order right and you could forget about "feeling welcomed". Here you don't have to hunt down help to find an item in a store, and if they take a little longer than usual to fill your order at a fast food place they give you a coupon for a free meal along with a smile behind it.

WOW, I am totally amazed! So, I ask my realtor friend Ginny about this strange behavior. She told me that they offer incentives here for friendliness and quickness in cashiering. I would say that the incentive works!

On the flip side, for Austin to have a large spanish influence, their mexican food leaves little to be desired. Don't get me wrong.....their food is good, we just havn't found anything that matches Mobile's mexican food. Mobile is furthur from the border, but they have Austin beat in the Mexican food area. The food here is predominantly Tex-Mex. I'm hoping that one day we will find the perfect little hole in the wall "real" mexican food place.

You'll notice for every good thing I say about Austin, it will be counter-acted with a bad thing about Mobile and vice-versa.

I lived in Mobile way too long not to defend it if necessary. Many years ago, I had a good friend who left Mobile to move to a new state. After she moved she never had a good thing to say about Mobile. She was very negative about it. I always said that if I ever moved away that I would always try to remember the good things about the places I have lived....because there is always something good about everyone and everything. The ying and the yang. :-)

Photos Finally!

I have finally gotten the inside of my house to a point where I can share some inside photos with everyone. I've had a lot of friends and family wanting to see the inside of our new home. A photographer I am not, so I have done my best to capture the house itself and not my furniture.

It's really hard to photograph the inside of your home and get a realistic view of it all, but here goes:

Here is the front and the back of house.




These next two pics are of our bedroom and the bathroom off the bedroom. You can see there is a door inside of the bathroom that leads to a walk-in closet. I preferred not to post pics of the inside of my closet. :-)




The next two pics are of our living room area.




The kitchen.



Enter the study/classroom upstairs. This is my favorite room in the house. It's where I spend most of my time. I couldn't figure out how I had lost a few pounds without doing any walking....Toby reminded me of how we travel up and down stairs 100 times a day!





Also upstairs is Summer's room and a bathroom.






I just had to post this pic because besides the city skyline view from the backyard, it's my favorite view. Unfortunatley the view is from Summer's bedroom window, so I don't get to see it much. I go up there every so often and look out in hopes of seeing a mountain lion or some other creature lurking around out there. Maybe one day.



Oh, and I forgot. Here is the bathroom off of the foyer at the front door. When we first moved in I thought 3 bathrooms was too many bathrooms for a house.....but we have utilized all of them.



I hope ya'll have enjoyed my virtual tour of our home.

Field Trip to the Falls

Since the weather has warmed up a little, I have been trying to plan at least one outing a week. Today we took a trip to McKinny Falls. It's just the oddest thing to me that a city can accomodate a whole "forest" inside a central city area.

The landscape around here is so different that I can't stop looking at it. It's really grassie and prairie-like, but yet there is SO much rock..limestone. I would have to say that Alabama has a much prettier landscape, but Austin's beauty seems to attract me more because of it's endless scenery that seems surround you from all corners. In Alabama you have to go "looking" for the outdoors....in Austin, it's in front of your face everywhere you go.

I guess it's hard to give a visual about a place. Anyway, McKinny Falls is going on my list of places to visit more than once. The falls were not as "falling" as they were suppose to be because it hasn't done much raining around here lately. There was ALOT of rock. Rock was everywhere, but the water is a really pretty green color around here.

Here are a few pics from the day:

Our New Neighbors

Since our neighborhood is a new subdivision, a few of the houses are still empty. That includes the houses on each side of us. We will never have any neighbors behind us because of the greenbelt, which is fine with me.....that will cut down on the chance of having a nuisance neighbor. :-)

Anyway, last week someone started to move into the house to our left. Of course considering my last neighbor experience I was very observant as to who they were. I observed by peeping out the window whenever I got the chance....now I know what a voyeur feels like.

I could see it was a family of 2 kids...a little boy and a little girl who looked to be about Summer's age. Of course, my heart soared with the excitement that Summer may have a playmate her age!

Well, this morning our doorbell rang and it was the neighbor dad from next door wanting to climb on our roof and retrieve a frisbee that had landed on our roof. That's when we met his little girl, Leslie. She is 7 years old.

We had errands to run for the day, but when we got home Summer and I ended up meeting the new neighbors at the park up the road. The girls hit it off immediately and I enjoyed the parents company. The mom "Olivia" is spanish and her husband....I don't remember his name, is "white".

It's so nice to live in a neighborhood where you at least have the chance of having a nice neighbor.