Well, once again, it has been a LONG time since I last posted here...as in one year, four months, and a handful of days. (Sorry, just really didn't feel like doing the math). A lot has happened in that 16 month span, and I shall valiantly attempt to take you on a whirlwind tour of that era. As the title not-so-subtly suggests, we have moved the Coop since the last post. We left our little half acre in Montgomery, TX, and moved to a nice 4 acre place in the country about 24 miles away. As the title also suggests, we weren't dissatisfied with the old Coop, nor were we necessarily looking to move, thus leading us down the twisted path of drama, the tale of our accidental sale/purchase of houses.
As my Darlin Bride will tell you, I rather enjoy browsing the electronic marketplace of the internet. Mostly just dreaming of what wondrous toys one could possess should one be so lucky as to win the lottery, if one played said lottery. I also had a habit of looking ahead to the future to see which amazing expanse of Texas we would purchase to raise the kids on, should the lottery-in-lieu-of -retirement plan work out. Needless to say, the Texas Lottery Commission had nothing to worry about from me as we never won more than $5 on a ticket. I did, however, stumble across this amazing property on 11 acres in our county that had a perfect barn with horse stalls, two smaller out buildings, and a house with enough bedrooms for all of us. The price was right and the place was perfect...or so we thought. My Bride scheduled a showing with the realtor and we toured the property, falling instantly in love with the rolling hills, the stock tank full of flowering water lillies, and the ice-cold creek that slowly snaked through the back acre. The Realtor, Ms Joan Martin, led us to the house and up the stairs to a very large, nicely appointed deck and opened the door to our future county paradise. It was then that I saw our dream burst like a hairspray can in a bonfire. At first I thought I had knocked over an ashtray on the deck, but quickly realized that it was actually the atmosphere inside the house. The sellers apparently mistook the house for a BBQ pit and consistently used Benson and Hedges flavored firewood because the odor of cigarette smoke charged out of the open door like an angry Hereford bull and smacked us around for a bit. Once I recovered from my coughing fit and cleared the tears from my eyes, we toured the house and decided that it was not for us, as we prefer our houses smoked with mesquite, or at least pecan. As we were preparing to leave, Ms Joan asked us if we were interested in selling our house. We hemmed and hawed, she said the magic word....FREE. Ms Joan told us that she and her husband, Mr. Richard, would be happy to come by the Coop and let us know the possible sale price of the place, at which point we could decide to sell it, or stay there till the layers had grandchicks.
To shorten this tale of two cities by a paragraph or two, we did decide to sell the Coop and buy a new one simultaneously. This, for the uninitiated, is about as much fun than a two mile run through a briar patch wearing sandpaper shorts and concrete shoes.Without Ms Joan and Mr Richard, we would to this day still be sitting the corner of our recently built barn sucking our thumbs while rocking back and forth singing "Tiptoe through the Tulips" like Tiny Tim. They were great. We managed to close on both houses the same day, and moved into the new and improved Coop.
Typical of my Darlin Bride and I, we began making what we considered improvements right off the bat. One nice feature of the new place is it had a saltwater cement pond (That's a pool to you non-Clampett types). The only problem with the pool was there was no safety fence around it, and seeing as we have the Monkey and the Piglet running around, and they weren't born with gills, we had a pool safety fence with a locking gate installed.
 |
| Before Fence... |
 |
| After fence.... |
Once we secured the cement pond, it was time to tackle the interior of the house. Now I'm not one to disparage another's taste, but that kindness only applies to things they own. Now that it's ours, we made a couple of mild, nearly unnoticeable changes to the color scheme. For instance, the lime green and bright blue master bath is now a nice neutral brown like the rest of the house, and the kids neon green bath is a soothing light blue with wood accents.
 |
| Kids bath after... |
 |
| Kids bath before.... |
Just this past week we hired a local company known as 360 Painting to do the exterior of the house. Wesley Werner and his crew did a fantastic job of painting and trimming the exterior, never missing a spot, and were consummate professionals in every aspect.
 |
| Before 360 Painting company stepped in..... |
 |
| After Wesley's crew finished... |
My Beautiful Bride and I are very happy with the new Coop, and are overwhelming grateful to God for his grace and blessings. This is literally the place we've dreamed of having, and we feel so undeserving, but thankful. And just to end on a bandwidth gorging stack of photographs, I'll share a couple of my favorite moments from this adventure....
 |
| Happy Daddy |
 |
| Happy lil Cowboy |
 |
| Most importantly...Happy Momma! |
Until next time,
