Echoe’s on the mind

So, yes it was about a month ago, but I’m uploading pictures none the less. I took over 2,000 photos of us, so pop some popcorn, sit in a comfortable chair and enjoy the show!!! jk, I wish…anyway, here are a few pics of the two of us enjoying every single second of our vacation/honneymoon in Cornwall, England.

We have more national geographic with our yard bugs.

And the most beautiful bathroom ever!!!:  

And the kids (ferrets) pool (styrofoam peanuts) party from July:

And of course the Jetta!!!!!!! what a cute car-o!:

At the skeet shoot, I realized something profound.

If you’re too much of a capitalist to be an architect,

become a contractor. If you’re too much of an artist

to be a contractor, become a marketing agent.

Even though today was a waste we sure did acomplish plenty.
Here’s the recap for my day (and I can only hope Alan fared better than I did):
7 am- leave the house
7:30- email momma yesterdays progress
Ocho- Project Manager meeting regarding subcontracts liability etc etc
11:15- leave mtg #1 to catch 11 am mtg at the other end of the office(yes I realize that is only a 30 second walk) to haggle over the cost of theoretical boats and diesel trucks etc… The winner took us underlings and the “loser” out to lunch. …

4:00- And then I went bowling with my sweet husband and the rest of his office to kick off the labor day weekend. It certainly was an excellent way to spend a Friday afternoonAnd now the work begins!!!
Except I accidentally went house shopping for Miranda

So in 3 hours at the house we tiled a 2′ x 4′ area in the bathroom AND we set the faucet in the vanity!!! Which I have a great video of the 1.5″ drill boring through our antique vanity…

We took some considerable amount of time looking at the faucet and installing it onto a scrap board which we sat on the vanity (with the help of aunt jewel’s roast pot). The correct way to achieve this level of concentration is to move the vanity to the middle of the bathroom and open the hobbit door. Finally, you go into the guestroom and lay on the floor, feet towards the door, to properly appreciate and absorb the faucet.

Of all the redneck activities available, one finally floated to the top of the list, one that really doesn’t transcend professions.

The honorable sport of skeet shooting! BCLP had a Compass Committee event where we get together and socialize or have a speaker etc and this month we went out I-10 to shoot at little clay discs that were flung at high speeds in the air.... And eat some fried yard bird and fries… (chicken)
I carpooled with Andrew, and having never held a rifle before, I repeatedly called it a shotgun… I also ended up borrowing a shotgun - err rifle, glasses, shells?, earplugs and an ammunition belt from Andrew.

Overall it was a success, especially because this wasn’t a competition setting, and it gave me a chance to try it out, so the first 3 rounds, I’m holding the gun pretty well but my head is straight up, and my stance is wrong, so a few more of the guys come over to help me out. David used to do this on a real competition basis, and he was friends of the shooting range we were at, so he got my stance right and told me how to look for the “birds” and that I had to put my head on the shotgun -err rifle. That was the hardest part, apparently my neck is too far away from my shoulders.

The results? I hit 3 out of a box and a half. First time outcome: not too bad!

Round 2? yes, someday … soon

How do I feel about my Jetta??
Well, two weeks into it, I love it! It is a beautiful machine that hit half a tank at 300 miles! I’ve been learned on the qualities of a diesel, such as, don’t ever ever ever let it run out of fuel or else I’ll kill it for real! And where my office goes for “Fresh” diesel. I also like it because it’s blue, and now I have a cool keyfob thing. Aaannnnddd, the cool IT guy at my office also has a Jetta TDI and so he tells me all sorts of cool things that we can do to my car.

The only 2 bad things about it are because its a diesel the acceleration in low gear is slow and its hard to realize that you’re going 80 on the highway because its such a smooth (and airtight) ride!

Ooo also, we are officially a European car family! 2 Volkswagens and a Triumph (for you lazy people, that’s Germany and England). We were really trying to get a red car so we could have primary color vehicles, but there weren’t any reliable red ones available and I had a dead gray car on my hands so it was imperative that I obtain one, and the pretty blue one was it!

I kind of want to name it Cairo b/c then we’d have the Yello Caro and the Blue Cairo… But I want to see if Alan likes it too…and of course if everyone else likes it too

One more final note (this will be the third of final notes). Alan drove my car yesterday and he was looking at all of the gauges and everything and noticed something interesting: my tachometer is missing a “0″ it reads in the hundreds, not the thousands… I think that’s neat .

(This post is dedicated to Keeeevvveeeeennn who kept bugging me to post about my car)

After the start of a long and hectic morning, we make it to Dallas and traverse Love Field to hunt down The Seller!  So a few posts ago, I mentioned buying some IKEA shelves sight unseen (which turned out to be smaller than they were advertised) but with that aside and with more of a relationship with The Seller,

Andrew convinced us to go to Podna’s Catfish, with the best catfish and shrimp po’ boys in the city, last Friday or so, in the torrential rain.  And I was commenting on buying a car from a dealer or from a random person.  Both were just as ambigious, a nice shiny car attached to a person that I know nothing about.  Andrew realized that I wanted a relationship with the seller.  A few dates or something.  That was exactly right, the right car needed the right seller. 

After weeks of scouring, at dealers and craigslist and tdiclub.com , I found it, and then I watch it, days of watching, thinking about buying it, thinking if it’s right.  Blue, diesel, 5 speed, clean, warranty.  The price comes down, and its time to swooop in and attack.  I join TDI club, I message The Seller to say that I’m emailing The Seller, and then I email The Seller, and I wait.  He calls within the hour, I call Kevin to set up a test drive, Kevin is going on vacation, oh no!  The Seller has another buyer coming on Saturday (with a deposit), it’s only Wednesday!  It’s in Witchita Falls, which, BTW, is not Marble Falls.

By this time we’ve been on the phone 5 times in the last 3 hours talking about the car, I looked up his posts on the website, he’s adamante about the oil and maintence records etc.  So we make the leap and put up a deposit, sight unseen.  I was becoming like all those other TDI club members, buying a large investment that has terrible appreciation, sight unseen.  It was a gamble we had to take, the car was perfect in condition, only 60k miles in 3.5 yrs (on a diesel) and it had a warranty, and if we didn’t some one else would buy it on Saturday. 

Round 2: getting there, Alan’s sisters boyfriend was planning on becomming a Fiance on Monday and he invited the entire clan up to Tyler for a surprise dinner celebration.  So we piggy back a car purchase on to that.  (Why it’s on a monday?!?!?! because the resturant owner was being pissy and didn’t want to cooperate for a Friday or Saturday) We wait 5 nail bitting days to test drive and purchase the car, then drive the car to Tyler and San Antonio in 24 hrs

We meet the seller, nice quirky, honest people with obsessive maintenance reords and a car that could be put on a new car lot.  Except for a few small shopping cart dings etc, which he has factory touch up paint for (in German).  After the test drive and a quick stop at Churches Chicken to sign some official documents, it’s ours! the 2003 Volkswagen Jetta. 

Alan drives.  We go to the dinner, she said yes.  Leave promptly at 9.  Alan drives some more, coffee, drive, nap, drive, Natalie drives - Alan nags, Alan drives, more coffee, no stopping, make it home.  Turn around, go to airport, pick up Alan’s car, go home again.  Ending time: 3:30 am.  We did it we are a 2 volkswagen family!

and 46 MPG coming from SA to Tyler… not to shabby.

We have made progress!!

Bathroom

Kitchen!!!!!

Our first oven cookd meal at Virginia!!!

  and … our first fig from the fig tree!

Date: Sunday, July 22, 2007
Weather: Hot and Humid
Fumes: Delicious home cooked southern meals wafting through the air.  10 am: sausage and gravy and hashbrowns.  12 noon: steak, mashed potatoes, corn.  mmmm I love corn.  Alan loves corn too.  We were recently at EZs eating an Alamo Bowl (yum yum) and his only comment was, “this would be better with more corn.”  I wholeheartedly agreed.  We also put corn on our omlettes at IHOP and then have them scrambled, its just delicious!

Anyways.  That’s the backdrop for the work completed today: Installing the gutters.  Outside, with no barrier to keep us from the excellent cooking going on all around us.  So I prepare the gutters while Alan goes to home depot to buy a ladder attachment that does something to make it easier install the gutters… or something.  So once he’s back the gutters are a relatively easy install, they’re vinyl so no tin snips or nasty cuts and they’re alsy pretty light weight so Alan can handle most of it while I scoot around the edges of the house actively trying to avoid the sun. 

So Alan makes it around to the back of the house and he’s about half way through (think lunch time and steak, oh with the highschool band playing at the nearby park)  - Just barely installing the gutters along the breakfast room when we hear this solemn, distant “pop” which turns out to be right next door.  A 12 inch limb decided to sever it’s connections with its trunk and leisurly fall into our yard.  Well, the canopy fell into our yard, the limb trunk(?) stayed in the neighbors yard.  It was all very calm.  The Great Pecan, has reached retirement, one limb at a time.  We don’t have any trees like that in our yard.  so, I think our house will be fine (the neighbors house was also fine, because it fell on our fence)

Alan finished that run of gutters and we called it a day.  And then added a rain barrel next to the gas meter gutter.  Later this week Alan took his lunch hour to RUN over to the house and install the second rain barrel at the back porch.  Because I was experiencing torrential rain at the office and he could see it coming and hear the impending thunder!  The rain at the back porch was a particuarly vexing subject - pre-gutters; but now it is no longer worrisome.  He installed this second barrel in 10 minutes.  And really it wasn’t the barrel that was the end goal, but the installation of the downspout.  In this 10 minutes, he cut it to size and bolted it together, leaving the correct piece on the ground, so he found it easiest to use the barrel as structural support.  A functional, although temporary solution. 

In the 36 hr timespan, the rain from our roof filled the 55 gallon barrel.  The corrected downspout is now connected to another barrel, which is probably overflowing as I type…

Sorry this was a long one.

The Mission: Travel into the great unknown and contact a craigslister.  Solicit my Dallas-ean driver to officiate the inspection.  He accepts.
The Driver: Keeeveeen.  Qualifications: Roommates with Alan.  Has driven the 20th.  Has tried to klepto the 20th…unofficially… Is closely located to the contact point.
The Object: Diesel hungry, road raging, blue VW golf…TDI…5 spd…

Keven test drove the CL VW TDI GOLF for us so we saved the potential 10 hrs of driving.  The golf is still unclaimed however we are actively weighing Kevin’s comments and our opinions.

Please hold, I have to search Texas Craigslists for the criteria (It’s like smoking except you don’t have to go outside - you get ancy if you wait too long, but its not fufilling if you chain craigslist.) (no luck).

The Rain: There has been pouring, torrential rain all week, at least an hour a day, until this morning at 11 am.  It stopped, like breaktime at the pool, all the kids have to sit on the side lines… for the rest of the day.  This morning we went to home depot to clean out their supply of vinyl gutters, and began to install them (perfect weather), they were suprisingly easty to handle and adjust.  They were also great because we used our 10% coupon. 

We also tentatively bought a faucet for the vanity; however because inherently we are difficult, it is a kitchen faucet, complete with sprayer.  But it’s absolutely amazing otherwise.  Alan wanted to pick up on the dark woods and the leaded windows on the vanity so we went with an antique venitian bronze color on this giant gooseneck faucet.  We intend to mount it on the upper portion of the vanity on the side of the sink.  It will be very striking.