You’re probably wondering how things are coming along with the sale of one house and getting settled into the other. Well, I am here to tell you.

After weeks of work and thousands more dollars poured into it, the old place at Sinton Ln hit the market on Friday. The stagers and photographers did a good job getting it to look like a real gem! Well, it is a gem, of course. With all the recent improvements, from siding to windows to roof to gutters to shed, it is as good of a place as one will find in its price range in town! So now we wait and hope that someone makes an offer.

Meanwhile, over here on Vaquero Trail, we are finally able to shift our focus to getting more settled in. Most of the unpacking is done, but that’s about all. Rooms don’t look very finished. Lauren does not like the peach paint all over the house and vows to paint all the walls before there is any mounting of TVs or hanging of artwork. My office—the one room of which I have complete say and control over—is more or less finished. I painted it Friday and it’s pretty much in a finished state once I get some command strips and get a few photos up on the wall. It’s not quite like having a detached shed to myself, but it’s not bad!

The biggest challenge has been the pool. I hired a pool maintenance company to come over once a week, and they have done a terrible job so far. The first time they came, the guy forgot to put the pump back to ‘filter’ and instead left it in the ‘backwash’ position, meaning when the pump turned on one morning, it started emptying our pool. After a rain last weekend, the pool got cloudy and started to turn from crystal clear blue to cloudy green. All the pool guy said was “been seeing a lot of this!”, did a skim of debris, and called it a day. As the water got worse and worse by the day, I learned how to do the pump backwash myself and it washed out a sea of dark green from the overworked pump. That’s what this company is supposed to be doing! When the pool has been nice and clean, we have used it frequently! This is the first time you’ll ever hear me happy about above-normal temps, now that there’s a pool out back.

The neighborhood is right on the cusp of Hill Country with some great hilly views, and the street is much quieter than Sinton. We aren’t a block off a main drive like we were with McNeil and Parmer, and there’s no retail to be found. We have an elderly neighbor to one side who has been nothing but pleasant so far… chatty, but not excessively so. She recognizes when I may or may not have time to stop and talk, and keeps it brief. Good ol’ Donald, god bless him, never once in 13 years took a single cue that I may not have 40 minutes to hear his life story on a whim. Whether carrying in groceries or a crying baby or pouring rain, any time was a great time to sidle up and start gabbing.

John’s friends enjoy the pool for John’s belated 11th birthday party.
The pool illuminated at night when it was sparkly clean!
Starting to get the hang of this pool equipment.
The new office after a fresh coat of paint. It’s narrower by a couple feet than the shed otherwise pretty similar in size.
Lauren sits on our one and only chair in the massive, unfilled living room. We have no furniture to fill it, and don’t want to spend any more money until the old house sells. So, it sits empty!
The kitchen came equipped with professional grade Viking range and ovens. I tried out its griddle feature.
The house as seen from the front yard. It’s one of the very few single story homes in the neighborhood.
Edie makes her way to the bus stop at 6:55am. She is finally able to ride the bus after we received our first utility bill—the school refused to put her on a bus until we could prove our address. Minnie is SCARED TO DEATH of the bus.