Memorial Day weekend

We spent the holiday weekend at the lake house. It wasn't as crowded on the water as I thought it might be, and I attribute that to the spotty clouds and rain we had a couple days. 

After a soggy start, it cleared up so we could enjoy the boat, jet skis and paddle board. Plus some lounging by the pool. We also got to meet our new neighbors and they seem really nice. Nobody could ask for better than a bunch of friendly TAMU Aggies!

The dogs and humans were highly entertained late Friday afternoon when a thunderstorm blew across the lake and we had some ducks land on the pool's edge. 

I couldn't resist snapping this super cute pic of the daughter's chorkie, with his snaggletooth on display while he was sleeping next to me.

Bad hair days

Although we're still at a deficit for overall rainfall in 2021, our May wet weather patterns have been doing their best to compensate. I haven't bothered to straighten my hair for several weeks now thanks to all of the humidity, and have been just letting it do its own wavy thing with a bit of mousse and gel. Fly free, whites and silvers!

At least our yards are looking brilliantly green these days. We had cut back this really stalky plant at the lake house over the winter. Right now it's looking fine, but I know that soon it will get too tall and totally take over again. So I imagine I'll need to have our yard guy dig that stuff up and discard. The blue fescue grass he planted over a month ago between the pool and bulkhead is looking really good. Just this  weekend I bought an ornamental strawberry tree for him to plant in the area where we removed that awful tallow tree back in the fall.

Above is what I bought at my favorite local nursery. Below is what I hope it looks like in 2-3 years. 
 

When we were en route to the lake to take a look at this lot for potential retirement home purposes...

we spied several turtles crossing the road at different spots around the lake. I'm thinking it's our recent rains that has them on the move. Or maybe love is in the air!

You blink and then it's late May

I know I'm a broken record on this, but time seriously flies by the older I get. Once I hit 50, it went from a slow jog to a sprint. By the time I round the base to social security, I'm afraid I'll be feeling as if I've been strapped to the hull of a space craft as time whips by at warp speed. I'd swear we were just celebrating Christmas a month or so ago. Unfortunately, our recent warm temperatures are a wake-up call that the summer meltdown is just around the corner. I'm praying our largest and oldest AC unit in the main house makes it through another Texas scorcher of a summer and doesn't keel over in defeat like the one out in the guest house recently did.

The dogs continue to be a source of entertainment. The older daughter's chorkie is so cute when he sleeps. Like he wouldn't bite off a finger if you dared to pet him while he's napping. Seriously. He'll draw blood if you don't wake him up gently, kinda like a surly teenager who isn't ready to be disturbed from slumber.
 

Our cairn girl Pepper is enjoying the extra attention she gets from our college coed who is home for the summer to take a couple online classes and work on her tan at the lake house. Both of our cairn terriers have really perfected the art of perching on their backsides like meerkats.

The college coed continues to enjoy baking and whipped up a delicious scratchmade carrot cake for us with a new recipe she found. She never has to ask twice when she's looking for someone to lick the bowl or taste test her latest creation. She is undoubtedly her great granny Doris' granddaughter in sooooo many ways!

Home maintenance, lake version

The husband and I went up to the lake house this weekend to check on things before we kick off the summer season with Memorial Day. I've been monitoring all of our landscaping, but specifically the five sago palms in the front yard after February's snowmageddon and single digit temps. The two larger ones are bouncing back, but it looks like the three clustered smaller sagos will need replacing. I'm thinking a mountain laurel would look good in that spot. But I digress... Right after we arrived and were out on the back patio, I discovered this little tile disaster.

It appears some water got behind the tile when we had the big snowfall and super cold temps, which expanded and weakened this strip of tile around one side of the pool's exterior wall and it fell off in a chunk. Thankfully it's the section that's only a foot high and adjacent to the sun lounger shelf, so not super visible. But it still needs repair before our older daughter hosts a Hawaiian themed bachelorette party up there in early June.

The husband and I cleaned up the edges of the tiles, grateful none of them broke when they took a tumble. Then my house repair-handy husband decided we should give it a go with the re-tiling job. A trip to our local home reno store and about $150 later, it became painfully obvious that it takes some skill to set tile flat and straight. So I dialed up the guy who built the pool five years ago and he's sending out a tile professional to replace this stretch for us. Hallelujah!

In other related bachelorette party news, I went to a really tasty local bakery in Marble Falls to place an order for some decorated cookies to match the daughter's theme - "Jessica's Getting Maui'd" since that's where they're tying the knot. And of course I had to buy some samples for me and the husband when I was in there.

I look forward to working my way through all of the flavors when we retire at the lake. I can already verify that the white almond is worth every sweet calorie.

Nan's little helper

Last week we wrapped up our study of Genesis in BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). I enjoy summer breaks, but always miss that steady connection with my group and our gathering to discuss God's word. I've been blessed to have the same group leader for the past two years, and she is just the most wonderful Christian lady. The trick is that you aren't guaranteed the same leader from year to year. I'm sure that wherever I land, group-wise next year, will be exactly where the Lord wants me to be. 

When I was prepping my final lesson, I got a bit of help from the accountant daughter's chorkie. 

The youngest doggo in our house, he's quite the character. Thankfully, he is starting to mature and mellow a bit since he turns two this summer. With his fiery chihuahua traits, he has been quite a handful in the past. One of my favorite things he does is the chorkie splits with his hind legs - see below.

A little spring flooding

When it rains, it often pours in the spring. Which leads to flash flooding in our area of Texas where we're sitting atop limestone. And then the high water rescues ensue because some idiots want to risk their lives and those of the first responders to haul them out of rushing water. I don't know why some folks refuse to heed the warnings because it doesn't require a Mensa IQ to understand the dangers. 

 

 

Over the course of about six days, we had rainfall totals of almost eight inches here in our neck of the Texas hill country. Since we had recently entered stage 2 drought restrictions, it was much appreciated for our flora, fauna and the aquifer. My grass is looking PGA worthy once again, and I'm so grateful for the blessing of rain.  

We had some thunderboomers, as well as marble and pea sized hail here at our house. Unfortunately, other folks around our area had baseball sized hail, plus some straight line winds and a tornado or two touch down. The wind whipped around a bit here at our house and one of our ash trees lost a mid-sized limb. I looked out at one point and saw that a red heart balloon got blown into the front yard from heaven only knows where. I LOVE that the rain allowed me to turn off our sprinkler system for a week and got the annual spring fertilizer well distributed on our lawn.

Home from college roadtrip

A year ago, the college coed was already home for the summer since every US campus went fully online after spring break 2020 due to the pandemic. This year, she got to finish out her sophomore year spring semester, which had me flying to South Carolina to be her ridin' shotgun buddy for the drive to get her car to Texas for the summer. I hadn't been on a plane in almost fifteen months, since the covid hit full force. And after being in lockdown, I'll admit it felt kinda freaky to be surrounded by all those people in masks at the airport. Not to mention the tight confines of the plane. The flight attendants made it very clear that any covid deniers and mask refusers would feel their wrath for non-compliance.

For the sake of my middle-aged back, the coed and her friends had already moved all of her apartment stuff into a storage unit. So I got to hang out and have lunch with them when I arrived at Clemson, celebrating the end of final exams as well as the coed pulling down another 4.0 semester. The azaleas and magnolias were in bloom everywhere. That's what I miss about living in the Texas hill country where we deal with drought, all of that beautiful greenery thanks to the wet weather they get in places like Clemson.

 

 

We rolled out of bed before sunrise Friday morning and hit the road to Texas. Since I rode shotgun for the first eight hours of the trip, I got to do things like snap blurry pics of signs along the interstate. What, exactly, is a Foosackly? For those of you like me who were intrigued yet ignorant, Foosackly's is a chain of chicken restaurants in coastal Alabama and northwest Florida. And now you know.

The coed is our family buffet sleuth. Sure enough, she found a real hidden gem off the beaten path in Stockton, Alabama, at The Stagecoach Cafe where we stopped for lunch. It was good old down home country cooking just like my granny used to whip up for us. What surprised us was that the scratch-made desserts were just as delicious as the savory buffet fixin's. We were immediately welcomed and enjoyed chatting with the sweet folks working there, with their 'bama accents and genuine southern hospitality.

I was a bit leery when we first pulled up and saw this dude (above) scratching around adjacent to the parking lot. It was a sure sign we were in the country. And whether or not his chicken buddies were served up crispy fried on our plates, we found it rather humorous.

Thankfully, our drive was mostly traffic and drama free, though we did have to pass through a bit of rain along the way. When we rolled into our driveway yesterday, the coed announced that she's pretty sure the worst drivers are here in Texas. Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with that assessment!