Author: Vivian Acott

The Breeze Was On Our Side Today

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Our Contractor, “Barazza Construction ” do change with the breeze when needed. They determined that it would take too long to get the brush burn completed and decided to haul the debris to the land fill. Today is the first day, the temperature is in the 90’s, and the direction of the wind was in full compliance of what we (Gar and I) needed.

For most dirt moving, burning and tree removal days the wind blew the dust and dirt north, in the direction of our camper and home office. But not today! Today the wind is blowing south … and a little to the east or west, but mostly south.

Here are some photos of some carnage being scraped, lifted and moved into the trailer to be hauled of the the landfill.

As some of the locals say… “Thank you Jesus”.

I say “Thank you Barraza Construction”! Making progress helps me feel real good!

Learning to live with the natives

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What does “learning to live with the natives” mean? I’m talking about the sub-tropical natives that live in the house, brush and trees on our property, and that they have not seen civilization in a really long time. Oh we’ve seen beautiful birds and Anoles (often called chameleons), but the scary looking bugs and insects… maybe all bugs are insects, I don’t know just yet! Mosquitoes, roaches and other interestingly creepTexas anoley crawlers and flyers. Oh my, so frickin many different varieties!

Whenever I feel a slight itch or touch on my skin, automatically think I’m being investigated by one of the natives.

    

Out on the town

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Last Friday (and this one too) we met our good friend and Realtor Cindy Martinez at The Point Sports Bar, a cool airy bar on the upper floor of the restaurant for a drink and then to Collettti’s Italian Restaurant for entertainment, drinks and Goat Cheese Terrine. For us t’s been great getting to know Cindy, she’s smart, gorgeous, funny, personable and a wonderful resource in many ways. We’re all thinking there are some future fun and business ventures together in the future!

 

Trouble in Paradise

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I’ve been meaning to write about our forward movement and some awesome experiences we’ve had since being here in paradise, but today turned out to be frustrating and I think I need a moment to vent.

We’ve been buying bottled water for drinking since we’ve been here. The local water just isn’t delicious like Fort Collins water. So we made a conscious decision to set up a water filtration system for our camper. Yesterday we went to the local Walmart and bought a filter and drinking water hoses. Gotta do it correct, right?

This morning before heading out to SPI (South Padre Island) Garret went to turn off the outside faucet and detach the old hose to hook up the new. Well the old corroded faucet broke below ground level and the old hose and faucet were fused together, probably hadn’t been separated in over 25 years! Well the pipe broke, about a foot in the ground. We did not know where the water turn-off valve was located and the long time tenant, Charley, was gone at the time. Of course we panicked, not wanting to waste precious water, panicked as if we would have in Fort Collins, thinking about the $$ rolling down the road. About an hour later Charley showed up and told us where the valve was located and we were VERY glad to get the water turned off. One thing about the water here in RGV (Rio Grand Valley)… it’s cheap, cheap, cheap! I don’t know if we’ll ever adopt the view that water is not a precious, expensive commodity. Just doesn’t seem right, don’t ya know.

During our panicked moment we called our Construction contractor to see if their plumber could come out to repair the broken water line. They came quickly to our aid, fixed the water line in about 15 minutes and saved the day! So now we have filtered water and tomorrow I’ll test it to see if it’s going to meet our tough standards of having delicious water to drink.

We’ll save SPI for another day =)

The end and beginning of two different life journeys

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When Garret and I began looking for a warm inviting climate to move to South Texas was at the top of the list, over and over again. And as everyone knows we are here, for over one week now. It was quite the journey getting here but we made it, and so did our things. More about that in my next post.

I want to truly thank my good friend Michelle for helping. Her hard work and positive attitude was, is and will always be truly appreciated. She took time to label boxes and containers and was helpful with keeping the labor guys moving along . Michelle was very instrumental helping us right until the moment we left. I love and miss you Michelle. BYW Michelle you have a lovely singing voice!

Garret’s good buddy Scott helped pack and kept the party alive with his positive attitude.  Our good friend Steve helped and he also loaned us his dolly to move boxes and stuff onto the trailer. Somehow the dolly made it to TX with us, sorry Steve. Katie brought over home made cookies, which everyone loved, “thanks Katie”. We also had an awesome crew of guys loading the trailer, educated in moving by the seat of their pants… and it appears that everything made it here in good shape! And my sweet loving husband cracked the whip the last couple of days to assure we left our beautiful home of 16 years on time Monday Februaryt 13th.

We said our “see you soon” to our family,  friends and neighbors and headed on down the road to write a new book of our life adventures.