Finally!! An Update.

I am finally taking some time to update this here blog. With pictures!

So my job is going very, very well. Cima commented that I haven't actually told what my job is. Well, I am a trainer for a Medicare Advantage insurance company. We partner with physicians & hospitals to help medicare patients get better healthcare. I am the trainer for the company, and my job is to design & deliver training and professional development classes for our employees - things like new hire orientation, communication skills, and leadership competencies. I'm their only trainer in Texas, so I'll be doing some traveling to places like San Antonio & El Paso. I was in Ft. Worth last week, actually! They don't have a training program, so I'm designing it from the ground up. Very cool! Here's my building - Thing In Sky! (my office is on the 13th floor)

The farm is doing well too, although the garden isn't growing as fast as we'd like. We think we weren't watering it enough. We're now soaking & fertilizing it on a daily basis. in other farm news, we have 2 new neighbors! 2 calves who are being weaned. I've tried very hard not to get attached to the cows in the field. They are beef cows, after all. But with these two, I couldn't resist.

Meet Cletus:

(We fear that Cletus is actually a girl.)

And Winston:

How cute!

Our little town, Sealy, is very cute. A few weeks ago they had a little festival and quilt show. Locals brought out their old quilts for display. There were some really pretty ones, like this red work quilt (white quilt with red embroidery):

This embroidered quilt was just beautiful, and very old:

I loved this Hawaiian style quilt. Very vibrant colors and lots of applique:

This past weekend we drove into downtown Houston for a trip to the Museum of Natural Sciences. It had some really....sciency parts. A Hall of Chemistry. Yawn. Also? Noel and I cracked up at the painfully obvious sponsorship of the energy display, "Oil Makes The World Go Round." What do you think? Exxon or ConocoPhillips?

Despite the few funny/boring parts, they had some really cool stuff there. We liked the Hall of the Americas, which had displays of native peoples from the Inuit in Alaska all the way to the ancient Maya! Very cool. I couldn't take any pictures in there though. Sorry!

They had some neat murals:

And dinosaurs! In Sky!

GRRRRRRRR!

They had a neat gallery of minerals, including this gorgeous opal:

Then the next room over was a gallery of jewelry. REAL jewelry. Emerald tiara, anyone?

WOW.

How about a sapphire necklace?

Rachel, here's a peridot necklace. Gorgeous!!

My favorite though, was this stunner of an amethyst necklace:

FABULOUS.

So Busy! ACK!

Hey! Sorry I've been so neglectful of the blog lately! I've actually been taking lots of pictures, but haven't had a chance to put the pictures up.

Life is very busy but very good! My job is great - I'm still enjoying every day of it.

Noel is also doing well, enjoying his work and meeting new coworkers.

The boys are doing fine too - Poe loves the new house because there's so much room for running!

Anyway, it's time to get ready for bed (already!) so I'd better go.

More later, I promise!!

Of Lint and Linguine!

Ok, so this won't be terribly long because it's already kinda late. Several interesting things from the last few days though:

(1) Noel can make a MEAN chicken alfredo. From scratch. I had no idea he could make this stuff. I t was SOOOOOO good! Very impressive! If anyone wants the recipe, I can get it from him.

p.s. It's really healthy - 1/2 stick of butter per serving. And also heavy cream! And cheese!

(2) The lady at the local appliance store is probably too honest for her own good, but YAY for customer service!! See, as previously mentioned, our dryer had decided to crap out - it wasn't getting our clothes dry, but was heating up so much on the outside that it would almost burn you. We had cleaned the lint trap and the vent hose when we moved it, and so we knew that wasn't the problem. Maybe it was the thermostat, we had no idea.

So! We went to the local appliance store here in Sealy and looked at dryers. We were discussing the merits of lint traps in the door of the dryer or on the top of the unit, when the saleslady came up and asked us what was wrong with our dryer. When we explained, she suggested that we take the entire back of the dryer off and check for lint buildup, because sometimes lint can get into the rest of the dryer and essentially block up the motor, etc.

We explored the insides of the dryer, determined that wasn't the issue, but decided to clean out the entire venting system. Turns out that it wasn't our dryer or our vent hose that was clogged. The vent pipe going from where we hook up the dryer to outside the house was full of super-thick lint. No wonder the thing was so hot! We cleaned it out thoroughly, and the dryer works like a charm now! So the lady talked herself out of a sale, but I guarantee we'll go back to that store when we need any other type of appliance/mower/etc.

SO! Everyone please make sure you clean out your dryer vents thoroughly! We realized once we started cleaning it out, that we couldn't feel any air coming out of the outside vent. This is the sign of a problem! Be safe and prevent house fires!

(3) My job is awesome.

Ok, I'm going to go get some knitting done before going to bed!

So! Exciting times here.

The first week of my job was great! I'm excited to get back to work tomorrow. :)

The weather here has been beautiful, and Noel and I have been busy doing things around town and the house/farm. Including taking pictures of random stuff!

Here are some cool motorcycles with bright lights underneath them:

This is a piece of old farm equipment that has a tree growing through it:

Our landlord likes to collect and fix old vehicles. He has about 4 on the farm here, and he showed us a 1927 Ford truck that he started up with the hand crank. He then took us for rides in it!

This morning we went for a little picnic at the main park in downtown Sealy. The flowers are beautiful!

This gorgeous Victorian house across the street from the park is surrounded by azaleas in bloom:

How is the garden, you asked? It's growing like crazy!! And watching over the garden is our resident garden gnome, Gottfried:

He's going a great job! Just check out the corn and squash!

We watched the sunset (sunsets are gorgeous here):

And then I made a peach cobbler!

This is my sister's super-easy peach cobbler recipe:

Ingredients

1 stick of butter

1 cup of milk

1 cup of self-rising flour

1 cup of sugar

1 large can of sliced peaches (or 2 of the regular sized cans)

- Preheat oven to 350. While oven is preheating, put the stick of butter (cut into smaller pieces) into a casserole dish & place in oven.

- Mix milk, flour, and sugar together in a bowl.

- When butter is completely melted, pour flour mixture on top of butter (it will mix in with the butter - that's fine)

- Drain the liquid off of the peaches, and place them on top of the mixture in the casserole dish.

- Bake in oven for about 25-30 minutes, until golden brown on top. Eat & enjoy!

This recipe is a small miracle to me, because the fruit bakes down while the cake part bakes up. So it ends up looking like a normal cobbler. Fancy! You can use any kind of fruit. If using fresh fruit, you may want to add some additional sugar to compensate for tartness.

Ok, so that's it for today. Hope everyone's doing well. I'd better get ready for work tomorrow!

Garden Updates and Such!

Noel is still on his job, and it's going well. Mine is also going great! I'm really happy with this job so far - it's so nice to feel the potential in a new career!

We've also been finishing up with (hopefully) the last of the unpacking. One thing that I'm thrilled to say arrived safely through the move was a stained glass window my Uncle Earl made years ago. He was one of my very favorite uncles, and this window captures, to me, how he lived his life and the things he enjoyed. It reminds me of him a lot. Noel found the perfect spot for it, in the kitchen, so the sun shines through it every morning:

And it's so Texas-y! Love it.

Things here on the farm are going really well too! It's been gorgeous weather:

Thing In Sky!! (My friend Lisa tells me I need to self-publish a book of Things In Sky pictures - maybe should look into that, since I have about 9,352 of them.)

The garden has really been soaking up the weather too. Here's how the squash are coming along:

And the corn is already starting to look like corn! How exciting!!

(Note: these pictures were taken on Sunday - the corn is now over 4 inches tall!)

A closer view of the cows!

There is a bull. I named him Brad. Brad the Brangus.

And even the trees are barbed in Texas!

Work Work Work!

Hi everyone!

Today was the first day of my new job, and it was great! My boss and co-workers are extremely nice, the work environment is friendly and relaxed, and I have a tremendous amount of lattitude in the training programs I've been hired to create. I'm very excited about it! (The commute, on the other hand, is not so exciting).

Noel got a call during dinner that he's wanted on a job 3 hours from here, starting tomorrow morning. Surprise!! So we're trying to get him ready to go out the door. He would be on his way already, except his clothes aren't dry yet, and our dryer has decided to crap out. At least i have a clothesline out back, until we buy a replacement dryer.

We'll miss him here at Chez LotsaCats, but that's the nature of his work. He'll only be gone for the rest of the week, looks like.

And by the time he gets back, we may have a full garden! The little sproutlings are growing like crazy. CRAZY. I've been taking pictures every day of their progress, but won't be posting any tonight because it's too late already. But there will be pictures!

Ok, time to hit the hay here soon (after getting Noel on his way to this job!). Hope the clothes are dry!

Images From the Farm

Yesterday evening I went out for a walk at dusk and tried to get some pictures. (This was in place of unpacking, since I am so done with owning stuff. I never want to have to unpack again. Ever.)

First, a picture of the kitties, all curled up outside on the grass:

So cute. Now some of you may be asking about Poe and Loki - they're fine, lazy as ever. They're interested in the outdoor cats, but only to look at them through the window. They aren't threatened by them and don't hiss or anything. I'm not even sure they recognize that these little fuzzy things outside are cats in the first place.

So yesterday I went to check on the gardens, both flower and veggie, and I'm extremely pleased to report that thing are already coming up!!

Ok, so that's hard to see in the picture. Trust me, it's there.

I'll take updated pictures today, since things are even more up than this now. Yay!

Noel had already left for work, so I just milled around the farm taking pictures of things:

Sometimes dusky pictures don't turn out so well, but I liked these.

I thought up a little poem yesterday too:

This land is a deep breath

Inhale huge blue sky

Smiling sigh of freedom.

That sums it up pretty well.