138 - Home Sweet Home

Made a short overnight trip to Tennessee this week, the majority of our time was spent on the road, but we did manage to accomplish quite a bit. And we found a way to skirt Nashville which is nice, especially since we would have been in the middle of rush hour on the way home.

Stopped by the house to see it in person a second time. It's still as I remembered it, light-filled, a tad on the small side, but cozy. We already want to tear down walls, but we'll start with little things like paint, fixtures and hardware and do the rest over time. The barn isn't much to speak of, the framing seems sturdy enough, the walls... not so much. Didn't realize we have a HUGE magnolia tree out front, needs some trimming, but it's full of blooms.

Next day we signed the loan paperwork at the local bank. We have been approved with a very good APR, better than I currently have in fact. We also opened an account with the bank so that we can have something available nearby, and we are wiring the proceeds of the sale of Prissy Lane to that account as an act of good faith (and it's convenient since the new loan is through the same bank). Then it was off to Cookeville to meet Hannah at the title company and officially sell the Prissy Lane property.

Have scheduled an inspection for Tuesday afternoon and once that is done we can schedule the appraisal. I don't foresee any issues with the appraisal and hopefully none with the inspection either. So it seems that we're moving right along and by June 28th (happy 40th birthday to me) we will have a place to call home again. Didn't realize how much we'd miss having that. Living in the RV wasn't bad, but if you don't have a homebase... unless you're a minimalist, it's hard. We're so happy at the prospect of getting our things out of storage.

And we're puppy shopping. Hannah and Bombdog breed German Shepherds and just had a litter. There is a female Mike is eyeing and Bombdog thinks it would be a good match for us. I'm happy it's a puppy so that maybe she and Gracie will bond a bit, but I have never house trained a dog before and am also unsure about my allergies. I have been paying attention lately and it appears that *maybe* if I'm around a certain dog on a regular basis, my allergies seem to lessen over time. At least that's been the case around Jericho, Mike's brother's chocolate lab who is indoor/outdoor. Of course, we won't be getting this puppy until we have the house and are moved in. With Mike's 21 on-21 off schedule I am going to end up being the primary caretaker... *insert 'the look' here*... but at the same time, I love German Shepherds, and while we do have neighbors, it is a little rural out there and it will be nice to have a dog around for company/additional protection.

Yesterday we went to Country Squire for catfish. Today I'm catching up on housework and we're watching a Longmire marathon. The lead character reminds me of Lee Majors, so much so that it's almost distracting. Cool show though, we like it.

The a/c issue has been fixed and we have the truck back. Still working with Dodge to see if we can get some of our money back. The transmission is still not shifting correctly and for some reason they couldn't replicate the issue when they had it so it will hopefully get us to TN and then we won't really have to use the truck a whole lot. That buys us time to get it fixed in the future. I don't know what the problem is but it is extremely annoying. Guess we'll be heading out on the first. Mike has to fly to Houston for pre-employment physicals on the 9th and will return on the 12th, then I don't know exactly when, but he should start the 21/21 schedule soon afterward and we will once again have money coming in. It's getting tight but I think we'll just be able to make it, and we're holding on to enough money (I think) from the sale of the land and the house to get things we need without having to put those on the card (mower, stove, refrigerator, window units, utility deposits, moving expenses (Austin)).

Also, since I keep forgetting to call, if mom and dad read this before I do finally get around to it: the tick problem is back. I was taking pics of pics and when I looked up, two ticks were slowly (but with eerie determination) marching across a couple of the pages toward me. I killed them, but it has creeped me out. Gracie doesn't seem to have acquired any, or they aren't bloated enough to register when I feel around. And also, I did put a septic tablet down the toilet. There is a whole box in the guest bath on the top shelf as well, just for future reference. And I bought a bag of cat food for Doug. Poor thing was starving.

137 - Digger

Been doing some digging around while I'm here, lots of old photo albums to rifle through. I don't want to disturb them so I leave them as they are and take pictures of pictures so I can have a copy for myself. Figure I'll post them on a family website and that way everyone has access to them instead of just one person. Some really neat stuff in there going back about four generations or more. This is the kind of stuff I've been searching for... for decades.

Yesterday the sun finally came out, so we got to drive around and take pics of Amory, missed a couple of things I meant to get, but captured most of the memorable places.