So Much To Do, What's Next?

It's Sunday in tiny town Alabama. If I thought yesterday was shut down, oh no. We are IN the bible belt, more-so then Texas ever was. Everyone goes to church and everything is closed, except Walmart, of course.

We need to eat. And surprise, get more shit for the house. I feel like we are in this never-ending circle of needing shit. It's hard, being between two houses with damn near nothing. It's an adventure, to say the least, but an adventure we both signed up for, knowing it wouldn't be easy. Bring it on, because this is what you do with a second chance at life. You have more adventures, new ones, along with many, many other things.

Back to the house, what else can we do? By now I've started cleaning here and there, but we have a lot more to do. I want my husband to take advantage of this time while we are both at the house to do whatever needs to be done in a pair, whatever will make things easier for him while I am able to help. Instead, with things being closed, we decide to clean both bathrooms. I'm sure when we were done, with my lungs burning, CSI could come in and find zero evidence. No DNA. Not a fingerprint. Nothing. We scrubbed those bathrooms so hard. They are still ugly, but now clean. If you are wondering, how after a few days of being there why we hadn't cleaned the bathrooms already, at least one......I have answers for you. We arrived on Thursday afternoon. Water was turned on on Friday, then shut off due to the leaks. We have been peeing outside. Haven't showered yet. So we weren't using the bathrooms at all. Other priorities took over. We are roughing it. It is like camping used to be long long ago, or how it is when you go hunting (from what I have been told).

I have the biggest ever bottle of hand sanitizer, and we use that, a lot. We also have lots of bottled water, soap, hand towels, etc. Some conveniences, just not necessarily in the way they are typically used. It's fine for now. I think I could be in a way worse situation personally, and as for my husband, well he is a man, and this is just part of what they probably do that they think is "normal". Ha. Makes me want to take an online poll.

I swept the entire house, there was just little stuff all over. We had been keeping the doors all closed too and not going into the other rooms, so it was no big deal. But I wanted to make sure there was nothing that would hurt the dogs paws, so I cleaned up. Slowly moving along......but every time I turn around, I think, oh ya, let me do that, do that, and that list in my head just never ends. it's almost hard to know where the best place to start is and what to do exactly. Slowly it's coming together. 

I cleaned off the end of the one side of the driveway because it was buried in pine needles. We have a delivery coming tomorrow, and I want the truck to pull all the way up and around the house, so let's make this easy for him to see.....because I forgot to mention, our mailbox is laying on the ground. Don't exactly know how that happened, but it was like that when we arrived. I don't need anyone saying they couldn't find our house, or some other lazy bullshit excuse and that's why things didn't get there. Nope, I don't have time for that shit.

Sunday was the perfect day to spend cleaning with almost everything being closed. Us getting our once-a-day trip to the store finished early on, that allowed us to focus on the house, inside. Cool. Time just goes too fast and there just isn't enough hours in the day.

As the day comes to a close, the night sky is pitch black, we discuss the game plan for tomorrow, some ideas for the house itself, with some possible new layouts, knocking down walls is a consideration, enlarging our utility room, who knows. The possibilities are endless, unlike our bank account. It's just some ideas I have had over the past few days, looking around, imaging all the things we could do, and it's exciting. So much so, we are worn our and call it a day! And it's still early by most people's standards. We've just had enough for today!

Let's Explore Some More

The weather is great. Considering it's early December and around 60 degrees during the day while the sun is shining, it is more than bearable. The heater helped out overnight and we were toasty warm, all of us. It's Saturday. Every day we have had to run to the store, some kind of store, for something. To be expected. We haven't moved in yet, don't have our stuff from our other house, only whatever my husband packed up in the mini van we are driving so he had some tools to take care of whatever he could.

So what is on our agenda today? We don't have a means to cook at our house, so we have been eating out, which I am not a fan of. Neither of us are, but it is what it is for now. We have a plan on pulling this all together, it just can't happen overnight. We got into town, only to find out that most things, including restaurants are closed. What?!? Welcome to small town, Alabama. Wow. I had no idea. We drive a little further, found a great restaurant, made some other stops, and headed back to the house.

We decide to go exploring on the property. My husband has been getting up before dawn every day, and taking walks around our property. There is so much to see, we don't even have a clue. He found some cool things, and wants to take me and show me what's what. We take the dogs and go up the hill. We go to the private road and up that to the end of our property. We find a hunting blind. Cool. We see all kinds of wildlife prints in the mud. Wolf, coyote, bobcat, turkey, peasant, deer and more. Wow. How neat.

One of the things I am looking forward to personally, when we are all settled, is going hunting. I have never hunted in my life. My husband did with his father and grandfather when he was younger, but I have zero experience. What makes it even better, is that we are able to hunt on our own alnd! We don't need a license since it's private property. Wow, awesome. We still have to follow the laws in terms of what hunting season it is (right now it is deer and quail season), so those are the only things we can hunt. Fair.

The property itself is gorgeous. We walk around, dogs in tow, and I didn't think we went too far, not at all. Up, yes, and points where it was steep. I turn around to look, but with all the trees, it is so dense, we cannot see our house. Holy Shit! That's kind of cool. We are out walking our property and are secluded. That's so great!

Once of the things I really wanted was land. Property. I could almost care less if there was a house on the property. I just wanted space to breath. Not a house 15 feet from mine where I feel like we are all piled on top of each other, and I got exactly that. Peace and quiet. This is like no other experience! 

We don't walk our entire property, there's far too much of it, and we didn't bring a weapon with us (bad idea, especially if you encounter wildlife and are not prepared). Next time. I guess I didn't think we were going all that far, and we really didn't, but there's much more to explore another day.

Our neighbor J.B. sees us outside and comes over to chat. How weird for me because at the house we have been living in for 8 years, we never have conversations with our neighbors, rarely even wave. This place is so very different, all in great ways! My husband asks him if he knows of a landscaper in the area, our yard needs to get cleaned up, grass mowed, etc, and we don't have any lawn stuff here. J.B. says yes, he knows someone. Ok, great. I am sure after living in the town all these years, he knows everyone.

That afternoon, a truck pulls into our driveway. It's the landscaper, Richard. He stopped by. Wow. What service. My husband goes over what he wants done and cleaned up, including all these branches and broken tree limbs scattered near our front tree. Richard tells him it'll cost $400. Seriously? That's it? Damn, what a deal. Tiny town living already has it's perks! Richard says he will be at the house tomorrow with his son to get started. Perfect.

J.B. has come back over and we talked to him for a while again. He is a wealth of information. So helpful. It's great to have his as a neighbor. 

We wrap it up, and go into town. We need to eat and pick up some more things. Jesus. A trip to Walmart (don't even get me started, but it's the ONLY store in town without having to drive 45+ minutes), and who knows how much money later, we are going back home.

It's dark, we are tired, but damn, I feel like I didn't accomplish one fucking thing today. What a waste of a day, or maybe not since I got to check out our property, finally!

Water.......Drip, Drip

We spent our first night in our new house. It was very quiet and peaceful. The dogs are our of whack and don't know where to sleep. They too are in a new space, so it's an adjustment for all of us. We are all tired, and sleep, but not good. It was super cold in the house.

There are so many things to do. So many visions I have for this house. And with all of that, it's a mystery on where to start and what to do. The water company is due to come out first thing in the morning. By mid afternoon, they still hadn't arrived. I call to find out an ETA and was told we could turn it on ourselves; there was a big water leak that the guys have been working on all day and they don't know when that'll wrap up. My husband turns the water on. We check faucets, tubs, shower, etc. There are a few leaks; nothing major though. We run to Tractor Supply to get what he needs to fix the leaks. He gets them fixed pretty quickly, while I run into town to get insurance on the house, make a quick trip to the store and a few other stops to get him some additional things he needs.

I get home and the water leaks are fixed, but, there's more. The shower/tub in the master bedroom is leaking behind the tub from the fixture. Good to know. Not an emergency, but will have to get fixed. Not today, because that gold tub/shower surround is coming out, so we will address it then. One of the faucets in the master sink is broken. No big deal. A new temporary faucet gets put on in the hall bath because it was leaking. Fortunately we found a plumbing supply warehouse a mile from our house. Bonus! The water line that runs to the washing machine was left on in the utility room so when the water got turned on, that was spraying everywhere. Whoops. So a bit of a mess, but nothing catastrophic. Kitchen faucet is broken. It's cheap and will be replaced. So for now, I don't care. Leaks are fixed or things are capped off or whatever needs to happen. He turned the water back on but the water pressure sucks. Ok, something is clearly going on somewhere. Let's just take a break from this for now, and we do.

We decide to go over and meet the neighbor. There is one house directly across the street from us; the only house almost within sight. Nice. We are thinking, it's probably a good thing to find out who lives over there and what kind of person/people we may be dealing with. Not only that, but with our house being empty for a while, we didn't want anyone to be startled that all the sudden someone with an out of state plate is there. Who knows what anyone may think. So let's get that established too. There's a man, J.B., who lives in the house. He is 79 years old, hard of hearing, but super nice! His son lives with him, but he isn't home, so we will meet him another time. We chat with J.B. for a bit; one of the first thing he tells us is that there is a broken pipe and we have a water leak in our front yard. Great, that helps, thanks for letting us know. It turns out that J.B. has lived in his house for 53 years, so he is full of all kinds of knowledge, and knows a lot about our house. After a nice chat, we head back across the street.

It's been a long day, lots of work and shit to get done, but we are spent. We look around the property a little more, but nothing extensive. We notice there's a lot of debris on the property, stashed behind the garage, and things just thrown around here and there. Weird. Who would do that? From what we were told by J.B., the people that used to live in that house were slobs, and just threw stuff everywhere. Wow. We will have to get it cleaned up. All in due time. But for now, we are stopping for the day. It's dark by 5p, and it's pitch black outside. You can't see a thing. 

We are camping out in the living room on an air mattress, because for now, that's what is happening. It was the best room to set up. The house is cold as the temperature drops at night. We dont' have the gas turned on yet because a pressure test has to be completed first. It's Friday and that likely won't be completed until Monday. I picked up a little heater while I was out earlier since last night it was cold in the house. We are more prepared now. Lucky for us we were able to close doors since every room has a door so the heater didn't have to do more than the space we were in. Perfect. let's hope we get better sleep and more sleep now that we wont' be so cold.