Warning; Fast & Furious

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything but Nascar results. It's been a wild and crazy 3 months since we moved into our new house. I have been scanning other blogs sporadically, but I feel so out of touch with everyone.

We are about settled in. We have worked our tails off getting the place like we want it. We worked a lot outside grooming the lanscape, taking the mulch out, putting in lava rock, and adding some landscape ourselves. What they had here was really pretty it just hadn't had any attention in a while. We finished up the lava rock Saturday. We had most of it done except where Carrie wanted to plant tulip bulbs.

We lived here for 6 weeks before we had bedroom furniture and about 8 weeks before we had living room furniture. We had to order the bed and just couldn't decide what we wanted in the living room. With the help of a decorator friend we finally bought something. Hopefully Thursday I'll get the TV installed and we can actually use the furniture.

I completely tilled up the yard and sowed new grass around Sep 20. It has grown fast and I've already mowed it twice. It is really pretty. I've always wanted a pretty yard and hopefully I'll have that now. We had a sprinkler system installed so it won't be for lack of water if something goes wrong.

We love our house. We are now getting to enjoy it some. As soon as the TV gets installed we have to start entertaining. People are probably getting restless waiting on us.

I've found out there is a huge market for skilled people. I've hired a lot of them in the last 3 months and 75% are horrible. We've had electricians, plumbers, sprinkler installers, Direc TV installers, heat and air, TV people, gutter people, alarm people, window people, concrete guy, backhoe guy, roto rooter guy to unplug the gutter drains, and garage door people. I've hired 23 people. 6 never showed up and I've fired 4 of them that did show up. I don't understand why people say they're going to do something, then put you off for 2 weeks, and then come and don't do it like you want it done. It has been frustrating. I tried to use Firedog from Circuit City for my TV and they didn't show up for the appointment they had. I called back for a week and he never returned my call. I finally hired the Geek Squad from Best Buy and they didn't show up for their appointment. They did re-schedule for Thursday so I gave them one more chance.

A lady was walking by today with her dog and bragged about how good the landscape and yard looked. That makes it worth it although there were times when Carrie and I wondered. It was hard work. One day we were exhausted and I told her if we didn't get the yard of the month sometime next year I would probably go postal on someone.

We are looking for a church home also. That has proved to be the toughest thing. It is not fun at all. We need to find somewhere closer to our new house, but nothing feels like Parkway. I know it will take time, but we have a lot of blood, sweat, and tears invested and Parkway and it's been really tough. We like the two places we are going, but we still feel like strangers. We are going to take our time because it is a huge decision for us.

The girls are doing fine. They are loving school. That's another decision we have to make. We no longer live in the district they are going to school at, so we will probably have to make a change. That's not much fun either. Very stressful.

We have been going to the high school football games since the stadium is 1/2 a mile from our house. We have really enjoyed that and our team is pretty good this year. It's also a brand new stadium so that makes it nice.

I'll try to get back in a regular routine shortly.