Sharing Time!

Hi everyone!
Welcome to my sharing time!
OK, so today I'm going to tell you about some of the things we've found in our house!
If you have a sensitive stomach, this may not be for you...

You can really see a lot more detail in all of the pictures if you click on them, but especially the first and last ones!

To start of with, is my friend Bozo: I found him on the kitchen cupboard one morning.
He's sitting by a dime, and his head is pointing downwards. Cool red face on his bum, huh? I have no idea what kind of spider he is! Anyone?
He's fuzzy! At least, it looks like fuzz, I didn't touch him.
I think that I also have ones with white faces on their bums. (They were in the window tracks when I was cleaning house...)

This is what the inside of my kitchen pantry had in it: "Bug gunk!"
(Well, to be fair, it was in a couple other closets, too. But the kitchen was the worst one. )

This is what all of the corners looked like. (This was the worst corner, though!)

How do bugs (most likely roaches) poop on the ceiling?

This is what the entire garage floor looked like:
One of the previous inhabitants kept their dog in there. (The same one who made the dog run, perhaps?) They put down newspaper, which got peed on, and then very firmly stuck to the floor, along with hair and lint, and all that. And they didn't clean it up! Talk about rude!
This is the place where my dryer goes, see the vent and electrical outlet?

This is our favorite: Yummy!
I'm not sure I should tell you where we found this, but... I will!
This was in our furnace blower. We took off the air intake and scraped this out of it.
This was after Hal changed the air filter, which was old enough it pretty much fell apart as he pulled it out (Sorry I don't have a picture of it! It was gross, too!)
And after he shoved the insulation back up into the wall (above the air intake vent) so it would stop being "intaked" into our furnace and pumped out for us to breathe in!
What a delightful thing!

I just want to assure you all: things no longer look like this! We have since cleaned all these yucky areas! And hopefully we won't be finding any more! EEWWW!!!!
And these are the grossest things from the whole house, so I don't think I have anything else to share.

And that concludes my sharing time today. Thanks for coming!

Car...

A couple weeks ago, I finally got the car registered here in Texas...
Hal and I think the Idaho plates are cuter.

It took so long to get it done 'cause well, I'm a giant slacker in part, and they don't make it easy! The office isn't called the DMV, nor is it at the courthouse (well, it kind of is... it's in a building called simply "the anex" which happens to be at least 10 blocks from the courthouse itself), nor is it under the government section of the phone book. I found a listing with vehicle in the title and called them and they gave me the correct phone number.

Anyways, to get a car registered in Texas you have to: get a card from your insurance company stating you meet the "state minimum liability requirements."

Then take that to the car inspection place where your car gets a check-up, including: if it's driveable, the horn honks, the wipers work, your window tinting isn't too thick, your tire tread isn't too thin (or too thick), the lights all work, and the window rolls down.

If you pass the inspection, you have to show them your proof of liability, then you can pay the inspectors and get your "green slip" (which happens to be white) and your sticker (it's the bottom one) which the inspector sticks to your window.

Then you may go to the courthouse, again show your proof of liability, give them your green slip, pay almost $100, and then you get a license plate and another sticker (the top one). Whew!
After all that rambling, I just want to say I was very frustrated and annoyed by the whole experience!

Oh, and in case you noticed (or didn't): the license plate doesn't have any expiration stickers on it. Apparently people were going around town and stealing them (isn't that a good joke?). So they started doing the expiration date on a window sticker instead.

And just to share:
1. Apparently, 38% of drivers in Texas are uninsured.
2. You have to get an inspection every year to make sure your car is still up to par.
3. You have to re-register your car every year (of course).
Now: if to register a car you have to get it inspected, wouldn't you think you wouldn't have any stinky exhaust cars on the road, or broken down pieces of trash held together with duck tape? AND (this is the best one) if you have to have insurance to pass an inspection and register your car, how is it possible that 38% of drivers are uninsured? Can anyone answer that one?!

Pictures!

The inside of our house is all still painted white, there's no big changes yet... I do have some pictures hung, but it's nothing great. Looks kind of like our apartment did...

But the outside! well...
This is what the front of our house looked like before we bought it: (Nice comparison picture...)
Notice the green grass? Hopefully it'll come back. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so that's a good start!
And this is now.
Notice the bush is missing from beside the front door... It was cute, but it was always hitting me, the screen door couldn't open all the way, and when the wind blew it would smack my window (scaring me). So now it's gone (one day in a fit of rage, I chopped it all off). And the bald patch of ground? It was purely weeds. Evil vicious stickery weeds that cling to your shoes if you should happen to walk through them and then they come inside and OUCH! So they're gone now, too!

This is the back yard after I got done mowing (the second time) and had filled the garbage can. I did about half the back yard.
It's a jungle out here!

This is our favorite tree... well, okay, so we hate it. It's dead, and on our neighbors property, leaning on the fence, over my back yard.

Look at my pretty flowers! Yes, I do know they're both weeds...
But I do love my dandelions! The sad news is I think it's too dry from them to do well! I had a handful last week, but they were all dead yesterday. I could just cry!
I did take this picture just in case this one went away, too!
That's all the pictures of my lawn!

Lots of weeds!

Okay, so this weekend we bought a lawnmower. We decided since it was almost time for "rainy season" we should mow our lawn, before it starts growing again.

Hal assembled the mower on Saturday and started it up. After he got it going, we discovered that our "grass" (it's very weedy looking) was dry enough that it literally powders as you cut it -- most unpleasant! And it's super long!
Hal went inside (so he didn't die from allergies!) and I started cutting. I filled our garbage can with the clippings. I'm shocked with how much grass there was! The most shocking thing is that I only got the front yard cut! I still have the back to do! Our front yard is probably just over a third of our grass... which means I get to fill the garbage can probably (and hopefully only) 2 more times before the grass is cut all the way... and then I'll get to start again! Luckily, our garbage man comes on Monday and Thursday, so I can fill the can twice this week.

As a side note: powdered weeds are not the best thing to be inhaling! I don't really recommend it!

Sirens!

Hi ya'll!
So this morning, I was standing in my kitchen washing dishes...
And the deafening emergency sirens went off! I'm like "What?" And then it hit me... Tornado!

I, like every calm, level-headed, smart person does when unexpected sirens go off, panicked. I'm like "Oh, no! I've got to hide! Tornado! I need to grab the ferrets and hide... where?" (Yes, even in times of crisis, I think of my boys...)

"Maybe I should find out if it is a tornado!" So, I ran into the computer room to check the weather forecast... genius, I know. The weather forecast was fine. We have a fire advisory, but that's it! So then I'm like... "well, isn't it like cloudy and stormy looking if there's a tornado? The skies are completely blue." So then I went outside to see if I could see any threatening cyclones coming closer. I saw blue skies all around and my neighbors standing outside smoking, not looking worried in the least.

I'm like "hmmm... Maybe they're testing the sirens?" Yup. The Wichita Falls website says that they test the sirens once a month. I read that when we first moved here. But I've lived here for 3 1/2 months now, and this is the first siren I've heard! At least I now know what they sound like!

Oh, and bonus! Even though, theoretically, these sirens aren't supposed to be loud enough to be heard inside houses, I'm fairly certain I'll never miss the siren going off! It's so incredibly loud! I'm on top of a hill, surrounded by sirens. Wow. Loudness!

I've calmed back down now, but... it's still terrifying! I've gotta tell ya, my biggest concern about moving to Texas was the tornadoes... And now it's tornado season (roughly)! Hurray! We'll see how I do with the siren next month.


Oh and just by the way, we've achieved a new record today! Our weather did anyway... We hit a new record high today of 86. :)