Tilly

So, while I was living in Wichita Falls (without Hal) working on our house, for the first while, I had our ferrets with us there. Then when we moved all of our belongings down to Houston into our apartment, they were moved down here...
Then I was all alone! So, I went out and bought myself a friend that I could talk to...

Meet Tilly, the cow...
...mouse, that is.
I know most people find mice creepy, and truthfully, I kind of do too, but she is CUTE! I love her little ears! and little feet! I do feel kind of bad, 'cause after I came back to Houston where my ferrets are she doesn't get out much anymore, but I still find her adorable!


So now I've got my three ferrets, a turtle, a frog, and a mouse. Next up is a cat... or a hedgehog... :)

What is it?

So!...
I was driving along a road, just outside the city, while looking around at houses. And I was driving by this pond (wildlife reserve?) alongside the road. When I saw something I just had to stop to take a picture of. Just so you know, Hal is really the photographer, I usually end up with blurry stuff... I have a hard time holding still...

But I took this:
You may want to click on it to blow it up bigger. See if you can see what's in the middle of the picture...




Just in case you can't tell, here's an zoomed in shot...

I came home absolutely ecstatic and dragged Hal out with me to see if it was still there. And we found this sign nearby: Great, huh?
I think its hilarious that they have to post things like this! How many people had to "annoy" an alligator before they decided to post a sign warning them not to? Hmmm...

I'm totally excited about this gator! I've always wanted to see one in the wild! I'd love to get up close and personal with one, but... somehow that doesn't seem quite safe... You know?

What we've been up to...

Well... I'll have to come right out and say that it hard for me to remember what all we've been doing... Luckily Hal has taken pictures and blogged about some of the things, on his photo blog (which is awesome!) http://halbradbury.oxyhost.com/

First of all, finding a house...
It's going very frustrating! We found a house we wanted (3 bed, 2 1/2 bath, awesome kitchen and master suite, in a good area, everything!) and were told by the bank that they wouldn't finance it. Because... it is in a neighborhood where all the houses have a paved driveway, and it only has a gravel driveway... (the like 30 feet from the road to the garage)...
So, we found another one we liked, and made an offer on that one, and were out bid, so we didn't get that one either.
And once again, I'm off to find another house! 3rd times a charm, right?

And on the weekends, rather than just sitting in our sad little apartment, we go out and play tourist! There's TONS of things to do here in Houston! (Most of them cost money, but *sigh* sometimes we get to do things for free!) Last fall when we came down to interview for the job, we went to the zoo. (Hal has pictures from it on his photo blog, post Houston Zoo.) We went to the zoo again last weekend. I love the zoo! It makes me dream of a day when I'll own my own zoo! (I'm well on my way already!)

We've also been to the Houston Space Center (NASA). It was not quite as fun as we were hoping for and super crowded, but we went!

We've been to museums (the Holocaust Museum and an art gallery museum).

We've driven out to Galveston to go to the beach and ridden a ferry. (Galveston ferry)

We went to see the USS Texas Battleship and some other monument, and rode another ferry... (Monument State Park)
I really like the ferry rides! :)

And Mom and Dad Bradbury came down for an Army medical conference thing -- is it bad that I'm not entirely sure what Dad was doing? Hmmm... -- and we got to see them, and go to Moody Gardens, which I really enjoyed, and would like to go again after they're back up and running all the way! (Obnoxious hurricane anyways! Just closed everything down! Breaking things! Jeesh!) I'm sure we did other things, but that's the only one that comes to mind right this moment... It was really wonderful to see them again though!

On April 1st, we got to go see Les Miserables performed here in Houston (at the Hobby Center). It was awesome! Hal absolutely loves Les Mis and has always wanted to see it live! So, we jumped on the chance! Funny thing about that... Hal's so familiar with the music from Les Mis that he's been dreaming it... I'll wake up in the night to find him sort of singing-humming in his sleep... Less now that right after we went, but still... "Do... hear... people sing... angry men... music... slaves again..." Cracks me up every time!
We'll be going to see Rent at the end of the month, and I'm really excited for that one! I love Rent!

We go take walks in parks and Hal takes pictures with his newly acquired cameras... I'd say new, but the one is most definitely NOT new! He's been taking pictures with film lately, and loving it! The whole manual focus lens thing, and the waiting to get them developed... it's a lot of fun for him, and he's been enjoying it!

What else have we been up to.... hmmm... I know there's more, but there's a small sampling!

House in Wichita Falls pictures...

So, I'm going to try to get back to blogging! Slowly but surely I'll get caught up to what's current...

I mentioned working on our house in Wichita Falls...
You can see more pictures of our house in previous posts, like this one: Pictures of our house.
I'll be posting a few of them here, anyways, but just in case! (I apparently don't do well with before and after pictures, or even actually have the pictures that I think I do! So, I apologize, I'll try to do better next time!)

Starting with the outside... when we bought it, it had a giant, huge, stinky in-the-way bush by the front door... it would prevent the door from opening, "knock" on the window in the wind, and be stinky!
So, we ripped it out. (Well, I cut it to bits and then the missionaries ripped it out for us, but... it was gone!)
I painted the overhang and part of the front of the house... it's not a great job, but it looks better! It might be more obvious in person, but I was proud! :)

When my brother, David, came down to help us with our house, he did the most amazing things!
This is what the bathroom looked like before...
He made my bathroom look oh, so pretty!
Granted, it's still (re-painted) white, but I've read houses sell better painted plain colors, like tan, white, off-white... And it just so happened, I had white paint! :)
He replaced the tub, tiled the floor, fixed the leaky toilet (which unfortunatly, sprung another leak later, so I took the tank off again and fixed it... hopefully for good!). And he removed the old sink & counter and put in a new one, and removed the old ugly mirror & lights, fixed the wall, and hung new ones! (Sorry, no before picture of this one!)
When we bought the house, the dining room had carpet, which I didn't really care for...
And the kitchen had this wall oven and counter top range, that we removed.

David also laid some flooring in my kitchen and dining room.
We were planning on just replacing the kitchen sink and counter, BUT the sink wouldn't fit into the existing cabinets, so we had to replace those too! Ugh! It looks mighty pretty if I do say so myself!

After Christmas, Hal came up from Houston with a friend from work, Anita and her husband Nino, for the weekend, and Nino trimmed (around the floor) in the dining room and kitchen, and they helped us pack up the house and drive it all to Houston! They were life savers!

One of the other things I did (after Christmas) was work on the half bath... which involved removing the tank from the existing toilet, removing the water-saver device that didn't work properly and prevented the toilet from flushing, re-assembling the toilet (my first one ever!). I did not remove the bowl from the floor, though! 'Cause there's no way I was going to mess with that if I didn't have to!
I replaced the faucet for the sink, and the valves that ran the water to it, because they leaked! And in the process of working under the sink, knocked it off the wall onto myself (we were both fine!) But I did have to re-attach the sink to the wall! Whew! And I re-attached it properly! Grrr!
This is the before/after shot of the half-bath... Everything you can see in it look exactly the same... sorry, I didn't take pictures of the faucet! (You're not missing much!)


I do like to tell stories!
Funny story about our old bathtub... One day in October or sometime right around there, I climbed into our bathtub to take a shower. And I'd swear, I felt it move! Well, it apparently DID move at some point, because it appeared to be sinking, in comparison to the floor and the wall... big cracks appeared around it, where the caulk around the tub had pulled away from the sheetrock surrounding it... Hmmm...
As scary as it is to have your tub drop an inch or two, I wasn't actually all that worried... it's not like it could go anywhere! Our house was built on a slab foundation, which just means it's sitting on a concrete floor. (Think of your garage or basement... imagine a tub sitting on the floor... not really anywhere to go, just a little obnoxious and scary when it moves!)
Anyways, when my brother removed the tub, he discovered why it had dropped. (And I'm really sorry to say I didn't take pictures of it!) We had a metal tub, probably the tub that was dropped in in 1961 when the house was built, anyways, there were bars running along the bottom of the tub to support it. And they had just rusted up and partially crumbled away! And the tub slowly dropped down... Tee hee... Not entirely certain HOW metal bars on the bottom of a bathtub rust off, but such is life! It amused me!

Stupid Dani story!
While David was laying tile in the bathroom, I was watching him smear the adhesive glop on the floor, before setting the tiles on it, and I decided that the gray goop looked a bit like clay! Okay, so it looks a LOT like clay! I wanted to play in it...
My brother, being the nice guy that he is told me that he didn't think it was such a good idea to play with it. It is cement after all... This "cement" word didn't scare me though! And I pestered and bugged him 'til he said "Look! Play with it if you want, but it's not a good idea!"
So, I proceded to smear it all over my hands and squish it and play with it... It was a blast! I had so much fun! Until it started drying and hurting... At which point I asked my brother what was going on, why it hurts...
He looked at me (in the typical you're being an idiot fashion) and informed me IT'S CEMENT!!! Cement has lye and sand in it. The lye was burning me and the sand was probably imbedding itself in my pores. Ummm... Oh...
So I went to wash, and lucky me, my hands hurt and itched for weeks! I had some really terrible looking red bumps all over my hands (I concerned the people at work. They thought maybe I'd gotten some horrible disease...)
Lesson learned: Cement is not a good idea to play with bare handed! Maybe next time I should wear gloves... ;) OK!! OK!! I won't play with it again!

Whew! So that was just lots of information! Sorry! I tend to get a little long winded! :)
I'll try to post again soon!