White Christmas in Texas

[jinman]

Nice photos Jay. Your snowdrift picture reminded me that when we went to my brother's house two days ago, we saw drifts up as high as the fences in some spots and lots of 3' drifts along the barrow ditches. It will be a long time before all the "evidence" melts away, especially if we get more today and tonight as predicted.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the pictures Jim. Looks great there. Barbara sent me some pictures from Princeton and there was only about a inch there. Just my luck, first white Christmas in 80 years and I missed it.

James

Haven't heard from you in awhile. Does this post mean that the place in Princeton hasn't sold? I remember that fence you built and how nice it turned out, and then you were selling the place because you had to move for work. I had hoped that it had sold quickly, but now it sounds like that didn't happen.

Hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Eddie

 

[MF1455v]

Hi Eddy, its a long story. Sometimes things don't work out as planed and its for the better. The land we had with the fence sold quickly. We bought the house in Georgetown with me working in Austin. The we tried to sell our house in Princeton. It was about 2 miles from where the fence was. That was about the time the housing market tanked and it never sold. So we put the house we bought in Georgetown up for sale. Up keep on 2 houses was about to work me to death. We got a contract on the Gtown 2 weeks before they cut 33% of the work force where I was working in Austin.

Never thought loosing a job could be such a blessing. Had plenty of time to move, wanted to return to Dallas area anyway, job stress was over the top, did't really like Austin, now we only have 1 house, no bills and I'm just working to put back money to retire. As Harvey would say, "Life is Good". Sometimes things just work out.

Happy New Year
James

 

[Bird]

Our road still had a few bad spots where the snow had refrozen on hills, so I went back out yesterday to scrape off the ice and make the road passable for our neighbors. While I was out, Kathy took our cats for a walk and took pictures of them in the snow. This was their first real snow and they really did pretty well. Kathy also decided to commemorate the event by making her very own Snow-Cat. I think it's pretty darn creative.

We didn't know Kathy was a sculptor, and a good one, too.

 

[jinman]

We didn't know Kathy was a sculptor, and a good one, too.

Bird, we took pictures and showed them to our grandkids when we went to visit yesterday. They loved the snowcat too. I don't think there's much Kathy can't do if she wants to do it. The snowcat sure surprised me too.

 

[EddieWalker]

Hi Eddy, its a long story. Sometimes things don't work out as planed and its for the better. The land we had with the fence sold quickly. We bought the house in Georgetown with me working in Austin. The we tried to sell our house in Princeton. It was about 2 miles from where the fence was. That was about the time the housing market tanked and it never sold. So we put the house we bought in Georgetown up for sale. Up keep on 2 houses was about to work me to death. We got a contract on the Gtown 2 weeks before they cut 33% of the work force where I was working in Austin.

Never thought loosing a job could be such a blessing. Had plenty of time to move, wanted to return to Dallas area anyway, job stress was over the top, did't really like Austin, now we only have 1 house, no bills and I'm just working to put back money to retire. As Harvey would say, "Life is Good". Sometimes things just work out.

Happy New Year
James

James,

Thanks for the update. I had no idea you were going through so much, but sure am glad to hear it's all worked out for you. I think one of the biggest stress reliefs in the world is owning your home clear and free!!!

Happy New Year to you and yours,
Eddie

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Hi Eddy, its a long story. Sometimes things don't work out as planed and its for the better. The land we had with the fence sold quickly. We bought the house in Georgetown with me working in Austin. The we tried to sell our house in Princeton. It was about 2 miles from where the fence was. That was about the time the housing market tanked and it never sold. So we put the house we bought in Georgetown up for sale. Up keep on 2 houses was about to work me to death. We got a contract on the Gtown 2 weeks before they cut 33% of the work force where I was working in Austin.

Never thought loosing a job could be such a blessing. Had plenty of time to move, wanted to return to Dallas area anyway, job stress was over the top, did't really like Austin, now we only have 1 house, no bills and I'm just working to put back money to retire. As Harvey would say, "Life is Good". Sometimes things just work out.

Happy New Year
James

James,
The good Lord has a way of working things out if you'll give into his will. Glad to read that you guys are back in the saddle again. Austin has it's ups and downs. Traffic=Yuck. Lakes=good.

 

[jimmyj]

Nice pics! The snow cat is awesome. Are your houses in Texas insulated well? Would you be uncomfortable inside with the snow?

 

[jinman]

Nice pics! The snow cat is awesome. Are your houses in Texas insulated well? Would you be uncomfortable inside with the snow?

Jim, our houses are insulated pretty good in general. However, we insulate against summer heat probably more that winter's cold. Even so, we were very comfortable inside during the colder weather. Many of us also have heatpumps for heat and those don't work nearly as well below freezing as they do above freezing. If you like a blast of very warm air, heatpumps won't give you that. There's lots of natural gas heating in this area too. As a matter of fact, if I had gas service where I live, I'd have gas heat.

 

[Bird]

Jim, I have a cousin who used to live in a house with a heat pump and he didn't like it because, as you said, the air coming from the vents in the ceiling never felt warm. Our house stays quite comfortable, but only one time so far this winter, I noticed really warm air coming from the ceiling vents and a look at the thermostat showed the "Aux" light to be on. In other words, the auxilliary heat strip was really putting out some heat, in addition to the compressor running. You can guess what my electric meter was doing, but it didn't stay on very long.

I, too, live in an area with no natural gas lines, so our house is total electric, as most in this area are. I think most of the homes in the area were built in the '80s and '90s, but I've noticed a few of the old farm houses on bigger lots have propane tanks in the back yard.