First Day of School

It's hard to believe summer is over and it's time to get back into the routine of school, but here we are. Truthfully, though, the start of the school year is always very thrilling to me, and we are all very excited about what this year has in store for us. Following a few conversations about dressing for success, the kids voted to have "school uniforms" this year, which basically means they decided to adopt a business/business casual wardrobe for school days. For boys, we settled on collar shirts paired with slacks, dress shorts, or dark colored jeans, ties optional. For girls, those choices apply, as well as skirts and dresses. I've always believed there is a great deal of truth in the idea of dressing for success, and it seemed to prove out in our school day today, as everyone maintained an air of seriousness and seemed eager to perform at their highest level. Admittedly, this could be attributed to the fact that it was the first day of school and no one has gotten tired or burned out yet, but I'm choosing to believe that the clothes made at least some difference. I mean, one would seem to appear especially silly throwing a fit while wearing a tie, don't you think?! Either way, we had a great first day and look forward to accomplishing our goals and learning lots during this school year.

Watts Homeschool Students 

Clay ~ First Grade

Max ~ Fourth Grade

Weston ~ Sixth Grade

Ruth ~ Sophomore

Watts Homeschool Faculty

Moving Day

We left Beer this morning and headed to Wales. Ruth had an orthodontist appointment (because there is still a whole lot of normal that happens even when you're on an around-the-world trip), and then we stopped for lunch at a little cafe, before we finally made it to our new home for the next 21 days. We haven't yet had a stop this long, but we are excited about being in this lovely house (which seems like a mansion after our last couple of stops), in this sweet little town, for such a length of time. The boys have already familiarized themselves with the backyard and are looking forward to picking all the apples they can eat. Ruth has already taken advantage of the real laundry room, complete with washer AND dryer. And, Jeff has stocked the full-size kitchen with all kinds of goodies for us for the coming weeks. And, I, as you can see, am basking in the free flowing WiFi. It's a good, good life. 

Our 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath home feels like a mansion to us!

Little boys need yards and this one is perfect!

Finished Project

Some of these are very similar to other pictures I've posted, but I wanted to show the whole finished project together in one place. The tour will take you from the front, all the way around the house, moving around to the left.

front walk

front walk, from the "parking lot"

stone work

lower patio

bar

stairs

upper patio

grill area

upper patio, from the other direction

functional

the "beach"

bed on the kid's side

less glamorous but very important slab for future well house

after dark

all lit up

Progress Report

From the kitchen door

Grill Station

Stairway to Heaven
(See those little square "stones" in the middle of each step?
They light up! This just makes me happy!)

From the lower patio

Bar (and Grill)

The big picture
(Kitchen door on the right, grill in the middle and lower patio on the left)

The front bed

Front walkway, leading to the garage

Best Day

Well, I don't normally do two posts in one day, but this day just requires it, because it was quite possibly the best day ever. It was the first day of spring, and our little part of the world celebrated by acting truly spring-like. I wore flip-flops today for the first time in months (even though I am badly in need of a pedicure). Our bluebonnets have come out of their shells and are starting to show off. Great progress is being made on our landscaping project. And, our palapas for our man-made, non-quite-finished, private "beach" arrived today, and that just pushed us over the edge of happiness. We popped the tops of some chilled Mojitos, turned on the ocean sounds app, pulled the grill around and had our first official patio party. I'm pretty sure this is what Heaven is like.

front retaining wall and back decorative stone wall

view from the bottom patio looking at the back of the house

back of the house, with the palapas peeking around the corner

The "Beach" in the back

retaining wall along kid's side of house

First lovelies of the season

Palapas!

enjoying our own little piece of paradise

Dinner on Vacation Eve and a Wall

Dinner at our house on the night before we are leaving for a trip of more than a couple of days is always a little interesting. The objective is to clean out the fridge and eat up any fresh stuff so it won't go bad. Here is what was on tonight's gourmet menu:

• Bagged Southwest Salad
• Caprese with shredded mozzarella
• Left-over pea and potato salad
• Hummus and crackers
• Fried eggs
• Peas
• Bowl of cereal (for one)
• Ham and cheese omelet (for one)
• Bruleed bananas
• Blackberries

On a completely unrelated note, our landscaping project is coming along nicely. At the end of the work day, the guys had a significant portion of the front wall done. We can't wait to see how it looks when we get home!

Patio Progress

We have been trying to get our landscaping project started for about a year and a half, so we are thrilled that this week we are actually seeing progress!

Dream House Complete

We bought our land in July. In Texas. In the middle of a long drought. And, we thought it was just about the most beautiful property we had ever seen! A year and a half later, our house is finished, and we are settled nicely into it. I love everything about this house! But the land. Oh! The land! In March. After some glorious seasons of rain. The land has made this truly my dream house. These ten little acres are peppered with wildflowers and foliage in every shade: purple and yellow and pink and green. And, my personal favorite, blue! There is a beautiful blanket of bluebonnets lining my driveway, and leading visitors right up to my front door. I love it so much!! It's just what I've always wanted! And, I get to share it with the people who mean the most to me. Can life possibly get any better than this?!

Home, Sweet Home

A Texas Welcome

Picture this

Okay, picture this:  A cow tried to slip into my garage tonight, so I rushed out--baby in arms--to shoo it off and close the garage door. The shooing works, the garage door closing doesn't. Still, I consider it a victory and head back inside.

But then, picture this:  I see another cow darn-near up on the front porch munching on one of the boys' plastic bulldozers.

Now, picture this:  This city girl rushes out the front door (sans baby), newly confident in her shooing abilities, only to find that this cow is not to be shooed. She just stands there, looking at me, and munching on the bulldozer.

And, finally, picture this:  The city girl, in her flip-flops, running through the dirt and sand and brush and cacti, after the cow that stubbornly refuses to put down the toy.

And not a camera in sight. But, I swear, there must have been a hidden camera somewhere. When that big, brown cow finally dropped the dozer and I was able to fetch it, I laughed out laud all the way back into the house. I absolutely cannot believe this happened, not only in real life, but in MY real life.

Meet the neighbors

I spied these two about 20 ft. from the kitchen door 

This was taken from the living room, facing our main driveway

This ol' girl just came right up to the house!

My Favorite Chore

Most of the things that get done around our house get done because they have to be done. And, frankly, some things don't get done at all, because I conveniently never have enough time to do them. (wink, wink). But there is one chore that I really do kind of love. And that's mowing the grass. I always look forward to getting to do that particular chore, and I always have--even when I was a teenager. There is just something about being outside and sweating (not profusly, but just enough to know that you are working) and the fresh smell and the clean look when your done. And it's so nice to do a job that gives you instant gratification and doesn't have to be repeated in ten minutes, like most of the chores around here! Oh, and I'm a push-mower girl all the way. I love to be down there in it, getting that beautiful green dye job on the rim of my old tennis shoes and cutting nice, tight circles around the trees. Oooh, I can hardly wait until it needs to be done again!

And The Green Grass Grows All Around

Due to incredibly bad experiences with our last two hired lawn guys and a long-ago broken mower of our own, our yard has turned into something of a jungle. But this week we bought ourselves a new mower, and today I reintroduced our lawn to to concept of a "haircut." Mowing is actually one of my favorite chores. I love being out in the fresh air. I love the smell of the fresh-cut grass. And I especially love how neat it looks when it's all done. (And I'm sure my neighbors feel even more strongly about that last one that I do)!

Life's Little Mysteries

A mystery by it's very nature and definition is mysterious. But some mysteries you kind of expect and accept: How many stars are there, really? What are the Marfa Lights? And what exactly is in a hot dog? No one really knows the answers to these things, though therories may abound. And that's o.k. We just accept that we don't know and move on. But some mysteries just kind of buzz around your head like a little gnat that you can't see, but you know it is there and it won't go away. Just such a mystery occured at the Watts house today. The kids and I left the house after lunch to run a couple of errands. We were probably gone an hour and a half. When we disembarked in the driveway upon our return, I noticed dirt spread all over the sidwalk. My immediate thought was that our resident rogue armadillo had really gotten out of control, uncharacteristicly in the middle of the day. But upon further inspection I noticed that there was definitely a method to the madness. A section of our front yard had been edged and mowed. I fired our last two lawn guys and haven't replaced them for this season yet, so I called Jeff to see if he had hired someone without telling me. He didn't know anything about it. Only a very small portion of the yard had been touched, and there wasn't a note or any indication of who had done the work. Mystery deluxe, is it not?!

Better Home and Garden

We had an ugly, mostly dead tree removed from our front yard yesterday and several other unsightly parts of other trees trimmed. Today, we had the boy down the street mow the grass, and we got the inside of the house all spiffed up. It looks like a place I'd like to live! And it looks like a place where a party will be taking place in just 48 hours. Funny thing about that: we've got everything looking just so, and we've invited 24 (yes, I said 24) 3 and 4-year-olds over for a party. If that isn't an exercise in futility, I'd like to know what is?! But for now, I'm just enjoying the clean house and the beautiful yard. And on Sunday, I will enjoy watching my little (big) girl and her friends having a wonderful time!