Lots of Progress

Not only do we have concrete but they have started framing.  We think we are still behind schedule probably at least a month.  Here are some of the latest photos.

Here is a before and after photo of the large oak in front of where our house will be.  Rob has been clearing out all the cedar from under the tree and now it looks beautiful.

This is the garage and the start of the framing for the utility room (on the right), pantry and spare bedroom closet (on the left).

Framing for the exercise room.

We hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and are looking to 2013 as much as we are!

Close to concrete

Is it possible to be this excited about concrete?  Well yes it is.  We visited the property yesterday and they are close to pouring the concrete.  There is another Jimmy Jacobs home under construction down the road from us and they are about a week or two ahead of us.  So we are going to start stopping by there to see how that progress is going and that will give us a good idea what will be coming up for us.  Last week when we stopped by they were at the same point we were yesterday so we are hoping they will pour concrete this week.  Concrete takes time to cure so more than likely after it's poured nothing else will happen till the new year.

Here are a couple of  photos.

This is going to be the garage.

This is a view from the back left corner of the house.  This will be the exercise room.

This picture is taken from the back side of the house also looking into the exercise room.  We have a few floor electric boxes being installed in the exercise room, great room and office.  So this picture just shows where one of those floor will be.

This is going to be the master shower.

The black heavy plastic is the water barrier they put down before pouring the concrete.  The black plastic is covering packed down rock and sand mixture, that make up the base, all the paths/tunnels are where the concrete footings are going to be, which distribute the weight of the house.  The white tubes that are sticking up are the water drainage pipes.  Construction is very different when there is no basement.

Hopefully the weather will continue to hold up so they can continue to make progress.

Otherwise life in Texas finds us doing well.  I'm coming up on 2 months with NewTek.  We attended the company holiday party last week which was held at Howl at the Moon on the Riverwalk and was a great time.  Rob has been spending spare time cutting down trees on the property.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Texans for 3 months

Yesterday marked 3 months since we moved to Texas, some days it still feels surreal that we are finally here.  Of course as always we miss our friends and family back in Maryland but that is what email, Facebook, Google chat, telephone and vacation is for.

It's a bit weird trying to get into the holiday spirit with the weather being so nice.  It's still in the 70's and we still have the air conditioner on and are wearing t-shirts and shorts but everyone keeps saying it will start to get cooler soon.  I'm not too upset, personally I don't miss the cold weather.

Work continues to go well and tomorrow will mark 6 weeks.  The company holiday party is next Saturday and thankfully I don't have to go out and spend a bunch of money on a fancy dress, shoes, purse, getting my hair done, hotel, etc.  The party will be at a local piano bar and I have at least 4 dresses that  I can pick from!

Construction on the new house is moving along, although slow.  They are hoping to do the concrete slab in the next couple of weeks.  We are waiting for some revisions to the drawings as we may be able to change the elevation to reduce the cost of the slab.

Rob got his early Christmas present last week with a new chainsaw.  He went out to the house on Friday and started cutting down some of the dead trees and cedars that are suffocating our oaks.  We also met the neighbor yesterday, very sweet lady.  We are excited to meet her husband and sons and looking forward to developing a friendship with them.

Construction has started

The moment we have been waiting for has finally arrived, they have started working on the house.  I went out yesterday and took some photos of what they have accomplished so far (it's early in the process folks).

As I mentioned before I'll post the progress here on my blog.  I'm not posting all the pics I'm taking because you all would hate me for that.  I was shocked that I took 50 photos yesterday without realizing it.  But since Rob is still in Maryland I needed to take as many as possible to give him a good idea of what is going on.

Right now they are working on clearing the build area and setting the forms for the concrete slab.  You don't find too many houses with basements down here because the ground is mainly rock.  Next time I'll try to take a picture of the rock they dug through to level our neighbors build site.  Our lot is slightly sloped to the front so there will not be as much digging.  We went with a single story plan so we don't have to deal with stairs as we get older.

Hopefully in the next 7-8 months we will have a beautiful new home.

A few folks have asked about the floor plan so this first picture is the floor plan and a drawing on what the front will look like.

This next picture is the driveway, temporary of course, it will actually be paved when they are done, but before they started construction there was no driveway.

This is a picture of what will be the back of the house.  To compare to the floor plan, right in front of where the bobcat is will be the exercise room.

This is NOT moving in with us and  I don't think the picture does the size of this spider justice but I was not getting any closer.

This is a picture from the driveway looking toward where the house will be.  I think this is the front corner of the garage.

That is it for now.  Going forward I'm not going to keep posting the updates on Facebook so if you are interested in seeing the progress then bookmark my blog page.

Hopefully the weather will continue to stay nice so they can get that concrete done before it starts to get cold.  This week we are scheduled for lows in the 60's and highs in the 80's.  Have to love Texas, sorry my east coast family and friends I know it's not as warm there.

Finally employed again

So excited to say that I'm no longer among the unemployed.  I have a new job and started working this past Monday.  I'm the Manager of Customer Support for a small company based out of San Antonio.  Of course starting a new job is a bit scary because you don't know anybody or anything but that's the good part of scary.  I'm so excited for this new challenge.  I'm sure Rob is equally as excited because I think I was driving him up the wall!

Sadly still no construction :<(  I met with the cabinet contractor last week so that piece is done.  However, we did find out who are new neighbor are.  We haven't met them yet but this family will be living next to us.

http://www.ksat.com/news/Local-military-hero-receives-wheelchair-accessible-home/-/478452/17032890/-/oxclle/-/index.html

What an honor to live next to a hero and his family that make sacrifices that most of us can't imagine!!

Time is flying by....but no construction yet

It's been 7 weeks since we sold our house in Maryland!

It's been 6 weeks since we moved into our rental!

It's been 15 weeks since I had back surgery!

But sadly construction on the new house has not started yet......soon, soon!  Hopefully soon.  We do have final plans and they have been submitted to the HOA for approval.  We have made almost all of our selection, with only the cabinets, concrete floors and cabinet hardware left to tackle.  Hopefully they will break ground soon and the weather will not slow down the construction process.

The job search is still moving in the right direction.  I have had some interviews with a company and hopefully will hear some good news in the near future.

Last weekend we had a visitor from Maryland and had a great time during her visit but it just flew by.  Sadly the San Antonio Rampage hockey team lost their home opener but we had a good time at the game with GREAT seats that didn't break the bank.

At times it's still hard to believe that we are finally living in Texas.  Our lives have changed so much over the past few weeks and while we miss family and friends this was the best thing for us.  We made a decision to get control of our lives again and if you are in the same boat I can only hope that you too have decided to regain control and stop letting others lead.

Closed on Construction loan

We closed on the construction loan for the new house last Friday, which means they can start construction!!

As that process starts I'll post some pictures so everyone can see.  We also selected the lighting last Friday, which was tough.  We have selected the stone, roof, exterior paint colors, appliances, plumbing and now the lighting and out of all those the lighting was the toughest.  This Friday we are scheduled to select flooring (wood, tile and carpet).  That leaves us with color of the concrete floors, counter tops and cabinets.

When we had our house built in Maryland it was not considered a custom home, so you had a couple of options but no where near what we are experiencing for this house.  We had to pick out the outlet and light switch plates, not that there are a lot of options but just things that we didn't even think about.  The lighting by far had more options than I could even imagine.  But so far we have been very lucky to work with some great folks that definitely know their products which has made it easier.

It's also been 12 weeks since my back surgery.  If you are reading my workout blog then you have read some of this.  I have developed some concern about my back and just worry (of course I worry) that I'm pushing my back too hard.  My only evidence of that is a bit of soreness that has lasted a couple of days.  It's sore not pain - so I decided to do a light workout on Sunday and change my day off to yesterday and while I'm feeling better, the worrywart in me just wants to be cautious.  I have no interest in going through that level of pain or having to deal with another surgery so I just want to be super cautious.  I also know that I have a tendency to push myself a bit too hard and then have to back track which I just need to keep in check.

No real change in the job search, which is also frustrating but I know that it takes time and I need to have some patience, which everyone knows that is not something I have a lot of!  But I have to admit since I have one of my besties coming to visit next week I am a bit excited not to be working that way I can truly enjoy her visit.

It's also been 1 month since we sold on our house in Maryland and this coming Thursday will be 1 month since we have been living in Texas.  Wow time flies!!

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” 
― Eleanor Roosevelt

Yippeee it rained!!

Happy Monday!

I think we brought some milder weather to Texas from Maryland.  The temperatures have dropped since we arrived and it rained the majority of the weekend.  I think someone told us that it's been a month since they had rain.

Our pre construction meeting last Monday went well.  We made some minor changes to the plans (added a couple of lights, changed a couple of electrical outlets).  Our first design meeting also went well.  We selected the stone for the house as well as stucco color and roof color.  This coming Friday we have meetings to do the plumbing and appliances.  They are expecting to start building in 4-5 weeks.  When we built our house in Maryland it was not a complete custom home so this go around you have to select everything, which is a bit overwhelming but also fun.

The job search is pretty much the same.  I have submitted lots and lots of resumes and applications and unfortunately have only heard from one recruiter.  Everyone tells me I need to be patient that the right job will come along but it's hard since I've actually been out of work for over two months, although we have only been in Texas for two weeks.

We miss everyone in Maryland but have been keeping in touch with everyone via email so that makes it a bit easier.

We also met one of our neighbors.  They just moved here from Georgia in April.  The hubby is in the Air Force.  So now we know about a dozen people in Texas :>)

This is kind of a boring update but this what is happening with us right now!!

Rental life

We have arrived in our new home - TEXAS!!

For the most part the closing on our house in Maryland went well and we were able to get on the road and get a few hours of driving in on Wednesday, August 29th.  We lucked out with Hurricane Issac and only had about 1 hour of rain with only about 1/2 of that being a hard rain.  Actually the worst part of the drive was Waco through Austin.  There was a lot of construction and traffic.  But we arrived on Saturday, September 1st and visited the rental to ensure that it had been cleaned.  It was left in very good condition and we unloaded most of the stuff we brought with us and then checked in to the hotel.

Yes we stayed in a hotel until the movers arrived with our stuff.  There was no way I was going to sleep on the floor after having back surgery only 8 weeks ago.

Despite the rental being left in good shape we still gave it a good cleaning from top to bottom.  The movers arrived with our stuff as scheduled on Tuesday, September 4th and we were able to sleep in our own bed that night!!

Below are some before and after photos that you might enjoy.

This is the front area of the house.  We think it's suppose to be a living room and dining room but obviously it's serving as our workout room.

 This is the kitchen and what will serve as Rob's office.

This is the living room/family room.










The rental is a 4 bedroom but we are only using 2 bedroom for our room and a guest room and the other 2 are being used as storage.  So here are some pictures of the boxes and extra furniture.

Our other piece of news is we are meeting with the builder tomorrow for our pre-construction meeting.

I'll post pictures of that progress along the way for those that are interested.  Thanks for reading!!

Less than 1 week and we will be Texas bound

Can't believe we are less than a week away from selling our house and heading to Texas.  This past week has been consumed with packing and spending time with friends before I leave.  The good news is that a couple of my girlfriends already have plans to come visit.  We only know a handful of people in Texas and all of them are people that we have met in the process of finding a rental, buying our land and building our house so we will definitely have to seek out some ways to meet people.

I also started the job search this past week.  Besides the move that is the most stressful thing in my life.  Its been a long time since I've been between jobs but I'll continue to be optimistic about the future.

I decided I would not start my return to training with jogging rather I would start with the stationary bike since it's less impact.  I was surprised a bit at how out of shape I had gotten so quickly but I'm taking it easy and will continue to increase my time on the bike.  I'll plan on adding some jogging intervals in a few weeks and see how that goes.  Hopefully by the end of the year I'll see some significant improvements so I can think about what triathlons I want to do next year.  My last triathlon was in September 2010 and that was a relay with my girlfriend Sue and I only did the bike and run portion.  I definitely want to get back in the game next year.  I still have interest in doing some run races, so maybe I can find a 5K by the end of the year to do and maybe a 1/2 marathon next year.

Once we get settled in Texas I'll sign back on and get everyone caught up on our road trip.

6 weeks post surgery

I had my 6 week post surgery follow-up appointment today and all is well.  The Dr once again reminded me to have patience with the foot numbness.  He said the good news is that I do have feeling in the foot, which means my nerve is intact it's just going to take time for it to fully heal.  He also reminding me that it's only been 6 weeks and that my level of numbness has gone down since the initial surgery. 

Two other pieces of good news:

Since I'm not experiencing any pain I do not need to have a follow-up appointment.  He did say when we got to Texas he wants me to find a new primary care physician and make sure they are aware of my history and of course if I do start experiencing any pain to let him know and he could refer me to a Neurosurgeon.

He also gave me the ok to start easing back into training.  Although he made it quite clear that it needs to be very eeeeaaaassssyyyy, like try jogging 10-15 seconds and see how I feel. 

So I'm very happy but I promise I will take it very easy.  I'm going to keep up my walking for this week, see how I feel and then possibly add 10-15 second job intervals in per 2-3 minutes of walking and see how it feels.  I'm definitely not going to push this and end right back at square one. 

On the move side of things we are just f 2 weeks shy of closing on the house and heading to Texas.  It's still so hard for us to believe that this day has finally arrived.  We are nervous, scared and excited at the same time. 

Cheers to new adventures!!

Successful trip to TX

Finally home, well home for the next 3 weeks. 

We had a great trip to TX.  We successfully completed all the things we needed to get done and still had some fun.

We found a rental home - here is a picture of our temporary home for the next 9 months.  We have a couple of spare bedrooms, although only 1 will actually have a bed since the rest of the rooms will being storing all our stuff.

We were also surprised to see this:

This is our new neighbors house being built.  Their lot is smaller than ours and they have 2 water easements on their property so their house is pretty close to the property line. The good thing is that our garage is going to be on the right hand side.  We will also put in some trees to give some additional privacy.  We were also informed that someone purchased the lot on the left side of our property.  We were surprised since that entire lot is filled with trees, the good news is their water easement is on the right hand side of their property so they will have to build more on the left side. 

So now that we are home, the real fun begins!

Busy weekend

OMG, it's Monday already and it's July 30th!!  Wow how time flies.  It was a busy, busy weekend.  No packing whatsoever was competed but no worries. 

On Friday, we had dinner at Bonefish Grill with a friend / ex-coworker and his wife.  This was a first for us as Bonefish, sad because it's only 5-10 minutes down the road but really good food.  It was great to get together and catch up, I will miss friends / family and in MD so much. 

Saturday, we drove to the Eastern shore to visit Rob's parents and enjoy some MD seafood - yummy, yummy crab bisque.  Had to say goodbye for awhile, bot Rob will get to see them again in a couple of months.

Sunday, we had a cookout with some friends / Rob's co-worker and Rob's summer intern.  We had a great time, enjoyed some great food and fun conversation.  Again, no need to say goodbye yet, because I hope to see them before we leave.

Today has been busy reviewing paperwork for settlement on our MD house and reviewing the contract paperwork for our new house in TX.  Rob and I both agree that we would not even be close to being ready for moving if we both were still working.  While I miss going to a job everyday, I have been able to get so much done that would have made life crazier if we had to do it in the evening and weekends.

Rob also pointed out that 1 month from today we will no longer be living in our house and will no longer be in MD.  So hard to believe.  Rob has lived in MD all his life, so I can image how difficult this move is for him.  I have lived in MD for 17 years and we have been in our wonderful home for 13 of those years.  While we are sad to move away from family and friends we are happy about building our new house and being closer to different family and friends.

Happy Monday to all!!

Post Surgery - 2 weeks and GREAT news from Doc

Great news from the Doc today - I can drive and swim and return to "normal" duties next week!!  Further clarification about "normal" duties brought to you by Rob, not me:

Rob - "you need to ease back into normal things.  NO you are not running next week."  Darn it!!

Of course he is right, I don't want to overdo anything and end up right back where I was.

As one of my BFF's always tells me - life happens.  Yep, I'm good with that.  I'm feeling pretty good and a firm believer that impossible doesn't exist unless you let it exist in your mind.

I think I'm more driven than I have been in a long time.  So excited about this Chapter of my life - it's going to be a good one!!  I have several goals on my bucket list that are moving back to the top!!

Still moving along

It's coming up on 2 weeks since my surgery and life is moving along.  My walking has been up and down.  I have good days and not so good days.  It either depends on how numb my foot is or if my back is a bit sore from the day before.

This past weekend was a productive weekend, but I probably way overdid things.  I'm sure the Dr would not be happy to hear some of the things I have been doing.  But there is packing to do, Aug 29th (house close date) is fast approaching and there is still a lot to get done.

I have my follow-up Dr appt on Thursday so I'll find out if I can drive and start to swim - I hope cause that would be very good news.

The house situation is moving along - we had very minor issues to resolve from the home inspection so hopefully those will be done by the end of this week. 

I have 1 more moving company to meet with but we have ranked the 4 that I have seen so far so we will see where the final one comes in.  We will have our final decision who we are going with by the end of the week.  Still need to figure out what we are going to do with my car, most of the movers will hire a 3rd party vendor to move your car, I was disappointed to hear that but understand.  So I need to do some reserach on my own as it might be cheaper for us to do that rather than go through the moving companies.

We have an appointment scheduled to visit some rentals when we are in Texas so hopefully we will have some luck and find something.

Life is good!

Post Surgery - 1 week

One week from today I was preparing for surgery and was in some pretty severe pain.  Today the severe pain is gone.  For 1 week I think I'm doing pretty good.  My back feels better than I expected at this point, I'm taking less and less pain medication (currently med free since about 330 a.m.) and I've been taking daily walks from 2-3 miles.  The main issues I'm still experiencing is the numbness in my left leg and foot.  My foot being the worst part and the reason I think my walking is so slow.  Today's walk I loosened my running shoe as much as I could which actually helped take some of the pressure off of my foot and did result in a faster walk.  Although still very slow it was faster than yesterday.  I still have some pain when standing up and sitting down but it's minor compared to what I was experiencing.

I'm also a little over a week into being unemployed, which right now makes me feel good because I don't feel the nag to get back to work quickly and actually feel that I can take the time to recover and get back on my feet.  Although the move is pressure enough, I'm thankful that we had already gotten so much done and have been very lucky with the house selling process.  Now we just need to find a new place to live!

I have been spending most of my time prepping for our move.  I have appointments over the next 2 weeks with movers to get estimates for moving us. 

My follow-up Dr appointment is next Thursday and hopefully I'm going to get cleared to drive.  Not that I have a lot of places to go these days, but you do feel confined when you can't drive.

Cheers to everyone that is reading!

Post Surgery - 5 days

Would love to report that I'm pain free, jumping around and back to my old self but that would be a little fib.  I am feeling better than I expected to be feeling.  I'm still experiencing pain in my back, where I had the surgery and I still have numbness in my left leg and foot but overall I'm feeling pretty good. 

I scheduled my 2 week follow-up with Dr. Nathan for July 19th and I'm moving around better.  Sleeping and sitting is getting much easier.

I've had folks stop by and visit, which has been nice and help breaks up the boredom of just sitting around the house because there is very little I can do and under the watch of hawkeye "Rob" he is not letting me do much.

I do have all the possible mover interview / estimates scheduled for this week or next so we should have a decision on that by the end of next week.  Can't believe that we only have 7 more weeks till closing.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this cooler Tuesday morning!!

Post Surgery - 2 days

On Thursday (July 5th) I had Lumbar Laminectomy / Discetomy on my L5.  My surgery was scheduled to start around 3:10 pm but actually didn't start until 4ish. I was out of surgery and into my room for the evening around 7ish. However I still had not seen Rob.  Around 9:30 I realized I had a phone in my room and called Rob's cell phone.  He thought I was still in recovery.  So a short visit and a kiss on the forehead he headed home and I spent the night at Frederick Memorial Hospital.  I got up about every 2 hours to use the facilities, but was impressed with how well I was able to move around.  My leg/foot was mostly pain free and my back was stiff but felt pretty good.  I have to mention how great all the staff at FMH were, very nice, accommodating and friendly group of people. 

Friday morning I was able to have real food (I hadn't eaten any food since about 9:30 p.m. on July 4th).  So I enjoyed some fruit, a bit of hash browns and wonderful coffee.

Dr. Nathan came by to see me around 10 and asked how I was doing and gave me the OK to head home.  Rob came to get me and we were home by noonish.  Before leaving the hospital I got a quick visit from a friend that works at FMH that stopped by to say hi and see how I was doing. Very sweet of her and much appreciated.

My wonderful husband went and filled my prescription (more oxy) and bought me some candy and cupcakes.  I also received some flowers from some dear friends and TS and lots and lots of text messages and FB updates from family and friends.

Two days later I'm surprised at how well I feel.  My back is tender and getting up and down is a bit tough but overall I slept well last night and I'm feeling better than I thought. 

Tomorrow will be the big test as the home inspector is coming and we need to be out of the house for 3-4 hours, so we will see how that goes since I won't have my comfy blanket and couch!

I'll continue to keep everyone posted.  I'm also updating my other blog http://pitatriing.blogspot.com/, which was originally used for my Tri training but will now cover my fitness, getting back into shape for 2013 race season.

Also yesterday, we spoke to Keith, our house planner with Jimmy Jacobs Homes and approved our final house plans.  Our next step is to finalize the price, so we can get the construction loan going.  We plan to visit Texas in August to meet with the lending folks, Keith and our new Best Friend the Construction Project Manager and look for a rental place to stay. 

We are so amazed at how fast things are moving.

Thank you for following!

New beginnings.....

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was my last day at my job of almost 15 years.  It was a whirlwind day filled with much excitement, fear and sadness.

Excitement that our life is progressing in a new direction and our dream to move to Texas will be happening soon.  After my surgery I'll start blogging to keep everyone up to date on that process.

Fear that I'm without a job and will not be looking for a new job until we actually move to Texas and fear about my upcoming back surgery.

Sadness that my daily routines for the past 15 years are changing and I won't get to see many of my friends on a daily basis.  I know that I will be keeping in touch with many of them but not seeing some of them on a daily basis will be a big change in my life.

My back surgery is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at 3 with check in at the hospital at 1.  I have to stay overnight but should be getting out pretty early on Friday.  Thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and prayers.  Rob will be keeping everyone up to date on Facebook and as soon as I'm feeling up to it I'll do another posting.

Happy 4th of July to everyone.  THANK YOU to everyone that has and continue to fight for our freedom.  Your sacrifices are appreciated every day but we don't always tell you that!!

Tomorrow starts a new phase in my life

Yes, yes, I know it's been forever, but life catchs up and some times you just don't have time.  Well life is about to dramatically change for me....tomorrow is my last day at my current job.  I have been there for almost 15 years and have had some great opportunities and have met some wonderful people.  I wasn't planning on leaving until next Friday (yes the 13th) but due to some back issues that need some immediate attention I was able to get in for surgery this Friday so tomorrow is going to be my last day.

There are many other things happening in my life and I want to share that with everyone as well.  So I'm hoping to be more consistent in keeping up with my blog.

First off, getting through the last day of my job.

Second, getting through my back surgery scheduled for Thursday, July 5th.  I'm sure Rob will get a good picture of two of me in recovery but I'll try to do my best to share my experiences along the way.

More to come!