Here we go....

So, it is final. Steve accepted the Seattle position on Tuesday. We listed our house yesterday and are crossing our fingers. I feel like the holidays are the worst time to put it on the market, but you never know...Here is the listing, are you in the market? I will miss Austin so much. This house has become our home, but most of all I will miss all my friends.

Click here to check out the listing. Updated, "professional", pics will be in next week. But here we have it. It makes me a little sick to my belly.

Wolf

The Wolf...Oh yeah. Steve found the notorious wolf spider in our garage, by my paint bag a couple nights ago. A bite from one of these guys can hospitalize you. One might wonder, "why is its back glistening?" Well my fellow bloggers, those glistens are the eyes of his 400 babies on his back. UCK! shiver shiver... Steve tried to squish it, but I think the spider was bigger than his foot. It ended up, that instead of 1 mama spider, we had 401 to kill, because the babies went everywhere! Mama spider was PO'd.

After completely taking apart our garage looking for this beast, we decided to just bug bomb the whole garage. Mama ended up in the back of the fridge. All I could envision is me getting my diet coke at 6:30 in the morning and her coming out for her morning feast on me! See how her back isn't so big now? She made it about 4 feet away from the fridge before the poison finally killed her.

Man...

Boy, last week was a bad one. I am tellin' ya, I can't remember a worse one in a long time. It just felt like we got hit with everything. My friend Natalie sent me this today, and it made me laugh, and cry a little. So for those who don't have the privilege of living in Texas; I should probably explain...

We here in Texas think that Property Tax is a fun way to bill our residence, instead of the usual income tax. Many might say, "that is awesome, no income tax!" Well, based on what we make, I figured that if they just taxed us on our income, we might have to pay 1,000 a year or something. But with the blessing of property tax, I can donate almost 10 grand a year to my wonderful state.

In fact, they even make you feel like you have some say in finding the appropriate "value" of your home so that they can stamp their 2.15% per year on it. This is a sly, considering it is purely a blanket to make you feel cozy, because when all is said and done, they don't give a crap what you think, or what the market thinks of your value. I would know this, why? Because last week, I went in front of an appeals court to detest, I mean protest, the value of my home in which I am being taxed. According to my comps in my neighborhood and an appraisal in which I sunk $350 to, we are overvalued by around $50,000! I had all my pretty paperwork all neatly piled in a Manila folder. It even made sense. So when they asked if I "rested" on my case, I thought I had proved that I was being over taxed.

Then what happened was astounding. I am not sure if it happened in real life, but looking back on the situation, I think that it did. They took my pretty papers out of my file, crunched them up individually, barfed on them, made a copy, then threw them away. THEN - considered raising my taxes, at which point a little poop came out. Then decided that they were fair in their assessment and they didn't want to hear another word for me. Well there gonna! I guess not til next year, but I am really MAD. Even madder in fact when I came to realize that we are the highest taxed people in our neighborhood. Come on now. We all love our own home, but even I don't value mine at that.

Our house as seen by: MYSELF

Our house as seen by: A BUYER

Our house as seen by: A LENDER

Our house as seen by: AN APPRAISER

Our house as seen by: AUSTIN COUNTY TAX ASSESSOR (i hate you!)

It's Back!

So Steve gets poison ivy flippin' all the time. But he has a bad case of it. Lets just say, he wouldn't let me blog the places where its really bad. Heres a pic of his arm where it is not effected as much. Go down the stomach and into his "waistband" area, it ain't pretty. Poor man. He actually wore my nightgown yesterday cuz having a band around his waste is making it spread. Poor man.

Where have you BEEN?

"All's I'm Sayin' "

Fredricksburg Courthouse

Long story, but I ended up here on this lovely 1930's bench outside Fredricksburg Court Room with my sister-in-law, Kellie. We were witnesses for Steve's brother, who was put on trial for random accusations by his ex wife. Kellie and I spent the whole week on this bench, waiting to be called to the stand, while Steve's family prayed and hoped that the truth would come out in this crazy trial. Unfortunately, it didn't. Not a bench I want to ever return to, nor was it a good memory for me. However, since this blog is part of my journal, I felt it necessary to post both the bad and the good...