Austin

Ever since we moved here, I’ve been wondering why Thursdays are so popular for events. We can have our calendars ~wide open for Monday and Tuesday evenings. Wednesdays have a few things every other week or so. But Thursdays tend to 1-2 events every week and sometimes 3 events on the same night/time seeking the exact same niche within their audience. Even in a city where there are plenty of people to go around, this has caused tension within that group. Frankly, when that happens, I usually end up going to nothing. Just looking at the calendar makes me tired. ha!

This past week, however, some holiday something was being discussed. I didn’t pay much attention. I was making a polite excuse to miss and commented that “everything” in this town happens on Wednesday and Thursday. Another woman in our conversation circle summed it up better than I’ve been able to so far. It went a little something like this:

“In Austin, Wednesday evening is like Friday night. So, Thursday is Saturday night. And, then, Friday is Friday, again, and Saturday is Saturday.”

So, every week has two weekends!

Double The Pleasure; Double The Fun

At around 12noon today, we had snow in Austin! I was at our Dream Dinners session making our meals for December and early January. It was perfect timing when “Let It Snow” came on the Muzak. And then, the sun came out while it was still snowing. That was an interesting thing to witness/

By the time I left our session, it was sunny and warming up. It’s supposed to be a hard freeze (26 degrees, last I heard).

If you want to see some pictures, KXAN is gathering images from their audience.

If you want to read people’s reactions, search the #AustinSnow tags on Twitter.

(And no, it wasn’t nearly as nice as the snow we had in Bryan last year. ..but it’s early in the season!)

So, today on Twitter (and through either Foursquare which I play or Gowalla which I’d play except it crashes my phone), a guy I’ve met like-two-times-in-really-crowded-environments-&-he’d-never-remember-me situations posted where he was. He was Black Friday shopping at Toy Joy.

What? Did I read that right? Toy JOY? TOY Joy?

Did he just say that out loud? Does his mom read his Tweets?

Last weekend, we went on a tour of the condos downtown hosted by the wonderful guys at The GoodLife Team. WOW! What fun! If you get the chance to do this, act fast. It was free to attend, but there were only 30 spots and they filled up in 48 hours. The next one is November 13th.

First Stop: The Austonian

Austin’s tallest building. The ride to the 56th floor in an outdoor cage/construction elevator was a thrilling experience. The amenities at this place are going to be fabulous. It even comes with a 24-hour concierge. The models are gorgeous, but unnecessary since the view of Hill Country is so spectacular. Even if we could afford it, though, I’m not sure it’s the right fit for us. It’s going to be gorgeous, though, when finished.

Second: The Spring

This was my clear favorite of what we saw. I liked the layout of the units and I could “see” us living in them.

Third: Bridges on the Park

This one is a boutique building, so it was dwarfed in size by the other properties we saw. Emil and I both like the larger facilities and the numerous amenities you get with the additional residents chipping in. It’s a great little building, though, and has a fabulous view of the park and immediate access to the lake, trails, and a pitch/putt golf course. One of their claims to fame is that residents trim down when they move in.

Fourth: The Shore

I didn’t care for the model we saw at The Shore, but the amenities of the facility are amazing. The pool and party deck looked like something out of CSI Miami. The night-time views of the city, watching sunset, and watching the bats emerge from the Congress bridge was a great cap to the evening.

In Sum

This are, of course, just a sampling of the range of what’s available. Even as we talked on the tour, I could tell that the Realtors had other ideas for places that would be a good fit for us. I don’t know how they did it. They were able to keep up with all 30 of us, what we liked/didn’t, what felt like a good fit, what amenities were available at each place.

Thank you, Todd and Carlos, for an amazing tour and a fabulous education.

We would love to live downtown. We end up down town a lot for events and things, it would make us more centrally located, and it’s more our style than a house since there is practically no maintenance. Emil would even drive against traffic to get to work, shortening his little commute even more.

We just left the Round Rock Scion dealership with the first part of the paperwork and a new car on order! We haven’t had new vehicles since 2000 when our’s both died at the same time. (And, by the way, two new vehicles at the same time is not as much fun as it sounds.) Our experience at the dealership has been great.

We should have a new Scion xD in 2-4 weeks. In the mean time, we may try to sell our truck for more than they were willing to give us. It should be pretty hassle-free since we can list a firm price on it and communicate only by email. No phone number/calls. No haggling. We’ll see if we feel like messing with it even for that much. The dealership gave us a pretty good deal, so we’re ok either way.

In absence of any “cool” colors, we chose silver. White just seemed plain and the other colors were all very dark. It’s just too hot in Texas for a dark car (or leather seats), but manufacturers seem to think that “everyone” wants both of these.  Scion is a good brand for us because you just pick the parts/pieces you need/want and pay the listed price. There is no haggling, no running off to “ask the manager”, and no stress. We added on some practical stuff, like the sound package, and some fun stuff, like the interior neon lighting.

Here is the one we ordered…

Back in May, we moved the stuff we needed to live in a 2-2 apartment. Coming from a 3-2.5-2 house, this left a lot behind. A couple of weekends ago, we had a big moving sale to get rid of furniture we couldn’t use and some of the stuff we didn’t need. However, since we had not yet considered packing the entire house, that still left a lot.

Thursday, I drove over to Bryan to pack as much as I could. Of the 7 rooms to do, I got 3.5 done and felt good about it. Friday, I only made it through ~2 rooms, though. Emil joined me on Friday night in a U-Haul truck and we attempted to dig through the rest of our stuff. By Saturday afternoon, we were finally loading the truck. At about 2pm, I had a mini-panic, I could see a lot more stuff than we had truck. I could see a lot more stuff than we had time. I was frustrated that we had already had four garage sales in 2 years, had given/sold a ton of stuff, had planned this move to Austin for a year and had known about it for ~four months. HOW could we still have so much stuff we don’t need? I had to keep reminding myself that we weren’t just moving a household; we were also moving a business.

Between Saturday and Sunday, the following people were super-helpful and we wish to thank them:

• Charile: took some Hallowe’en decor they will use for their party; loaned us a jack so we could replace yet another tire on my truck; helped us move a credenza.
• Casey: helped us move Daddy’s (very heavy, large, solid) desk and later helped us clear out a bunch of stuff from the garage.
• Jes: helped us clear out stuff, took a bunch of half-filled containers of cleaners and yard chemicals (that we didn’t want to put into storage) off our hands.
• Mr. R: purchased several pieces of equipment from us; helped schlep stuff to the curb for the neighbors to pilfer, and will be making trash runs for us  by refilling our curb-side dumpster and refilling and placing it where it will be picked up tw0 times on trash day (“that” side of the street early am, and again on “this” side of the street later in the day when the truck makes another pass).
• Mom L: housed us for Thur-Sat nights, made cinnamon rolls, and helped me load stuff on Sunday morning (she didn’t lift, she manned the door!) when I was in a huge hurry to grab what I could and then catch up to Emil who was already on the road.
• Neighborhood “elves”: several neighbors we know from HOA events stopped by and pilfered our “junk” for their own uses. We are grateful that they found purpose for the items and kept them out of the landfill.

We resigned ourselves to staying over one more day and made a very detailed plan for Sunday. We accounted for every 15-minute time slot and planned to get the truck returned on time.

We buzzed through cleaning and packing the rest of the house as best we could. At ~9:15, Emil told me it was 10am, so we cranked things up a notch. We decided against trying to get the stuff at his mom’s. He got on the road and I went back to Mom’s to get our clothes. While there, I took 9 boxes I could fit into the pickup. During the drive to our storage unit in Austin, I caught up to him within about five minutes. We went to work on loading stuff into the storage unit, went without breaks, drove to the apartment, loaded the rest of the things that were to go there without a moment to spare, and went to U-Haul to return the truck. The truck was supposed to be back at 5:30. U-Haul had closed at 5pm, so we had to use the drop-slot. I was frustrated that we really pushed to be on time and could have easily taken more, but also relieved that it was almost all done. We had fabulous burgers at MooYa and then came back home to rest.

We have at least one truckload left at Mom’s, but we’ll be back in two weeks for closing. Whatever we don’t get then, we’ll make a weekend run for at another time. This whole move to Austin has been a long time coming (a year of planning and wishing) and seems like a longer time to process (May-August moving). We are grateful for the light at the end of the lo-o-o-o-o-ong tunnel.

Well, our moving sale was a big success. By estimations of “stuff” in the driveway, we got rid of about half of it. We sold the dresser, the coffee/sofa/end tables, the craft desk, the bookcases, and a bunch of smaller things, too. Emil’s mom came over for a while, and we got to hang out with Jessica some and even see Casey for like a minute. We even got to see one of my brides and her mom who were sprucing up a new first grade classroom in Bryan!

At the end of the day, we were both exhausted. I was also in quite a bit of pain from head to toe. Still, it was worth getting rid of all that stuff and finding new room/space in our lives.

The next phase is for me to go to Bryan for a couple of days and pack the remaining stuff. Then, Emil will join me with the moving truck to take all our remaining stuff to Austin (to a storage unit.) That gives us a weekend before closing in case we need extra time for any projects. Hopefully, we’ll get to spend that wekeend in Austin just hanging out in our town.

Guess where we’re going this weekend? That’s right, Bryan!

We’ll be holding a

We need to get rid of some furniture we don’t want to keep/store. Hopefully, we’ll sell enough stuff to be able to rent a smaller storage unit or one that isn’t climate controlled.

So, stop by Saturday morning if you need any of these things:

• coffee, sofa, and 2 end tables
• couch (hide-a-bed, one corner of torn fabric)
• wooden office cubbies
• dresser
• long, black “crafting” table (one draw is broken)
• 2 bookcases
• heavy duty extension ladder, one of the long ones
• microwave (super nice)
• birdbath
• fishing poles
• unbuilt models
• CDs
• end tables
• Halloween decor
• Christmas decor
• Aggie tshirts
• 8′x12′ bound carpet/rug

I’m sure we’ll find more.

Hang

Friday night, we headed to Bryan, had dinner with some friends, went out for a drink at a new bar in Northgate and one other drink in a place where we could talk. Then, we headed home and crashed!

Tree through Plan D

I woke up at 9am and headed outside to start working on the tree that had fallen the weekend before. There were a bunch of little branches to be removed. At about 10:30, I heard voices and figured it was Jes wandering next door to see the tree. No, it was a Realtor I knew from BNI with a family in tow. I told her we had a contract; she said she knew and brought them by anyway. GREAT! a Plan C! So, I welcomed them inside and ran upstairs to make sure Emil was awake. We scurried out of there, so they could look at the house.

After we got back from brunch, we were working on the tree some more when I heard voices again. A young woman and her mom had stopped by and grabbed a flier. So, I let them in, gave the very brief tour of the main floor and then let them browse upstairs. When they left, they seemed very interested and said they’d have their Realtor contact our’s. Yay! A Plan D!!!

After we got the tree cleared out of the main lines of sight, we walked across the creek it straddled and found some kind of root problem that made it black on the inside. Ever since the neighbor behind us installed a hot tub, we joked that he needed to build us a bridge. Now, we have one! Since he’s never home and never uses it, this is an excellent selling point!

Packing an Omen

We spent the rest of the afternoon packing. Our plan was to move all our camping gear, since we plan to camp some weekends in the fall. We also grabbed other stuff we’d missed along the way. At one point, Cady wandered next door to visit and arrived just in time to witness me getting stung by a red wasp. I take this as an omen and sign that this is all meant to be and that one of these plans will follow all the way through to a closing. You may remember that when we moved into the house, we disturbed a nest of yellow jackets (Since the guy before us wasn’t living there, they made a corner of the front porch their home.) Emil and a neice and nephew all got stung, but I somehow survived by only killing the little bastages. I have also killed a lot of red wasps while living on that wooded lot. Early each season, I used to follow them to their nest and douse it with chemicals and watch them fall to their poisoned deaths. So, it’s just that I got stung. It’s also worth it since I know have proof in the way I view the world that this whole house-selling thing is really happening the way it was meant to be.

Back to ATX

After we filled the truck with almost all we wanted to move (the bicycles just wouldn’t fit unless we felt like strapping them to the roof), we grabbed Pepe’s burritos—chili for Emil, queso for me—and then headed back to Austin. We unloaded the truck and sorted/organized a few things.

Fancy Dinner

We intended to grab something little for supper, but were running out of time since a lot of places stop serving at 9pm. We weren’t very hungry, so when Emil spied s sushi place, we popped in. At $4 each $18 for four and with a menu where there was nothing Emil would eat, we left. I’m sure the place is very good because at 9pm, they were packed. We’d been wanting to go to Cool River to people watch (it’s the local Cougar bar! what FUN!) and knew they had a restaurant, too. Find my review on Yelp. We spent way more money than we wanted (especially since we were just going to snack) and weren’t exactly dressed for such a place, but it was a fabulous meal and a nice treat after a very hard day.

It’s not Sunday

At the end of the day, Emil said, “You know what’s awesome? We don’t have to work tomorrow.” He’s right. we’d done more stuff in the day than we usually do in a weekend. Sunday is a great day to rest and unpack a few things.

I give the Tipsy Turtle a mediocre score. I’m glad to see more frozen drinks, especially with the heat. The fixtures and furnishings are nice. The music is entirely too loud. The drinks were fine, but they didn’t have margaritas or daquiris freezing on a very busy night. Since the neighbor-owners are successful, I’m sure TT will be, too. I think if College Station would put back the legal ability to walk around with a drink in your hand, that it would be hugely successful. That is exactly the kind of drink you get for people watching on the back promenade of Northgate.

Plan B is a couple that is looking at the house on Monday evening. They would have been in the running for it, but were insistent that only “their” Realtor could show them the house. One of our Realtors could have shown it or let them in alone to see it; I could have driven over to let them in. One of her/their/our Realtor friends could have shown it…. Before their Realtor got back in town from her vacation, we had a contract from someone else. You snooze, you lose!)

As of late Thursday night, we have secured a contract on our house! The buyer has a 7-day option period and 15 days to finish securing financing and then we are set to close on August 28th.

While we are thrilled, we are also cautious. We both feel a little better, but will be thrilled when this is all over.

To those who have listened to us (ahem. me.) whine and fuss, thank you for your patience.

Wish us luck in the direction of a SOLD sign. We’re aiming for glorious inspections, quick financing, and a smooth closing.

And like we have most of the weekends since we moved, we went back to Bryan this weekend. Instead of some of the projects we had planned—like removing the parts of the fallen tree that were leaning on one of our decks–we packed. Surely, we’ll be back to make the minor repairs found by the inspectors and then again with a moving truck to take the rest of our belongings to storage.

We are one step closer to being real residents of Austin!