Bear with me on this, it's a great story of a 6-degree's of separation event and a Mitzvah has been done.

3 years ago I moved to Hill Country Texas from Southern California.
During my 30+ years of living in California, I took metal lessons from Deb. Deb grew up in Nacogdoches, Texas.
After moving to Texas I started working on Temari again and became acquainted with Holly via a temari group, who lives near Houston.

Then last week Snowmageddon 2021 hit.  
Over 2 storms we had almost a foot of snow and temperatures in the low teens. We lost power for a day and water for five. Other people around the state had it much worse, houses burned down and pipes burst. We will not discuss how the utilities mis-handled their respective areas.

During this time, one day on Facebook, Deb mentions that her 90 (yes NINETY) year old mom Mildred is alone in Nacodoches and she is worried about her.   I googled it and she is a 5 hour drive away, in GOOD WEATHER from where I am so just zipping over was not going to happen. Note: I know how to drive on snowy and icy roads it's the rest of Texas I don't trust. 

I then remember Holly has some church connections and just maybe she knew someone who knew someone out near Nacodoches, so I put the question to her. 

Sure enough, Holly knew someone (Mireya) who's god mother (Lorraine) is a Pastor at the Methodist church just THREE blocks away from Mildred's house. Phone information was passed back and forth and arrangements were made. 

This morning Pastor Lorraine has taken water to Deb's mom and verified she's doing well and Deb is very relieved. Plus Deb now has a contact who could assist if Mildred needs help. A call was made to Deb from Lorrain while at Mildred's house and a picture was also sent. Everyone is very relieved and happy this has happened. 

The ENTIRE state of Texas has been placed under a weather warning as a massive cold and snow storm was on it's way. All week the overnight temperature was dropping and we were warned about a chance of rain and or snow this weekend. 

And sure enough, at 10 pm last night it started to snow.  This morning we have a winter wonderland; it appears we had about 3 inches of snow!

Yesterday I went to Seguin for the Yellow Rose Fiber Producers Fiesta.  I think it is important to note the word PRODUCERS in the title; I thought it was just a fiber fest and so I was very surprised all the shearings, rovings and even silk cocoons.

I got an early start, leaving the house at around 8:45 am since Seguin is a 50 minute drive from the house on local roads and Texas highways; no real freeways that are busy and packed like in Southern California.  It was a nice drive and I had my windows open to enjoy the wonderful weather. There are still lots of wild flowers blooming everywhere. I arrived just before 10 am and my Prius-C was showing that I was able to achieve 62 mpg!

After signing in for the door prizes, I wandered in to a good sized room with about 50 vendors and lots of fiber lovers like me.

I selected my first vendor in the nearest right hand corner and did my normal routine of first go around the outside and then weave (get it) up and down the interior rows from front to back and the across the other rows but since there were only "cross rows" at the front and back of the room, my journey would be simpler; though I did take TWO passes through the room to ensure I had seen EVERYTHING!

To be honest, I did not go to buy knitting or weaving fibers, as I acquired more than enough over the past year between the Yarn Crawl and a private yarn sale last month. I was hoping to find some fiber that I could use for my temari and so I had no expectations of actually buying anything but having a great day feeling/touching/drooling over all sorts of other fibers and collecting names of suppliers for future, future, future projects and meeting people.

And yes, I did find some things! I found a cute pair of scissors that had a cover for the blades which will be perfect for traveling; I found some spools of Tencel perle thread that are somewhere in-between a standard 8 and 12 which were on actual wooden spools!; and at another vendor I found some teeny-tiny felted balls and  "modern floss bobbins" assortments that had silk 5 colors of silk threads that I can use for embroidery; and lastly I purchased hand dyed silk ribbon in 2 mm, 5 mm, and 7 mm widths, also for embroidery. 

Along the way as I wandered, I did see lots of the ladies from my local knitting store and so there were many side conversations as well as sharing finds but I saw some pin looms, a massive industrial felting machine, spinning wheels, table top and small floor looms and some great fibers! 

Here are just a few pictures

Soon after I moved in, I noticed a few gray foxes in our woods and back yard.
Some evenings I would see them in the neighbor's yard just passing through
Then we had the hurricane and I never saw them again; could their den have been flooded and if so, had they relocated?

Not to California, I hoped.

About a month ago, we were coming home late, in the dark, and we saw one of the foxes in the driveway but it ran away, but I was glad to see at least one.

Then yesterday evening, as we opened the back door, to go bring in the groceries, there was Mr. Fox, sitting on the walkway by the A/C condensing units.  I was able to grab my phone and get some good shots of him.

If we stayed still he could come close and then back away, I had to use the zoom on the camer to get the "close ups" you see below. 

 happened - the move is done
Three weekends ago the moving van arrived from and I spent the day directing the placement of boxes and furniture. It was a very hot and very long day but it appears, so far, that only one item broke; it was an old cheap table that I bought for my first apartment so it is no big deal.  Here are pictures of that..

  Three days after the moving van unloaded, Erich arrived from California in his car crammed full of the last items that he needed while still there, to close up the house and turn the keys over to the realtor.  He was exhausted from packing for 4 months, getting the house ready to sell, and driving 3 days to get here. He took the week off to recover which meant, NO unpacking, sleeping in, taking naps, and just sitting around with Boots. 

To celebrate us being together, again/finally, we went out to dinner at the Clear Springs Restaurant for dinner of scrimp, cat fish, hush puppies and the best onion rings.  And just as we were finishing, a couple came up to use and introduced themselves as they saw my California Blacksmith Association T-shirt, that I was wearing; they were from Arizona but had been members of the CBA, in the past and they now lived in the area and he makes small forges.  Here's a picture of Erich at dinner. ​ We also spent Saturday unpacking the kitchen.

This week was the 30th anniversary of the day we me so to celebrate, we went to a small private concert at the Blue Rock Studio in Wimberly where we saw Matt The Electrician.  It was a nice evening consisting of some refreshments, 2 - 45 minute sets, a 3 song encore. We arrived left to drive to the studio at 6 pm, arrived at 6:50 pm, the doors opened at 7 pm, the concert started at 7:30 pm, and it all ended at 10 pm and we were back home just before 11 pm.   Here are just a few pictures that I took (no pictures during the concert). Now to go unpack the pantry 

There was a slight change of plans this week. The move did not happen but it will Next week.

The decision was made to push out the date by one week since there was just too much to do in the remaining 3 days.  

I have come to the conclusion that we ate up those days with Erich's trip out here last month, as that trip was a week long. 

It is what it is.  

So this coming Thursday, the house will (finally) be loaded in to the moving van. The van will arrive Saturday and then it will be unloaded. Erich will close up the house and start his drive out here Sunday which means he will be arriving in Texas on Tuesday. 

In the mean time, I am getting this house ready for the rest of the contents. I have vacuumed, mopped floors, moved some boxes that have not been unpacked and more. I want make sure that when the heavy furniture is moved in and put down, it doesn't have to be moved again.

Here is this week's deer picture

Things are progressing towards the final bit of moving. The house in California is almost  done being packed.
The moving company has come by and given us a price and we have a date. Labor Day weekend.

And to top it all off, my sweet husband drove to Texas this week, to visit me and bring another car load of stuff that we do not want to movers to handle or the movers should not handle. 

We had a wonderful visit and got some stuff done around the house - a new mailbox and planter. Boots also is using the cat door to the balcony and had discovered that sitting on the balcony railing is fun.

When we went out one day, Erich got to see the Boys Club - there are about 10 bucks that hang out together in the neighbor hood. A few are 4 point bucks, then there are the 3, 2, and nub bucks. We had to stop the car and watch them saunter across the road. Plus one evening as we sat on the balcony we saw the foxes playing too.

Enjoy the pictures.

30 days ago I arrived in Texas to live and work. I am now settling into a routine.

Weekdays, I am up a 6:30 am, get ready for work, make my lunch, and head off to work around 7:30 am. The drive is about 21 miles and it takes me thirty some odd minutes to come out of the hills, on local roads, into New Braunfels and to arrive at the office.   

At work I am working directly with Marty, and we maintain the current production environment and code for a large number of applications, databases, services, and reports. The entire IT team that I am on consists of 8 people and they are a nice bunch of guys (yes, I am the only woman, as usual).  I start the day looking at error logs and tickets that have come in over night and address them. Then I move on to fixing any code. In my first two weeks, I found code that had been "lost" (not checked into source control) and then rewrote it since it was last touched in 2007, so we can deploy it to a new server next month. Along the way I also removed swaths of dead and obsolete code which saved at least another week of work. This application is now on the testing server. 

After work, which is 5:00 pm (yippee, no long hours!) I usually head back up the hill to the house; but at least one day in the middle of the week, I do my grocery shopping and get gas.  Friday nights, I am going to a knitting shop for a 2 hours "knit and bitch" get together. 

Speaking of gas, right now it is anywhere from $2.09 to $1.88 depending where you are around town. I am also only filling up once per week since my drive is so short - time and mileage.   

After dinner, I sit, watch some TV and do a bit of knitting, chat with Erich and head off to bed by 10:00 pm.

On the weekends, I am still unpacking, putting things away, running other errands, and more.   Three weekends ago, I drove up to Austin to go to the IKEA to get some stuff for the house and went to a knitting shop. Two weekends ago I cleaned up the property as there was lots of construction garbage everywhere; that took 4 hours. Then last weekend I met up with a Facebook friend and we went to two knitting and weaving shops in the area and I also found a great place to go swimming in the Guadalupe river such that I am not paying for parking or river access AND it is only a 15 drive from the house.  This weekend, well just more stuff that has to be done in the house. 

Here are some pictures of the wild life - Deer and Gray Fox plus some of the river.

As of today, I have been living in the new house for one full week and left California almost 2 weeks ago and what a jam packed 2 weeks it has been.

I loaded up my car and Erich loaded up his two Sundays ago and on Monday, May 22 we both set off for Texas.
We decided to both drive as I needed my car (of course) and there were large items that would not fit in my car that Erich would put into his mini-truck.  We planned on following each other and using our flashing lights we would signal when to get off the highway for gas, rest stops or food.  And when ever one of cars needed filling, we would fill both as that would mean less leapfrogging of getting gas. 

The first day we made it Tucson after over 12 hours of being in the car. The drive is normally about 7 but there as a double big-rig accident outside of Tucson that shut down the highway and brought everything to a stop and crawl but we finally made it to our hotel.

Tuesday, after breakfast, we stopped into see Kevin and Danielle of Potter USA.   It was a great but short visit before we got back into our cars and headed further east. Our goal was Fort Stockton, Texas and this was to be the "longest" part of the trip. Again it was uneventful - no rain storms, no car trouble, just lots of stops for food, gas and bathroom breaks. 

Wednesday was the last leg of the drive and the shortest. We left Fort Stockton before 9:00 am and made it to the house by 3:00 pm.  Our contractor and his family was there when we arrived so it was nice to see them and say hello and go over a few things. After that we headed into New Braunfels where we had a hotel reservation because we were not going to spend the first few nights in the house as it would take a few days to settle in. 

Thursday it was back to the house where the mover were waiting for us so they could unload. It was a few hours of directing them as to where to place things and running around staying on top of it all.  By the time it was all done, it was late afternoon and we tired, hot, and sweaty.  We went back to our hotel to clean up and have some dinner.  

Friday the unpacking started despite being bone tired.  Along the way I started another punch list of the little things that need fixing.

Saturday we checked out of the hotel and went to the house and MOVED IN. The unpacking continued along with a side trip to Home Depot for things we need around the house and to the grocery store.

Sunday we were beat so we did minor things around the house and knocked off early to watch TV and rest.

Monday we finished a few more tasks around the house, did a shopping trip to another grocery store and I prepared to go to work on Tuesday.   

Here is a short video of a family of deer that was taking a walk through the neighborhood. Open it up so you can hear the sound. 

I have lived in California for 

• 1,153,612,800 seconds
• 19,226,880 minutes
• 320,448 hours
• 13,352 days
• 1907 weeks and 3 days
• 36 years, 6 months, 22 days including today.

I moved to California (arrived) on October 31, 1980. That date is significant to me because my family and I moved into the house I grew up in on October 31, 1960 (I was 4 going on 5).

I was moving from Denver, Colorado to Santa Barbara to start a new job. 

Tomorrow morning, I will be leaving California and making the move to Canyon Lake, Texas and I start a new job there on Tuesday, May 30th. 

U-Haul has taken away just enough of our house so I can live in the new one until we sell this house and can move the rest of our belongings to Texas. We are aiming for late July.  

My next post will from the new house, see you all then, y'all.