2002-12-22 - 11:37 a.m.

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." Johann von Goethe

My eyes sort of drooped as we drove down the road. My husband was all excited at the prospect of seeing this place, I as always just wanted to take a nap when I drove in the car. My eyes pop open a bit more as I saw more country as we drove out of the city. This might not be to bad I thought to myself. I have always been a country girl at heart. Being in the military sort of stopped that from happening for us. We have lived in the city�s most of our marriage life, but we were both brought up in the country.

We followed the realtor�s car through twist and turns of this old back road. My husband had heard from a friend of his at work of a listing for a 75 acre ranch with house that was way below price from, what we had even seen in San Antonio for a house alone and this was out in country!. This couldn�t be right? We looked at the ad again and again perhaps it was a misprint. Perhaps it was only 7.5 acres and not 75 acres. No the realtor had explained it was correct. She was eager to show us. She said it had been on the market for a year now but recently had went down on the price. We were going to be the third family to see it that weekend.

We hit a sandy road I groaned. I knew dirt roads meant lots of maintenance eventually. A little trailer house came into view. I joked with my husband using my country local voice. �Yup one more payment and its ours�, he laughed. It twisted and turned a bit and then a beautiful field came into view as we passed the gate, which was going to be the entrance to our ranch. Then the white house with the old red antique door came into view and I grabbed my husband�s arm and squeezed it all excited. I fell in love at that moment and I didnt even see the inside of the house yet!. My husband had a happy grin on his face. I knew he approved too.

The house had a fence all the way around it front and back. The front yard had a start of grass the rest weeds and golfer holes, which later on my cats took swift, care of the golfers. The driveway went around this large big oak tree they had a hammock and barbeque grill in place there. The front porch was covered with long bricks and the rail was old cedar posts, it looked like something that came from the OK Coral. In the back was a pen for animals, 20 acres of field covered the front of the house and 5 acres in back, and on the side was tree lines around 50 acres. At one corner of the property was a small pond.

The people that lived there were so friendly. Everyone around there knew them. I envied them. My husband and I were quiet people. We are not very loud, I sometimes wished that everyone knew us too like they did this family. They explained they were leaving cause they wanted to be near water more. The pond there was very small and only full when it rained. The water came from a well. I was worried about the well water, but even after going through a drought this last year we have always had water.

The lady we was an ebayer had a wonderful digital camera which she let me borrow to take pictures of the ranch as we drove around that day, and inside of the house. Already I was calculating what would go where, what I would color I would paint the walls etc.

The house inside had wooden floors throughout the house. Each room had a ceiling fan except the enclosed porch. Tom visioned his office going there. I visioned the kids skating in it and my library shelf�s lining the walls.

The kitchen had no separate dining room. A room was there near it instead. We later made the room into a dining room. I didn�t want my kids to far from me anyways. The house was very long. The one room my daughter and son would be in was nice with its own bathroom. There was another bathroom down the hallway next to the master bedroom, which we used. Better this way so I could keep it clean for visitors.

The Master bedroom was huge with a his and hers walk in closet, with 4 windows in it. The garage, which was enclosed with two windows, had a built in storage and the washer and dryer was in it too. We ended up getting the place but not until 6 months later. Thank goodness I befriended the wife so we talked things back and forth, which was uncommon when you sell and buy a home. Our realtor was a complete idiot and drunk I found out later. I found a lot of the contractors myself since she didn�t help any.

The people though friendly sort of screwed us over a bit by selling off the pens in back, which was listed on the contract, but they insisted that they told the realtor to take it off the listing. Knowing how stupid that lady was I almost believed them. They were suppose to finish up the shower that was not completed. The man did such a lousy job now it leaks and is so moldy that we will have to redo it someday when we get some extra money.

Other then that they had been pretty honest with us about everything else. I can�t hold a grudge about that. I think they realized they could have gotten a lot more for the place but the realtor had talked them down too much. I think they realized when they hunted for another house later that they made a mistake selling this for so cheap. We had already did the calculations since we had been house hunting for three years now. This was an excellent buy!

So anyways I was 9 months pregnant when we moved into the house. They hadn�t packed earlier and they had to leave the house in a hurry before our contract begun so they left the house in shambles. I was so tired and the dust and cleaning took a toll out of me especially being so big with my son and being overweight already didn�t help matters.

It would take another two years before I could shape things up. To this day I am still painting and moving things around and cleaning. Well if I had everything done, it sure would be boring around here.

Old and cranky - Tamale chain gang