January 19th

Aaaaaaaaah! It is finally loading up day. Can it really be here already? For weeks I wondered if the day would ever arrive and now. . . Aaaaaaaah!

We get to sleep at my house through Saturday night then we pack up the animals and us and head to the local La Quinta (that's spanish for Free HiSpeed Internet according to the billboards. I never learned that in my spanish studies. hmmmmm.)

We all survived the great "Ice Over" of '07 and now we are keeping our fingers crossed that we manage to slip across west Texas and up through New Mexico into Colorado between winter weather systems. If our stronger-than-normal good luck holds, we should be fine. If we used it all up for the year, well, it could get ugly!

We're told that they are working diligently on our new home as we speak. Let's pray that's the case as we plan to move in regardless of what's undone at the time. We know the heat works and that's top priority so we can survive anything else, I'm sure.

Here's a little photo from about a week ago. A winter wonderland. Snow. Not ice. Sunshine. Not gray skies. Looks good to me.



I will lose my internet hook-up sometime today so I need to finish this up before I do. Our next missive will be from lovely Colorado. Don't know when. Getting that all hooked up could take a little while. So, if you want to reach us it'll have to be by phone. Same cell numbers until further notice.

Ta dahlings.

January 1, 2007!!

Happy New Year to everyone!

I have good news on the home front. I was lucky enough to receive an offer on my house 2 days after listing and all is moving along well toward a January 22 closing. Yes, you clever ones, that IS the same date as Mom's closing. We will sing a chorus of "Show Me The Money!" and skidaddle north with the loot.

We received some progress photos of the house from our Pagosa broker. I'm including a few here. We were quite anxious about the stone because we had requested a change from the originally planned stone to some we saw on another building. Of course, not seeing the actual stone before being set in place is a bit risky. As you can see, it turned out beautifully both for the house exterior and the fireplace.






Our faith in our builder's taste has, so far, proven well placed. Keep your fingers crossed that he doesn't undergo some sort of taste transition in the new year; some sort of resolution to bring "as yet unseen" aesthetic elements into the Pagosa landscape or some such.

Here's hoping you made only those resolutions you can break without anyone noticing, that you didn't drink so much champagne that you can't remember why you were drinking it, and that your 2007 travel plans include at least one Pagosa adventure!

Ta, dahlings.
Bets