Labor Day Loooong Weekend

For the Labor Day long weekend, I took a few days off work, but we didn’t go anywhere and instead spent our time finishing setting up the house, hanging the last few pictures, and following the wake of Hurricane Harvey with fascination and horror.

There are a lot of things that I want to say (and some things that I don’t) about the destruction from that storm on the Texas coast.  For now, I’m grateful that my friends that live in Houston were able to escape the storm and have little to no damage on their homes.  I was truly expecting the worst, particularly when I saw the pictures from the flooded bayous, but luckily they’re all okay.  Unfortunately that’s not true for a lot of other people who live in Houston, Corpus Christi, and the surrounding areas.  The generosity and outpouring of donations and care is something I was able to witness firsthand and gives me hope for the future.

Texans helping Texans at the Trusted World donation drop off

In Dallas, we really didn’t see any impact from the hurricane except for some heavy rain that flooded out our front landscaping.  A few days later, we experienced an awkward, media-fueled gas shortage that still continues even today (only regular unleaded gas available at gas stations).  Instead of fueling (ha) the fire, B and I spent the week walking almost everywhere.  I found a library branch less than a mile away from our new house, which we walked to, and we also explored the neighborhood trails that take us all the way down to the lake.  The last time I had walked to the library was oh, maybe 25 years ago.  Now that the weather is finally cooling down, exploring trails is no longer a desert death march, except it only serves to remind B how much he wants a dog.  Maybe not just yet...

During the long weekend, we also hosted a tiny housewarming for a few friends that live a block away from us, went to brunch with one of B’s college friends, and spent an afternoon at a pool party.  September has felt like it’s been here for two months already, not because of the weather or football, but simply because I’ve been looking forward to B starting in his new job and living in the new place for the entire summer.  Now that we’re here, I’m attempting to pick up the projects that I had earmarked for After The Move and trying to remember what it was I was trying to accomplish with them.  You may see some more DIYs here on the blog as well as a few additional experiments in writing.  All in all, not a half bad plan to kick off the tail end of the year.