We hired Stull Inspections to do 3rd party inspections during the building process. They went out on January 23rd to do the first inspection before the slab is poured. They did find a few issues that needed to be taken care of before the pouring.

All tendons within three inches to supply or DWV piping should be relocated or the pipes should
be protected with a method approved by the engineer.
The vapor barrier has some defects that should be repaired. All rips, tears, holes and seams
should be repaired with an approved tape. Permeation of water vapor through concrete slabs can
cause failure of moisture-sensitive adhesives and may cause delamination, distortion or
discoloration of flooring products. Fill dirt is needed in multiple area before pouring the concrete

Hopefully, these things will get corrected today and the slab can be poured.

Lori went out to the neighborhood the other day and took some pictures for us. It looks like the foundation is ready to poured. I messaged Zach and he said it would’ve been Monday, but this arctic blast that is coming in will delay it until next week. Not the update we were looking for but glad they won’t be pouring in the freezing weather. He said he is planning on Friday or Monday of next week.

Today was one for the books. It hasn’t snowed in our area for several years and the weather forecast was a BLIZZARD warning, lol. This is unheard of in Southeast Texas. However, some areas reached as much as 6 inches of snow. Unbelievable! At our house, we didn’t have quite that much. I wasn’t there to see it in person. I had to be at work. The city was officially closed Tuesday(today) and Wednesday and I was on call both days, lucky me. They up staffed for fear of what would happen in town with all the people bound and determined to be out in this mess. I had packed my bag before coming to work on Monday, so I’ve been staying here since I came to work Monday morning. The first night I abided by the rules and slept on the provided cot, barely wide enough for my fat ass. When I got up Tuesday morning my right hip was hurting something awful. Ricky was kind enough to brave the roads and bring me my air mattress for Tuesday night. This morning it’s not quite as bad, but still in pain. Guess I will have to make an appointment to see the Dr. soon. There weren’t any more calls than normal all day so I really wasn’t needed. However, I want to make as much overtime as possible before I retire in March, so it wasn’t too bad. This morning the temperature was 13 when I got up, which is crazy! Greg Bostwick said in the China are they set a new record of only 8 degrees. 2025 has had a crazy start, it can only go up from here. It was nice seeing all the photos on facebook of everyone enjoying the snow. Looked so pretty, but the mess afterwards isn’t pretty. I’m back at work now and hoping for an uneventful day. I wonder how much snow fell at our new homesite in Magnolia. I don’t think that area had as much as here. Hopefully they get back to work on the house soon. First picture is from Traci’s house early in the day and second is Sara throwing a snowball at Ryan.

Ricky and I drove over to see if there was any progress on the homesite Saturday morning. The fame of the house with plumbing sticking up was there! This is so exciting. The house appears much smaller than we know it is. All the tensioning rods were off to the side and not installed yet. We’re expecting an arctic blast on the 19th which will delay the pouring of the foundation. I don’t know if the 5-6 month estimation allows for any weather days, but if it doesn’t it’s looking like the house probably won’t be ready until May or June. That’s kind of a bummer but we want everything to be done properly so it’ll be okay if it’s later.

I emailed Kristi letting her know we would like to have 3rd party inspections during the build process. She’s been out of the office and finally responded on January 9th. She advised the inspections wouldn’t be a problem and that our foundation was scheduled to be poured on January 20th, weather permitting! This is so unreal, lol. We will try to make a trip over there one day this week. Ricky says they should have some framing and plumbing stuff in place before pouring the slab so we should finally be able to SEE some progress.

December 18, 2024

We drove to Magnolia today and the fog was horrendous. We drove to our new street and there were already 8 houses that had been started. We were there just two weeks ago and there was only 1 started at that time. These people move very fast.

We had our pre-construction meeting with the project manager, Zach Chilton, and Kristi Wells. Zach was a really nice, energetic guy. He listened to anything we brought up and answered all our questions. We decided against putting the LVP in the master bedroom for now. We added an outlet outside that will be controlled by a switch inside for Christmas lights, a flood light on the back corner of the house that will be able to point to the back yard and the side of the house where the generator will be, 3-drawer cabinets on both sides of the stove, blocking for hanging the tv in the living room, and blinds throughout the house. I decided we really need the blinds to be done by them because it will be a while before we hang curtains. We finished the meeting with paying 25% of all the options we put on the house. They can now start on building the house. This all seems so unreal, lol. I’m so excited to get the ball rolling!

Today was the last day of my vacation. Back to work tomorrow for 4 days. I tried to open my sunroof on my car yesterday afternoon and it wouldn’t budge. I kept messing with the switch and it finally opened and I heard a pop. I tried to close it and it wouldn’t work. I finally managed to get it almost closed and took it to Philpott. They ended up having to order a part because it was locked up. They offered to give me a loaner but it wouldn’t be ready till today. I went back this morning when they texted the loaner was ready. Brentlie had a vet appointment so I had the dogs with me. They were working on the paperwork and came and told me they charge $200 for pets to be in the car. I told them I would come back later without the dogs. I got back about 1015 and they gave me a 2024 Tucson. It was quite different from my Palisade. I’m very spoiled with all the extras on my car. They had no idea how long they were going to have my car for. I was only home for a little over an hour when they called to say my car was ready, lol. Got my car back and everything was good. Went and got my teeth cleaned, stopped at HEB, then came home. It’s gonna be hard going back to work tomorrow morning. The countdown is on. Four more months!

I finished the 7-day detox last night.  Had a total weight loss of 7 pounds.  Not too bad, I guess.  I have to say it was not easy.  Some of the drinks were really nasty.  I had one that tasted like I was drinking hot sauce straight up, others that tasted like dirt, and some there is no description for them.  I managed to choke them all down, though.  I’m glad I stuck to it.  I only had carbs (brown rice) twice during the 7 days and no sugar.  It has really taken the cravings for sweets away.  For that, I’m very thankful.  I went ahead and set up to purchase 7 days of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks through For The Love of Foods to see if I can stick to the healthy eating and get the weight loss back on track.  I’m hoping that I don’t get too many meals with the tilapia because that is one dish they don’t do well.  I want to learn what a full week of healthy eating looks like and maybe I can start implementing it myself.  Not sure yet how much the weeks worth of food is going to cost.

Angie asked me if I would be interested in doing a 7 day detox from For The Love Of Foods with her.  Seeing as how I’ve been struggling for about a year now to gain control again, I agreed.  The cost was $150.  I think the price is extravagant, but I need help desperately.  I picked up my first 2 days Wednesday night.  I was surprised that I got 2 actual meals for each day.  They were small meals, but food nonetheless.  Along with that I got 5 bottles of different concoctions to drink. I had a class from 8-5 Thursday and I woke up around 3 that morning.  This was not good since I so little to last me till I went to bed that night.  I went to Delta Life and worked out at 0515 without having anything to eat or drink.  I started the detox at 0700.   The day started with a small bottle of a lemon juice mixture.  That wasn’t too bad since I’ve been drinking a little bit of lemon water every morning for the last 2 weeks trying to detox my liver.  I’m supposed to wait 30 minutes and have drink number two.   It was a little longer than that.   This one didn’t taste bad.  It was some kind of cucumber concoction.  I’m supposed to wait 1-2 1/2 hours between each drink/meal.  Because of the class I waited longer.  My third meal was terriyaki beef and broccoli and I ate it about 1030.  It was delicious.  I was very full from the meal and really didn’t want to eat all of it.  I wanted to save some for later, lol.  Since I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to do that or not, I went ahead and ate all of it.  The fourth meal was a green drink.  I’m not sure what was in it.  This one was a little hard to get down.  We got out of class around 1630 and I ate the fifth meal when I got home.  This one was chicken and asparagus.  I don’t really like asparagus, but I ate it all.  The plan says you should have all of the day’s supply eaten by 1800, but that didn’t happen.  Meal 6 was another juice.  Tonight it was some kind of carrot juice.  This one was hard for me to swallow, also.  Then the last drink of the day is matcha tea.  It is not very tasty, but I drank it all.  Went to bed early and got up this morning to find that class was cancelled.  I made it to Delta Life for 0615 class.  We had 1/3 mile run this morning and I made it in 3:01 minutes.  I had my first drink at 0730.  Second drink was the same as yesterday, the cucumber concoction, around 0815.  Around 1100 I had meal three.  Today it was shrimp and more asparagus.  Meal four was a really sweet pineapple mixture.  Meal five was the same as meal three.  Maybe I’ll learn to like asparagus, lol.  Meal six was a beet juice mixture.  It started off not tasting so bad, but it was really hard to finish it all.  Then matcha tea to end the day.  I really hope that this gives me the push I need to get back on track and lose these extra pounds that are making me so miserable.  Other people that have completed the detox have lost 6-15 pounds.  They say that their cravings also went away.  That’s what I need.  I have a terrible sweet tooth that I have been giving in to for the last year.  Tomorrow will be a real test since I go back to work nights for 12 hours!

Lately I have had a very strange sleeping pattern.  I normally don’t stay on my midnight schedule on my days off.  I’ll take a nap on my first day off and then get up and run errands.  I’ll usually be in bed by 9 or 10 and sleep until about 4:30 when I get up to go workout.  I’ve been waking up at 12:30, 01:00 lately and not being able to go back to sleep.  It’s taking a toll on me.  I can’t seem to catch up on my sleep :(.

We had a nice family visit at Galen’s on the 3rd of July.  His house is WAY out in the boonies, lol.  It was kinda scary making it to his house.  However, we made it and had a good time.  The fish was great and is was nice to see everyone that made it.  On the way home we stopped at visited with Ryan at Corey and Jessica’s house.  They were grilling, but we didn’t stay and eat.  Ricky wasn’t feeling well so we came on home.

It was strange for me to be off on the 4th of July holiday.  Ricky and I just lounged around watching tv for most of the day and then mowed the grass in the evening.  It was scorching outside.

On the 5th I had to work from 0600 to 1200 for Trey.  I’m so glad I don’t work days regularly!  I love my nights.

This morning I made it back to Delta Life.  It is so hard working out in the heat, but at the same time it feels great when we’re done.