Day Forty Five...

THE FOURTEENTH OF TWENTY EIGHT THINGS I SEE BETWEEN MY HOUSE AND THE HIGHWAY...in no particular order...

Shattered dreams, dashed hopes, a lifetime of achievement thrown to the gutter. Okay, well, maybe not. I should never have looked inside the windows of the Schwertner (remember the pronunciation) State Bank. When we were first looking around the area, we found these two old buildings across from the NEW Schwertner State Bank and the Schwertner Community Center (and catty-cornered from the Crossroads Cafe). I thought the bank building would be a great place to buy, fix-up and open the little junk shop of my dreams, and whittle sticks on the front porch while waiting for the non-existent customers to never show up. But is is just not meant to be. For one thing, I do not think the owners of the property would ever consider selling it, and they might not even consider leasing it. But then, out of the clear blue, I decided to look in the windows the other night. Total devastation and mayhem is evident from those windows. It really does not look like anyone has been inside the building in decades. The roof seems to be falling in, the place is just in total disrepair. But...maybe a quick coat of paint, a nice blue tarp on the roof...and maybe I could be in business! We shall see...

I hope you all have plans for Cupid's arrows today. I know you are all good and deserving folk, and you have made someone else's day a better one today, and someone special will return the favor to you. Enjoy it, and try not to eat too much chocolate!

Today was another day of unpacking boxes from the garage and putting stuff in the house and giving things away to charity. SO far we figure we have given enough furniture and accessories to Goodwill and the Salvation Army to furnish a pretty good sized one-bedroom apartment. Today, we took two chests-of-drawers, and very nice large ottoman (think coffee table style ottoman) SEVERAL vacuum cleaners (I never met a vacuum cleaner I didn't like) and two television sets (both in perfect working order, including remotes). We needed to go to Taylor for some cattle feed, and there is a St. Vincent DE Paul and a Salvation Army in Taylor, but neither one of them would answer their phones, so we ended up going to the Salvation Army in Round Rock. A very nice facility, so we hope they can put the items to good use for themselves or for someone else. We fear that most of the proceeds from the sale of the items goes for the purchase of cokes and cigarettes...all the staff where you drop off items were drinking a coke and smoking cigarettes when we were there. Oh well...

So then we came back through Taylor and got the cattle feed with about six minutes to spare (they close at noon) and after we got the feed, we went across the street to Louis Mueller's Bar-B-Que for lunch. Great food, I had a half-pound of brisket, and Jody had a chopped-beef sandwich. We left there and stopped at a few other places, and moseyed-on-home. It was time for Jody to take a nap, and while he did that I went out and transferred the feed troughs from one pasture to the other, and moved the cattle into the other pasture. I move them every three weeks, just so the pastures can recover a bit between grazings. Then I fed the cattle and unloaded the rest of the cattle feed we just got into the feed storage shed.

Unpacked more boxes, did more stuff, and now Jody is making dinner...omelettes! Makes 'yer tummy say yummy!

Now, I hope you have a great story to tell about this Valentine's Day...but if you don't, that is okay, too. Just be kind to yourself, and it will be fine. You deserve to be nice to yourself, I am so tired of people beating themselves up over nothing, I think we need to make a new Holiday!