Great things about Houston (only part 1 I am sure)

Things I love about Texas? Two words, Central Time. Now I can enjoy all of my previously on too late programs. I have watched ER practically since it's inception and I have to admit to some later nights on Thursdays simply because I watch the show, get all excited and then I can't go to sleep. With the new repertoire of later TV this season, there are more reasons to stay up later. Now later is 9pm!! Hahhahaha! (diabolical laughter). My sister is bitter that I get to watch Grey's Anatomy three hours earlier than she does.
Another thing to love to Houston? House prices. With what we sold our house for in Oregon, we could have a 4000 square foot house in a cul-de-sac with a pool and spa out back. How wild is that? Of course we would have to pay to air condition the house. But still, we could play hide and go seek for weeks and never find each other.
Still yet another thing....the meterologist's fear of 'colder' weather. Hubby and I looked at each other and laughed when the weatherman said we might want to think about turning on the heater because it's going to get down around 50 degrees during the night....what? Hubby says he can't ever imagine turning on a heater around here.
Choosing your electric company. Who'd ever heard of this before? In Oregon having a monopoly on any service is pretty much guaranteed. Down here we basically gamble with who is going to have the best for the longest time. Totally weird. At first, I was going to go with the best choice for the longest time (24 months) Now I am thinking the best choice for a year so I can choose again later. Now, I am not a big fan of Las Vegas. I don't like to gamble, especially with my money, but I sure do like having a choice.
Another thing to like? I woke up on Sunday morning to have my laptop tell me that while it was 55 degrees here it was 29 degrees in Sherwood!!! AGH! I am so loving this weather. I haven't been cold once since we've moved here and if you know my circulation problems at all, you understand. I'm the one, at the YMCA, jogging on the treadmill full tilt, still wearing my zip up sweatshirt.
Getting jealous yet? Hey that house down the cul-de-sac is still for sale, along with a few others around us. You don't even have to watch the kiddies walk to school and the amenities are out of control! The subdivision pool, lake, playgrounds, tennis courts, a Walmart Supercenter just outside of the subdivision along with a Kohls, Old Navy, Red Robin, Target....I could go on forever. I am just itching to get up there and settled in our new house, especially before someone figures out our cat did make the trip and charges $350 for him to be here for only 1 month.

What I have been doing lately

So, we have been in Texas for 11 days. We have unpacked our PODs and set up our house. I have found us a new house, started the financing process, got the house inspected and insurance secured.
I should back up. Basically the Monday after we flew in, I had found a realtor and started looking at houses. The weekend before we looked through model homes. That was really fun. There is nothing better than going through beautifully decorated homes and imaging living there. The only problem is that they don't let you buy that particular house right then and with the furniture already in it. Buttercup and I are going to go back to some to take pictures and steal ideas for her new room.
So, we figured that it would be cheapest to build and then add in a pool. The only problem with that is all of the upgrades just nickel and dime you and the price of pools is ridiculous. Did you know that most houses here don't have pools? How weird is that in the weather down here? Most come with community pools, but those can shut as early as Labor Day. So, we could've picked out that $172,000 model with a bonus room (an add'l $18,000), a cul de sac lot (another $18,000 but we were building a dream house, we might as well get all we wanted), that included a larger lot for the pool. Then the cost of putting in a nice pool ($25,000) and we haven't even started with the better tub (whirlpool of course, $800) and we are already over $230,000!!! I found one I really liked, it was $266,000 but the kitchen was perfect, like I had designed it myself. We toured it Tuesday and we were ready for Hubby to tour it the next night. The next morning our agent called and said they had accepted the contract they had been negotiating since the weekend. We walked through while the owner was working from home and we talked to her about a few things and she never mentioned there was a contract in the works!! I couldn't believe it.
That was pretty disappointing. Then we viewed the house shown. It wasn't too inspiring, although, when we were leaving our agent hit the brakes and said, what was that? She had found a small path through to the elementary school less than 100 yards from the house. The house is on the corner of a cul de sac. Hubby still wanted to see it. As we walked through it, I figured out my indifference to the house was due to the lack of color.It was perfect for us. It wasn't too big. It's really easy, down here, to get used to the bigger house. I don't think we toured anything smaller than 2200 sq ft.
So, our house was $240,000...which was nice to have a ready made house less than what we could have built it for, in a nice neighborhood and an exemplary school within less than walking distance. Plus, we don't actually have to see the school.
We felt really good about not overspending on a house or buying a house bigger than we needed. You would not believe the property taxes down here. In Oregon we have property taxes and income tax. Our total tax bill from both was about $5900. Here we have sales tax and property tax. Before exemptions, taxes here are about $7,000. That's property alone!
Gosh, I feel like I am babbling. SO much has happened in the last 11 days, I can't believe I have accomplished it all!PS, here is my new kitchen. I can't wait to add some color to it

We are still Alive!

We are safely here in Houston. I will post more when we get a little more settled. Of course, who knows when that will be. I will take the time to post a PSA with regards to traveling with your pets.
Fiona and I were set to fly out at 8:15am. We woke up at 5:30 at my sister's. We had found T and put him in our garage to make sure we didn't have to hunt him down. I took a few minutes and one prayer to stuff him into our pet carrier. We took at least 40 minutes to drive to PDX. I unloaded all of our stuff and with the help of the rental car guy managed to perch everything precariously on a cart. We had to wait in line because we had to pay for T's travel. ($80!) Then she told me that our carrier wasn't going to work because it was too big. Apparently T counts as one of my carry-ons and he was going to ride with us!!!! I had no idea. No one said anything about it when we booked his ticket. She said she wasn't sure where we could find an appropriate carrier. Luckily the Continental desk had one for the special price of $55!!! Then she let me know that I would have to walk with him out of any carrier through the metal detector.
So, we get in line for the security screening. Once we got up to the place where you start taking off your shoes, I had to step to the side because I had no idea how I was to take care of our 4 carry-ons, including a lap top they like you to power up, the shoes and jackets of Fiona and myself and then get the cat out of the carrier and walk all three of us through the metal detector. It took me 5 minutes to work up the gumption to attempt all of this. I threw everything on the conveyor belt and yanked off our shoes and jackets and sent Fiona ahead. I grabbed T and very gingerly coaxed him out of his hated carrier. We managed to take him through and then get into the approved pet carrier. I had to get the TSA guy's attention in order to ask if he could throw away the old carrier. I could just imagine what kind of furor it would cause were we to leave the carrier past the security area.
Most of the passengers were already boarded by the time we got on. T was stowed away under the seat ahead of us. He did really well.
So, research all of the potential facts when it comes to transporting your pets, huh? I had no idea he was going to ride with us. It was a bit weird. He managed to survive the upheaval, so much so he looks to hubby for love and protection now when he used to cower when he came into the room. Weirdo!