Moving with 0 Minutes Notice

     When your an oilfield wife and you choose to follow your husband from job to job... you get to do what I did last weekend.

We drove five and a half hours to spend the weekend with my parents and with my husband's Mom. Friday evening we left Beeville Texas and drove to Buffalo Texas. It was a nice drive because we like to look at the country side and visit. Ok... we like to look at the country side and I have a running monolog for most of the trip. There, I said it. I talk to much. Nevertheless, we got to Buffalo just before ten o'clock that evening. My Dad was still in the living room watching TV so my husband sat and visited with him and I went to bed.

On Saturday morning we got up and took my parents and brother out to breakfast. It was nice to get to visit with no other agenda. We have been to Buffalo a lot this past month but we were moving out of our house and putting our things in storage in Buffalo so most of the time we were busy and did not have much time for visiting.

After breakfast we went back to my parent's house and my husband got a phone call. Within five minutes he was off the phone and said, "Its time to load up. We are moving to Leona."

I kissing my parents good by we headed back to Beeville. We asked my brother if he wanted to ride along and he said yes. Now I had someone to keep me awake when we drove back. My husband pulled the RV and I followed in our other pickup. We were back in Beeville by 4:00 p.m. It only takes me about an hour to get things ready to go and it only takes my husband about an hour and a half to get the outside ready. We were gone by 5:45 p.m. At 11:30 p.m. we pulled in to the RV park we were going to live in for the next three to four months.  We got the RV off of the pickup and slid out the slide outs. Then we went to bed exhausted. We drove 11 hours and ended up 30 miles from where we started because we ended up in Leona which is 30 miles from Buffalo. Now we are 30 miles from my parents and 15 miles from my husbands family. Wow... what a day.

The next day we discovered we had hitchhikers. Two baby birds. Their mother made a nest in the 5th wheel hitch. Next time we move we will look in the hitch for babies.

 

They are common Starlings. Read about Starlings here Starlingtalk babycare   I did some research and found out that it was legal for me to feed them until they could fly away but it would be best if I found a rescue center. Did you know that there is no place with in an hours drive that will take baby birds? So I learned that I could feed them kitten food because it is high in protein. So I soaked the cat food in water and started feeding them every hour. Evidently their mother does not feed them in the evening/night so they only need to be fed 12 hours a day. They tolerated the cat food very well ( you can tell by looking at their poop) and chirped  at me every time I opened the door to the 5th wheel. I named them George and Gracie. George was neater and pooped outside of the nest but Gracie pooped where ever she was standing. Once she even pooped on George. How did I know if they were male or female? I didn't but I figured I would just name them according to their personalities. My sister in law has birds and cages and she said that she would take them raise. I took them to her this morning. In two or three weeks they should be able to fly away. It is sad that their mother will miss them but I did my best to keep them alive. Now they should be okay until they are able to fly away. George and Gracie are now safely in a cage, so that other animals can't eat them, until they are big enough to fly away.

 

 

The move to eastern Texas was without problems and I think that is the best kind of move.

 

I keep reminding myself that change is inevitable and I might as well view it as an adventure with a smile and a positive attitude. God is good. 



Changes Are Inevitable

Have you ever noticed the beauty of a cactus?

 Most of the time they are just thorny plants that are to be avoided. Then one morning you look across the pasture and see this wonderful display of color and it reminds you that a storm brought this beauty into your life.  Changes are inevitable and I have come to realize that God uses the strangest things to cause the most growth and color in my life.

Three and a half years ago God changed our circumstances.  My husband took a job in the Eagle Ford Shale oilfield. We moved to Gonzales Texas and I though we would be there until he was ready to retire. We bought a house and settled into a sweet church. But that was just one step that the good Lord had for us on this journey. At the end of March, oil prices were so low that the company my husband was working for laid off a lot of men. We got cut in the last rounds of cuts. By the end of the day he had three job offers and by the time a week had rolled around he had more than a dozen offers. He went to work for another company and we put our house up for sale the next month.

     We were blessed that we had a contract on our house in five days. They wanted to close in three weeks and we needed to move out. My husband had already moved the  5th wheel to Beeville, Texas and was at work so the majority of the packing fell to me. We made a decision to sell or give away most of what we owned because we would be living in the 5th wheel for several years. Most furniture does not store well for that long and especially the baby grand piano. After, unsuccessfully, trying to sell the piano we decided to give it to the church that we attended. Most of our furniture went to our daughter and son-in-law and we had a yard sale to get rid of the rest. Even at that we had enough stuff that we needed to rent a large UHaul to move it to Buffalo, Texas.
     Three trips later we had the house and garage empty of furniture and tools and cars. Our house closed at the end of May during the rains and floods in south Texas but we were fortunate to have moved everything the week before when the rain was lighter. The house we sold was not in the flood zone so it was high and dry at closing and everything went smoothly.

     Now we are living full time in the RV and this is what my blog will be about. We could have chosen for me to have lived in the house and him to work away from home. After 40 years of marriage we could not imagine living apart five days a week. We are better living in a small space together than living separately in a big house.

    I made some changes to the RV to make it cozy but with four slide outs it is not such a tiny living space. I have looked on Pintrest for ideas on this life style but I haven't been able to find any so I started my own blog for other women who might be looking for ideas to get them through the same experience I am going through.



    
    Right now we are parked on the yard in Beeville. Basically that means we have no internet except for the hot spot on the phones. That is the only real hardship I have come up against. We started using our cell phones as our only phone when we moved to south Texas and cut our dependency on a land line. We had a land line when we owned the house for the security system and the fax line on the printer. Here we have no security system (other than we live on the yard and we know everyone) and we no longer need the fax.
     We have not gotten a satellite system because we get plenty of TV channels on the antenna and I really don't watch that much TV to start with. I would like more internet time so we might eventually get something like Hughes Net, maybe.
      This is my first chance to take a breath and rest in a month so I have taken it easy the past couple of days. I will get in a routine soon because I like routines. I want blogging to become part of my weekly routine. My goal is to write several times a week about ways to adapt to this life style. My next post will be about my RV Washing machine and dryer... See you soon!

     I keep reminding myself that change is inevitable and I might as well view it as an adventure with a smile and a positive attitude.