Changing Face of my neighborhood

Who would have ever guessed when we moved here almost 7 years ago that eventually this stadium would loom over us? But here it is, getting bigger every day and now the neighborhood around us is disappearing behind chain link and barbed wire fence. Where the above photo was taken used to stand the Texas Christian Academy and Bethel Baptist Church. The church burned and the property was sold very soon after the fire. Between us and the stadium only stands the Days Inn and a few restaurants on this block, and 3 blocks of houses and one block of business/restaurants on my block.

The entire first block of my street has been purchased by the folks either building a parking lot for the stadium or by investors hoping to build hotels. I'm all for the houses being bought up at fair prices and I hope that the offers will soon be coming my way. I sure don't want to live here once the stadium is built. Even people who swore they'd not sell have sold out and left. Only one house on the corner is still holding out and the fence surrounds all but that house. It appears that this one house still has someone living in it or in process of moving out as they have cars in the drive and a gate in and out of their property.

I can't even imagine what the neighborhood will look like when these houses are gone. The trees are so old and the houses have had so much character. Soon it will be gone and noisy trucks will be tearing down the houses and hauling them away bit by bit.

I'm sure they will take our block too, but I get anxious waiting for it to happen. I chastise myself daily for having debt to pay off when the house sells instead of being able to turn the entire purchase into a new home. I hate that I may have to pay capital gains taxes on the profit (can't remember the tax laws on that one) and that I may have to rent until I find just the right place to live again. I want to live in the country this time, but find the country to be very expensive here...unless I found another 10 acres that just happened to come with a house like I had in Iowa...now that, I could afford.

Love Cleaning house? Not so much

We are in the midst of our annual rearrange and cleaning today. Every year we try to figure out how to better use our 1400 square feet to best use the house to it's max potential. This year, the room I had set aside as a music room/massage room is getting made over into Peter's man cave. He is going to take his models and his hobby materials in there which will make less clutter in the office that we spend the most time in. It will mean I don't have a room to give massages in, but I think I have done 2 all year at the house, as I really prefer to do housecalls. So, we are shifting, cleaning and moving stuff around. The end result will be good, but right now we've kicked up a lot of dust.

On the positive front, we heard from a restaurant worker at a place closeby (across the street from the new stadium) that the stadium people had been in to buy up their place. They have already bought one restaurant and torn it down, and another has been purchased. The word was they want to take out the whole section. Boy, I hope so...my biggest fear is that the stadium and parking lot will be in our backyard. The first block only has 2 occupied houses. We are just waiting for them to move onto us.

Jerry Jones, Will You Buy My House? (Part deux)

Peter told me to do a search for Jerry Jones, buy my house...I did and found out my other blog post came to the top of the list. That was pretty cool to have my post about Jerry buying my house come to my attention that way.

As the stadium gets bigger, I hope more and more each day that Jerry, or some smart hotel person, will buy up this block and turn it into something other than our house...and we'll walk away, get completely out of debt and buy houses in the country. Are you listening?

Not much to report on this week. Maggie is gone to my mom's and they are having a great time. I didn't work out and gained 2.9 pounds...but I think some of it was water weight. I rode a nice trail on Monday, but haven't ridden since. I was supposed to ride tomorrow, but it didn't work out...I'm painting Maggie's room. OK, take a deep breathe...

Oh yeah...and I talked to the owner of Fiera's sire the other day. I told him I couldn't get over how beautiful my foal was...and he said he thought she was really ugly b/c her ears were too big. I thought he was kidding me, but he completely wasn't. He said the rest of her might be just fine, but all he saw when he looked at her were her mule ears. I was aghast. We love her ears. I think it's one of her best features.

Jerry Jones, Will You Buy My House?

Today on our door step we had a flyer telling us how Jerry Jones is starting to buy up houses in the neighborhood to possibly add to his parking for the new stadium. We have been hearing for months now that we are going to be part of the new entertainment district surrounding the new stadium. Many of my neighbors seem very upset about this.

I say BRING IT ON JERRY! What are these people around us thinking???

Let's do the math: I paid $70K for my house 6 years ago and I owe approximately $65K on it now. Jerry is supposedly "only" paying 2-3 times the market value for the properties. My house is currently valued at $85K on znet. If I got three times what my house is worth, it would be enough to pay off my mortgage, pay off all my consumer debt and give me a sweet little downpayment for the next house which might in theory be my "dream home". Considering that we are chipping away at debt somewhat slowly (though much faster, Praise God, than this time last year) I would welcome the opportunity to sell my house and get the heck out of here. I mean, who in their right mind wants to live in the shadow of the giant monstrosity known as the Cowboys stadium.

So, again, I say BRING IT ON JERRY! COME BUY MY HOUSE!

Lazy Saturday

I was supposed to ride today, but it rained this morning and continued raining all day. My friend Susan and I were going to meet for a ride, but we ended up having lunch and going shopping instead.



I'm looking for the perfect tent. I want a tent that is warm in the winter, ventilated in the summer and will keep me dry. The salesman at Bass Pro shop says I need to buy the Kelthy Teton 4 and it's just the ticket. New, it is $190, so I"m trying to find someone getting rid of a slightly used one. Some of these tents are really expensive. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I might as well just get a camper shell for my truck.



Maggie is at her dad's for the w/e. I have 2 massages to give tomorrow. This week is looking good. I have a music therapy/massage therapy session to start with a new client, a 15 year old autistic boy, and then the next two weekends I'm doing riding camp for the camp instructor who wants a break. This all comes at a very good time.



My friend Betsy is working on my language patterns. She says I have to quit saying that I need work or money, etc. So, I have been saying I want more students, I want to give more massages, I want to be more successful. I have discovered that this shift in language has made a tremendous difference to my spirit. TO say that I want something is powerful. Kings want things, they don't ask, they demand. Paupers are needy, they need things. It's a bit odd to say "i want" b/c I think we're taught to be more polite than that. Kids are taught to say "may I please" or "I would like" but the words "I want" are strong and forceful, perhaps a bit aggressive. All I know is that this week, things have picked up and I am achieving some of the things I desire.



We're going to start decorating here next week. I'm rearranging furniture and we're going to turn our front room into our family room/tv room. My friend Cat thinks it's too small, but we like the idea of the nice cozy space. We're going to put our office back in the big living room b/c we have so much computer and sewing equipment and we need the room. We're putting our bedroom back in the bedroom, even though the shower is still not working. We are probably going to be doing some plumbing in the next stretch so we can have 2 working bathrooms again. We're going to move all our books into a room to make a library, quiet room. Of course, if we hate it, in another year or six months we'll rearrange again. It's hard to know what to do with the house. We live so close to the Cowboys new stadium, that we're not sure if the neighborhood will survive or if they'll buy it up to build hotels, so it's hard to plan very far ahead. If anyone would give me a large sum of money for my house, I'd sell it tomorrow. I love it here, but don't want to be here when the Cowboys move in.

I talked to Larry. Deli is in with the other mares. She's bred several times and will have an ultrasound in a couple weeks.

This was a good riding week for me. I did some dressage work with Freeley. Who would have known he'd ever be able to canter on a circle. He's come a long way.