Things I love about Texas

I had a running list of things I wanted to blog about, but my phone ate it...twice. I know this topic was among the few I had jotted down, so I'm winging it folks; bear with me.

 We have now been official residents of Texas for 6 months as of the 28th of August and I felt it was about time to compile a list (because I love lists) about the things I love about this humongous state. Don't worry, there will be a list (sooner or later) about things I don't love, but most of them are pretty obvious.

This picture outlines the different "sections" of Texas. We live in the Piney Woods area close to the n and e of piney. The description is quite accurate and it is quite piney out here. It actually looks a lot like back home to me. There's not much difference. We have driven into the prairies and lakes area, but not far and I went through the gulf coast area almost daily during field season, but I haven't had a chance to really explore like I want to (and I will eventually!).

Let's get to that list, shall we?

1. Speed limits

Texas has the fastest speed limit average of any state in the U.S. This can be both awesome and some what terrifying. I was only terrified at the speeds when it was 4 am and I was driving through the San Angelina State Forest trying to reach my field sites by sunrise. I do not imagine hitting a deer or other wild critter would be anything less than terrifying at those speeds. However, if the speed limits were anything like they are back home, I could have added upwards of an hour to my travel time. So, I'm very thankful for these higher speed limits.

2. Drive Texas Friendly
This one kinda goes along with the previous one, but I feel it should be separate. Plus, this is my list. Where we would have just a strip of shoulder on the side of the road, here in Texas they use it as a part of the road. I like to call it the "turn shoulder". For instance, if I were to turn right into our apartment complex and notice there is traffic behind me, I can get onto the "turn shoulder" to get out of the way before I cause the people behind me to slow down or hit their breaks. Also on highways, if I needed to turn onto the road but there is traffic coming, I can make my turn into the "turn shoulder" wait till the traffic is past to merge into the correct lane. Or if I am going much slower than someone behind me, I can merge into the "turn shoulder" so they can pass me in the lane and not have to pass in the oncoming traffic lane. What an amazing idea! I think this should be implemented everywhere!

3. Beer

When in Rome, right? I have tried the "official" beer of Texas, Lone Star, which you can't buy anywhere other than Texas and I have also tried almost every kind of Shiner made. I can now attest from experience that I am not that big a fan of Lone Star. A bottled 6 pack is about the same price as a PBR 6 pack of tall boys, and we all know I love some PBR. I can also now attest from experience that I really like Shiner Light Blonde, Shiner Premium, and Shiner Bock. I have tried others, but I wouldn't buy them again. They are just not my cup of tea, or bottle of beer as it were.

4. No tax on groceries
What?!? Coming from Alabama, I had only heard rumors of such things. It's real people and it's awesome! Granted, somethings are a little more than they were back home. But then again, a lot of the prices are comparable to back home. Mix that with my new found love of Kroger, their coupons I can load to my rewards card through their mobile app, and their rewards on gas and I'm in freaking savings heaven! This summer they gave double gas rewards for shopping Friday-Sunday and we were saving upwards of 0.60/gallon!

5. History
Texas is a state that is very proud of it's heritage. Just on my little tiny campus I've seen two historical markers. I can't begin to put a number to the amount of signs for historical markers I passed heading to Louisiana during field season. You could spend hours reading historical markers downtown, but then again we are living in the oldest city in Texas.

I'm sure there are more than these five things, but five seems a good number to stop on. I'll limit the 'things I don't love about Texas' post to five as well. If I can manage five other than my friends and family don't live here, that is.

Broke toe update: My toe was most definitely broken. I couldn't wear flip flops for over a week and even now if I do I have to be careful if my toe touches anything other than my shoe. But, the swelling and bruising is gone and it doesn't look too jacked up.

Serenity update: The special prescribed food took a little while to work it's magic, but we had managed days then weeks at a time with no urinating on the floor. However, she has peed on the floor 3 out of the last 4 days. I'm hoping today's was cause I didn't let her in from out on the porch when she needed to. I'm continuing to monitor her though and I even note the days she has went outside of the litter box on a white board.

We have an interesting day coming up Saturday as we will be going to an all day class that is required to have a concealed carry permit in Texas. I know those of you from back home are confused at this, but I will explain more in a later post. For now, here are some pictures I've taken since the last post. Enjoy and blessed be.

Texas doesn't play around with their rain clouds. These were amazingly beautiful.

Morning sun rays on one of mine and Luna's hikes at the Gayla Mize Gardens. This is now one of my most favorite pictures.

Gracie

Gracie was one the many pet names I had growing up. The only difference between it and the others was I came by it honestly. 

Clumsiness runs in my family. Well, at least my female cousins and I are by far the most clumsy of the bunch. I pretty much have scars on almost every part of my body from some accident or another. This includes my face. 

Last night I had another case of the clumsies when I was walking to my side of the bed from turning off the light. My middle toe hit the leg of the bed and either the bed or my toe make a cracking sound. It hurt so bad, I immediately put my face into the mattress to holler in pain. My hollering eventually turned into hysterical laughter cause that's what we crazy clumsy people do to push through the pain. I swear if I ever have children, everyone in the delivery room is going to be confused. 

I eventually pulled myself into the bed and turned on the flashlight of my phone to look at my toe. It was already swole a little but it didn't look broke. So I tried I curl my toes. If you can move it then it's not broke, right? At least that was what I was taught growing up. I tried some more and eventually it didn't hurt to curl, but hurt like a mother fucker when I straightened them out. (And yes, this kind of pain warrants a mother fucker or two.) 

Taking Luna out to potty this morning proved difficult in flip-flops, but the swelling was about the same and there was only a slight lavender hue to the toe joint. So, I put on my tennis shoes to go to school and even walked across campus to get Panda Express for lunch with some lab mates. We had been planning on Panda Wednesdays for a week now and I was too excited to pass up the first one. One of my lab mates found some ace tape in her desk (from a previous owner) so I taped my toe to the larger neighbor to help stabilize it. Boy did that feel so much better! I even passed my step goal for the day! 

However, come 230 my tennis shoe had to go. Every step hurt. I only put my shoe back on to go to the bathroom (gross) and even left the building for the day with my socks on. Buddy had to cut the tape of my toes cause I couldn't stand the pain of unraveling it myself. Quick aside here: I know this all makes me sound like a pansy, but I seriously have a high pain threshold. Usually I can push on through. But this, this is brutal. Ok, back to what I was saying. Once the tape was off, it was evident that my toe is broken. It's not black and blue yet. Just still this nice dark lavender at my top toe knuckle and down the side of my toe. So I've got a few days of hobbling ahead and it's really quite pitiful. Even for a Gracie like me. 

Serenity update: Ne-Ne finished her meds last week on the 3rd and we had two days of no peeing on the floor afterwards. I was about ready to call the vet again when the urinating started again, but I thought maybe I need to give the special food more time to work. I have now converted the white board on the fridge to a pee chart so I can keep up with pee free days. I've also been cleaning the litter box everyday to keep up with how many times she has peed in a day. So far it's been twice. I don't know if that's good or bad, but the monitoring will continue until it becomes as frequent as it was when we took her to the vet. The food is making her super soft an I don't know if it's related or not, but she's also been super talkative. She even woke me up this morning. 

I don't have many pictures to share from last time I posted, but here they are. Blessed be and have a great week!!

Jungle kitty

This little male ruby-throated hummingbird aggressively defends the two feeders I have on the porch. 

Serenity

For about a week our cat, Serenity, was urinating outside of the litter box at least once a day. Her diet and eating hadn't changed and I had not changed the type of litter used in the box. I tried every thing to figure out what was wrong. A towel under the mat, more litter, less litter, more frequent cleaning, mopping the entire area with lemon cleaner, cleaned the entire box... Nothing helped. I tried catching her in the act, but she's so damn secretive that every time I went in the bathroom (where her box is) she would run out if she wasn't already in the box. The only thing left was there was something medically wrong.

So we took her to the same vet that saw Georgie. They were so nice to us while we were there with her and even sent a condolence card, so they have earned my patronage. Both the techs and the vet started out saying it was most likely behavioral, I should clean the litter box more often, and maybe even get a larger box. 1) she has never done this before this often. Sure, when I was gone for practicum she got mad and peed on the mat. But every day for a week straight and NOTHING in her environment has changed? 2) we have left for several days with no one to clean the box and this hasn't happened. Plus that was with 2-3 cats using the same box. AND I was cleaning it every day for the whole week she was doing this? I don't think that was an issue. 3) a bigger box? She has an extra large box. Again 3 cats would use this one box and be ok. 

To rule out any medical issues, they said they would run an urinalysis. Three and a half hours later my poor xenophobic kitty still had just decided to pee. They found a little blood in her urine and her bladder was swollen, so we were sent home with some medicine she needed to take two times a day and a prescription food. 

After holding her down to force medicine in her mouth, watching her not giving two shits cause she's so stoned, we have had 5 days of no peeing out of the box!! This mama couldn't be happier. I do have to say, I also felt relieved that I wasn't doing something wrong and my baby was actually sick as I thought she was. 

The food costs so much more than we have been spending, but she's not eating it as fast (she is eating it! But won't eat canned food) and if it keeps her healthy I'll be happy. 

Here are some pics from the week. Enjoy and blessed be! 

Only a day later and feeling so much better!

Luna was so glad to have her sister home!

Stoned kitty t-Rex sleeping.