Author: admin

TEXAS WEATHER IS CRAAAAZZZYY!

The Sleet Storm

There’s nothing like Texas weather in February!!! Is it winter? Is it Spring? Is it Summer? Sheesh! Today, it feels like early Spring. The rest of the week is going to be in the 70’s.

If we ever get snow, it’s usually around Valentine’s Day. This year, the bad weather arrived two weeks early. It came in the form of a sleet storm, in Ft. Worth, with very frigid weather. My son, and sister-in-law , live in the Austin area. They had a severe ice storm that brought down trees and wires, all over Austin. My sister-in-law and hubby just had their electricity turned back on, this past week. They were without electricity for about 10 days, and ended up being at a hotel for five or six of those days. They are still cleaning up debris. All of the streets in their area are lined with piles of tree branches. Austin and Ft. Worth, and surrounding areas had multiple wrecks. It was all quite the mess.

And then……we had a beautiful sunset ! Don’t like the weather in Texas? Stick around!

A beautiful sunset.

Two years ago, we rented a condo for Valentine’s week. We were at a lake, southwest of Austin. Our anniversary is on Valentine’s Day, so we like to celebrate in some fashion. As were at the condo unit, we had a major ice storm. We were iced in, and there was hardly anyone at the resort. During the week, two gentlemen had had their unit flood from burst pipes. They asked if they could come in and get warm. They ended up staying with us for that week. It was an interesting experience, with no water, and roving electricity. We played a lot of cards.

Before
Old door mat
Pansies in the flower pots, and new door mat. My dad made the head.

So here we are in the middle of February. It’s starting to feel Springy. I decided to rip out the dead plants from my front porch planters…it’s about time!….and plant some pansies. I also bought a new door mat for the porch. So far, that’s all I have done, but oh, I feel so much better! Now, I need to get my back flower pots done, and get the garden areas cleaned out. Truthfully, I love Spring! That is one reason I’m glad we moved to Texas. Spring comes earlier here.

How is the weather in your part of the world? Are you still having winter, or is it Spring weather? Leave me a comment .

Hugs,

Grandma Ruddell

A GIRL’S WEEKEND IN HOUSTON

Houston is a lot more than big skyscrapers. Check out all of the fun things to see and do.

A couple of weekends ago, my daughter and I took a girl’s trip to visit my sister, who lives in Houston. She recently moved there, and she’s still discovering the city. Her name is Toni, and she treated us royally, taking us to so many wonderful places. Jessi and I had sent her a list of odd things that we wanted to see, and Toni had her own things to show us. Plus she had a nice, new apartment that we were thrilled to see.

We drove there on Friday and spent the night. On Saturday, we packed it all in. Toni started our day by going to Tiny’s for Brunch. I felt so elegant! I rarely go to brunch. This was a nice place with great food. It sure beat my usual cheerios and diet coke!

Next, we went to The Beer Can House. (This, of course, was on my list.) The whole outside of the house was covered in Beer Cans that had been smashed and adhered to the house. The couple had drank 50,000 cans of beer to help their art. The man had also made wind chimes out of the cans, and he had a cement sidewalk, with designs in it of marbles and cans. It all started because he didn’t like to do outside work. So he covered it all in Beer Cans. Pretty fun…you should definitely go see this!

Next on our list of quirky attractions, was the fenced lot of Giant President Heads. The artist, David Adickes, is known for his heroic scale sculptures of historic figures. If you’ve ever driven on highway 45, from Dallas to Houston, you probably passed the giant statue of Sam Houston. That is by the same artist. We saw one of the heads in Branson, last year, of President Kennedy. This was really fun to see all of the President heads in Houston. Just wished we could have been able to go inside the fence.

Toni had a great place for us to explore. It was a huge park and grounds of Ima Hogg’s beautiful house. Bayou Bend is gorgeous, and we took a tour of the house and her grounds. Ima was a great benefactor to Houston, and her father was Governor Hogg. Ima was a society lady and collected art. The park and house are now owned by the Houston Museum of Arts.

And from there, we toured the Houston Museum of Arts. We didn’t have a lot of time before they closed, but my sister is the Marketing Director there, so she took us to lots of cool places and things to see. The Museum has 3 or 4 buildings at this site, and they are connected by tunnels that are artsy in themselves. This is one of the best museums I’ve seen in a long time. My favorite thing was laying down on a building, and it is projected up on the wall to look like we were hanging from the building. There was a really neat exhibit when you first come in, that is interactive. I need to go back when I have more time, and explore the rest of the museum.

Our Sunday finale , before driving back to Ft. Worth, was going to Joel Osteen’s church. My word!! It was like a huge theater, with several layers of balconies. We sat pretty close to the front. The first thirty minutes were praise music, with lights and singers. It was kind of like going to a concert. Then Joel came out and preached an uplifting sermon. Don’t know your feelings about this church, but it was something we wanted to experience. Pretty cool!

We had such a good time! Hope this gives you some ideas for when you go to Houston. It’s not just big buildings downtown. But then, again, I like to look for kooky things that are a little different. What do you like to do in Houston? Leave me a comment.

Hugs,

Grandma Ruddell