Elevation - 1st 14 Days! How High Can Ya Go!

Holy Cow Batman!

Have you ever seen a house get raised in the air before? Well prior to Friday the 17th I hadn’t either. My husband and I bought a house in June that was apart of the FEMA Grant process for a house elevation. We had no idea what all would go into this process so when they showed up last Monday, we were in shock at the amount of dirt.

In just about three days we had amassed huge piles of dirt that I was sure would leave us with a mud bath everywhere. There were holes dug under our house for tunnels that spanned the entire house length.

 The dogs were going crazy, poor Toto & Doogie. What those two pups must be thinking as they watch this going on. Their favorite thing is to chase squirrels in the back yard and now they are only allowed out via leash. It’s really put a damper in their day, we can tell.

Not to mention that taking Doogie out for his 20 trips to go potty is really annoying, it’s the small things that get cha....

Then, the mud ... everything was going fine until Mother Nature decided she needed to have a rain storm. That’s when my pretty white tile floors got a paint job. All in brown.

Doggie foot prints, teenager shoe prints, husband boot tracks, my own imprints here and there. Mud and dirt literally everywhere. It was almost like there was no point in even moping because literally the next hour it would be back.

Talk about a pain in the butt!

But then ... the big day arrives ... Elevation day.

Our house flooded in Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 & Tax Day 2017.

  

The city applied for a grant and since our home had been apart of these tragic events from previous owners they were eligible for this program. We were lucky because the program was transferable when we purchased the house. It received 18 inches of rain inside during both events from what we were told. And the program requires homes to become elevated 18 inches above BFE. That’s how we ended up 44 inches in the air.

It was truly crazy watching. I was worried since it had been full of rain for almost a week. It was off and on rain, misty, and just kinda blah. So when I was told we were still on pace for elevating Friday it was a huge relief. Because the sooner we elevated the sooner the mud left my home.

I took video’s of the elevation, my kids even got to help. The company that performed the work, Planet Three Elevation has been really great. I can’t wait to see what the finished product will look like.

We were heartbroken when we lost the front shrubs in our yard, so the whole landscaping will be new for us. Since this is the first home we have owned we haven’t had to do this before. In some ways it is exciting because in a year whatever is growing will be what we did on our own.

Hopefully the project only has four more weeks left ... hopefully. They said as short as 45 days as most as 70, depending on the weather and complications.

It’s been one wild and crazy experience and it is only 13 days in so far. Can’t wait to see what the other 30 bring!

Take a gander at this video, it is amazing what technology can do. It really really is.

Happy Sunday! Go Chief’s!!

New Year, New Blog, Back in the Saddle

Wowzers it has been sometime since I posted a blog post. I hadn’t realized I let it lapse so much. I need to get back into the blogging world for sure. Maybe I will add that to my to do list this year. I’d love to say I will post once a week but we all know that it is hard to get back into the grove of things. But, I will try.

New for 2020 this year:
- New Job
- Home being elevated
- Resolved to lose weight and get healthier
- WILL write 2 new books at least

I’ll tell you what was hard, leaving my company after 10.5 years with them. I’m not big on change and that certainly didn’t come easy. I was super scared at what the possibilities ahead of me were going to be and I just didn’t know how it would all lay out.

After taking a leap of faith I started a new job at an Oil & Gas plant 1/6. It is a completely different job than I have done in the past. When I stopped to think about it the other day, it had been a solid 8 years since I learned a brand new totally new skill set. After two weeks there I have discovered that yes, change is good. It has allowed me to expand my wings and soar in a new way. I’m loving getting to know an industry I grew up all around and had family in, but never took a dive there myself.

Change is so hard but I am glad to see that it is working out.

Onto writing topics ... I am really trying to get Golden Hour done. I have 15,000 words in 5 chapters. It has literally taken me a year to write that far. Sad I know. Hoping that with pushing to do writing on my blog each week that will help with the creative juices so they get flowing that way I can do more. I really want to be able to wrap up this part of the Kemah Sunrise series by the end of February that way I can have my new book out by the Meet and Greet in April.

I remember a time when writing came so easily to me. It would pour out of me and 5,000 word days would be nothing hard to accomplish. Even 10,000 word Saturdays. Becoming a mom made that really difficult because, you know, kids are energy vampires.

The Ones Who Lived is still doing pretty decent at events. But I know I need to get another one out soon, especially to the Pasadena crowd. I’ve had several request but I just, ugh, writers block. I’m open to ideas if anyone wants to shoot them my way. I always love reader feedback.

For the moment I think this will wrap up my first post of 2020. I am working on a post about the elevation at my house. It is pretty crazy, I’ll get that one up in the next 48 hours, hopefully tomorrow. Goodnight and here’s hoping 2020 is my year for blogging again. That you readers who have stayed loyal over these years. It’s been a hell of a fun journey.