In praise of 6-hour car rides, handy husbands & wild West Texas storms

My name is Sami and I am addicted to West Texas. I have many issues. You might remember in March I developed a new cloud neurosis. Today on our way home from our 24-hour trek to West Texas and back, Ryan pulled my nose out of my magazine to point out some seriously ominous clouds.


I immediately reached for my camera, and then proceeded to get all wiggly and freakish when the pictures turned out really great. I could not wait to get home and share them with the world:

I saw the clouds above first. Check out all the variations of dark bluish gray, and that one little white puffy cloud.

The following clouds were to the left of our car. I'm saying these would be to the north ... For at least 50 to 75 miles, we drove right alongside this storm system, which kept nicely to itself on the left.

Over to the right, pretty whitish clouds and blue skies.

This exit sign shows all you other West Texas freaks right where we were. I captured this picture rolling along about 85 mph... Pretty good huh? Now you see why I was getting all wiggly and freakish.

Every so often, we had some good lightning, so the storm could show us it was serious.

Did you realize you can be a cracker-jack mortgage guy, talk on the cell phone, and drive through storms on I-10 and make your wife really, really happy with 24-hour treks to West Texas? Who says men can't multi-task? Cell service on I-10 is greatly improved! Back in the day we lost service in Kerrville.

Some people think we're nuts for going on long 6-hour trips to West Texas together, but can I let you in on a little secret? This is the only time we get to think, plan, talk and strategize about our life, our marriage, our kids and careers. The rest of the time we're just making it through the days. Moral of the story: trap yourselves in a car for six hours and see what happens.

OK so then, I turned my attention to what was going on behind the car. Dork alert! The wind was blowing pretty hard, which is normal even without a storm because this is all in the vicinity of the wind farms.

And now for the object of all my affection, and the destination for our 24-hour West Texas trek. See that hideous aluminum window to the left of the electrical boxes? Well, it's going bye-bye. We had to go out there and get good measurements for the new windows! The house is set to get its new paint job in July, and efficient husband doesn't think it will be efficient to paint the whole house and then later rip out the windows and then put up new trim and repaint the trim. He has a point, and since I got to go to West Texas, I was an enthusiastic supporter of his plan.

Notice the beautiful blue paint color Abbey Branch (the famous designer) helped me select. SW Oceanside -- I love it. To the right of the hideous brown, wood-rotted trim board, you can see the future paint color for the body of the house -- SW Crater Gray.

And while you're admiring the door, did you spy the fabulous landing/mini-deck my super-handy, hunk of a husband built a few months ago? If only I could show you the previous way you got into the house. Let's just say it involved a homemade step and a wooden pallet. Very classy.

Life is good, y'all.