The Texas Blues

In 2002 my husband was offered a fantastic job, and we moved from Florida to Dallas, TX. The State of Texas is an interesting place. There's so much state spirit in Texas, it's no wonder there are so many psycho cheerleading moms there.

Living in Texas you somehow come to terms with the fact that your neighbor's gun collection will most likely not lead to your sudden death-- though it may may you think twice before asking them to wrap up a 2 a.m. fireworks party.

But unlike anywhere else I have ever lived, in all seriousness... people in Texas are fantastic.

We loved our neighborhood. Our neighbors were nice. One neighbor wife and I became friendly, she had two boys away at college, and she made dolls-- which actually freaked me out-- but still, we did lunch a few times and she was lovely.

Another neighbor, was incredibly welcoming and helpful. She gave me the 411 on the best veterinarian in town, and was consistently the best resource on who to call for anything. It's not her fault that when I asked her if there were any Jewish kids at the local public school, she said "Oh yeah... and we don't have any problem with them at all.". Obviously, that should have been followed by "Bless their hearts", and the moment would have been complete. All that being said, I still liked her.

So when we decided to move back to Florida- to be "closer to family" (yeah, now we're in Australia, wtf?) we rented the Texas house to someone we knew. During that year back in Florida, I could not help but think that we had probably screwed the pooch on the whole leaving Texas thing.

We bought our house in Florida just before the market crashed, and is now worth about 30% less than we purchased it for. The good news is, at least we got to put in new floors and a new kitchen before moving to Australia. We rock.

When we moved in 2007 to Australia, my husband and I discussed that potentially, when we return to the U.S., perhaps moving back to Dallas could be an option. We still had the house there... and I left my heart in DFW, and did I mention that I loved that house?

So about six weeks ago, our Texas renter told us they were moving back to Seattle. He also mentioned that he'd heard that our next door neighbor may want to buy the house. We're still trying to figure out why you'd buy the house next to the one you live in. Anyway, my negotiator-extraordinaire husband called the guy and needless to say, we closed on it last week.

It was an incredibly painless, and wonderful house selling experience. I am in shock that from across the world we were able to sell a house in a matter of days, done deal.

The only problem is -- now my fantasy return to Dallas is very unlikely. Oh how I miss all those amazing Mexican restaurants and women wearing floor-length fur coats to the grocery store.

Texas... I miss you-- but I'll never forget you.


Bye house, love ya. Yeah you're a pretty girl. Those doors and shutters used to be the color of my blog background, it was tragic.