the Comforts of home

We’ve lived a good portion of our lives in our no-particular-style brick and wood house.

When we first saw it, after slogging through lots of others, my wife took one step past the front door, surveyed what little she could see from that vantage point and blurted: “This is the one we have to buy.”

She said that right in front of the Realtor. So much for negotiating.

My parents helped us move in one hot Memorial Day weekend. Everything we owned fit into a couple of cars and a minivan. Everything.

Once we had things organized, two of the house’s six rooms remained empty. The place seemed so large, I wondered why we would ever need to fill it up.

We brought our first son home from the hospital and set him in a bassinet next to our bed. We moved him to the crib we assembled in one of the empty rooms when his younger brother came home 18 months later.

Pretty soon, we didn’t have any empty rooms.

The white and wood-grained refrigerator that greeted us when we bought the house still chills yogurt, juice and frozen dinners, but it now holds court in our office after my wife decided 10 years ago the kitchen needed a redo and the house an add-on. Our new stainless steel appliances aren’t new anymore, but we still use that word to describe them.

The door to the water-heater closet beneath the stairway has an individualist streak. I can open it by firmly pushing down on the knob while leaning slightly against the frame and quickly pulling outward. My wife can never get the door open, although I’ve never understood why — it almost always works for me the third or fourth time. There is no cracked grout in the tile floor my dad and I installed one weekend in what was a pretty dicey laundry room at the time. Neither one of us knew how to do tile work. After squishing gray grout between the first couple of tiles, I thought the color looked too faint, so I put some additional grout in one spot and waited. I was wrong. I still see that two-inch double-dark-gray spot in the middle of the room every day when I walk to and from the garage.

I can say with certainty you need to be slender to shimmy around the crawl space under the floorboards. You can’t even roll over under there. I spent several early weekends crawling through that dirt, waiting to face down a varmint as I rocked back and forth stringing speaker wire where it’s no longer needed. WiFi and Bluetooth probably were invented by someone else who didn’t want to get back into a crawl space.

A door on our kitchen cabinet sticks every morning when I pull it open to retrieve a juice glass. Every morning, I tell myself to pick up a new spacer pad at the hardware store. Every day I forget. And tomorrow morning, that cabinet door is going to stick again.

With the market for single-family homes hotter than a mouth full of Tabasco these days, I’ve been wondering if it’s time to pack up half our stuff, downsize, pocket some cash and see what else is out there. There will be other options available in terms of houses. It’s hard to imagine any other place as “home,” though.

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Runoff Election

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Place 5

Rick Callahan

Jesse Diaz

Place 14

Philip T. Kingston

Bobby Abtahi

June 3 – June 8 8 AM – 5 PM (Monday through Saturday)

June 9 1 PM – 6 PM (Sunday)

June 10 – June 11 7 AM – 7 PM (Monday and Tuesday)

June 15 7 AM – 7 PM (Saturday)

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Place 1 - Scott Griggs

Councilmember-Elect

Place 2 - Adam Medrano

Councilmember-Elect

Place 3 - Vonciel Jones Hill

Councilmember-Elect

Place 4 - Dwaine Caraway

Unopposed, Councilmember-Elect

Place 6 - Monica R. Alonzo

Councilmember-Elect

Place 7 - Carolyn R. Davis

Councilmember-Elect

Based upon the statement of returns for the City of Dallas Special Election also held May 11, 2013, Propositions 1 and 2 authorizing

EARLY

The most current list of voting can be found by contacting the City Secretary’s Office at (214) 670-3738 or accessing the City Secretary’s Office website at http://www.ci.dallas. tx.us/cso/electUpcoming. html, as well as contacting the Dallas County Elections Department at (214)819-6300 or accessing their website at http://www.dallascountyvotes.org/.

General and Special Elections May 11, 2013 - Duly Elected

Place 8 - Tennell Atkins

Councilmember-Elect

Place 9 - Sheffie Kadane

Unopposed, Councilmember-Elect

Place 10 - Jerry Allen

Unopposed, Councilmember-Elect

Place 11 - Lee Kleinman

Councilmember-Elect

Place 12 - Sandy Greyson

Unopposed, Councilmember-Elect

Place 13 - Jennifer Staubach Gates

Councilmember-Elect the sale of Joey Georgusis Park and Elgin B. Robertson Park received sufficient votes to allow the sale of these park properties.

Friday June 7 Garden Happy Hour 4-7pm Shop for Dad in a relaxed environment with complimentary wine, beer and appetizers!

Saturday June 15 Backyard Chicken Sale / Q&A 11am

Saturday June 22 Salsa Saturday! Salsa Contest. Enter your best salsa to win!

Saturday June 22 Terrific Tomatoes Workshop 9am – 12pm by Leslie Halleck, Halleck Horticultural. $20 Register now!

W.T. White alumnus Terrance Williams received a not-so-average phone call on a Friday night in late April — the man on the other end of the line was Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Williams, at 6 feet, 2 inches and 208 pounds, graduated from W.T. White in 2008 and went on to become an All-American receiver for the Baylor Bears. As a senior, Williams made 97 receptions for 1,832 yards and 12 touchdowns. He finished his Baylor career with 202 catches for 3,334 yards and 27 touchdowns.

The Dallas Cowboys chose the 23-year-old in the third round with the 74th overall draft pick April 28.