Temporary move to Texas

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

earlene

Grandmother & Soaper
Supporting Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2016
Messages
9,777
Reaction score
12,066
Location
Western Illinois, USA
Next month this time I'll be sharing a cabin with my granddaughter while she attends her senior year of high school in San Antonio. So that will be 8 months living in Texas in one place and hardly any travel except for school holidays. It'll be the longest I've stayed in one place in a few years.

Hubby is very supportive of the plan and when I first discussed it with him (while we were in Hawaii in July), he said he felt it was the best possible solution as it relates to her completing her senior year of high school 200 miles away from her parents. She stayed with a friend's family for part of her junior year, but it didn't work out as well as planned and finding another family she could stay with that they trusted was proving difficult.

When I offered this idea to my DIL, I said I wouldn't be able to do it until October because of plans made for September (our annual anniversary trip starts in less than 72 hours + SoapCon on the 21st & 22nd in Kentucky), and at the time DIL still thought she had a viable family for granddaughter to stay with anyway. But that didn't pan out and DIL began to worry how she was going to deal with the first month of school. I suggested she take granddaughter to Mexico for a visit with her other grandparents, since DIL really wants to take a trip to see her parents this year and that she just start school after returning. So after son & DIL discussed it they came up with a plan: granddaughter would have to start school in her old school (the one she hates and was going to run away from home if they continued to force her to go to school there) for the first month of the school year, then she would travel with DIL to Mexico for a week and then have a week off to prepare for the move. So that's what's happening. Granddaughter apparently eagerly agreed to this requirement and all seems to be going smoothly as far as reports I hear indicate.

Anyway, while there in August, we did some apartment hunting, which was rather exhausting, but found a small cabin, more along the lines of a tiny home, fully furnished and will be moving in the first week of October. I even went to so far as to look at a senior living place who would have let her live with me as my live-in 'care giver', extremely spacious apartment with 2 bedrooms, but out of school district, but the price was really good and it had elevators. However, like the rest of the apartments we looked at, not furnished. Buying & moving furniture, no matter how frugal I may try to be, would still have cost about the same as this tiny little cabin in a lovely wooded area not far from her high school.

So what I can pack in my car is all I'll be taking with me. And my husband will be fending for himself for at least 8 months.

To prepare for my absence from home, I have been cooking up a storm, portioning and packaging and labeling and freezing meals for him to make it easier for him to eat well while I am gone. He said to me once when I was traveling and I commented on his dietary choices at the time, 'I eat better when you cook.' So sometimes I fix up a few things for him to eat while I'm gone, but I've never been gone for longer than 3 months & that time wasn't even planned, so I've never tried to fix this much food for him to have on hand.

Luckily we have a huge standing freezer in the garage and it's pretty darn full most of the time anyway. But I've re-arranged the contents a couple of times and managed to fill it even more compactly with individual meals that he can take out to thaw before he leaves for work and heat up when he gets home. All he has to do is add salad or in some cases, bread (for Italian Beef sandwiches, for example). And I'm still not done.

If I remove more of the older frozen foods, to use in meals, I can make room for more meals. AND if I make more room in the kitchen freezer, I can make even more meals. So that's the plan. I have the ingredients for another lasagna, another batch or two of tamales (this time, I'll add meat to some), and a couple of other meat containing main dish meals. But I have run out of individual containers. I'll have to make a run to WalMart tomorrow for those so I can finish up this part of the process.

PLUS I have to clean up the messy chaos I have created while going through my things to decide what I can reasonably bring for an 8-month stay in a tiny cabin with my granddaughter! I have often stayed alone in hotel rooms larger than that, so it will be interesting to so with another person for 8 months.

But I'll have about a week after we return from our anniversary trip to finish up before I have to head to San Antonio, so if I can finish up the food in the next 2 days, I'll be good with a week later to finish finalizing packing my stuff and cleaning up the chaotic mess I have made going through things to decide what to bring.

So my soap studio upstairs renovation is on hold for another year...
 
Good for you doing this ! I do hope it turns out good. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AC !

If I had known a place for my son to stay in MA for his last year of school when we went to TX I would have. But he did ok and we are back here. He can't hate me too much since he moved back to MA and we came back, he has lived with me for the last 8 years lol ;)
 
Good for you doing this ! I do hope it turns out good. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AC !

If I had known a place for my son to stay in MA for his last year of school when we went to TX I would have. But he did ok and we are back here. He can't hate me too much since he moved back to MA and we came back, he has lived with me for the last 8 years lol ;)


Yes, we have AC! No kidding, it would be unbearable without it!
 
I just found this post of yours, @earlene, can I ask where in San Antonio you found that tiny cabin?
I know it's been almost 3 years but I think I might be having to move back to SA for similar reasons to yours later this year and will need my own accommodations.
TIA
@Iluminameluna, it was at Blazing Star Resorts off of W Loop 1604 N. I believe they may have changed ownership since I last visited (we go back occasionally just so Kitty Baby can see her old stomping grounds and because granddaughter & I were so fond of the place.) I am not positive they changed hands, but last time I looked up pricing (for a potential vacation visit) there was a name change on the website. It still looks the same, but the rental prices have gone way up.

But cost-wise, it's still probably cheaper than renting an unfurnished apartment, paying utilities & other fees (none of the apartments we looked at included all utilities), buying & getting furniture delivered, etc. I looked at all kinds of possibilities for a short term rental (less than a year) and this was the most cost-effective. Plus the location and the setting of the place was ideally located for her school and near to friends she already knew and grew up with.

I highly recommend it if the locale would work for you. You know how sprawling SA is, so depending on where you need to be most days, this could be just perfect, or it could require a lot of driving to get where you need to go and not be perfect.

Here is a link to the website in case you want to explore further. You can enter in the dates of stay & get an idea of the cost. They used to offer a few different discounts (& still may, I didn't check) so look into that as well. We went there in person to tour and after doing the same at various nearby places, settled on that as the most desirable option for us. The staff were very nice and some were still working there the last time I visited. A couple of them still remembered us and were perfectly fine with me taking Kitty Baby for a walk through the property to reminisce. I will always have fond memories of this place. It was a really nice group of people with some regulars who re-visit annually, some long-term residents, as well as shorter term vacationers.
 
Thank you, @earlene, so much for that info! Even if it's not where I need to be, it'll give me a place to start.
Note: I looked it up and it's going to be clear across town from where I need but it's still going to be useful info. I've never rented a furnished apartment, but it's going to be something I'll need to look into because it's not going to be a permanent move.
A place to start is always a good thing!
Thanks again!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top