Friday in Frisco

Before I tell all about Friday in Frisco I have to do a little whining about the rain in Beaumont. The tropical system seems to be stalled overhead. The rain just keeps coming down. I have not seen the rainfall totals, but the ground cannot take any more. I went out early Monday morning and picked up my mail at the post office, filled the car with gas and got a few groceries. I have not been out of the house since. As long as the flood watch remains, I am staying home.

Friday morning I went to Frisco Lakes at eight o'clock. I had checked out a hard hat at the sales center the previous afternoon so I was all set to spend some time looking over my house and taking pictures. When I got there Gary, the construction superintendent, was standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac and talking on his cell phone. I have a feeling that guy is living in the cul-de-sac. I walked around the cul-de-sac and made note of the house numbers. There is absolutely no logic to the way the houses are numbered. I am sure it is going to be very confusing to visitors and people making deliveries. I took pictures of all the houses on the cul-de-sac. With the the information that is in the directory I was able to match up my neighbors names with their houses and figure out what models are surrounding me.

When I saw the house on Thursday afternoon, the painters were working inside. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets were covered with plastic sheeting. When I went in on Friday, the plastic had been removed, and I was able to get a good look at the cabinets. The finish is darker than I had been imagining, but it is quite acceptable. I think it is neat the way the cabinets are staggered at different levels in the kitchen. I had never seen that done before.

I went through the house and took lots of pictures. The only thing that is concerning me is the location of the cable outlets. I may have to have more added or have long runs of cable strung around the rooms. I went back to the sales center to return the hard hat and headed to Sam's Club.

I bought one of the big 96 oz. containers of liquid Tide HE. The HE stands for high efficiency. My new washing machine has to have the HE detergent. I then went to the storage unit and put the detergent in with my boxes. I will have the Tide on hand and be ready to do laundry when the new machine in delivered.

Since I had accomplished so much on Thursday there was not much left to do. I went to Stonebriar Mall and did a little window shopping in order to kill time until lunch. At 11:30 I went to the Cheese Cake Factory restaurant in the mall. I had the coupon from MasterCard for a free cheesecake serving. I ordered a Cobb salad, passion fruit iced tea and fresh banana cream cheesecake. The salad was luncheon size. I cannot imagine how large the regular is. There was no way I could eat the entire salad and have room for the cheesecake. I saved room for the cheesecake. When the cheesecake arrived, I was amazed at the huge amounts of whipped cream. There was a huge swirl on the plate and a second one on top of the cheesecake which was surrounded with caramelized bananas. I like whipped cream but I doubt if I ate an eighth of what was on the plate. I waddled out of the restaurant and told myself I would have to return there in the future when I needed a special treat.

I then went back to the hotel to see As the World Turns. That show is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. I hate to admit this, but I have been watching it since it first went on the air. I was in junior high school back then.

I had an appointment with the landscape architect at 3 PM. The drawing that he had sent me did not have the correct information on it. It did not show the trees and shrubs that we had talked about in our previous meeting. I am supposed to have two sweet gum trees in the front yard and a red bud at the side of the house. He promised to get things straightened out and email me new copies. I have not received them. I will send him an email and remind him.

I then had another meeting with my sales associate. She had set up a time for the closing at 11 AM on Thursday, August 31. I had asked her to try and get the closing early in the morning. Eleven is the first one of the day. I was hoping for something like 8 AM so I could drive back to Beaumont the same day. Now I will have to stay overnight, and that is going to force me to drive on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. I wanted to stay off the highway on that day.

I then headed back to the hotel and ate a small snack. I was still full of salad and cheesecake. There was a meet your neighbor wine and cheese social at the sales center at 7 PM. Seventy people turned out for this one. The previous socials had been held in one of the model homes. The bigger space was definitely needed for this one. I talked with quite a few people. I saw some of the people I had meet in June. I kept looking at name tags to see if I could spot anyone from my cul-de-sac. I finally found a couple. They were not aware that there is a special website for Frisco Lakes residents. I told them the website was what enabled me to find the names of the people on our cul-de-sac. I told them about how I had been emailing one of our other neighbors. Shauna, the lifestyle director, took them into her office and showed them how to get logged onto the website.

I left the social about 8:30 because I wanted to get back to the hotel before it was completely dark. Tomorrow I will continue with Saturday.