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Category Archives: Our Team

Building a Dream Team

So much cleaner! We’ll put more tables back out, now that we are waiting a bit to start the renovation.

Over here at the Cameron office, the Hermits’ Rest Enterprises team is expanding as our dreams expand.

The Hermit Haus Team

You may have noticed that we have the husband and wife team of David and Kim doing our renovation work now. Various members of Mandi’s family have been helping, too. Thanks to Randy, the basement is now clean enough to move our offices into temporarily, while we wait for the remodeling plans to get done. I’m now thinking of drawing pictures on the walls or something fun.

One set of stairs and a wall are gone in the baptismal area.

The demolition crew has moved upstairs now, and they are working on removing the baptismal. We will soon have a nice, new rectangular room to use for future restrooms and such. It will be much easier to envision uses for the space with the big tub out of the way.

Speaking of big things out of the way, the huge dumpster is gone, replaced by a much smaller one that will be great for our business as it grows.

The Gillis House Team

While our current plan is to remodel the Gillis house as a residence, in the long run, we may find the need to use it in other ways, like to host people who are in town for our events. We also were looking for new ideas for the event venue at the Hermit Haus. Bearing that in mind, we brought in a consultant with lots of knowledge of both events and hospitality, local real estate guy Jonathan Deal. Jonathan has a genuine degree in hospitality management and experience running hotels. Plus, as the Director of Theater Productions at  Milam Community Theater and a long-time performer, he is full of much-needed creative ideas for events that would draw people to our little town.

Mandi has done theater work with Jonathan since he was a kid. Aww.

We had a great meeting with Jonathan at the Dutchtowne Deli (also getting ready for renovations) and showed him the house, which of course, got him excited. That’s because the house excites everyone who sees it! So, though he’s a busy person, he agreed to provide us with advice and input as we move forward with this project.

Getting Ready to Go

Today we’ll be spending time getting our stuff ready to move over to the Hermit Haus. We’ve loved our time in our current office, but we know the new tenants, Martha and Mike, will love living here and fixing the place up to be a home again. Our movers come next week, and then their movers will arrive. Look forward to some fun posts about all that moving.

If you come visit, we’ll be at the back door.

It’s getting real. We even filled out change of address forms! We’re heading to the basement. Whee. Just don’t call it a dungeon.

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Rattlesnake Fulfilling Her Purpose! And Is Another One on Its Way?

Our foster dog, Sweetie, asleep with my youngest Jacob, and Maggie.

What a wild couple of months! We have finished our move into the Rattlesnake house. What an adventure that has been! Nothing really major, just random things that kept me on my toes. In addition to that, I have opened her up to foster dog named “Sweetie.” She’s a great dog. That saying is true that I can’t save them all, but fostering comes close. Fostering is a great way to figure out what kind of dog you want and what temperament is a good fit for your family. I’m happy to help anyone become a foster or permanent family. There are many dogs that would love to call you “woof” which translates to Mom/Dad.

Our first Thanksgiving at home was wonderful! It was held the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Since we can be thankful everyday, I think it still counts. We had lots of family gathered around, and we had a great time.

This clock fell off the wall, but still worked. Rather than toss it, I made it art.

When I was a kid, the house we all went to for gatherings was the “cousin who lived in the country with the biggest house.” That torch has been passed to me. We have people who like to play horseshoes, musicians, and lots of kids in the family. I can accommodate all of that.

One of the appeals when I first saw Rattlesnake was just how big the inside was. Plus the surrounding yard and carport can hold A LOT of people! The original list of those invited was over 40. We had 14, and we had plenty of elbow room.

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Thankful for Our Community

Let’s see. Do I put the purple yam in the blender with these bread crumbs to make a delicious casserole?

Since the house tour I was supposed to take yesterday got postponed until tomorrow, I ended up cooking all day with my sister, Canova, to prepare for our community Thanksgiving at our ranch neihgbors’ house.

We made many things, like my favorite dressing and cranberry sauce (hint, if  you want your favorite things at a special meal, cook them yourself). She also made a gingerbread, where the main ingredient turned out to be missing from my spice cabinet (we used my very expensive Penzy’s crystalized ginger bits instead). And today is another day of cooking (I am making a ton of mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and some roasted onions, a new recipe. I wonder how those will be?

Our dogs are thankful that Mandi adds water to their odd little water dish.

It fills my heart with gratitude to be out here in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a great community that supports us in our work and play. Anita is on her way to Cameron (we hope) so she can make her “damned yams.” Mandi and I have been helping each other with various tasks as she prepares for her first Thanksgiving at the Rattlesnake house (which still doesn’t have cabinets, so it’s, um, “interesting”).

Carol and Russell are doing Thanksgiving with their dearest friends, so they are also surrounded by community!

How about you?

I hope you have plenty to be grateful for, whatever you are celebrating (we do have readers outside the US, ya know). Having our extended community to support us and keep us going is invaluable, and all of you readers, blog commenters, Facebook like-ers, and in-person supporters mean a lot to us. I’m actually picturing many of you in my mind right now.

It’s blurry, but you can see that the Ratttlesnake house is full of spirit!

So, let us know what you are grateful for this year. We do love hearing from you.

Tomorrow there will be more photos of progress on the house in Round Rock.

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Positive Cash Flow!

It makes the world and our businesses go ’round!

Yep, every business wants some positive cash flow (at least every ethical business does). We’re happy to say ours has increased twice this week.

Chaparral/Roadrunner

This house is finally and completely closed, so we are no longer renting it to the family who lives there. They own it! We wish them many happy returns and many happy years in the lovely neighborhood. I’m glad we were able to be patient and wait until their financing worked out, but it sure did seem like a long time.

Villa Park A

You may have seen that Lee and I had put this property back on the market, and the front unit was for rent (we were sad to lose some great tenants). Carol has been working hard, and we now have an approved rental application, so the cash will start flowing from that soon. Plus, there is a fellow investor interested in buying the property so THEY will have some cash flow. We’ll let you know how that works out.

Of course, now I’m thinking that would be an ideal property for rain gardens, but let’s move forward and do that on a new property, OK?

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The Rattlesnake Reno Journey Comes to a Close

The lighting makes this look sort of tan/brown, but these tiles are gray like the rest of them. This is part of the living room.

What a wild ride from the first time I laid eyes on The Rattlesnake house a year and a half ago. What became the master bath was flooded and full of mold and mildew, and now showcases a farmhouse chic theme. The floors are finished. There are some last touches on plumbing for the kitchen and some cabinetry left to build, but she is now ready for us. I don’t think that any part of this project or its deadlines have gone the way we thought it would, but we still achieved the end goal. Hermits’ Rest Enterprises, LLC has completed its renovation commitments to the house, and now it is my turn. The things that I have committed to fixing will take time. Some of it just takes time to complete, and some I will have to save money to do. The heaviest part of it is done though!

Of course we had planned to have already moved in by now, but plans change. It was more important to have the floors done and done correctly than to go ahead and move in anyway. I can be fully confident in the floors and their quality for many years to come now. An extra two weeks of waiting in exchange for many years of not having to worry seems like a fair trade to me.

I am so tired, and I have been living out of boxes in a state of constant readiness to move for a few months now. I am that kind of tired that sleep doesn’t help. I plan to not ever again build or rebuild my own house. If it ever comes down to it having to be done, I would hire a GC to do all of the things I have done.

This has been a long road for all of us and most of it wasn’t paved. To look back on what has been accomplished, we all really deserve a pat on the back. I would also like to thank you all for being on this journey with us. Thank you all for so many kind words and to those of you who have been my sounding board when I needed to iron out ideas, or vent my frustrations to get them out and move forward. I truly could not have accomplished all of this alone.

I have certainly learned way more than I ever thought I would. I didn’t even know I could retain this. I continue to learn everyday, and everyday I find more reasons that I really do enjoy what I do and the people that I work with. Some days are long and difficult. Not every person that we work with is awesome. Over all though, I couldn’t ask for a better place. The tiredness, the stress from the last year, and the gray hairs that are bound to be coming any second now, are all worth it.

We did it! The Rattlesnake has gone from being a sad house, completely unlivable, to being a bright and happy home that is just waiting for us to be there.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey with us! There will still be a few follow-ups along the way. Until next time, I hope you enjoy the pictures of the completed floors, a friendly neighbor, and me trying to figure out what to be for Halloween. This is Mandi and The Rattlesnake signing off.

This is the future dining room. It was so cloudy when I took these, but the house is so open with windows that it still looks pretty bright.

This is the hallway flooring. You can see to the right how the tiles in the living room look tan/brown, but the rest are gray. It’s amazing what lighting can do.

This friendly guy was just hanging out by the mailbox, and scoping the ditches for breakfast. He let me get pretty close to take the picture. I guess if I was a big old hawk, I wouldn’t be worried about someone walking up to me either.

Looking for Halloween costumes. I thought this was hilarious! It sort of sums up how I felt with being so tired the last few months.

 

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