Let Me School You on Some of the Historic Homes in the Oldest Town In Texas {Prepare for Porch Envy!}

Growing up in the oldest town in Texas, I always admired the beautiful homes in Washington Square.

And I'll tell you WHY I could admire them.  My junior high sat right in the middle of it!

Thomas J. Rusk Building

*Fun fact: this building was my parent's high school, my junior high, and is now an elementary school.  It's just the gift that keeps on giving!*

The Washington Square Historic District consists of 21 acres that were donated by early settlers toward the advancement of education in the area.

In fact, *cue monotone history teacher voice* sitting next to the Thomas J. Rusk building is a truly historic building called the Old University Building.

Do you know what's so cool about this old building? *pushes up nerd glasses*

Built in 1858, it is the only, and I repeat, ONLY remaining building of a university chartered by the Republic of Texas.

Did you catch that, or did you snooze off? 

Let me break it down for you....

This here building was built back in the day by the Republic of Texas... not the STATE of Texas.

You know, before Texas became a state and was an independent nation?  THEN.

Oo! Oo!  And ALSO cool about this building... it was a Confederate hospital during the Civil War.

*taps ruler on desk*

I don't think you people are getting this!  So here, read about it for yourself.

Or not.  (Okay, that was really wordy.)

Anyway, the homes AROUND Washington Square was where I was going with this post.  Let's get back on track, shall we?

Many of these beautiful homes were built in the late 1800's to early 1900's.

The ones I love the MOST around Washington Square are the ones on Mound Street.

THIS one is my all-time FAVE!

Look at that porch!  And do you see the spiral staircase from the bottom porch to the top porch?  LOVE!

*Texas history lesson alert!*

Originally the land known as Washington Square was the site of a number of ceremonial mounds built by the Caddo Indian cultures that flourished from 800-1700 A.D. in East Texas.  Only one ceremonial mound remains today.

Hence the name "Mound" Street.

Okay, okay... back to the houses!

GORGEOUS!

I totally wanted a tour of them all.

Oh!  And speaking of TOURS, did you know that some of these beautiful homes around Washington Square are actually B&B's?

Like this one....

The Hardeman House

It was calling me to come up on it's porch and "sit and rest a spell."

I just HAD to. She was on a big Southern porch with boots on!

Then it called me to knock on the door and ask the innkeeper for a tour.  (Oh yes it did!)

She was more than happy to stop her busy Thanksgiving cooking and show me around!  (Talk about Texas hospitality!)

Notice how there's a back staircase!

The landing was beautiful!

It was a lovely home!

(You can learn more about staying at the Hardeman House B & B on their website.)

Between Washington Square and Historic downtown Nacogdoches are other gorgeous houses.

And gosh! There's lots of other beautiful homes all around Nacogdoches for that matter.

 Some serve as private residences and others as businesses.

Here's another B&B one that I love.

The Jones House

Designed by Dietrich Rulfs (who designed many of the homes you just saw) and built in 1895, The Jones House B&B is one of the finest examples of Victorian domestic architecture in the state.

I ADORE the porch!

And although the inkeepers weren't home (yes, I knocked!) my daughter and I peeked in the windows to see the incredible (and I mean INCREDIBLE) staircase!

picture credit: qatariadventures

And now, class, I will leave you with one more beautiful historic home to stop by sometime on your East Texas adventures... The Brickhouse Inn.

This house was constructed in 1886 by Henry L. Austin, a local brick maker and first resident of the home.

And yes, I totally knocked on the door!

Get this!  This beautiful New Orleans style house is the OLDEST brick house in Nacogdoches.

The house is full of beautiful antiques from the current owners.

Lovely things to look at everywhere!

(Sorry for the poor pictures... I only had my cell phone on me for this trip.)

You can learn more about The Brick House Inn on their website.

*bell rings*

Okay, class!  Tomorrow I will show you even more beautiful things about my hometown.  You are dismissed!

(Hey. Just be glad I'm not giving you homework.)

(Yet.)

Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for the promotion of these beautiful B&B's.  I simply wanted to brag on how lovely my hometown is.

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Monday Musings After Three Weeks of Traveling {This is Bound to be Good}

1.  After driving to Texas, driving around Texas, and driving back to Ohio from Texas, (putting over 3500 miles on Lazy Dad's car) I have made a mental note to check on the progress of teleporting.

Surely Scotty doesn't just beam people up still.  He's had to progress to locational beamings by now.

Someone check in to that for me.  I'm too tired from driving.

2.  For those of you in Texas who ask me why I don't come home more, please refer to number 1.  Especially that 3500 number.

3.  If your wondering why the kids and I didn't just fly to Texas for three weeks, please look into the current prices of airline tickets and multiply that times four, mkay?

4.  If you would like to sponsor us on another fun trip to Texas (or wherever your heart so desires for that matter) please look into the price of airline tickets, multiply that by five (Lazy Dad needs to come watch his kids) and then send a check care of The Lazy Mom ASAP.

Or before you change your mind.

5.  While staying in a hotel in Sikeston Missouri on our way home, I was so desperate for sleep (did I mention I was SICK while I was driving home?) that I told my kids at 7:30 it was really 8:30 and time for bed.

I was able to do this due to the fact that I unplugged the hotel room's alarm clock so I could plug in my phone.

Then when they all complained that they couldn't fall asleep (you know, cause they had slept in the car all day) I may or may not have said to them, "the first one to fall asleep gets a dollar."

Unfortunately, this only proved to work on my daughter (who wasn't the one I was needing that to work on) and did not work on my two wrestling boys (who I needed it to work on).

Desperate times called for desperate mommy measures... so I started taking away dollars from them that they would have to pay me back.

I'm happy to report that this DID work.  And that I am now two dollars richer.

6.  On the first leg of our 20 hour drive home, my 9 year old son took his shoes off in the back seat.  I know this because the smell that broke forth into the car made my eyes water.  Then temporary blindness set in.  Then the fumes escaped out the rolled down windows and Arkansas declared a state of emergency.

MUST CHECK IN TO PROGRESS OF TELEPORTING!

7.  My sweet sister-in-law made the kids and I cookies and homemade caramel covered popcorn for our long drive home.

Hmmm... I'll have to mark "no road trip munchies lovingly made by my sister-in-law" in the cons column of teleporting. 

8.  My 11 year old son got to sit up front on this trip.  (We needed the space in the back seat.)  This "up front" promotion soon led to another promotion... "driver's assistant."

If you don't know what a driver's assistant is, they do such notable things as sending dictated text messages, updating facebook statuses, handing the driver chapstick, and switching out CD's.  Among many other things that the driver may command of them at any time night or day.

Believe it or not, he loved being a driver's assistant, and as a total side bonus, learned a lot about driving from his "up front" view of everything.

He also took it upon himself to start randomly mass-texting people yesterday to tell them our progress of making it home.  Which prompted this Facebook status update that I dictated to him:

If you have received any random text messages from me in the last three weeks, please disregard. It was from my son. Unless the text message asked for Christmas gifts, cash, or round-trip tickets to Hawaii. Then do not disregard. Thanks.

9.  I still have many Texas stories to tell you about!

If you are on the edge of your seat in anticipation of hearing and seeing more Texas fun, then stick around partners!

If you are tired of hearing about Texas, then I've got two six-shooters I'd like to introduce you to.  They're called: TOO. BAD.

*rides off in the sunset firing six-shooters in the air*

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Lazy Texas Sheet Cake

I absolutely ADORE Texas Sheet Cake.

So while I was home I was bound and determined to make a Lazy Mom version of it in my incredible Lodge Cast Iron Combo Cooker!

Funny thing is... I couldn't find a Texas Sheet Cake recipe using five ingredients or less anywhere on the internet! So I had to roll up my lazy mom sleeves and come up with one all by my little ol' helpless self.

I am happy to report to you, that after many different attempts, I think I have come up with a good LAZY Texas Sheet Cake!  Yeeee-haw!

Now, for those of you who don't know, what makes a Texas Sheet Cake a Texas Sheet Cake is a couple of things....

First of all, the cake is very dense.  It should not be light and fluffy like a cake, but more brownie like.  Hence, as you'll see below, I ended up using a brownie mix instead of a chocolate cake mix.  Capeesh?

Secondly, a Texas Sheet cake has either buttermilk or sour cream in it.  I tried both and ended up preferring buttermilk.

Thirdly... er uh, third of all?  A Texas Sheet Cake is traditionally made in a Jelly Roll Pan.  But I wanted to break with tradition (I'm such a cooking rebel) and wanted to use my awesome Lodge Combo Cooker for this lazy recipe.

In case you don't know, the Lodge Cast Iron Combo Cooker is actually SEVERAL things in one.

You can use the combo cooker pan on the left as a deep skillet or a fryer, and you can use the pan on the right as a shallow skillet or griddle.  OR you can  put the shallow skillet on top of the deep skillet and turn it into a Dutch oven!!!

In other words... it's awesome.

So for my Lazy Texas Sheet Cake I used the shallow skillet of this combo set!

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

Lazy Texas Sheet Cake:

1 box of Ghirardelli Chocolate Supreme Brownie Mix (with chocolate syrup pouch included)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 jar chocolate frosting
chopped walnuts

True to lazy mom form, why mess up a mixing bowl?  Just mix all your ingredients right in the cast iron pan!

Pile in the brownie mix:

Then carefully mix in 1/4 cup of water, 1/2 cup of buttermilk and 1 egg.

Then mix in the chocolate syrup pouch that came with the Ghirardelli Brownie Mix.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick (or knife) inserted comes out clean.

While the cake is still hot, heat the jar of frosting in the microwave for 30 seconds, take it out and stir it.

Then microwave it for about another 20-30 seconds until the frosting is in a liquidy pourable state. Pour it over the hot cake.  Like so:

Just until the cake is covered.

(You should have some frosting left in the jar if you use this 10" pan.)

Then my dear lazy moms, sprinkle the chopped walnuts on top.  (You can also use chopped pecans or omit the nuts all together if you have allergies.)

Let the cake set for a little bit (oh, about 10-15 minutes... or as long as you can hold people off from it), then serve it up while it's still warm!

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Now, if'n you don't have a 10" cast iron skillet, don't you fret!  You can still make this in an 8x8 or even 10x13 sized glass pan.

At least I think you can.

I didn't try.

So uh, let me know, mkay?

With Love From Texas,
The Lazy Mom

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