Back in the yard!

The CFO came home on Friday with a stack of student projects to grade, so her nose was buried in those for a majority of the weekend, leaving me with some free time.  I finally passed her arbitrary health assessment and was deemed well enough to do some yard work on Sunday.  I’m not sure what she was basing it on, but I’m not coughing as much and have more energy, so I guess that was enough.  I was dying to get outside on Sunday because it was in the sixties and sunny.  Fan-freakin-tastic.

 I finished moving the pile of mulch that I started working on a month ago before I got sick.  I am sure my neighbors were wondering why I had left a third of the pile in the driveway for the last few weeks.  I was happy to see that we’ve got tulips and daffodils coming up, spring is springing.  Unfortunately, a bunch of dandelions are also popping up in the mulch area, I am going to have to get out the round up and start killing off the bad stuff.

I pulled the cover off the Miata and got the oil changed for the New Year.  I cranked it and let it idle for a while and then I saw coolant pooling on top of the radiator.  After some examination, I saw that I have a small leak where one of the radiator hoses attaches to the radiator.  At least I spotted it while the car was idling in the driveway, but now I need to order a replacement hose.  I also continued my fountain mock up, here is a progress photo of me testing the pump's flow.

 

Since the new couch arrived, I’ve been trying to sell the old one on craigslist.  In case you didn't know, it is a huge pain in the @$$ it is to sell furniture online.  Next time, I will save myself a lot of time and borrow a truck and haul it to a donation site for good will or someplace like that. 

The old one is in good condition, so we decided on a price that we thought was a reasonable and I posted it online.  Evidently our idea of reasonable was not the same as others, as I have turned down several offers for $50.  If I was just going to sell it for $50, I’d be better off donating it (like I said above) and write off a more reasonable value come tax time.  I also received a bunch of spam emails and several emails that resulted in long, back and forth email conversations that ended up going nowhere.  One of which ended when, about 8 emails into the conversation, the potential buyer asked what the dimensions of the sofa were.  The dimensions were a deal killer because it wouldn’t fit through the door of her trailer. Knowing that her door was narrow, you’d think that would be one of her first questions, not 8 emails later.  It’s just a waste of my time.

There was one lady that I had talked to off and on for over a week who wanted the sofa, but then some crisis came up that she had to spend the money on.  Tuesday evening she emailed me saying that she had come into some money and wanted to buy the couch.  She came over the next day, super excited about it.  She plopped down on it for literally two seconds before standing back up to hand me the cash for our asking price.  No haggling.  Done.  It was raining outside so we asked if she really wanted to take it that day.  She had her son and his truck plus a tarp, so she was ready to go.  He and I carried it out into the rain and into his truck, threw the tarp over it and off they went.  I’m sure the CFO was a little sad to see it go, as it was one of her first big furniture purchases.