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.  

Happy Easter

We had a nice Easter weekend, other than both of our NCAA brackets going bust.  Neither one of us managed to pick a single final 4 team, very disappointing.  However, I was a little more relieved when I read that only 9 people out of the 3 million who submitted brackets to the yahoo pick'em picked the final 4 teams correctly.  9 out of 3 million!

We went out on Saturday morning to the “Spring Bloom” art show, but we didn’t buy anything, nothing for us and no gifts for friends/family.  We also ran errands and went out for a nice lunch.  We rented the movie zero dark thirty, the one about the search for Osama Bin Laden.  I thought it was well done, but wonder how accurate it really was.  There were some interrogation scenes which caused her to cover her eyes, but she managed to stay awake through the whole movie.

On Sunday, we went to church and then had some friends over for lunch.  I fired up the grill for the first time this year; I really miss the fact that we could grill year round in Georgia.  Here, the grilling season really only goes from April until October, after that, the gas grill has a hard time fighting the sub-freezing temperatures.

The couch that we ordered a while back was delivered on Thursday; it has definitely brightened up the living room.  Now we are working on trying to agree on fabrics to recover two old chairs that came from my grandmother’s house.  She wants pink, I would prefer anything other than pink.  Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so opinionated, it would be so much easier to just let her do whatever she wants when it comes to this stuff… however, since the furniture came from my grandmother’s house, I want to be involved.  It took us 2 years to find a couch that we both liked, who knows how long decisions on this reupholstering project will take! 

The camera didn't really catch the color well, so here is a photo of the fabric sample that we picked it from.  It definitely shows the color better:

It is definitely bright and has an interesting texture to it.

2013's big storm

Last Sunday, we were reminded that spring hasn't sprung yet. Since I am still recovering from pneumonia, the CFO informed me that she would be handling the snow removal work for our driveway.  I'm not sure she realized how much it was going to actually snow, but she stuck to her word.

In typical central Illinois fashion, the wind was howling during the storm, which meant the snow wasn't distributed in a neat, uniform layer on the ground.  It was piled up pretty deep against the house and was at least 24" deep in the road in front of our house.  I didn't leave for work until the snowplows came through and cleared the road around 11:00 Monday morning.  She was lucky that the university cancelled classes for the day, so she got to stay home.  I went outside long enough to snap a couple photos before she chased me back into the house.  I will admit that it was nice to not have to shovel this storm, but I did have to hear her talk about being sore for the next 2 days...

a bad angle, but that snow is above my knee

She cleared a narrow path to the door

And here is proof that she was actually using the shovel

Two Saturdays ago, when the CFO came home, I spent some time parked in a front parking space at the Peoria airport waiting for the her to arrive. Her flight from Chicago to Bloomington was cancelled and the options were: a) for me to drive 2.5 hours to Chicago or b) 1 hour to Peoria. We went with the latter, only to have her flight delayed in the air, so I ended up sitting for over an hour waiting for her.

Anyway, while sitting in a front row space for over an hour, I was able to see multiple example of what is wrong with this country... and was aggravated enough about it to start writing about it in an email draft.  Here is what I saw:

1)  People without handicap tags or hanging ID's parking in handicap spaces.  Seriously?  How lazy can you be and why aren't the police enforcing this?  This includes one car that was parked illegally in the stripped out area adjacent to a handicap space. What happens if someone in a wheel chair can't get into their vehicle because your car is parked where their ramp would usually extend into?
 
2) People littering, specifically smokers. I saw at least 5 different smokers drop their butts on the ground and walk into the terminal. 
  a)  It is disgusting, no one wants to have to pick up the slimy filter that your nicotine stained lips have been wrapped around.
  b) Yes, a cigarette butt is litter.  How is it that this one thing  doesn't seem to fall under the litter category?  Have you ever looked at the curb when you are stopped at a red light?  There are typically a bunch of butts just lying there and the collection only grows during droughts when there isn't a rain to wash them away... into streams and lakes for fish to eat and get their nicotine fix...  Why aren't these considered trash?

3) Husbands/boyfriends/men in general not getting their lazy a$$es out of the driver's seat to help the people they were dropping off (wife/girl friend/kids/whoever) get their bags out of the car.  Seriously, is this what this world is coming to?   People around here often look at me funny when I actually hold a door open for them... but now I guess I see why.  People are getting more rude and less considerate of others by the day.  Not a good sign for those of you who are reproducing...

The bad thing is that #'s 1 and 2 could generate some much needed cash for the city if they would take the time to enforce the laws.  While I'm typically anti-ticket, I am all for punishing lazy people and those who don't respect the needs of people with real handicaps.  I'd much rather see the cops ticketing these people (and the litterers) than someone who is driving a little bit above the speed limit.

been sick

Hello folks.  I've been sick since Saturday, so I haven't been in the mood to write this week.  I went to the doctor on Monday morning and was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Let me say that this has seriously kicked my @$$ and it put an end to my going to the gym streak.  Obviously, not much has been going on, other than me laying around watching a lot of TV and coughing, and coughing and then coughing some more.  Today (Friday) is the first day I managed to go into work.

In other news, I did want to pass along information about a children's book.  Yeah, I know that is exactly what you expect from me, right?!  The book was illustrated by one of my good college landscape architecture friends and it was written by her sister.  Anyway, I thought I would post the link here, in case any of you are interested:

Here is their blog, which has a book release trailer: http://twosistersmusicaladventures.blogspot.com/

and here it is on amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Hall-Mountain-King-Megan-Endicott/dp/1458207897/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1363188212&sr=8-3&keywords=Megan+Endicott#_

Another attempt at being outside

Continuing last week’s attempt at luring in spring type weather, I ordered a load of mulch to spread in the landscape beds around the house.  When I say a “load” I mean 8 cubic yards of mulch, imagine a 3 foot x 3 foot x 3 foot box full of mulch and then multiply that by 8.  Photos don't do it justice, it is a lot of mulch, which I will be moving and spreading by hand. 

 

The sad thing is, this is only enough to do the beds directly around the house and won’t cover any of the beds along the outside of the sod in our back yard. I spread 40 cubic yards over that area two years ago, so this pile seems small in comparison. Fortunately, my native grass plantings are covering a lot of that area now so that whole area shouldn't need to be mulched again. However, I probably need another 8-10 cubic yards to do a 6 foot wide swath along the edge of the sod so it matches the beds around the house. That will require more money, so for now I will save that for another day.

The weather forecast for Saturday said it was going to be nice outside, and Karen had a morning meeting, so I thought I would get 4 hours of good yard work in.  But then it started raining lightly...  I decided to continue working through the rain, until my wheel barrow broke.  I finally realized that the stars were not going to align for me to be outside!  One of the bolts that attaches the wheel  to the wheel barrow came loose and fell out and that caused the axle to go all wonky and it ended up breaking off the metal tab that was supposed to hold it in place.  I ended up having to make a run to Lowe's and spent over an hour (trip to Lowe's included) fixing the wheel.  By the time I was done, it was time to eat lunch and get ready to go to a wedding.

One of the guys on my curling team got married Saturday afternoon, so we got dressed up and went to the wedding.  Sadly, we didn’t take a single picture of ourselves while we were there, I'm sure you are all disappointed about that.  This was a big wedding, over 280 people by our estimates (counting the number of tables) and the only people that we thought we would know there was the bride and groom and another curling couple.  I’m not a huge fan of going to things when you aren’t going to know many people there, but you do what you’ve got to do.  Surprisingly, we ran into a couple from our neighborhood (they used to live near my friend’s parents) and a couple that I sold a car to when I worked at the dealership. 

It rained all day Sunday, forcing me back inside.  I know that the CFO is probably tired of hearing me complain about 1) being stuck inside every weekend during the wintertime and 2) not having a project car to work on.  If I had a project that I could work on in the garage, spending the winter indoors wouldn’t be so annoying.  I can only sit still for a little while (10-20 minutes!) before I am ready to do something; this mentality does not work well with cold winters.   I wish I could lay around all day reading and napping (her specialties), but I can’t. We definitely didn’t take this into consideration when we decided to move up here!

I did manage to sit still long enough to write plant names on the ID tags that the CFO gave me for my birthday. This will definitely help us remember the specific names for the plants in the yard.

Warm weather + rain + melting snow = a lot of water that has to go somewhere. The swale in the farmer’s field that drains into a drainage channel that runs along one of our property lines was flowing like a small river on Sunday. This is the most water that we have seen running through there in the two years that we have lived here.

The fountain begins

I’m trying to use positive thoughts to bring in spring weather, however, the 9”+ of snow that we have received over the last week or so is arguing otherwise.  Undeterred, I started working on our fountain project, thinking about spring the whole time.  Here is what I am envisioning for the finished product: 

Once it is done, all you should see is the pot, sitting in a bed of colorful stone pebbles. The water will fill up the pot and then over flow.  The water will drop down and pass through the stones, down into the basin. A small pump will recirculate the water from the basin back up to the pot. This should hopefully provide a nice splashing sound, while being very low maintenance since the basin will be covered with rocks.  All we should have to do is top off the water in the basin and clean off any leaves that fall on the rocks. (that is my theory, anyways)

The pot already had a drain hole in the bottom of it, so I used that opening for my water supply line.  Of course, that hole was much bigger than the elbow that I am using to feed the water, so I had to block off the rest of the opening to make the pot hold water.  I cut a piece of plastic to cover the hole and attached it to the pot with a couple layers of fiberglass.  For those of you who don’t know, there isn’t much that smells worse than fiberglass.  I would typically do this outside, but the sub-freezing temps forced me to do it inside the garage.  Even with the garage door and window cracked for ventilation, the smell was almost unbearable. 

The cold temps in the garage also seemed to be slowing down the fiberglass curing process, so it took longer than usual to harden.  In addition to attaching the elbow to the bottom of the pot, I also attached 3 small PVC fittings to the bottom of the pot to create “feet” to hold the pot up high enough to make room for the elbow.  Since the inside of the pot wasn’t glazed, I also needed to come up with a way to hide the inside of the pot or paint the inside of it (right now it is just clay colored once you get about 2" below the rim).  I decided against painting it and decided to mount a tray of stones at the about 1.5” below the top of the pot, which should block off the view down into the pot while still allowing the water to flow through.  I mounted a 2” PVC fitting in the bottom of the pot and I will add a section of 2” pipe as a riser to support this tray. 

Now that I have the pot internals figured out (I still need to test it to see if my fiberglass work holds water), I need to turn my attention to where this fountain is going.  My plan is to dig a hole in our backyard near the patio area and insert a liner.  I will place a concrete block (or something similar) into the liner to act as a base for the pot, raising it up to the top of the liner.  I’m planning on using a  grate from a round  charcoal grill (or something similar) between the pot and the concrete block to support the stone that will cover the basin.   I've been watching to see if any neighbors throw out their old grills on trash day, but no luck yet.  I might just have to buy a new grill grate.  As you can see from the “or something similar” comments, this is still a design in progress.

Here is the bottom of the pot after I fiberglassed the 1/2" elbow for the water and the PVC feet to raise the pot up so it doesn't stand on the elbow.  It isn't pretty, but you won't see this part once it is done.

37 and counting

Last week I celebrated my 37^th birthday… according to the CFO, I am officially in my late 30’s.  I argue that I am still in my mid-thirties and will to continue to push that as long as I can.  It is hard to believe that I am getting so close to 40, time to start planning my mid-life crisis.

As usual, we kept things simple.  All I wanted was to go out to eat, open some gifts and enjoy some cake (preferably homemade).  The last item always becomes a point of contention because she would rather just go buy a cake. from a store.  However, I was raised on homemade cakes and there is a definite difference in taste between homemade and store bought.  A homemade cake might not look as nice (depending on who is preparing it), but it always tastes better.  I had recently found a recipe for a cookie cake, so I made it even easier on her by requesting a cookie cake. 

It started snowing about 3pm on my birthday, and by dinner time there was 2-3” inches on the ground and the roads were very slushy.  We decided that it wasn’t bad enough to keep us from going out to eat, so we hopped in the car and headed out.  It is amazing how our attitudes regarding snow have changed since moving here.  If this had happened when we lived in Georgia, we would have battened down the hatches and spent the evening sitting by the fireplace watching the snow fall outside the window.  Now we just adjust our shoe selection to something warm and waterproof and continue on. 

We already had dinner plans at Outback with some friends scheduled for the following night, so I picked a place that we typically don’t go, Buffalo Wild Wings.  I love wings (she doesn’t), so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go there.  I ordered wings and she ordered a huge nacho plate that had three different types of nachos on it.  I ended up helping her eat the nachos since it was so big.  The wings would reheat well for lunch the following day… nachos, not so much.  The nachos were really good, until we found a long hair in them about 2/3’s of the way through the plate.  Talking about an instant appetite killer.  I’ve worked at restaurants before and I know these things happen, but it is still a bit gross.  They removed the nachos from our bill, packed up my left over wings and we headed home for cookie cake.

One giant cookie!  Maybe she will decorate it with frosting next year (baby steps)

She did very well for her first attempt at making a cookie cake and I received some nice gifts from her and our families.  One of my gifts is a 30” tall pottery vase that I am going to turn into a bubbling fountain for the back yard.  We have been looking for one for a while and finally found one on sale at a local store.  She also gave me a gas powered weed eater, although I still have to go to a store and pick it out.  She hates buying me tools because she doesn’t know enough about them, but she gave in this time.  I think the real reason she decided to give it to me was that she is tired of hearing me complain about having to string together 4 extension cords in order to reach the back section of our yard with our old electric trimmer.  It worked fine in our tiny yard in GA, but not so good here.  I also received some money, which I will be using to fund the rest of the materials for the fountain project.  (expect more updates as that project progresses)

Birthday gifts (the pot is in the photo too, it just blends in with the background)

This is how dedicated I am to getting back into shape:  I got up at my usual 4:40am time and went to the gym on my birthday!.  On Saturday, I got on the scale at the gym again... I have dropped another pound.  That is good news, considering the fact that I still haven’t really altered my diet..  I seem to be doing pretty well with just adding in exercise, but I have decided that I am going to try to scale back my snacking at work, or bring in healthier snacks to eat, and see if that helps. 

A couple people have asked where I started and where I am targeting so I decided to post it here.  Nothing like telling other people the true numbers to help motivate you (or so I hope).  When we went on our November cruise, I was at my all-time high weight of 178 lbs.  For me, seeing that number was the final shove that I needed to get me motivated to join the local gym.  We don't have a scale at home, so I didn't realize that I had gained that much.  Yes, my stomach seemed a bit bigger, but I could still see my feet so I wasn't too concerned.

Here are the numbers so far, I'll try to update this at least monthly: 

Starting weight (Nov 2012):  178 lbs.
Sometime near the end of December 2012 (can't remember the exact day):  176.6 lbs.
Jan 19, 2013: 176.6 lbs.
Feb 9, 2013:  173.4 lbs.
Feb 23, 2013 172.4 lbs.

I have set my personal target as weighing somewhere in the mid-high 150’s.  If I keep losing a pound per 2 weeks, I’ll hit that target 30 weeks from now.  However, I am hoping that adding in yard work, golf, cycling, etc. (once it warms up outside) will help speed up the process.  I might even start eating a few more carrots and less sweets too, I know that would help the most.  Unfortunately, I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth and sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day at work doesn’t help... the munchies strike hard and often at work.