Scams II...

Or is it III or IV or V?? Wow!! This one takes the cake though! Here's what came home today from Taylor (I haven't gotten one from Chance or Tanner yet):

The card went on to say there is going to be a "Special Gallery-Style Art Show" at the school where you can come view your precious child's "art work" and you can also send all your friends and family the link and the code to login online and buy the "reproduction" of the "art work"... Hey though, the friends and family get the 'special' rate of $24.55!

Then it went on to say that we need to come to the "art show" and show support for the budding young artists in our community. The line that killed me the most was: "Who knows... maybe your child will become the next Picasso!"

NO, we won't be going! I have about a gazillion "art works" all of my kids have painted, colored and drawn... I'm supposed to pay someone thirty bucks to frame it?? Then waste three hours at some ridiculous "Gallery-Style Art Show" to look at something my child colored?!?!? Wow! I suppose many will go, I guess you need to hand it to the people who came up with the concept, I'm sure they'll be laughing all the way to the bank come May 9th!

Okay, I THOUGHT I Was Tired Yesterday...

I must be getting old! :) I'm just not used to all this manual labor I guess... I'm going to work tomorrow so I can relax for a change! We started early too. Got up about 7:00 and went to Home Depot to get wheat straw and pine straw, then headed back to get started... Still didn't finish though, but I'm DONE for today!

Got half of it done though, and it is going to look great I might add! I must have hauled ten wheelbarrow loads of rocks and other debris out of there, plus a few bags of pine straw and leaves that Carolyn bagged up that I took to the curb for the garbage man...

I guess we'll do the other side tomorrow. Cory is going to come over in the afternoon again to help. Cory and Carolyn put landscape fabric down around all the trees and then put pine straw down...

I'm sure everyone is tired of pics of my "projects", but that's about the only thing going on right now with me... :) I HOPE to be done with projects though soon! We'll see how that works out!

I'm Tired...

I've not been this tired in a while... I'm so tired I almost can't hardly blog... Cory is coming over tomorrow to help me finish the front. So I guess I really need to go to bed, because I have to help him... Hmmm..

Cory removed that pile of dirt and spread it on the lawn. Carolyn seeded it and spread the straw...

Yeah, we've been working on the back as well! At first we didn't think the grass was growing, but it's coming up just fine! :)

Carolyn got the flowers and plants going in the 'circle'... Looking good!!

View from behind the bed we got going last year... I'm going to bed! Sorry that I have nothing else to say, but I'm too tired... :)

Spring Fling...

I'm glad it's finally over, but everyone had a great time!

The first thing I did was have Chance and Nate arrested! :) You could have people arrested for 50 cents, then they would have to stay in "jail" for 15 minutes unless they paid 50 cents to get out of jail... That's the entry thing I made in the background, I put it together wrong once I got it there, but figured who cares, and left it that way... :)

Tanner and Taylor having a go at the Bungee Run!

Taylor and Sarah riding the swings. The kids were all thrilled with the event this year. They had a lot more than they have had in the past.

Some loser that had volunteered for a shift at the popcorn stand didn't show up, so I had to fill in for a bit... Don't I look thrilled?? It wasn't that bad though, and I actually only did it for about 15 minutes, then the room mom's took over and told me I could take off if I wanted, they had it under control. So I did. :)

Spring Fling Cont'd...

Tanner and Lorenzo actually WANTED to be arrested, so I had them arrested as well...

Tanner finishing climbing the rock wall, I missed the shot of him actually climbing the wall... :)

Sarah and Taylor just won some goldfish playing one of the games... I wonder how long it will be before we flush them down the toilet?? :)

Chance and his friend had their hair colored... They were quite proud of it! I was going to do it myself, but the line was too long, and I had to keep going back and forth between the Bungee Run booth and the popcorn booth to make sure the people who had volunteered actually showed up!

Spring Fling Prep...

Not sure why I do this every year, but no one else volunteers, so I guess I have to... :)

Had to get the kids to help spray paint the thing...

That will do! I'll throw it on the trailer and take it to the school tomorrow...

The kids can't wait until tomorrow! They LOVE the Spring Fling! I'll post some pics tomorrow of the event...

The Front Yard...

Well, it's only taken about six years, but we are almost there! Of course the 'vision' for what we wanted it to look like has changed quite a bit over the years... :) Cory came over last night and stayed and then this morning he got on the skid steer and went to work... He got rid of that huge pile of dirt that was in my front yard and pretty much leveled the entire area in the front so we can sow seed Saturday... Yippee!!

A shot from near the end of the driveway... We still have to go down there Saturday and clean up any roots and rocks that are laying around, maybe do a little raking... You can't really tell from this shot, but Cory also filled in all the ruts near the house, so I'll have to actually reseed the entire lawn almost! :( Oh well! It will look GREAT in about 2 or 3 weeks!

From the other side... There are several groupings of trees down there, so I'll just lay landscape fabric down and put down pine straw... Or let Cory do it... :)

I'm sure in a few weeks I'll have a post saying: "Yippee! My grass is growing!" :)

Of course now I have to go build something for the annual Spring Fling at the kids school, which is tomorrow night... It's amazing how many parents never help out at these events. Of course everyone knows that if they ask me I'll do it. It's always a fun affair for the kids though, and I really don't mind doing it! So you can expect pics from the Spring Fling tomorrow! :)

Wow, What A Day...

It's supposed to rain tonight, so I HAD to get the cover on the septic tank! Of course we spent the morning at the hospital, Carolyn was having a test but I had to be there to drive her home afterwards... We had to be there at 7:30 AM, so I had to keep the kids out of school, because to get to the hospital at that time we had to leave the house at 6:30 AM. Luckily everything was fine!! Then I spent several hours trying to find someone to fix the Bobcat, no luck. So I had to rent one from Home Depot. Sucks having to rent one when I've GOT one sitting in my backyard... I did however find a guy that will fix it, I just have to bring it to him. So I stopped at the Tractor Company and bought some chains and tie downs so I can move the thing... Which is actually good, because if I didn't have the chains, I WOULD NOT have got the lid on the septic tank!

I dragged the old lid to the back, and am about to put the lid in place, Tanner helped me get the hook on because it came off...

I set it down almost perfectly, but had to drag it back about a half inch... LUCKILY I had those chains!!

The morons who tried to charge me $3K broke my drain pipe that the downspout from the gutter drains into... So I had to replace that! I might try to get them to pay for it, but we'll see...

What a pain! I finally got it working though... I'm actually kind of glad they broke it because there was a LOT of crap in the pipe and I was able to clean it out pretty good.

Filling it back in!! The kids had a blast riding with me! I got it all smoothed out and it's ready for seed! I'm SO GLAD that chore is done, you can't even make it up!! So that's how I spent my day! :)

Contractors!!!

Have I mentioned how much I hate contractors??? I had one out today to empty my septic tank, and WOW!!! What a day it's been! So the contractors get out here, and I wasn't even at the house, Carolyn calls me and tells me to get home now because they want to add extra charges to the $285 charge for pumping out the septic tank...

So the first thing they said was that the lid was broken, now maybe it was, maybe it wasn't... Carolyn didn't see them remove it and I wasn't there... When I arrive home, I asked them how much extra it was. He finally comes back with a figure of $2,995.00... HUH??? WHERE did you get that figure I asked. Well, the lid is $750.00. HUH? It's a slab of concrete!! Some other part was $1,695.00 (discount price) and then another $265.00 for some sort of chemicals... I told the guy, and he looked stunned when I did, don't do ANYTHING except pump it out, I have to make some calls. I called Joe first, he said he didn't do that kind of stuff, but would make some calls. I then called some company that actually makes the septic equipment and they said they would sell me the lid for $108!!! I said I'll be over shortly to get it! I went out and told the morons in my front yard, pump it out and leave! They were like, just leave it uncovered?? Yeah!

The $2,710.00 lid (actual cost = $108), because the guys I bought the lid from said I didn't even need the other part those crooks tried to sell me for nearly $2K... I suppose most homeowners would have just paid the nearly three grand though, because they would not have wanted to have the septic tank left uncovered while they found something cheaper! Of course the problem is, I can't lift it! I can't even lift one side of it... So now I have to get the Bobcat repaired tomorrow so that I can move it! :)

My temporary cover!! I told the kids, don't get near it unless you want to be swimming in our waste! They got it! So hopefully, I'll get the Bobcat working again tomorrow and problem will be solved. For a hundred bucks rather than 2700... Wow!

Grandma's 90th...

We won't be attending... I've been thinking about this for a while! It's like, you know, why would I spend a few thousand dollars to go see a bunch of people who obviously could care less about me and my family? Gail and Skip, Neil and Cherry, Duane and Glenda, and all the rest... I can't do it... Then you get to the kids, Mike, Eric, Gwen... Derek, Kendra, Daniel (I'd like to see Daniel actually!), and Heather... Tabitha, Rick, Tammy, Tonya, Terra, WC and Troy. You know, these people have never commented on my blog. Why would I spend a few thousand dollars to go see them??? I won't be doing that! I'll send Grandma a card and some flowers!

The Circle...

So we decided to go ahead and finish the circle in the back, we were tired of looking at it! So off to Home Depot we went and got the supplies...

Back from Home Depot and about to get started...

Why I choose to do these manual labor chores when I could do easy stuff like finish the entertainment center or the trim I'm not sure... :)

Nearly done, I do have to get a masonry blade for so I can cut the last block to fit, but it wouldn't be right to actually FINISH a project in one day! :)

Almost done, the bobcat isn't working, so I have to go to the Bobcat dealer tomorrow and find out what's wrong with it...

I'm NOT going to shovel that much dirt by hand! It will look nice though once it's done. Now it's time to relax and listen to my Jerry Lee Lewis 'Last Man Standing' DVD, which I recommend to everyone!! :)

Saturday...

Busy Saturday here... Of course I've got a million projects going on, but Uncle Andy and Uncle Joshua were coming over, so we decided to have a cookout! The kids were very excited! We got going early actually and went and bought some bushes and some other things, thinking for some reason that we would actually get around to planting anything!

The kids were enthralled with the pictures and videos Andy showed us from Iraq! It was good to see Andy actually, hopefully he'll stop back by while he is in GA!

Have to throw in a pic of my new lawn, it's coming right along!

We bought pavers to go around the 'circle', but decided we didn't like the color, so I loaded the red ones on the trailer to take back in the morning and get the ones we want. The kids thought that was great, and used the trailer as a ramp for a while, they were disappointed when I closed the trailer... :)

Yes! I AM still working on the entertainment center, and am almost done I might add! All in good time people! :)

Another One...

Funny, but it's the only one I could find where we are actually all together, unless you want to go back to when we were very little...

Old Photos II...

I couldn't resist Titus... :)

That's a nice look there Petra! :)

May as well include some of myself... :) Not sure what I was thinking with that getup...

Aunt Cherry and Kendra... (obviously! :)

I have found a few other gems I'll post later! :)

Okay, We Can Do That... :)

Post old photos that is... :) I haven't found all of mine yet, and I have a ton of them... Here are a few to get started though, and yes, I'll post some of myself as well! :) I look back at some of them and am like, "What in the world were you thinking Matt?" Well, obviously I wasn't!

Matthew and I... What about those glasses? What was I thinking? Of course I guess I thought I was styling... Who knows...

Petra, Titus, Tory and myself... Christmas I think. Why I EVER thought a mustache was a good idea, I have no idea... :)

Titus and Marci in the cabin we built... Lovely photo! We actually built that damn thing because we didn't want to stay in the main cabin. Wow! That brings back memories!

Of course I'm not leaving without posting the status of the entertainment center... :) You guys are stuck seeing that till it's done! :) I did start priming it today, and then quit after doing a bit, because, as I've said before, I HATE painting!!! :)

Nope, Not Done Yet...

It wasn't for lack of trying though... :) I spent all evening working on that thing. Just too much trim I guess...

I barely finished one side!

There is always tomorrow though! Maybe! :)

Of course they are obvious to me, but I suppose it would be nearly impossible for anyone else to spot them... :)

I Should Have Been Programmer...

Ever wanted to do something, then try to find a software program to help you? I have, MANY times! NONE of the programs do what they say they do, except the expensive ones, like PhotoShop, etc... So I am going to build a deck (no, I'm not done with the entertainment center or the trim upstairs, but it just wouldn't be right to not start another project BEFORE I'm done! :) and I have been trying to find a software program to design it and spit me out a materials list (why? I'm not sure, I should do it like I do everything else, just start building it! :).

Needless to say, ALL of the programs I've seen suck! I actually just bought one and downloaded it, and it sucks so bad I've already asked for my money back, I doubt I'll get it, but wow! It was totally unusable! Luckily it was only $19...

So then I keep going back to the Lowe's online one, and wow! I guess I'm just going to have to take it to the store, let them customize it for me and print out the plans, then just go get the stuff myself... Take carriage bolts for instance... Needed to bolt the beams to the posts I suppose, but they are $1.72 each at Lowe's and Home Depot and the nuts and washers are extra!! The plan said I needed 132 of them!! That's $227.04 for JUST the bolts!! I found them on Ebay WITH the washers and the nuts, 140 of them for $99.95 and FREE shipping! So anyway, I just need the plans, that's all! Matter of fact, I've been looking on Ebay for the ballusters I want as well, and they are a third of what they are at the Lowes and Home Depot... Gotta LOVE Ebay! Craigslist as well! I'll be looking for lumber on Craigslist in a few... :)

So anyway, if anyone knows of any decent software...

Here's a pic from Lowe's online design software:

Basically what I'm going to build, but none of these programs will spit me out a materials list... So I imagine I'll just start building and make multiple trips for supplies! :)

I Try, But Wow!

I've been wanting to have that entertainment center upstairs now for about a week! It's not for lack of trying, I worked on it all weekend... I started on it today at 10:00 and just quit a few minutes ago... :( Still not done though...

What are you doing Matt you might ask... Well, when I measured the ceiling where the thing is going, I didn't account for the crown molding, so it was off by an inch, so I had to cut an inch off the top... Only sidetracked me for about 30 minutes though... :)

That's as far as I got...

I'm done with the middle piece! :) (Except for painting of course)

While I was working, Taylor and Sarah came in, it was Sarah's birthday, so her and Taylor went to somewhere at the mall (I HATE the mall), and got all dolled up... So I took a picture. They had a good time though...