We have had a productive weekend of decluttering and moving stuff to the shed. Chris took the camper to it's new owners yesterday morning and was even back in time to put the check in the bank (they were 3 hours away!). He left at 5 to accomplish that! He was also up in time to know that Brayton wet the bed. He'd been doing so well, but by the looks of his bed, he had not went since, say, noon!!! I think I might have to throw his PJ's away! I washed them, but they still stink!
At 8:20, I was sitting at my desk when I heard the garage door open and then a pop open. . . I said "Did you ask to have that?" Brayton: "Well, can I?" "I guess, you've already opened it!" (giggle ~ Bray) "OK!"
Later in the morning (before lunch) Brayton is finishing his pop. Taite sees this and says "Wha, is that from today?!" Brayton nods. Taite says "And you didn't invite me?!" This is where I have to point out that he opened it at 8! We all laughed and Brayton says "well, I was getting tired and needed some caffeine!" WHAT??!! I reminded him he's only 8 and if he's tired, he can just TAKE A NAP!!! We all laughed! It was a good day! The boys willingly helped haul stuff to the shed and both cleaned their rooms! At 6:30, we decided to eat and we didn't feel like cooking, so we went to McD's. We've all decided that even if we aren't able to sell the house, we desperately needed to get rid of "stuff" (speaking of which, if you want an early shopping time to purchase ANYTHING, just let us know! I was going to have a garage sale, but I'm thinking we'll keep it set up and if people want to look at it, we are not going to restrict them by setting a garage sale time. Honestly, we are having a "sold the camper", "closed the office", "hoping to move" sale and right now the space the camper took up is filled with stuff to sell and we haven't even finished with the house, started on the office and finished in the shed! We have everything from rugs to toys to clothes, to gardening stuff to furniture! The boys are excited because we've worked a deal that they get 15% of the sale money. We started out at 10%, Taite came back with 20% and we settled on 15% :~) That's Taite ~ the negotiator! Brayton just keeps saying "I see us getting more than $15!" (we had to explain it with simple math ~ if we make $100, he will get $15 and if we make $500 ~ he figured it out, he would get $85 ~ I corrected him and he still didn't think that $75 was bad!)
I've cleaned out my portion of the closet and hung my clothes on white hangers only. Is that going overboard? I have no idea, but I'm hanging Chris' the same way :D The boys are getting more and more excited about moving. They just want to have some input as to what house we choose, which of course we would do! One thing I'm wishing we would've done is sent Baby with Rick and Hiddy so we don't have to worry about her. Right now we don't have to worry until the end of June when we go to Japan, but she likes to run through the rock around the house and she leaves little indents in the rock that will have to be smoothed out before a viewing. Speaking of Japan, I am using the decluttering as reason to start packing! I am taking capris and dressier shirts for the trip so I started packing my bag now. No sense in hanging those in the closet! Today Chris and I were talking about it and I asked him if we needed suits. He said only he needed to wear suits and I clarified, I was talking about swimming suits! He reminded me we are going to a traditional Japanese spa (not sure if the boys are too or where they are going. . .) which means that you enjoy the spa experience completely naked!!! I've decided to quit eating now! No worries, I'll only be with the wife of one of the business men from Japan ~ I'll be booking my wax now!!!
I'm feeling a little guilty for not cooking lately. We had Mc D's yesterday and Subway for lunch and Kwik Trip pizza (try the BBQ Chicken!) for supper. The boys don't seem to mind, but we are so used to eating a square meal, I feel bad ~ oh well, I'll keep reminding myself that it's a holiday weekend! So far we go to bed early and get up early . . . Some vacation :~) It should all be worth it though, in the end!!
I'm dying to get to town though and pick up our "staging" stuff ~ towels, shower curtains, comforter, etc. Chris doesn't think that's necessary, but I watch "Get it Sold" and shows like that on HGTV, so I know!! hehe Speaking of, I'm going to sign off and make sure we are doing all we can to "Get it Sold"!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
To Help a Friend
I'm too tired to do an actual blog, but I think this is important enough to copy and paste on here to ask for your help. If you know me, you know that I am strictly a Credit Union gal ~ no bank fees for me! Here is an email I received from the CU. I clicked on the link and it really is fast and pain-free!
Dear Valued Member,
One of the greatest strengths of First Alliance Credit Union is that fact that we're owned by our members - by all of you who have a vested interest in our future. From time to time, credit unions call upon their members to voice opinions about a particular legislative issue that is of great importance. Now is such a time.
Background: Last week the U.S. Senate approved the Financial Regulatory Reform Bill. While the overall bill takes a balanced approach, there is one provision that is of great concern to credit union members like you. In the debate process, the bill was amended to direct the Federal Reserve Board to limit fees that merchants pay when customers pay with debit cards. This "interchange amendment," which did not receive a thorough review, does not belong in this bill and will have unintended consequences for credit union members. The House also passed a financial reform bill in December 2009 and the final step is for the two chambers to reconcile the different bills by a conference committee.
Credit Union Member Concerns: The Senate-passed interchange provision reduces merchants' financial responsibility for the benefits received from the card payment system. Merchants receive tremendous benefits when they choose to accept debit and credit cards as a form of payment. They are paid immediately, and they do not have to deal with cash or wait for a check to clear. Like electricity or rent, the interchange fee that the merchant pays is a cost of doing business. Government rate controls on interchange reduce the merchants' responsibility to pay for the benefits received from the card payment system and will drive up costs for this credit union and our members.
First Alliance Credit Union incurs significant expenses in operating our card payment system, about $24,000 per month. For example, we are responsible for administration, customer call centers, reissuing cards in cases of merchant fraud and we pay to support the electronic network over which your charges are authorized. Interchange supports these costs. If interchange fees were reduced, this credit union and other small financial institutions would be forced to raise rates and fees for card services, or even curtail debit and credit card services for members. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that merchants would pass along any savings resulting from lower interchange to consumers.
The interchange provision of the Senate bill offers no real "exemption" or "carve-out" for credit unions; if it were included, merchants and big banks would set rates that would make it impossible for this credit union to compete. In the end, merchants could refuse to accept the credit union debit card you rely on for everyday use!
ACTION NEEDED: Please send a message to your federal legislators today urging them to oppose inclusion of the Senate-passed interchange provision in the financial reform bill. Even if you do not have a First Alliance Credit Union debit card, it is important for all members to weigh in on this. A prewritten letter is available to you at http://www.greatcreditunions.org/, where you can send a quick e-mail or print and fax a letter. (This message will be directed to the appropriate legislators based on your address.)
Make sure your voice is counted! Thank you for your participation in this important Action Alert.
THANK YOU! (that's from me, not part of the letter :D)
Dear Valued Member,
One of the greatest strengths of First Alliance Credit Union is that fact that we're owned by our members - by all of you who have a vested interest in our future. From time to time, credit unions call upon their members to voice opinions about a particular legislative issue that is of great importance. Now is such a time.
Background: Last week the U.S. Senate approved the Financial Regulatory Reform Bill. While the overall bill takes a balanced approach, there is one provision that is of great concern to credit union members like you. In the debate process, the bill was amended to direct the Federal Reserve Board to limit fees that merchants pay when customers pay with debit cards. This "interchange amendment," which did not receive a thorough review, does not belong in this bill and will have unintended consequences for credit union members. The House also passed a financial reform bill in December 2009 and the final step is for the two chambers to reconcile the different bills by a conference committee.
Credit Union Member Concerns: The Senate-passed interchange provision reduces merchants' financial responsibility for the benefits received from the card payment system. Merchants receive tremendous benefits when they choose to accept debit and credit cards as a form of payment. They are paid immediately, and they do not have to deal with cash or wait for a check to clear. Like electricity or rent, the interchange fee that the merchant pays is a cost of doing business. Government rate controls on interchange reduce the merchants' responsibility to pay for the benefits received from the card payment system and will drive up costs for this credit union and our members.
First Alliance Credit Union incurs significant expenses in operating our card payment system, about $24,000 per month. For example, we are responsible for administration, customer call centers, reissuing cards in cases of merchant fraud and we pay to support the electronic network over which your charges are authorized. Interchange supports these costs. If interchange fees were reduced, this credit union and other small financial institutions would be forced to raise rates and fees for card services, or even curtail debit and credit card services for members. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that merchants would pass along any savings resulting from lower interchange to consumers.
The interchange provision of the Senate bill offers no real "exemption" or "carve-out" for credit unions; if it were included, merchants and big banks would set rates that would make it impossible for this credit union to compete. In the end, merchants could refuse to accept the credit union debit card you rely on for everyday use!
ACTION NEEDED: Please send a message to your federal legislators today urging them to oppose inclusion of the Senate-passed interchange provision in the financial reform bill. Even if you do not have a First Alliance Credit Union debit card, it is important for all members to weigh in on this. A prewritten letter is available to you at http://www.greatcreditunions.org/, where you can send a quick e-mail or print and fax a letter. (This message will be directed to the appropriate legislators based on your address.)
Make sure your voice is counted! Thank you for your participation in this important Action Alert.
THANK YOU! (that's from me, not part of the letter :D)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Today was . . . different.
We started off by dropping the van off for repairs, oil change and recalls. I will NOT miss that when we trade it in!
We made returns to Menards (extras from the outside projects and almost project of water line to the fridge we didn't get).
When we got home, did a little work (work, work) and then Chris decided to dig out the axles for the mobile home we've been using for an office. I put it on Craigslist yesterday and was going to say 'free' just to get it out of there, but Chris said to put a price of $500 and that would be reduced based on how quickly they could get it out of there. We've had more calls on that thing! It's always the stuff that you think won't sell, that does! The back room doesn't even have carpet in it! The young couple that looked at it thought it was GREAT! The only problem ~ the people who can move it are booked up until July and the heat is electric and the trailer park they were taking it to, doesn't allow all electric trailers so they have to look at putting a gas furnace in it and we've done that. It will be out of their price range. THEN the place that does the moving of these trailers also buys old ones and sells them! They called to see if they could buy it. We'll see, but it could be moved out of there in a week! So anyway, back to the axles ~ Chris came to the house (I was working) and showed me his hand with blood running down his fingers! I flew to the bathroom, grabbed band-aids, triple antibiotic ointment and went to help him. You'll never guess what he did. . . He was trying to turn the wheel and his hand slipped and he stuck the needle from the grease gun in between the knuckles on his hand! It was all swollen and I did a little research, but other than his kidneys and nervous system being effected, nothing to worry about!
As we were getting the boys to hurry up so we could take them with to get the van (and get them haircuts), I was dealing with a work issue (of course it was 5:00) and a guy calls ~ he's in Byron, wants to know where we have our camper so he can take a look! I had just showed it to a couple on Saturday, from Iowa and they were supposed to get back to us on or before Wednesday (today) and we hadn't heard anything. I think it's a blessing this all worked out ~ the guy came and loved the camper, but his wife wasn't with him (long story short, they'll be back to Rochester on Friday). As this guy is telling us how much he likes it and it's just what they are looking for, the guy from Iowa calls to offer us a lower price on it than we have listed. It is listed as OBO, but with the other couple coming on Friday, I hate to take a lower price. . . We do have it listed way below book! So, we'll see how that all plays out, but the space in the shed would certainly be nice for our sale in a week!
We spoke to a realtor today and she is stopping by tomorrow for the initial stage of listing our house. We have to offer my parents the first right of refusal, so hopefully she knows a little bit about that. Chris is still overwhelmed, but I think if we just start diving in, we'll do fine. At this point, he is standing too far back and seeing the big picture and that is too much :~) I pitched that we could get iPod's and that would make all the working more bearable. We are excited and nervous because the first 30 days a property is listed are the most critical. I know not everyone is happy for us, but my SIL put it best "it's not as if we are dying!" we are just moving! And excited to have a smaller yard. And want to have neighbors nearby whom we might be friends with. And want to be on non-gravel roads. And want to be near a fishing spot (that one is for Chris). And want to maybe have a walking path near our house. Oh and the boys and Chris both want to have a corner bathtub :D One good thing about all this nervousness ~ the scale is becoming my friend and my butt is shrinking!
Tomorrow night is Brayton's music program at school. This is very late for them ~ usually they are in the winter, but the music teacher had maternity leave in there when the programs are usually done, so it was delayed this year. It's kind of nice because Rick and Hiddy (Chris' brother and his wife) are coming! They both teach in SD and are all done with school! Brayton was very excited! He was also excited to show me the program cover he drew for the music program because it was chosen as one of the printed ones for everyone who comes! He also clarified to me that they aren't chosen randomly, they choose the better drawn pictures! He did do a very good job, if I do say so myself! We might have to get there a little earlier to save seats and get one of those programs!
I'm glad I have a blog because it really is therapeutic at times. It's difficult always being "the bad guy" in some situations and it makes me feel more relaxed when I can type meaningless stuff about things you don't care about. LOL
Just for that, here is a recipe we tried last week. It was excellent and was very easy! I think it came from All Recipes, but I'm not sure. You'll have to forgive my directions, I wrote them all on a 3 1/2 x 5 sheet of paper
Fire Roasted Tomato & Spinach Pasta
6 oz linguine
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic (I thought this was a lot, but used this amount and it wasn't!)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 ~ 14.5 oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes with juice
1 ~ 9 oz box of frozen creamed spinach, thawed
Chopped up chicken (I think I used one large b.s. breast)
Italian seasoning (I have no idea how much I used, just dumped ~ maybe 1/2 to 1 tsp?)
Salt & Pepper to taste (I didn't add any!)
Cook the pasta. Heat the oil in a skillet, stir in the onion and garlic and chicken. Cook until softened (approx. 3 min). Stir in the tomatoes and Italian seasoning, simmer. Cook for 1 minute and then add spinach. Cook 5 more minutes and stir in pasta ~ serve! The boys loved it and so did Chris and I ~ the boys even couldn't wait until the next day so we could have leftovers!
We started off by dropping the van off for repairs, oil change and recalls. I will NOT miss that when we trade it in!
We made returns to Menards (extras from the outside projects and almost project of water line to the fridge we didn't get).
When we got home, did a little work (work, work) and then Chris decided to dig out the axles for the mobile home we've been using for an office. I put it on Craigslist yesterday and was going to say 'free' just to get it out of there, but Chris said to put a price of $500 and that would be reduced based on how quickly they could get it out of there. We've had more calls on that thing! It's always the stuff that you think won't sell, that does! The back room doesn't even have carpet in it! The young couple that looked at it thought it was GREAT! The only problem ~ the people who can move it are booked up until July and the heat is electric and the trailer park they were taking it to, doesn't allow all electric trailers so they have to look at putting a gas furnace in it and we've done that. It will be out of their price range. THEN the place that does the moving of these trailers also buys old ones and sells them! They called to see if they could buy it. We'll see, but it could be moved out of there in a week! So anyway, back to the axles ~ Chris came to the house (I was working) and showed me his hand with blood running down his fingers! I flew to the bathroom, grabbed band-aids, triple antibiotic ointment and went to help him. You'll never guess what he did. . . He was trying to turn the wheel and his hand slipped and he stuck the needle from the grease gun in between the knuckles on his hand! It was all swollen and I did a little research, but other than his kidneys and nervous system being effected, nothing to worry about!
As we were getting the boys to hurry up so we could take them with to get the van (and get them haircuts), I was dealing with a work issue (of course it was 5:00) and a guy calls ~ he's in Byron, wants to know where we have our camper so he can take a look! I had just showed it to a couple on Saturday, from Iowa and they were supposed to get back to us on or before Wednesday (today) and we hadn't heard anything. I think it's a blessing this all worked out ~ the guy came and loved the camper, but his wife wasn't with him (long story short, they'll be back to Rochester on Friday). As this guy is telling us how much he likes it and it's just what they are looking for, the guy from Iowa calls to offer us a lower price on it than we have listed. It is listed as OBO, but with the other couple coming on Friday, I hate to take a lower price. . . We do have it listed way below book! So, we'll see how that all plays out, but the space in the shed would certainly be nice for our sale in a week!
We spoke to a realtor today and she is stopping by tomorrow for the initial stage of listing our house. We have to offer my parents the first right of refusal, so hopefully she knows a little bit about that. Chris is still overwhelmed, but I think if we just start diving in, we'll do fine. At this point, he is standing too far back and seeing the big picture and that is too much :~) I pitched that we could get iPod's and that would make all the working more bearable. We are excited and nervous because the first 30 days a property is listed are the most critical. I know not everyone is happy for us, but my SIL put it best "it's not as if we are dying!" we are just moving! And excited to have a smaller yard. And want to have neighbors nearby whom we might be friends with. And want to be on non-gravel roads. And want to be near a fishing spot (that one is for Chris). And want to maybe have a walking path near our house. Oh and the boys and Chris both want to have a corner bathtub :D One good thing about all this nervousness ~ the scale is becoming my friend and my butt is shrinking!
Tomorrow night is Brayton's music program at school. This is very late for them ~ usually they are in the winter, but the music teacher had maternity leave in there when the programs are usually done, so it was delayed this year. It's kind of nice because Rick and Hiddy (Chris' brother and his wife) are coming! They both teach in SD and are all done with school! Brayton was very excited! He was also excited to show me the program cover he drew for the music program because it was chosen as one of the printed ones for everyone who comes! He also clarified to me that they aren't chosen randomly, they choose the better drawn pictures! He did do a very good job, if I do say so myself! We might have to get there a little earlier to save seats and get one of those programs!
I'm glad I have a blog because it really is therapeutic at times. It's difficult always being "the bad guy" in some situations and it makes me feel more relaxed when I can type meaningless stuff about things you don't care about. LOL
Just for that, here is a recipe we tried last week. It was excellent and was very easy! I think it came from All Recipes, but I'm not sure. You'll have to forgive my directions, I wrote them all on a 3 1/2 x 5 sheet of paper
Fire Roasted Tomato & Spinach Pasta
6 oz linguine
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic (I thought this was a lot, but used this amount and it wasn't!)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 ~ 14.5 oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes with juice
1 ~ 9 oz box of frozen creamed spinach, thawed
Chopped up chicken (I think I used one large b.s. breast)
Italian seasoning (I have no idea how much I used, just dumped ~ maybe 1/2 to 1 tsp?)
Salt & Pepper to taste (I didn't add any!)
Cook the pasta. Heat the oil in a skillet, stir in the onion and garlic and chicken. Cook until softened (approx. 3 min). Stir in the tomatoes and Italian seasoning, simmer. Cook for 1 minute and then add spinach. Cook 5 more minutes and stir in pasta ~ serve! The boys loved it and so did Chris and I ~ the boys even couldn't wait until the next day so we could have leftovers!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Overwhelmed
That pretty much sums up the feeling around here (well, at least between Chris and I). You know I'm normally the calm one, but with the decision to finally move made, Chris has me nervous. He's sure we won't be able to sell our house. First there is a bunch of legal stuff we have to get sorted out (our acreage isn't technically split off into it's own parcel because that costs big bucks, we have to give my parents First Right of Refusal and it seems like there was something more, but I can't remember). Chris doesn't want to use a realtor, but I don't have a clue how to go about this, so I think it would be a good idea (but they get SOOO much money!). Chris also doesn't think our house will be appealing to anyone. I mean, yes, there are nice features (the mudroom, new fireplace), but there are other things that this house doesn't have too. We are also trying to plan cleaning out "stuff" and getting ready for a sale. I'm torn on what to sell because if we can't sell the house, I don't want to get rid of everything! We also need to do a little patching on the walls and touch-up painting. The boys and their friends are tough on things. . .
We are going to have a sale (I'm not sure if we should officially call it a moving sale if we don't have the house sold yet. . .) on June 4th and 5th because there is an auction on the 5th and I'm hoping we can snag some of those people at our sale. We need to concentrate on getting the boys to let go of some of their items too ~ Chris calls me a pack rat, but they are worse!
I'm trying to figure out how to stage everything too! That is stressful ~ not knowing if I've gone far enough to remove stuff or if I've taken too much stuff off the wall. I've hit a few garage sales hoping to find staging items, but so far, no luck. It's hard to buy things knowing you are going to have a sale soon too. . .
On another note, the boys get out late this year. It seems like it's the latest they've ever been (speaking of, maybe or sale will not be on the 4th because Brayton's class has a field trip I might go on), but it's coming quickly and then our month of June will be gone. They are done with school June 9th, start swimming lessons on the 14th (they go all week), the 21st through the 25th Taite has the classes like he took last year and the 26th we go to Japan for a week! All of this while selling our house ~ doesn't sound too bad! LOL Tonight for supper Taite wanted to know if he could have Ramen noodles. My automatic decision was no (too much salt, we were going to have leftovers, etc.), but Chris was still gone and I didn't really feel like cooking much, and after he told me he wanted to practice with chop sticks, I agreed. He's hoping the Japanese will be impressed with his ability to use chop sticks. I assured him they would be :D
I suppose, I thought I would update this quick since I was online researching some landscaping ideas. We are trying to add some curb appeal with bushes, flowers and shrubs. I am off to bed. . .
Oh, I would like to request that you say a prayer for my cousin, Rhonda. She is serving in Iraq and the other day posted that they were under attack for 4 hours that night and that it was crazy (I think that was the word, either way, the word was not descriptive enough, I didn't think). I pray for her safety and would like your help as well. Thank you!
We are going to have a sale (I'm not sure if we should officially call it a moving sale if we don't have the house sold yet. . .) on June 4th and 5th because there is an auction on the 5th and I'm hoping we can snag some of those people at our sale. We need to concentrate on getting the boys to let go of some of their items too ~ Chris calls me a pack rat, but they are worse!
I'm trying to figure out how to stage everything too! That is stressful ~ not knowing if I've gone far enough to remove stuff or if I've taken too much stuff off the wall. I've hit a few garage sales hoping to find staging items, but so far, no luck. It's hard to buy things knowing you are going to have a sale soon too. . .
On another note, the boys get out late this year. It seems like it's the latest they've ever been (speaking of, maybe or sale will not be on the 4th because Brayton's class has a field trip I might go on), but it's coming quickly and then our month of June will be gone. They are done with school June 9th, start swimming lessons on the 14th (they go all week), the 21st through the 25th Taite has the classes like he took last year and the 26th we go to Japan for a week! All of this while selling our house ~ doesn't sound too bad! LOL Tonight for supper Taite wanted to know if he could have Ramen noodles. My automatic decision was no (too much salt, we were going to have leftovers, etc.), but Chris was still gone and I didn't really feel like cooking much, and after he told me he wanted to practice with chop sticks, I agreed. He's hoping the Japanese will be impressed with his ability to use chop sticks. I assured him they would be :D
I suppose, I thought I would update this quick since I was online researching some landscaping ideas. We are trying to add some curb appeal with bushes, flowers and shrubs. I am off to bed. . .
Oh, I would like to request that you say a prayer for my cousin, Rhonda. She is serving in Iraq and the other day posted that they were under attack for 4 hours that night and that it was crazy (I think that was the word, either way, the word was not descriptive enough, I didn't think). I pray for her safety and would like your help as well. Thank you!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
You can do it, I just wouldn't recommend it. . .
I thought I had this new editor all figured out on Blogspot, but I don't. The pictures upload much faster, but I can't get them situated like I want. So, you'll have to bear with me. Here is a picture of the fire pit in the making. Packed all the sand, started laying the first layer of retaining wall and am putting plastic down to go behind the block.
This picture is supposed to be 2nd to last ~ it's how the fire pit after yesterday ~ all of the whole block that we could lay (that was finished up as the sun was setting ~ you can see from the darkness of the picture).
This is how it looks today. All the cut pavers are cut and the caps that needed to be cut are somewhat done. The sand is broomed on and we scooped up the excess sand (Chris dumped all 3 bags on the pavers ~ not sure why, but the boys and I got to sweep it up tonight as Chris is at a dinner meeting).
This is a picture of where all the sand came from for under the pavers and wall ~ yes, we have our own little sand pit here. Chris just dug a hole in the SE corner of our lot and if we sifted this a little, it would be perfect sandbox sand ~ NO KIDDING!!! Oh, and that is Brayton running beside the tractor ~ he raced it back and forth most of the time (well, when he wasn't playing soccer with Taite~ that's what the cones are for that you see)
This is before all the sand was brought in.
The beginning of the sand being brought in. Chris wanted us to rake out the sand and pick up any bigger stones ~ um, don't we have a tractor that could spread out all of this sand???
Chris used the tractor to pack down the sand. I'm not sure how many times he went over the same spot, but it did a pretty good job. I have no idea why this picture was taken ~ I had 2 better pictures of the packing of the sand, but twice when I tried to remove this picture, it deleted the pictures I wanted to keep! UGH!
The boys and dog and I tried to say in the shade while we watched Chris. The only shade we have is a tiny cottonwood tree (you might remember it from previous pictures) and we had to sit like this just to keep our faces in the shade! LOL
More packing of the sand.
The dog didn't get in our picture of the 3 of us, so Taite had to take a picture of her by herself.
More racing ~ this time the dog joined in!
So the moral of this posting is that you can do a circular fire pit area, but we don't recommend it ~ especially if you like being married :D I think it looks great ~ Chris is more picky about the levelness of it, but if you fall down, it's probably because you had one too many, not because there is 1/8" difference in one paver to the next! LOL There will definitely be enough room around this fire as we had originally measured that we thought 16' across would be enough and it ended up being 18' or something close to that! In fact, I had to make a quick run to Menard's this morning to get 6 more pavers and 3 more bags of sand. I would NOT recommend wearing your son's flip flops for this sort of run. Those damn flatbed things are difficult to maneuver when you have that much weight on them and are wearing flip flops! (3 bags of sand @ 50 lbs each and 6 pavers at 42 lbs each) I didn't wipe out, but thought I was hearing voices when I was at the truck loading them and heard "Do you want some help" I looked up at the sky as if an angel was speaking, but no, it was a shaggy haired-Menard's employee, but I accepted his help!!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Finally. . .
I haven't posted anything for awhile and needed to try the new version to post with that Monica told me now has spell-check. I hadn't been using the new version because they didn't have spell-check on it, but it takes so long to upload pics with the old version that I'm using the new version now and it's much easier to upload pictures! Now, if I could only get the hang of getting them rearranged. . .
Last weekend we visited Tom and Jane. We always have fun when we go there (usually because Jane and I shop :D) so the boys were more than ready to leave a day early from school and off we went. Chris, Tom and Jane all had a meeting on Friday morning, so the boys watched Avatar and I worked (did you know that movie is over 3 hours long??? Taite was mad that Bray had to stop after 3 hours to go to the bathroom ~ I reminded him that the day before in the van, he couldn't go one hour without making us stop so he could go. . .) After the meeting, Jane and I did a little shopping, but we had an early supper at Bev's on the River in Sioux City ~ if you are ever in SC at a meal time, I highly recommend Bev's and make sure you get a margarita! YUMMY!!! After our dinner, we did a little playing outside:
I have to say that you'll have to excuse the "quality" of my photos, they were all taken with my phone. Saturday morning Jane headed out to her parents house. We didn't plan our trip in advance and she had planned to go to her parents for the weekend and actually stayed home on Friday to spend a little more time with us ~ we were grateful! To fill the morning, we went swimming at the pool at the Dunes. The water is always really warm and when we go, there is usually no one there! So nice! After that (and lunch), we went to see the Lewis and Clark museum. We had never been there before and I really enjoyed it! The boys did too, but they were ready to go long before I was! It was such a nice facility and they had these little booklets for the kids to fill out as they explored the museum.
The first thing they had to do when they got their booklet was figure out what kind of "person" they wanted to be in the group of explorers traveling with L&C. Each person's job description was listed and the boys chose their profession. It was very cool. Brayton chose a Private ~ they had to be good leaders, intelligent, and I can't remember anything other than that. Well, after Brayton stamped his card that he was going to be a Private, he came across this:
He decided that he wished he would've know about this before signing up!!! LOL He thought that they didn't ever get to sleep :D
This is the monument that was constructed to mark the burial spot of someone important from the L&C team ~ I can't remember his name! Oh, that's terrible, we even kept giving Taite grief for not knowing the name. . . Maybe it will come to me ~ it was over a week ago!
Today we were working on the yard (we, well, Chris took out the rock wall and just resloped the dirt on the west side of the house and we worked more on the fire pit). We reached a point that we needed supplies, so off to town we went. It happened to be close to supper time, so we ate at Culver's. The kids meals are pretty good deals because they get a full burger (if they choose), fries, pop and ice cream! Chris said there were quite a few new workers and I believe one of them filled Brayton's cone!!! This was more ice cream than Chris got and he ordered a double scoop dish!!! We all laughed ~ even the lady in the booth next to ours! I can say I'm glad he never gets this much ice cream usually because I was ready to sit on him so he would settle down when we were in Menard's! I thought for sure one of those driving fork lifts were going to run him over the way he couldn't stay put and they were driving so fast (we were out in the gardening center).
I hope you all wear a smile like Bray's this week! We finally have warm weather :~)
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Update
Today I tried to take a picture of someone else's "Aww Crap" moment, but I was driving and couldn't get my camera on my phone up quick enough ~ there was a tractor in the middle of this field with a broken (yes, broken) back axle! It looked really bad and the boys and I agreed he may have said "Aww Crap!" among other things!
I'm working with another mom from Taite's room to plan a party for his teacher's last day. She's having surgery and is leaving on May 21st. We are excited to make a brightly colored planter (reminds us of their teacher ~ very colorful) that has a quote on it from Monica and the kids will all sign! I can see it already and am so excited to give it to her!
Taite discovered tonight that he has to bring snack to school on the one day he's been invited to a writers workshop, so he won't get to enjoy the snack. Guess it doesn't matter what I send for that day :D Taite suggested broccoli & cauliflower. . .
This morning I took the boys to school because Brayton was supposed to have math homework, but didn't bring home his math folder. He was devastated that he'd miss the extra recess in the afternoon (he had to miss it last week because he had to write a pen pal letter ~ the only thing. . . he's the only one in the class who has TWO pen pals! I didn't think that was fair, so I wanted to make it right, even though he thought nothing of it ~ we went to his classroom so I could help him) only to find out that NO ONE had their Homelinks folder ~ they weren't put into their mailboxes. . . He got to go to the extra recess today.
Chris and I picked up the stuff for the water thing on the fridge today. He's not so hot on the idea of replacing our current fridge and I really want the fire pit to be done, so I'm thinking we'll "return" it (we don't officially "have" it yet as it's not even in MN). The boys were torn, but there is nothing wrong with our current fridge, so. . . we'll have to get our water the normal way.
I'm working with another mom from Taite's room to plan a party for his teacher's last day. She's having surgery and is leaving on May 21st. We are excited to make a brightly colored planter (reminds us of their teacher ~ very colorful) that has a quote on it from Monica and the kids will all sign! I can see it already and am so excited to give it to her!
Taite discovered tonight that he has to bring snack to school on the one day he's been invited to a writers workshop, so he won't get to enjoy the snack. Guess it doesn't matter what I send for that day :D Taite suggested broccoli & cauliflower. . .
This morning I took the boys to school because Brayton was supposed to have math homework, but didn't bring home his math folder. He was devastated that he'd miss the extra recess in the afternoon (he had to miss it last week because he had to write a pen pal letter ~ the only thing. . . he's the only one in the class who has TWO pen pals! I didn't think that was fair, so I wanted to make it right, even though he thought nothing of it ~ we went to his classroom so I could help him) only to find out that NO ONE had their Homelinks folder ~ they weren't put into their mailboxes. . . He got to go to the extra recess today.
Chris and I picked up the stuff for the water thing on the fridge today. He's not so hot on the idea of replacing our current fridge and I really want the fire pit to be done, so I'm thinking we'll "return" it (we don't officially "have" it yet as it's not even in MN). The boys were torn, but there is nothing wrong with our current fridge, so. . . we'll have to get our water the normal way.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Aww Crap!
Even if I don't post every day or week, I am thinking about what I would be blogging about, if I were blogging. Last weeks title was going to be "Aww Crap!" because that is just the kind of week I had (well, it definitely could've been worse, but I had these moments. . .)
Last Sat & Sun was when we looked at the cattle for Joe & Lisa (friends from SD ~ Chris' hometown). Here's a shot of a few of them ~ they already delivered the first load of them Thursday or Friday last week!
Here is a shot of the t-shirts I made for Steph ~ he friend and her friend's sister both have boys that were turning one and they were having a combined party! How cute do you think they looked in these???
Last Sunday I colored my hair and while that was going on, I decided to wax my eyebrows quick. Don't ever do that quick. . .
Here is a shot of the "medium brown" color ~ turned out more like BLACK!!!
AND here is how my eyebrow turned out (I had to do the other side deliberately so they kind of matched!). I was trying to reuse one of the jean strips (my "wax" is actually sugar and they reuse strips of jean material) and the part I'd used previously, went (and stuck) right through the middle of my eyebrow! I had a little hair on the outside of my eye. . . They are getting better, but it was definitely an AW CRAP! moment!!
My other Aw Crap! moment was when the reminder popped up on my computer that Bray had an ortho appt Thursday morning ~ 15 MINUTES BEFORE THE APPT!!! I brushed my teeth, ran my fingers through my hair and flew out the door! I called the school on the way and they were going to have Bray ready. Well, she called when I was about 2 blocks from the school to say his class was taking the state testing, so I couldn't pick him up! I rescheduled his 9 am appt at 9:00 and found out this weekend that he has more testing for when I rescheduled it! Geez, I just can't win. . .
Oh, here's another one from last week ~ my cell phone quit. This was while Chris was gone, I had to watch Josey, Taite's friend had called from Byron (we missed the call on our home ph, and then didn't have a way to call him back since we don't have long distance on our home phone!), etc. I tried to get my phone fixed the next day, but didn't have the password when I was at the phone place and couldn't get a hold of Chris so ended up doing it over the phone, so have to wait for the replacement to be shipped, etc. etc. Good thing it was under warranty, however the phone wasn't bad anyway ~ just the battery and had to run to a Verizon store for that anyway!
So, we are onto our weekend (this weekend) which went well! Yeah for us! hehe 
Here's a shot of where it will be in relation to the house. The closest tree you can see there is a cottonwood and it will be huge, but I figure it will take awhile and we will be safe with it that far away and it won't effect our fires :D
This is a shot of the tree that I've had to replace the last 2 years (they had warranties) because it didn't make it through the winter. I thought for sure it didn't again this year because my mom's similar tree is just full of green leaves ~ this one has a bunch of little buds! I'll take them! YEAH!!
This was one of my favorite little trees because it has roses that would bloom many times during the summer ~ lots of little pink blossoms. This sits right where all the snow was piled up this winter, so if I buy a replacement (no warranty as this one has been here for a few years) it will have to go in back and away from piled up snow (this had sidewalk, driveway and garage apron snow on it's pile!) RIP ~ I will miss you little tree!! The pink flowers always made me smile. . .
Here is another picture of the tree that survived! The rock it sits next to, we are thinking of having "The Heinz family" sandblasted onto it. The guy who does that has been meaning to get to our place since last fall, so we'll see if it actually gets done. He's turkey hunting now, so he said it will be awhile.
Here is a "before" picture of the back of our garage. I would like to move the cement (or add to it and re-coat it, so it all looks like one piece) so we have a patio that extends to the edge of the house. The little burning bush would be moved to behind the fire pit (appropriate ~ don't you think??)
Another "before" ~ we need to take out that one bush you see because I hate it and do something better with the slope of the hill right there.
A closer view and you can kind of see the plants (or lack of) under the deck. I'm not sure what to put there, but it needs to be redone as well.
This is the one retaining wall we are leaving as-is. It's still straight and looks great!
As you can see, we need to get some grass growing here (or the plan is to do all plants around here, so it's just a walking path from the lower patio door). In the little bush on the left, there is a little bird with a nest in there and I'm sure she about had a heart attack yesterday as the boys were sitting in the grass right by it most of the afternoon!
Here are some of the rocks we've picked up out of dad's field by our house! Well, not the big one on the left, that one came out of the field or terrace or something, but judging by the weeds around it, we obviously didn't pick it up yesterday!
This is the little patio and retaining wall that need to go. We never use this patio and the retaining wall needs to be back farther and non-tipping.
This is another retaining wall we are taking out and the block will be re-used for the fire pit area. The flowering crab is staying, so we have to be careful when working on this side of the house.
Here is the circle for the "pit" after Chris tried out his box blade he's thinking of buying. We were both impressed with the perfect circle it made! (you can see the dog in the lower right corner ~ she absolutely LOVES being outside with everyone! On Sat, I aerated the lawn and she ran back and forth, up and down the hill the whole time I was on the lawnmower!)
Here is the "during" picture from the west side of the house. Our retaining wall is out, we were going to just slope the whole side of the house and that turned into cutting out some dirt (or rather clay and sand) and using the field stone to build a bigger retaining wall and kind of terrace look.
Most of what you see was just dumped there. We are going to use pea rock to fill in the flat parts because we want to be able to add plants, shrubs, etc. later. We ran out of plastic so that's where we stopped. Note the tree is still standing! We really want to keep this one because it's got a will to live ~ when we bought it, it cost $4 at the greenhouse because it was in bad shape and a few years ago when we had the house re-sided, they broke it off and here it is today ~ doing just fine! It has lots of flowers on it, though you can't really see them in the picture!
Last Sat & Sun was when we looked at the cattle for Joe & Lisa (friends from SD ~ Chris' hometown). Here's a shot of a few of them ~ they already delivered the first load of them Thursday or Friday last week!
Here is a shot of the t-shirts I made for Steph ~ he friend and her friend's sister both have boys that were turning one and they were having a combined party! How cute do you think they looked in these???
Last Sunday I colored my hair and while that was going on, I decided to wax my eyebrows quick. Don't ever do that quick. . .
Here is a shot of the "medium brown" color ~ turned out more like BLACK!!!
AND here is how my eyebrow turned out (I had to do the other side deliberately so they kind of matched!). I was trying to reuse one of the jean strips (my "wax" is actually sugar and they reuse strips of jean material) and the part I'd used previously, went (and stuck) right through the middle of my eyebrow! I had a little hair on the outside of my eye. . . They are getting better, but it was definitely an AW CRAP! moment!!
My other Aw Crap! moment was when the reminder popped up on my computer that Bray had an ortho appt Thursday morning ~ 15 MINUTES BEFORE THE APPT!!! I brushed my teeth, ran my fingers through my hair and flew out the door! I called the school on the way and they were going to have Bray ready. Well, she called when I was about 2 blocks from the school to say his class was taking the state testing, so I couldn't pick him up! I rescheduled his 9 am appt at 9:00 and found out this weekend that he has more testing for when I rescheduled it! Geez, I just can't win. . .
Oh, here's another one from last week ~ my cell phone quit. This was while Chris was gone, I had to watch Josey, Taite's friend had called from Byron (we missed the call on our home ph, and then didn't have a way to call him back since we don't have long distance on our home phone!), etc. I tried to get my phone fixed the next day, but didn't have the password when I was at the phone place and couldn't get a hold of Chris so ended up doing it over the phone, so have to wait for the replacement to be shipped, etc. etc. Good thing it was under warranty, however the phone wasn't bad anyway ~ just the battery and had to run to a Verizon store for that anyway!
So, we are onto our weekend (this weekend) which went well! Yeah for us! hehe
I've been dying to "dig" into something ~ literally! I staked out where I want our fire pit. We put the fire ring in the area, used some block (will circle the fire ring) and set up a chair to give us an idea of how big we want it. We are putting in it a little low spot and will dig it out, so it's level, will use our retaining wall block to build a wall along the back side and will plant some bushes/plants along the back-side to help block the wind even more. Here is the circle I marked out with flags.
Here's a shot of where it will be in relation to the house. The closest tree you can see there is a cottonwood and it will be huge, but I figure it will take awhile and we will be safe with it that far away and it won't effect our fires :D
This is a shot of the tree that I've had to replace the last 2 years (they had warranties) because it didn't make it through the winter. I thought for sure it didn't again this year because my mom's similar tree is just full of green leaves ~ this one has a bunch of little buds! I'll take them! YEAH!!
This was one of my favorite little trees because it has roses that would bloom many times during the summer ~ lots of little pink blossoms. This sits right where all the snow was piled up this winter, so if I buy a replacement (no warranty as this one has been here for a few years) it will have to go in back and away from piled up snow (this had sidewalk, driveway and garage apron snow on it's pile!) RIP ~ I will miss you little tree!! The pink flowers always made me smile. . .
Here is another picture of the tree that survived! The rock it sits next to, we are thinking of having "The Heinz family" sandblasted onto it. The guy who does that has been meaning to get to our place since last fall, so we'll see if it actually gets done. He's turkey hunting now, so he said it will be awhile.
Here is a "before" picture of the back of our garage. I would like to move the cement (or add to it and re-coat it, so it all looks like one piece) so we have a patio that extends to the edge of the house. The little burning bush would be moved to behind the fire pit (appropriate ~ don't you think??)
Another "before" ~ we need to take out that one bush you see because I hate it and do something better with the slope of the hill right there.
A closer view and you can kind of see the plants (or lack of) under the deck. I'm not sure what to put there, but it needs to be redone as well.
This is the one retaining wall we are leaving as-is. It's still straight and looks great!
As you can see, we need to get some grass growing here (or the plan is to do all plants around here, so it's just a walking path from the lower patio door). In the little bush on the left, there is a little bird with a nest in there and I'm sure she about had a heart attack yesterday as the boys were sitting in the grass right by it most of the afternoon!
Here are some of the rocks we've picked up out of dad's field by our house! Well, not the big one on the left, that one came out of the field or terrace or something, but judging by the weeds around it, we obviously didn't pick it up yesterday!
This is the little patio and retaining wall that need to go. We never use this patio and the retaining wall needs to be back farther and non-tipping.
This is another retaining wall we are taking out and the block will be re-used for the fire pit area. The flowering crab is staying, so we have to be careful when working on this side of the house.
Here is the circle for the "pit" after Chris tried out his box blade he's thinking of buying. We were both impressed with the perfect circle it made! (you can see the dog in the lower right corner ~ she absolutely LOVES being outside with everyone! On Sat, I aerated the lawn and she ran back and forth, up and down the hill the whole time I was on the lawnmower!)
Here is the "during" picture from the west side of the house. Our retaining wall is out, we were going to just slope the whole side of the house and that turned into cutting out some dirt (or rather clay and sand) and using the field stone to build a bigger retaining wall and kind of terrace look.
Most of what you see was just dumped there. We are going to use pea rock to fill in the flat parts because we want to be able to add plants, shrubs, etc. later. We ran out of plastic so that's where we stopped. Note the tree is still standing! We really want to keep this one because it's got a will to live ~ when we bought it, it cost $4 at the greenhouse because it was in bad shape and a few years ago when we had the house re-sided, they broke it off and here it is today ~ doing just fine! It has lots of flowers on it, though you can't really see them in the picture!
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