Home Project #2 (Demo): New Landing, Steps, Walkways

Our house before

Cutting into the driveway and demo of old sidewalk

Cutting out the new meandering walkway

Rotten woodwork beneath the old front door landing

After the demo

Home project number 2 was to fix the sagging front door landing, extend the steps, and replace the old sidewalks with nice walkways. We agreed to do the job on Sunday night and the next morning about 5 am our whole street was awoken by the sounds of a big construction dumpster being unloaded in front of our house. A crew of about 8 guys showed up and demolished everything and cut out the new walkway paths in a single day - with sledge hammers and shovels. The only power tool was the saw to make the curved cut in the driveway. We were impressed.

Home Project #1: The Garage

I've been too busy to blog lately. One of the reasons is that I've been obsessed with the home improvement projects we've undertaken. The first project was to have the garage painted - floor and all. There were a number of drywall repairs from things like the bathtub leaking above, the water heater busting, and various wear and tear. We also had all the wood trim stain freshened up.

[Edit: I guess, technically the garage is the second project - cutting the trees down was the first]

I'm, evidently, pretty picky as the crew that painted the garage let me know. I think they estimated 2-3 days and it took 5 days. I told them up front that I wanted it to look like new - like new construction. After about the 3rd day, we could tell that the crew wanted to tie things up, but we were persistent about imperfections that we saw. Overall we were happy with the results, but disappointed that we had to be the bad guy and push the crew to finish the job right.

All our stuff was strewn on our driveway for a week and even when the job was finished, for weeks we had to leave our cars on the driveway until the tires cooled so that the hot rubber on the tires wouldn't ruin the new epoxy paint on the floor.

The epoxy floors turned out OK. They probably should have gotten 2 coats, but the application process is to throw on the little decorative specks while the paint is wet, so the crew threw on the specks and we didn't realize until the next day that the coverage wasn't as good as we had hoped. Oh well. It still looks really nice. Now when Helen tells me to just go live in the garage - I might take her up on it.

Mulch Pile

A few weeks ago we had a couple more trees taken down. When we first moved into our house 15 years ago the trees were just saplings and it's hard to believe how big they've gotten. We used to have 4 Bradford Pear trees lining the front of our yard. It was kind of the signature of our house. People knew the house with all the trees lining the street. A couple years ago, we had 2 of the trees cut down because they were about to split and another cut down recently. There's still 1 left. It seems to be a slightly different variety - the canopy is much narrower and doesn't seem to be prone to splitting like the trees with the broader canopy. We also cut down a couple of pear trees in the back yard last year. This year, along with the pear tree we also cut down our River Birch. It's a nice looking tree, but it sheds so much debris. I told Helen that I was tired of picking up after the tree and, besides, it was in the way if we were going to do a new scalloped walkway. Now our yard looks pretty barren without all the trees, but things will look better when we get the new walkway and landscaping done.

One of the benefits of cutting down the trees is all the leftover mulch created. We had the tree company dump the mulch in our backyard near the tire swing. The mulch pile became a magnet for all the kids on the street. The kids would come over first thing after school to play on the pile. On the day that I finally got all the mulch spread out, the kids came running home from the bus with their friends only to be disappointed when they realized their beloved mulch pile was no more.

The Circus

Things are still very hectic around here. If we can get these home projects behind us I think I can get back to a more consistent blogging schedule.

Several weeks ago we went to the circus and took our niece, Lindsay. I had gotten an email about a last minute family package deal and decided to surprise the kids. We usually surprise the kids each year and take them to the county fair. We tell the kids that we're going out to dinner and when all the lights of the fair come into to view they go crazy with excitement. This year, Derek thought he had us and just knew we were headed to the fair.

This is the first time the kids have been to the circus. We've talked about going before, but just never got around to doing it. We thought the kids would really like it and were eager to see their faces when they recognized where they were going. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm was dampened as we came into view of the civic center because there were at least 50 protesters holding up signs condemning Ringling Brother's treatment of animals. It was kind of a buzz killer. The protesters were even setup on the sidewalk leading into the arena and handed out stickers to the kids. Of course, kids can't turn down stickers so there were all these kids heading into the arena with anti-circus stickers on.

I remember the circus being such a big deal. When I was a kid there were 3 rings and there were stars like the tiger taming, Gunther Gabel Williams. This circus only had 1 ring and it just didn't seem to be the big experience I remembered it to be - of course I'm not a kid anymore, either. Our kids seem to think it was a big deal. The show was actually very entertaining and well done. There were elephants, Siberian tigers, and lots of acrobats and clowns. We all loved the lady and the dachshund's since we have a dachshund, Lula. It was like a bunch of our Lula's running around. The MC was a French guy that kept us laughing with his jokes and antics. He did some incredible bike riding tricks and kept coming out on these small bikes. Each time he came out with a bike, the new bike was smaller than the one before. The last one looked like it was, maybe, a foot long and he rode it all around the ring.

Update

Things have been busy, busy, busy. Derek keeps telling me to update the blog...so here goes (but no pictures - sorry).

Helen is enjoying her weekly tennis group on Tuesday evenings. She's been playing with a core group of 8 or 10 ladies for a couple years now. They compete in a low key "Calcutta" style round robin tournament for 8 weeks or so. Helen usually feels too tired or too "something" each week and tries to wriggle out of it, but once she gets out there she has fun. I always point out to her that she'll screw up the tournament if she doesn't show. The ladies have been very nice and brought us a couple of dinners to help out while we have taken care of our nieces.

The boys have soccer practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and games on Saturday. I'm the coach of Adam's team. We picked up a couple of players with a clue, so that helped. It's still hard to stomach sometimes...pass the ball...kick the ball...it's right in front of you...run...hustle...pay attention...get your head out of your *** (I wish). Both boys seem to really enjoy it. Adam still falls down all the time. Derek still hates offense.

My tennis team is hanging in there and should make it to the playoffs. We have a lot of players, but can't seem to get many wins at the bottom of the lineup. As the captain, I'm trying to get everyone some playing time, but you gotta win if you're playing at the bottom.

My Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have been a pleasant surprise. I like the new coach's hard-ass attitude. Unfortunately, the only game I really watched was the only loss and I almost blew a gasket at all the mistakes.

I'm also continuing to deal with all the contractors on our home improvement projects. It's crazy how many different opinions you get from so-called experts. I'm trying to move forward, but there's so many variables - it's paralyzing. I prefer to keep myself "disengaged" most of the time for that very reason - you can spend a lot of time spinning your wheels.

Our niece, Lindsay, has been coming over on weekends while her Mom and Dad recuperate. Mom and Dad are doing well. That means hand-offs from Helen's parents on Friday and Sunday nights. We're getting a break this weekend - Lindsay is staying with her Aunt Pat. We've really enjoyed our time with her, but it's nice to get a break. Derek told me a couple weeks ago that it's been fun having Lindsay over, but he's ready to just be back to our immediate family. I'm sure Lindsay would rather get back to her immediate family as well. We're all just craving some down time.

Since we don't have to wait around for the Lindsay hand-off we're going to the high school football game tonight - yeah! It's always big fun for us boys - not so much for Helen, but she wants to be with her family.

I've also been very distracted by all this financial meltdown stuff. I'm a business\money news junkie anyway, so this has been debilitatingly addictive. It's like a train-wreck that I just can't take my eyes off of. I've been reading stuff like this, this, and this for over a year about how bad things could get. I remember telling Helen all this stuff (she can only take so much) and how I felt so burdened by it while almost everyone else was just running around in ignorant bliss. These are truly historic times - not good historic mind you, but historic nevertheless. For a laissez-faire, Libertarian, live within your means, capitalist like myself it's disgusting to see what we've become...comrade. Let it burn. Being in the mortgage software industry, I've been experiencing the meltdown firsthand. Luckily, we were bought by a big company last year...maybe I'll make it through, but it's not looking good.

Pictures

There's no crying in swimming...especially with those chunky legs

...that's better

Adam takes the Nestea plunge

Derek get your head in the game

Lindsay loves being pushed around in the float

Derek loves his cousin Brooke

Lindsay enjoys her breakfast - she's always in such a great mood in the morning

Trying on Derek's cowboy hat

Derek's soccer game

Lindsay enjoys the action from the sideline

Adam's turn to take a break

Lindsay crawls off the bed to sleep on the Ducky

Helen and Derek said the last post was boring because it didn't have any pictures, so here's some pictures.

Update

Whew! It's been a while since my last post. There's really good news to report about Helen's brother, Mike, and his wife, Chris. They are both out of the hospital. They are doing well and Chris is even blogging again. It all seems like a blur - a bad dream. We can't begin to say how thankful we are that their health is improving.

Congratulations to my sister Kelley and her beau, Paul, for purchasing their first home - actually a triplex. They've been renting one of the units for several years and had an opportunity to purchase the triplex when the aging owners decided to sell. They've become homeowners and slumlords all at once.

My sister Katie has been enduring a terrible time in Baton Rouge following Hurricane Gustav. Although the national media downplayed Gustav because it didn't impact New Orleans, Katie said that the area of the state west of New Orleans was in way worse shape then after Hurricane Katrina. A coworker fo mine, who is from Louisiana, had family and friends come and stay with them a week after Gustav because of flooding and lack of power. There were some horrific traffic jams coming and going.

Our immediate family has been going non-stop with school and sports starting back in addition to inheriting our nieces on weekends. I'm also continuing to meet\coordinate with contractors about various home improvement projects and within the past few weeks I became:

• Captain of my tennis team when the other captain's work schedule changed.
• The coach of Adam's soccer team when the original coach's son decided to play baseball a couple days before practice was to start.
• The tennis chairperson for our swim\tennis club because everyone thought I was organized and would be "perfect" for the job.
• Point man for our neighborhood in dealing with a budding "Mexican" complex across the street.

...and I'm still trying to hold down my "real" job.

I'm not somebody who likes a lot of hooks in me, so I'm not sure how all these obligations are going to work out. Remember, I'm a take care of yourself teach a man to fish kind of guy, but I'm also a step up and be a man kind of guy and that's what compels me to (and irritates me when others don't) make an effort to make things better in whatever your sphere of influence happens to be.