Sunday, April 26, 2009

For the sake of free flowers

One of our neighbors gave us some day lilies. The only problem is that we don't have any flower beds right now. My wife thought it would be nice to create a small bed around the mailbox. What turned into a simple job turned into a headache when I started to turn the soil over. Two inches below the soil was a foot of crushed rock for the road. Back to Lowes for more bags of soil. What was going to be a quick project turned into a half day affair.
The first major project for this year is establishing a lawn in the front. Our developer last year graded and seeded on May 27th. Twelve hours after they did this, a major thunderstorm rolled through and washed most of the seed and a good portion of the topsoil. We've got large ruts that have exposed rocks and hard soil that won't take seed. While we spread soil and reseeded last fall, it didn't take. Six cubic yards of soil are coming to fill in the washed out areas in the front and back later this week. I'm also going to use a large roll of landscape fabric to try to limit the amount of washout.

To get an idea of just how much water flows through our yard during a rainstorm, watch this video.

I recently received a temporary promotion at work. Just after getting done with long hours there due to a special project, I'm back at it again. While I'm excited about this new position, the longer hours it brings is going to severely limit the amount of stuff I can get done during the weekday evenings.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Busy, busy, busy

Sorry for not updating my blog lately. Over the last two and a half weeks, I've worked over 200 hours at work. It's been crazy and exhausting. Fortunately, things will be slowing down soon and I'll be able to get back to some sense of normalcy. My son and I made it down to a pre-season Phillies game last Saturday (where they lost) on my day off. Go Phillies!

Projects that are underway:
Dining room moulding - I've cut all the moulding to the proper lengths the other weekend. There are 96 individual rails and stiles that will form the faux panels. Once I get back to normal life, I plan on jumping back into this and finishing this project.

New projects:
Outside - Preparing a garden for my wife.
Trying to grow grass and kill weeds, particularly thistle. Thistle is a noxious weed in our lawn that is keeping us from walking barefoot out back. I'm declaring war.
Installing an invisible dog fence. I'm going to need a quarter mile of wiring!! yikes. . .

We just started the process of refinancing our mortgage. My new rate is 1% lower than my present rate, which will result in some substantial savings to my pocketbook once done.

Updates soon, I promise. . .