Married Leos

Got good new s this morning, its not going to rain this weekend ( so they say ),  I was worried a the beginning of the week that I was not going to get anything done outside this weekend.

So with the prospect of not getting rained on, I am going to set an aggressive weekend  project list, listed below in no particular order.

1. Cut grass

2. Finish deck framing, railing and as much decking as supplies allow

3. Clean pool and add chemicals

4. Backfill around the pool

5.  Front landscaping

6.  Landscaping around trees

7.  Cleanup basement

If I get all this work done, I think I will be deserving of a special treat.

Over the weekend, Saturday to be exact,we began Phase I of the Patio Deck construction. It figures the weather would turn cold the day we were going to be working outside. It was in the mid to upper 70s all week then on Saturday it was only in the 50s and windy as hell.

The Queen and the Big One took some pictures of us working that I was going to post, but when I went to get the pictures off the camera ALL the pictures on it had been deleted. The only ones left were the ones I took of the post holes on Sunday morning, which I will post later ( unless you see them below , then I already did ). They were laughing at us, well at me in particular, saying we looked like Bluto an Olive Oyl ( from Popeye ), me being Olive Oyl. The abuse I must take.

The 8 gopher holes we dug

We got 5 holes dug when the Queen came back with our lunch, so we took an hour break before going back out for the remaining 3 holes. After lunch we had 90 minutes before the post hole digger needed to be returned, so that gave us about 60 to get the holes dug, which is plenty of time since it was only taking about 10 minutes per hole. First hole out after lunch the post hole digger gets stuck and we cannot pry it back up. F%#& !!!! Cheap ass digger had no reverse on it, so anytime we started it up it wanted to go further down. Tick, tick tick tick. Time was fading away. Nothing was working to get this thing up. We ended up getting two neighbors to help up pull this thing out of the ground, the shame of it all. The last two holes went pretty quick and finally we were done with the most physical part of the project. So my cousin says.Next up, cementing in the posts.We were supposed to do that this coming weekend but we got some expected yet unexpected news that my Grandmother died on Thursday, so we have to make a trip down to North Carolina over the weekend for the funeral.
Our plan now was to finish the work the weekend of the 10th. On Sunday he called and said that weekend is Mothers Day weekend so that Sunday was out for working. Grr another set back. So he offered to come out while we were gone and cement the posts in then we would do the framing the Saturday before Mothers Day.

Nothing ever seems to go as planned. Stay tuned for more fun project information.

Ever have so much to do that you just do not know where to start? You start one thing then get side tracked and start another and now you have 2,3,4..50 projects started at one time. I know I sure have.

I was finishing up making breakfast Sunday morning when I looked around and saw the usual mess that had accumulated since the last time the kitchen was cleaned. School papers, remote controls, parts of kids toys, snack bags, etc.. That got me to thinking about another project on my list that is not officially on the list but needs to get done, the kitchen remodel. This remodel will not actually fix the problem of the mess, but the mess just got me thinking of it.

Saturday night I was outside working on the landscaping in front of the house, when after lowering the wall I found that I had 30 extra retaining wall blocks. Now what? These are not cheap.  I know, I will use them around the two trees we have in front.

New project!!! Put retaining walls around trees in front. This really shouldn’t be that difficult, BUT, our front and back yards are so uneven that it will probably take me an entire weekend to level the area around the trees and put in the retaining blocks. The issue now is that since I “temporarily” put the blocks around the trees, they are uneven and look like a roller coaster for rodents. So now this new project will need to be moved up on the priority list because it is an eye sore in the front of the yard. Grrrrrrr!!!

The Queen asked if I wanted to go to Home Depot and pick out the new landscaping for the front, I told her no I wanted to finish leveling the retaining wall first then I would go pick out the plants. Her response.. “Great, so it will never get done”.  No confidence.

I wonder what other projects will get added to my list as I finish the ones already on it.

Cousin came out on Sunday to plan out the patio deck, since he was here, I had him change out the electric outlet outside the house.  Oh sure I could have done it but…..why take the chance.   I was going to switch off the power to the house and the crazy bastard tells me, “no leave it on, I like working with electric with the power on”.  Needless to say, I turned off the power.  Project Completed!

First up on my Summer Project List was the installation of our pool. Now I am not personally doing the install I am putting it on the project list since I am going to be the one who take care of this thing all summer.

The installers were “supposed” to install it on 4/17, so I took that day off to make sure the Queen didn’t have to answer any questions they might have. Well they called me on the 15th to see if they could come out and dig the hole on the 16th since they were going to have to dig down 20+ inches on the one side because we have a backyard that slopes like a downhill ski run. I told them that was fine.

They got there about 8:30am on the 16th to dig, they did not bring a Bobcat, they dug the entire thing out with the sod lifter ( 3 inches at a time ) and hauled it out with wheelbarrows. The hole was completed about 2pm, then the Queen said they were waiting for the sand and had the bottom track put in.

Oh and during this whole process the Queen furnished them with water AND bought them lunch! What a nice lady.

When I got home at 4:30pm they were TRYING to put the pool walls up. I say trying cause the winds were gusting at 40+ mph at times, just as they would have it where they wanted it a gust would come and blow it out of the track again. They struggled with this for about an hour and a half till they finally got it all strapped down.

See if they would have stopped like they were supposed to after digging the hole and came back on the 17th as planned there would have been no wind and it would have been much easier. But noooooooo.

Finally the walls were holding and they got the liner in place and the supports all up on the outside and water was filling the pool ( slowly ). They were working on setting up the filter and the Queen handed one of the guys a case of Corona, happily they accepted and cracked them open with screwdrivers. Never seen 4 men more appreciative of a bottle of beer.

About 7pm ish they finally left the house, pool filling up real slow, even with 2 hoses running. He said they would be back tomorrow ( 17th ) to finish putting in the intake for the filter.

Next morning ( 17th ) at 5:30am I went outside and started the water back up ( and since I took the day off, went back to bed ), 3 hours of filling the night before only filled it up about 18 inches and they needed it higher before the put in the drain so that the liner was tight. The pool filled till about 2pm when I finally turned off the water and waited for them to show back up. Big surprise, no one showed.

( Picture taken from our bedroom window )
It was not a big deal they didn’t show up since obviously in Chicago we are not going to be using this pool till around August with the weather as flaky as its been, it might make it to 70 by then. So hopefully he will show up today to finish it off and we can fill it the rest of the way.

Next project that needs immediate attention is fixing the power outlet in back of house, so I can plug in the filter. Should be pretty easy, take wires off bad outlet and replace onto new outlet in same location. Only problem is that the outlet is not “officially” documented in the power panel so its going to either be guess which one it is or throw the main power to the house ( my preferred choice ).

I HATE doing electrical work, if you don’t see anymore blog entries from me it will mean I charcoaled myself and you can send monetary donations to the Queen.

I will keep you posted on the outcome ( hopefully ).