Darn Groundhog

I know it's the midwest and today is actually a relativey nice day for this time of year, but Tom Skilling is saying we could get hit with more snow.

Is anyone else ready for Spring or is it just me?

Stimulus Package

I would just like to say that we Broke Homeowners have been doing our part to stimulate the economy. We have been all along, but as of late we've made a few rather large ticket purchases. There's an entire story about how the Wii that Santa brought us would only work in black and white on the TV, but the important part is we purchased a 40" LCD TV from Circuit City to get the Wii to work and support the economy. Like two weeks later, Circuit City announces they're closing their doors...

Then there's this carousel DVD player that doesn't seem to want to stay open to allow us to swap disks that we finally got fed up enough to replace. Off to, you guessed it, Circuit City to look for a new "home theater in a box." At least we got a decent deal at the going out of business sale...

Anyway, we've done our part...

PTUA

While cleaning bathrooms the other day, I stumbled across an obvious sign that someone in the family needs some serious improvement with their PTUA. By definition, I'm able to eliminate female family members and visitors and, since it was the second-floor hall bathroom where the evidence was found, I'm able to eliminate "casual" guests.

Now, I've had this discussion with my son on several occasions and made it clear that if the PTUA isn't there, you need to sit down. To my pleasure (and surprise), he's actaully taken this to heart and has been pretty good about heeding the warning so it was with a bit of mystery that I discovered the evidence to this poor PTUA.

While cleaning up the aftermath, I gave it some thought and it suddenly occured to me... he recently had a friend spend the night! Could it be that this failure of PTUA was the work of his friend? At this point, I decide to give my son the benefit of the doubt and "pin it" on his friend. Now, I just have to figure out how to talk to his friend's Dad about it...

Oh, what's PTUA, you ask? OK, we're all adults here, right? PTAU stands for Penis to Toilet Urinary Accuracy.

Jimmy Buffett - Broke Homeowners Style

It's been a while since we've been to a concert and even longer since we partook one at and outdoor venue. We joined up with some neighbors and paid a visit to Margaritaville to spend some quality "hanging out" time with Mr. Buffett himself. As you can see from the picture below, we didn't get very close.

Still good times. There's nothing quite like being in "the lawn" for Buffett concert. It's fun and... interesting all at the same time.

Fins up!

Japanese Beetles

These things better be found to cure cancer or something else spectacular because they are a pain in the butt!

How many tons have you moved?

As a do-it-yourselfer, I've moved a lot of materials over the course of my life. Sod, dirt, mulch, lumber, tile, bricks, brick pavers, cinder blocks, concrete, bags of grass seed and fertilizer, trees, shrubs, rocks, granite counter tops, toilets, appliances, furniture, water, etc. Even a hot tub. Twice.

Yesterday, while relaxing, I started to wonder how many tons of stuff I've moved. Consider this example - when we built our most recent house, we transported all the tile ourselves. At 55 pounds a box, it "only" took 37 boxes of tile to add up to more than 2,000 pounds or one ton. Now, consider we moved 50 boxes of tile three times (once onto carts in the store, once off the carts into the trailer, once out of the trailer into the house) just getting it to the house, you can see how quickly this can add up. That tile alone accounted for moving more than 4 tons (50 boxes X 3 moves X 55 pounds = 8,250 pounds).

Think about how much stuff you've moved - it adds up quicker than you might think!

Relaxing? What's that?

Yesterday was the first time in a long time we did not have any events or projects planned. In the morning, I asked my wife, "So, what's the plan for the day?" and she responded, "Nothing."

"Huh? Nothing? Well... Hmm... What are we going to do?" I responded. "I thought we'd sit on the deck and watch the kids play in the yard - maybe read a book," she stated.

Relaxing... hmm, what a concept.

Bridges in their natural habitat

A while back, I posted about the bridges we purchased at Sam's Club. While I was out taking pictures in the yard for some of the other projects we've been working on, I took one of the bridges. You can see one front and center while the other is tucked a way "upstream" in the background. Like I said originally, they look much nicer in their natural habitat.

Gate & Sod fun

When we decided to have the fence put in, we wanted to make sure it would be up to code should we ever decide to do a pool. One of the requirements for a pool-friendly fence is that all the gates open out. Well as our (lack of) luck would have it, the double-gate at the back of the yard opens into an uphill slope and required some modifications to allow the gates to open out. Because it was a very icky day when the guys were coming to do that part of the fence, we basically just dug a depression big enough to allow the gates to open.

Some time later (see months), as we were starting the planting beds around the fence, it was a perfect time to transplant some sod. As illustrated by the following photos, several 18"x36" sections of sod were required to fill in the depression we'd dug several months back. The best part about it is you can barely tell we transplanted anything. I love it when a plan comes together!

The sod transplant donor

The sod transplant recipient

Feeling old - another casualty

Well, as I've already mentioned, Spring is in the air and planting season has kicked into high-gear. Wouldn't you know it, as we near the "beginning of the end" for our large-scale landscape projects (at least for the moment), a trip to the Emergency Room rears it's ugly head.

In what should have been a fairly routine trip to Home Depot (affectionately referred to as "The Depot"), to pick up some $70 Colorado Blue Spruce trees, the ol' back gave out. Tree numbers 1 and 2 were successfully placed on the cart and tree number 1 placed in the car when I stopped mid-step and exclaimed to my son, "Whoa, I think I threw my back out."

So, the folks in the orange aprons had to load the other three trees while I limped around picking the other two out. Then, I drove home, changed cars, and headed to the ER. Two hours to find out I have a "lower-back strain." At least there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage. Although I'll pay my primary doctor a visit in the morning. Oh, and the wife just called - she's on her way home with my pain meds and Taco Bell. Ain't life grand?