I'm tired peeps!

Today was book club.

At my house.

So I spent the last 2 days plus cleaning. If I ever mention wanting to install anything that has grout, please remind me of the 3 toothbrushes I went through for 3 days scrubbing it. On my hands and knees. But it's all pretty. (well it was, a few minutes ago Trevor was dragging a sponge across the kitchen to clean up some milk or something. I'm trying not to freak out. Really!)

Anyhow, most everything was done this morning but my room. So I got up and started cleaning. Scott eventually decided that he was going to mow the yard. Next thing I know he's changing the oil in my car? and fixing the brakes? Eventually he got around to mowing.

Then he comes in and tells me he just shut the water off because something on the hot water heater was leaking.

Are you freaking kidding me?

I'm standing there in my nightgown because I don't want to get dressed until I'm done sweating, not to mention I'm CLEANING and will have to wash some dishes AND people are coming over???

Yeah so he went out and turned the water back on. I must have looked kind of scary.

So I worked right up until time for people to get here. Everyone seemed to like my house, loved my walkway and they all liked the book that I had picked.

Which, by the way was

Live A Little by Kim Green.

Free for posting a comment, I'll pick a winner on Friday!

(Sheila I know I still owe you your book it will be coming soon I promise!)

From Amazon.com

From Publishers Weekly
Green's third novel displays a charming, acerbic wit unfortunately employed in the service of an unlikable character. Raquel Rose finds her diagnosis with terminal stage IV breast cancer to be unfair: she put her artistic dreams on hold to raise two kids and now she'll never become the sculptor she always wanted to be. Life after diagnosis isn't all bad, though: knowing she has only months to live, Raquel agrees to go on Living with Lauren! her sister's Bay Area talk show; her husband turns from couch potato to pink-ribbon activist; and her two sullen teenagers start confiding in her the way they never did before. But when a follow-up visit to the doctor reveals Raquel's biopsy results were switched with another woman's and she's actually cancer-free, she can't bring herself to fess up and lose all the local celebrity perks cancer has brought her. The lies snowball in sometimes funny fashion, but Green unfortunately doesn't bring any gravity to Raquel's quandary. Instead the gambit is played as ditsy and vapid. (Aug.) ""
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved."

Review
"Green's effervescent prose and pitch-perfect humor will surely charm readers. Her deeply imagined characters seem like old friends as their story unfolds with effortless grace." (Author of NOTES FROM THE BACKSEAT Jody Gehrman )

"Kim Green is a must-read! Live a Little is wise, winning, and funny,
with engaging characters that pull you in and pages that crackle with
wit and insight." (author of MASTER OF THE HIGHLANDS Veronica Wolff )

The next book we are reading is The Piano Teacher by Lynne York

From Amazon.com

From Booklist
An easy journey into familiar territory: the small North Carolina town of Swan's Knob sometime in the late 1970s. Known as Miss Wilma, the gentle, upright piano teacher of the title keeps her life in order and finds comfort in it. She comes home after playing the organ for a wedding to find her daughter Sarah--thin, uncommunicative, and tense--on her doorstep with her granddaughter, Starling, but not with Starling's dad, Harper. York moves the point of view between Miss Wilma, Sarah, Harper, and Roy, the local distinguished gentleman who finds himself quite taken with Wilma, as all hell breaks loose. A handsome stranger comes looking for Sarah and is soon accused of murder. Harper's weaknesses are of the hippy-dippy kind but loathsome withal. Sarah doesn't get her mother's bone-deep kindness. Sad family stories leak out of direct, well-wrought prose. Romance, justice, and family win--probably. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

So now my house is all clean. I've already ordered my book from www.paperbackswap.com and now I think I need a nap.

Look what we got today!

The rock for the walkways. It's a little lighter than I thought it was when we were at the landscape place. It's nice and pretty when it's wet though lol. Maybe I can just go out and spray it with the hose anytime someone is going to come over? Or maybe I'll just get used to it. Now we need to finish clearing out the front section there so we can put it all across. Funny how one thing leads to another.



See that picture up there of my husband spreading the rock around? He did that section then moved the truck to the front. He was complaining about his knee hurting and then he was looking for the broom. Next thing I knew he was in the house asleep?? WTH??





So I climbed in the back of the truck and finished unloading all the rock (this is after spending my morning scrubbing the grout clean in the entry way AND cleaning the little kids hell hole of a bedroom) silently cussing him out in my head for always having SOME kind of problem when I'm trying to get shit done. I started kind of flinging the shit after awhile (working out all that aggression?) and that's why it's kind of all over in the picture here.

Cleaning rock out of all the little grooves in our bed liner is NOT fun. I thought that was the whole point of him putting a tarp down but he took it out before all the rock? Not quite sure on the thinking there. Took me probably a good half an hour to get it all out.

When I was done I opened the door and yelled at him to come move the truck (it was partially in the road and the tailgate was off and leaning against it or I would have moved it myself). He stumbled out as I was putting my heart stones in and of course had to offer advice. I was like "you weren't out here to tell me how to do things". UGH so freaking annoyed.

So after that was done we cleaned off the front porch and then came in the house where Scott and Trevor watched TV and I started cleaning the bathroom. They both fell asleep while I listened to the show they were watching "how things are made" over and over again all the while cursing under my breath as I cleaned every one's piss off the grout behind the toilet. (SERIOUSLY?? It's a big fucking hole how hard is it to get it in there???)

When I was done cleaning the bathroom I left a note that I was going to the store. Went and picked up my mom and we went out to Mexican food and had a margarita. YEEE HAW. She drank less than half of hers and I was so tempted to drink the rest. But she's been sick and I so don't want to take the chance of getting something I haven't had.

Then we went to the store and I spent $50 on shit for book club tomorrow. A bunch of them drink wine. Me? No wine drinking. How do you pick a bottle? By the label? I know if it cost more it should taste better right? The bottle I bought cost like $5 so it probably tastes like shit but I guess they will either drink it or not. If not I will drink it with some Sprite or something lol.

Well my pillow is calling me. I need to clean my room tomorrow and pick up after everyone one more time (hopefully it's only one more time). Should have told the fam that book club was at 10 so they would leave early and I'd have a few hours of quiet before the fun.

Gardening

I've been slowly working on getting the front yard "garden" going.

The dirt on the right that is smooth has been weeded of all grass/weeds.

(also the corner on the left where I planted the hibiscus.)

Today I took out the alyssum and the cosmos I had around the tree so I could plant these new plants I bought. The Siskiyou I bought yesterday and today looked HORRIBLE so I figured I should get it in the ground ASAP even if I have to move it later. When I took it out of the little pot it was totally root bound with hardly any soil. I guess I should pay more attention to that when I buy plants from now on. I'm pretty sure I will move these plants around if they make it and get bigger since they are all should be good size plants at maturity (if I don't kill them first).

Here's a closer pic of the Daisies I planted the other day

(need to find the name of those red things)

Closer look at big pink bushes

They also looked horrible today.

I gave them a ton of water so hopefully they will perk up.

I moved the alyssum and cosmos to the end of this bed for now.

The cosmos are all about done I think, they are pretty tired looking.

The Hibiscus is looking good on day 2


What do you learn when you sit outside in the dirt for a month?

A little bit about all the neighbors!

Interesting...

Kindy Graduation

My BABY graduated today.

:sniff: :sniff:



On the upside it's the LAST Kindy graduation I will have to attend at the little school my kids go to! The count down is on for things we "won't have to do again"! Yes, I'm bad lol.

So Scott made plans to go to work late so he could attend. We were joined by my Mom, Scott's parents, and of course, my brother since my nephew was also graduating.




The kids started off by walking one at a time up onto the stage. Then singing with hand a body movements. Then each kid (like 30 something) took a turn up at the microphone saying a little poem type thing.

30 something kids.

That can barely talk.

Of course MY boys did just fine!
They sang about 4 songs or so (one would have been nice).

Then they all came up to the microphone one at a time again and said what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Tony, the future Zoo Keeper



and Trevor, the future Architect.



At least they were original. There are going to be about 20 teachers and police men, with a few army guys thrown in.

Afterwards we had some cake and visited a bit. My Mother In Law has been sick. They told her it was an infection in her intestines and she is on a lot of antibiotics. I hope that's what she really has and it gets fixed.









Tomorrow is the last day of school. Momma is going to need a present.

A bottle of whiskey would be nice.

New flowers!

This morning my Mom called and invited me to go out to breakfast with her and my Dad. We piled in their little pick up and went to Ihop.

Ummm Yummy.

Then we went over to Home Depot and I bought these pretty plants!

They are called Spiraea B Goldflame Anthony Waterer. (Hmm this looks like it here, thinking it's not so much the "goldflame")Not much info on them other than Deciduos shrub to 3' w/pink spring/summer bloom. Distinctive yellow/green foliage. Prune to shape/repeat bloom. Full sun. Hardy to -38F.



I bought the Shasta Daisies last week and got those little flowers today. Hope they don't fry out there it might be too hot for them there.

I also go these 2 Hibiscus bushes. Think we'll put the big pink one in the corner closest to the road and driveway. Not sure where I'm going to put the purple one yet but it was so pretty!

I started working on cleaning the kitchen. I need to clean one room a day at least for bookclub on Sunday. I was wiping down the cabinets and such. So gross! 2 more walls and the floor to go.

Party and Work

Saturday we got up early and went outside and worked on the yard a bit. Around 11 :30 we all took showers and got ready to go to our friend's house. First we stopped at Costco and got their HUGE chocolate cake and some hot dogs for our contribution. The kids all swam while we sat on the patio and talked. They BBQ'd some ribs and OMG they were so good. Eventually we went in the hot tub although not all at the same time. After that we all ended up sitting in the living room while the kids played Guitar Hero and or Rock Band whatever it was lol. They all had a great time and it was fun watching. Before we knew it was 9:00 and time to go home.

This morning we got up bright and early and went out and started on the yard again. Maybe some day I won't start a post that way lol. I got the rest of the bushes planted and Scott worked on the new flower bed along the concrete and then the walkway. I helped with that a bit but felt like I was in the way so started working on the big area around the tree a bit more.



Tabbie supervised.

Trevor, God bless him, chatted and chatted and chatted today. OMG he just talked his little head off and spent most of the day pounding nails into boards and then wanting help because it wasn't working or whatever. Seriously every time he went in the house we were like OMG the silence, do you hear it?? LOL


Here is the end of the day. He put what was left of the sand in the walkway, we are going to put that colored rock there, I need to drive down to the landscape place and pick what I want, think I'll get it delivered if it's not too much.


I have bookclub at my house on Sunday so I need to clean clean clean. We have like NO food in the house. Poor kids are going to have to buy their lunch tomorrow, hope it's something good lol.

Sometimes

You just want to put a coat over them.



Jessica went to her "Choir Ball" Friday night. She invited her friend to come with her (friend goes to a different school). She had this nice little black and white polk a dot dress she borrowed from another friend that I THOUGHT she was going to wear.

So her friend shows up and brings two new dresses she had just bought at Ross. And Jessica picked this little yellow number to wear. I tried to argue for the polk a dot one but she just loved this one. I'm thinking a turtle neck would have went well under it??



They had a great time at the dance so I guess that's good...

Whaddu Think?

BEFORE

I think it might be starting to look like something! What do you think? This morning I worked on that little section in the front, smoothing it out. That's where the colored gravel is going. I was going to go look at it today but decided to wait until Saturday so we can go with the truck and just get it while we are there and not have to pay for delivery charges for a small amount.

It was pretty hot today, not much of a breeze. So I took a break and went to Home Depot and bought those shrubs and some colored alyssum. I got 3 planted and then cleaned out the rest of the side of grass. I think I'm going to put one more shrub on that side. There is going to be another walkway to the driveway and a flower bed along the porch so they will stop before the walkway I think. Unless I change my mind later.

Hey and look at that!! The bricks aren't sticking up in the middle!! Finally it's fixed. Hate the black bricks on there but beggars can't be chosers or whatever. Think I could paint them? Scott came home from work and was like total drama boy until he finally got it figured out. Jessica definitly got that from him.


And lookie here!! A whole new place to get burnt! I guess I'll be going low rise for the next few days. Yes I have no ass, look at the burn not down.

Feeling Better

So early Tuesday morning (1:00 AM) I came down with the flu. Lovely.

Finally started feeling a little better this morning after forcing myself to eat something. Cleaned up the living room a bit (how many water bottles can my family leave on the floor??) and then headed outside.

I am working on the end of the walkway now, clearing out the grass. Digging it down a bit also so that I can put some of that pretty colored gravel in there and then my cute heart stones. That end section by the road is just almost all rocks. Ick not fun!

I'm going to have Scott cut the one left over board we have from doing the other part in half and use that on the sides, so about 4 feet off the end. Took me quite a few hours to get this little bit done.

And I took out 2 wheelbarrows full of dirt. Going to have to do more to level it out a bit still.

And yes, my husband still didn't cut down that piece of wood although he DID bring home the piece of steel. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

Jessica has a concert tonight so most likely we won't have time to do anything tonight. Thank God it's the last one! I missed Melissa's last night since I was still laying around dying. My Mom came and picked her up and took her. Thank God for Moms!

This is what I did today

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Please God, Save Me

I'm such a bad bad person.

So Melissa came home early from school, throwing up. Jessica's stomach started hurting not long after I got her home. Guess what? She's throwing up.

Scott comes home, runs to the bathroom and starts throwing up.

I'm sitting here scared clutching a paper towel with bleach on it so I can use it to touch anything (wiped down the keyboard and the mouse before I sat down here).

Besides hoping and praying I don't get this bug all I can think about is now it's going to be at LEAST another day before I get my walkway done.

Sucks.

Rude Neighbors, Puke and the Walkway!

What's up peeps?? I think I've lost all my followers/commenters. No one loves me anymore :(

That's ok. Really it is, this is more for me anyways. Even though I DO love comments!!

So Saturday night Trevor did the puking thing. Sunday he woke up bouncing all over and was fine. Apparently my nephew got it too. I just had to pick up Melissa from school since she threw up in the bathroom. I'm probably doomed too. I should probably go clean the toilet so it doesn't make me throw up even more when I'm leaning over it.

I dragged Scott outside Sunday to do the cut bricks for the wayway. It was going to be like 100 and something holy hell hot. He was all relaxing in the recliner watching tv and I was like HEH!! Let's get busy!! So he reluctantly went out and finished up the bricks. Don't feel too sorry for him I went out and sat under the umbrella and supervised to make sure he was doing it right and not messing up my hard work! It only took him a couple hours or so and then he was done.

He broke off the other 2 sides of the concrete box in the middle but apparently it required too much energy to cut the wood side. So that still needs to be done. He's bringing home a piece of steel to cover the whole up after he cuts the wood (I tried today and couldn't find anything sharp enough that wasn't going to take me all day). I bought 3 more pavers to cover up the hole and laid them where they are going to go to get them out of the middle of the yard. Not too shabby! Oh and I got some fine sand to fill the spaces (Scott did that). I think it might need to be done again.



(I'm watering right now that's why it's differnt colors)

After supervising I went and picked up Jessica from her friend's house and went to Costco to spend $200 on hardly any groceries. I had to buy meat and toilet paper and unfun things like that.

Came home and worked on my bookmarks for the rest of the night. Still have to put the names on them, will do that in a few.

Got out early today and mowed the yard. Got all the crap picked up out of the front, although I still need to move the stuff off the porch.

So while I was out mowing I saw the neighbor sideways across the street bopping around his yard and such. Last time I waved at him he didn't wave back so I'm kind of like whatever, guess he doesn't like me. Well the neighbor across from him comes out and he's all HEY WHAT'S UP!! And I'm like WTF am I freaking invisible? You could at least give me a shout out. I'm out here working just as hard or harder as you mo-fos!! At least the OTHER neighbor was nice enough to say hello to me and tell me how nice my walkway was. See who IS NOT getting some Christmas cookies THIS year. Fucker. Oh and next time someone comes to interview me about what you are like for some new fancy position at your work?? I'm totally telling them that you are a crazy psycho.

Take that.

See that's why you should wave at your neighbors.

The only thing worse than

The only thing worse than it being 104 out today is that around 6:00 PM Trevor started throwing up. He's been pretty much throwing up since, although I don't think he has much left.

Now he's laying on my side of the bed on my nice clean pillow.

Heh.

Poor kid, I hope he is done being sick and feels better soon.

I spent all day today in the house, other than watering outside and going back and forth to the garage to do the laundry. My house is cleaned up quite a bit.

I played a few games of literati on yahoo games and that's about it.

Thank God for air conditioning!

I'm DONE!

Well mostly lol. Need to finish that middle thing and cut some bricks. I think Scott is going to do that. I'll give him until Monday then I'll figure out how to do it myself if he hasn't done it. I put some sand between the bricks, it feels almost real now!



Now I need a shower, a drink and a nap.

But it's time to pick up the kids from the bus so I guess it will have to wait.

Lunch Break

I bet you are all really getting tired of me posting about my walkway. You are probably like, shut up and get it done already!! BUT it's so exciting for me to get this done. We have lived here for almost 16 years so it will be really nice to finally have some curb appeal to our house.



That empty space there is where our main water shut off valve is. I had the great idea to use a brick paver to put over it and then just incorporate it into the walkway.

It's a bit high though.

I whacked the edge of the concrete box a bit with the sledge hammer and whadduknow I got one side down pretty good. Now do to the other 2. The third side is wood so that will get cut with the saw. Going to put a piece of wood or steel or whatever over the hole then put 4 pavers there and it should blend in ok.

Probably should have had someone come move the stupid thing but that would involve money.

Need to get back out there, it's supposed to be really hot this weekend so I'd like to get everything done but the bricks that will have to be cut.

Someone likes me!

I got an email from someone over at Ruba that they want to feature my blog for my San Francisco field trip! How cool is that! It looks like a pretty cool site to check out travel information.

Just a little farther

I was using a lot of cuss words so figured I should take a break.

Lunch Time

I've only whacked my finger 2x so far.

My fingertips are slightly numb from running them over the bricks.

I got one "looking good" from a neighbor

All worth it!

Free Coffee?

There's one thing better than coffee from Starbucks.

It's FREE coffee from Starbucks (and Saucy!)

Oye

Anyone have any idea how much a wheel barrow full of sand weighs? I'm thinking it's WAY over 100 pounds. Maybe two.

This morning I was going to go straight into working on my bookmarks. But it was NICE outside. Nice breeze, slightly overcast. When I first went out there I thought I might need a sweatshirt. I thought, I'll just work on evening out the sand a bit. Scott made this nice little "tool" to even it out. I worked a little bit and quickly realized that there was WAY too much sand in the pit.

Off to get the wheel barrow.

Ok I'll shovel some sand in here. Then I'll go find a tarp and spread it out on there and we can use it for the next project.

I shovel and very quickly the wheel barrow is full.

About this time my mom shows up with my brother's dog she stole yesterday because he wasn't taking good enough care of it. I chatted with her a bit while I worked and then went in search of a tarp.

Lucky for me found it right where I thought it was and didn't have to unpack the whole shed to find it.

Bring out tarp, put on end of porch. Go to move wheel barrow. HOLY SHIT BATMAN! That thing is heavy!! Couldn't even lift it up. Mom was going to give it a try and I told her don't even try it it's REALLY heavy. So drug the tarp closer to where I was working and shoveled straight onto the tarp. I'll either get Scott to empty the wheel barrow or just shovel it out later.

Mom left and sounded like she wanted me to come over for lunch but I have things I need to do today.

Finished evening out the sand and tamping it down with the little tiny tamper. Seriously that thing is so small. I wonder why they bought such a small one? (came form Mom Depot). I'm sure the end of the walkway is not entirely level since Scott's "tool" didn't work down there. I tamped it all down the best I could and called it done.



(that's a shadow in the middle I had to make it big to see what the hell was in my sand lol)

OMG my body hurts now. I just had a drink (It's 5:00 somewhere right?) so I can maybe move my arms.

As soon as I can feel them I'll get back to doing what I had planned for today.

More Walkway Excitement

Well today I was just going to work on bookmarks. Instead my Mom came over and wanted me to go to town with her. So of course that took up the whole morning, but she bought me lunch so it was all good!

On the way home we stopped by the landscape place and I found out they deliver for a mere $15. So I got a yard of sand. I got home thinking I'd put out the roll of weed fabric stuff real quick. I look all over and realize Scott never took it out of his truck. Nice.

So then I did a zoom zoom trip to Home Depot, praying the stuff would get here closer to 2 than 1. I got home and had enough time to spread the stuff out before the truck got here.



Oh here's all the bricks I moved yesterday too!



Sat down for about 5 minutes and then the truck was here



This was so worth the $15 delivery fee, no shoveling it out of the truck!



When the truck was just about done my cousin drove by and I ended up chatting with him for about 2 hours! He left when I had to go get the kids from the bus stop.

They were happy to see sand! I got this picture through the front door window, she didn't see me taking it lol. 15 year old playing in the sand. This was before she started fighting with her baby brother. I swear they fight more than any other combo of my kids!



Then I came in and worked on bookmarks until The Biggest Loser came on. I was hoping Tara would win but wow Helen did AWESOME! So inspiring! And Mike, wow he lost over 200 pounds, they all did a great job.

I got about 10 loads of laundry folded, hung up and put away while I watched the show. Took me almost the whole 2 hours to do it. On the upside the laundry is about caught up. I need to try harder to keep it that way!

Tomorrows plan is to finish my bookmarks and work on getting the sand evened out. I'm hoping my cousin comes through with the big tamper thing he said his friend has. I told him to bring it over tomorrow. I should have negotiated exactly how much beer I would give him if he brought it, then maybe he'd be more likely to actually bring it over.

&&&&& crossing fingers &&&&&

I Survived Another Field Trip

This time it was to the Oakland Zoo with Trevor's class. Originally my Mom was going to go with us. But I had thought the field trip was on Wednesday then found out Friday that it was on Monday (today). My Dad had taken the day off to work around the house so my Mom didn't feel like she should go. So I had to go alone :(

BUT we had a good time. I only had Trevor and Tony in my group. Trying to keep up with 2 six year olds running up and down hills in Oakland is a little difficult though! I told them several times to stop running because I didn't bring band aids! I could just see them sliding down the hills. Lucky for them and me we had no catasrophies.






I am amazed at how easily my boys talk to strangers. They saw a zoo keeper feeding some animals and followed her around a bit asking her questions. Then they made friends with a woman in the gift shop and just chatted her up like crazy. We saw her several more times and they just talked their little hearts out. Crazy kids!















I think that is the last field trip unless they spring another one on us but I haven't heard of any coming up. I'm definitly glad I took my own car this time!

After I got home I did some dishes, a load of laundry, watered the yard then made dinner and sat on the porch looking at the yard and my planning book. I've decided that we need to just put all the edging in so the yard is all defined and then I can work on a section at a time.

Then I decided it was a good time to work on moving some bricks from back behind the garage to the front porch. Yesterday I did a few and it was hotter than a fire cracker back there. Tonight it was all shady and pretty cool out so perfect time. I did about 6 loads of bricks in the wheel barrel before I ran out of sunlight. Scott got home just in time to push the wheel barrel the last time.

I think I moved about 200 bricks. Crazy! Saw lots of black widows. I got smart and got a little whisk broom to brush off the bricks as I worked to prevent getting bit by any spiders. Plus I wore work gloves. So far so good. Those bricks have been sitting back there for years. My Mom got them from a friend of hers. They are .50 each at Home Depot and we probably have about 500 of them. Hopefully we won't have to buy any and we will have enough for our little project.