Pool Update

Post #401. So, I'm trying to come up with a funny way to include my latest endeavor of chopping down a tree (ie: POST)...but for some reason it's just not that funny. I'll 86 the atempt at humor and just cut to the chase.

The pool guy came out today and spray painted the shape of our pool in the precise location...which we are just exstatic about...so that the machinery and worker guys can come dig our swimmin hole tomorrow. It turns out that the edge of our pool came about 6 inches from a 8" diameter oak tree. Sad as it is, it had to go. After borrowing the "chainsaw-on-a-stick" from Grams' house and being lectured on making sure someone was watching me work (in case I chop off a limb or something, there has to be SOMEONE to acurately tell my story to the Darwin Award folks) I found myself on the second story deck, atop the ladder, reaching for the ridicuously high branches of this 20-ish foot tree. Once I figured out that I couldn't hold this thing up, AND pull the trigger unassisted, I employed my darling daughter to assist me in my attempted suicide. Picture me, on a second story deck, on ladder, holding the middle of the 10 foot chainsaw-on-a-stick, while I yell "NOW" and she pulls the triger. Yeah, probably not my most intelligent stunt, but hey, we got the branches down that we were after and managed to avoid injury.
But that was just the beginning.
We made our way down to the yard and pondered what we were about to embark upon...wondering if this is a job that maybe we should just leave for Mark...in fact those were my darling daughters exact words.
Nah, we can do it.
Up goes the chainsaw-on-a-stick, me in the front, child labor in the back...
"NOW!"
Slowly, the chainsaw-on-a-stick works its way through the "what appears to be a not so big limb, but is actually quite huge" limb, and eventually, a massive limb comes crashing down with an incredible thud! Mind you, this "limb" is probably ten times bigger than the TREES at our last house. Ashley and I look at each other with a look as if to say "HOLY CRAP"...although neither of us speaks a word. We just stand there with huge eyes wondering what on earth we've gotten ourselves in to.
We spend the next 15 minutes cutting it in to smaller managable pieces (once again me in the front, child labor on trigger duty), and wow, we're done with half the tree. At some point we realized that looking up in to flying shards of wood chips probably wasn't the best idea, so we dug up some protective eye gear and got back to work.
We went through two massive limbs, and an 8ish foot tall trunk in about 45 minutes, including clean up. I was so proud of my girl, never once complaining, even with her friend Ava staring in horror, shock, or possibly just complete pity.
What a good girl I have, she even helped drag off the logs without me even asking.

I think I'll reward her efforts with a pool. I think that sounds fair, don't you think?

Dad, I can see you shaking your head in horror as you read this. I promise, I won't do it again. ;)

Bathroom Remodel Back in BLACK!

So, now that school is over, and I have time on my hands, I decided to tackle the master bath cabinets. It's funny, our bathroom remodel has been complete for quite some time now, but in our minds it hasn't been 'complete'. It's incredible what a little bit of paint can do. Our cabinets were all 80's and the rest of the bathroom up to date. Something had to be done. Sooo, after half a quart of Sherwin Williams Black, a nice little sanding block to antique a few edges here and there, and some bronzy spray paint to cover the ugly 1984 brassy handles, we have a kick ass bathroom. Next is the powder room cabinets and then I'm on to the kitchen. Somebody stop me!!!

Rock On!

Some pictures of my latest project designed to prevent runoff from washing my beds away...and hopefully once I add plants will be asthetically appealing as well.

Blah, blah, blah and tiling window sills

This week has been a busy one. Each time I sit down to blog the happenings, another item on the "to do" list prevails. It's finally Sunday, the day when I allow myself to push that list out of my mind for a few hours in the morning and just BE.

I started the weekend off with this from my sweetie Alex (ALL by himself!):

A well balanced breakfast for mom, complete with can opener, knife AND spoon. Ok, maybe a little fruity, but healthy none the less. What a sweetheart I have.

Mark and I tag teamed and were able to get both kids to their basketball games. Ashley had a double header, and played better than I've ever seen her play AND she even scored 4 points in the second game.

Alex's allergies are doing a LOT better now that he have Alegra and Flonase. I can't believe it has taken me this long to learn that allergy medicine needs to be changed up every few months. I had no idea that the body worked up a resistance to the allergy meds. I've never had to worry about it because we only give Alex meds seasonally. This allergy season has just been an exceptionally long one.

The kids (and I!) were off on Monday thanks to MLK, Jr. We had a nice relaxing morning together, follwed by an afternoon at Mollie's house where we watched Ratatoullie with Alex's buddies.
Afterwards, we went to Targe' and bought our little mailboxes that I was SO excited about. (Thanks Renae!!!)
By the way, if you have kiddos and I haven't already talked your ear off about this precious idea.
See this post over at Planting Seeds . We bought 4 little mailboxes, decorated them with our names and have been actively sending letters (and goodies) back and forth all week. It has been so FUN!!!

School is going well for me. I'm feeling very confident that I can handle all that I have on my plate and will not have a problem tackling this class.

I was contacted by an Environmental firm (a PTA acquaintance's company) that is interested in me doing some overflow CAD work for them periodically.
They have one tech that needs to be able to take vacations and on occasion has more work than she can handle.
It is so, so hard to say no to such an offer even with the already full plate that I have.
And I didn't.
I sent them my qualifications along with details about how much time I can commit. I have to admit that because of my already hectic schedule, part of me was hoping they would make this an easy decision for me and just tell me that they need someone who can work more hours, however, after reading my requirements, they now want me to come in and talk.
We'll see.
I'm definitely going to hold my ground on the amount of time that I'm willing to commit, but I can't help but think that this might be a really good opportunity.
If I'm able to work from home, this would enable me to take the summer off of my current job, yet still keep a little money coming in.
The dynamics of me taking the summer off have been on my mind a lot lately, so this could possibly be the solution I was looking for.
And how exciting to work in an entirely new field of Geologists and Environmentalists!

Friday, Ashley attended the grand finale for Cotillion. The Ball. Good grief, the lengths that some of these parents went to, to get these girls ready is mind boggling to me. There were multiple girls that took off half the day of school to make it to hair and nail appointments. As you may guess this prompted Ashley's insistance on doing the same. Yeah RIGHT. After a LOT of not so convincing pre-pubescent conversation, I ended up rushing Ashley home from school throwing some curlers in her hair and giving her a french manicure (which I already had the supplies to do). She looked beautiful. We were in such a rush that I didn't have the time to take pictures of the "do" before the humidity got to it. I'm a little bummed about that, but she looked gorgeous and might have learned a little frugal lesson in the process. We met up with at least 10 other kiddos and their moms at Chili's, where we had dinner and piled the kids in to a handful of vehicles. Ashley had the pleasure of riding in Nicole's Hummer, major score. The ball was held way out at Austin Country Club and I was OH SO THANKFUL to Nicole for offering her chauffer services up. She ended up getting home after midnight full of chatter about the evening. Nicole took some pictures at the Ball that I will post as soon as I get ahold of them.


Last weekend Mark started his latest project: tiling window sills. He is doing a BEAUTIFUL job!


And why would he want to do that? Well, our horses dogs have little friends, or rather, friends they wouldn't mind eating (cats, squirels, armadillos etc.) that like to tantalize them from outside. Every window sill within reach looks similar to this: