My Landscape

Way back in June my B/F redid my landscape. Oh it was a HUGE undertaking. What started out as lets dig out these two bushes and put in a couple of plants turned into finding a TON TON TON of rock. It was a mega all day job. I have several pics and hopefully you can figure out the before and after shots. I have gotten a ton of compliments....lots recently ...the appraiser :-) the people giving me estimates on the a/c unit and then my friends who always tell me my yard looks like a park! It has NEVER looked so good. THANK YOU!

Ah....COOL!

It took over 8 hours yesterday but I have cool air in the house now! Ah....and I slept like a log last night. I only woke up once coughing like crazy. I took some of the cough syryp with codeine and went right back to sleep. :-) That stuff is good! The guy did have quite the time getting the unit down in the small space in the basement but he somehow managed. Eventually about 2pm I heard...ummmm, Mamm, I've got a problem. He said he didn't have any power. WHAT??? That was never an issue! OMG......what happend? So, he called out a tech and in about 15 minutes the loose wire was found and the new a/c was humming!!!! I managed to only sneak one picture of the new unit being delivered while I was outside watering!

New A/C........today???

TODAY IS THE DAY! YES!!! As I type the old a/c is being removed and the new one will be installed today. Not a moment too soon too! I'm a coughing fool!! I've got a sinus infection and bronchitis. Thankfully I don't feel sick at all but I am sore from coughing my fool head off for days now. Kinda like I've done thousands of crunch sit ups!! I didn't sleep much last night even though I took the new cough med with codiene in it. Hmmm...how did I get that? Well, my doctor came to my hospital. You might think that would happen all the time. Well read on. My doc is from my old hospital in another part of town...he doesn't have privilages at my current hospital but he was there seeing my patient that he's known for years. So yesterday he heard me coughing and stopped and examined me at the nurses station. I guess the fact that I was wheezing and looked like I was going to cough up a lung....ewww. So, he called in a script for an antibiotic, a non sedating cough med for the day and the cough syrup with the codiene for night to help me sleep to Target.....all which Lindsay....my 9 month pregnant friend went and got for me when she got off work at 3. The codene may have helped but I didn't sleep that great. Anywhoo....it's going to be a long day with the a/c....my inside unit is in a very very SMALL space...it's the original, it's never been removed and my hot water unit is in the way. I smell a problem brewing already....and there is only ONE guy here to install. Can you say PROBLEMS????? Thankfully it's only going to be around 80 today...I hope!

First Day!!

The first day of school was a success! I asked what the best part of the day was and of course it was PE and the new play equipment outside. Go figure! He was up at 7am this morning excited to get going again! I however was not moving quite so fast! My allergies are in overdrive after not having a/c for almost a week now. Thankfully the weather for August has not been all that bad. We are supposed to be cloudy today and hopefully rainy today. I spent yesterday getting some stuff accomplished. First my best friend mowed my lawn and made it look like a park for my appraisal. Even the appraisal guy said I had a beautiful lawn. :-) I'm going to get pics later!! Then I got my first estimate for a/c with two more to go by the end of the week. I just pray the 'nice' weather holds out....although at times its cooler outside than inside. AGH!

Meet the Teacher

I'm a bit behind in posting but it is always such a fun time of year! BACK TO SCHOOL!! Buying new school supplies....ah, the smell of new crayons! Meet the teacher night (last week) is such fun and what a great idea. The kids get to bring in all of their school supplies....including the boxes of kleenex now required and hand sanitizer....and find their seat and see who is in their class. In years past it was a scheduled time and the teacher did an organized 'hello' chat with parents and kids. This year it was an open house feel and then you go to the gym to put money in your childs meal account, join the PTA, buy a year book, t-shirt and a planner for the year. It's very organized and we were in and out in less than 30 minutes. The open house style worked well!

It all started....

It all started with the fact that I had to refinance. I've known for months and finally got that ball rolling. It's kind of a daunting thought when I got to thinking about it actually....holly crap....what if I didn't qualify to buy my house on my own. ...where would Matthew and I go and what on earth would I do with all of our extra stuff??? (that was before I found craigslist..lol) Well, that isn't an issue as I qualified and as it looks like, even with the interest rates up from what crazy ARM we got involved in 5 years ago, my house payment will increase a little and be managable. So, I thought it would be a good time to start adding a little furniture to the basement that no longer had any couches. Thats when my best friend got me addicted to Craigslist and I found a cheap couch. Yes, it was cheap but it fit in the back of my suv. Then my retail therapy continued when I found a really pretty rug on clearance at Pottery Barn....that would someday match stuff that I REALLY want. So, I bought it and brought it home. It somewhat matches my new little love seat and I can add a chair down there, bring in some nice paint colors and call it a new basement in a few weeks. Thats when I noticed the house was kind of warm....uh oh. So, I went outside and saw the pipe outside was frozen. Well, turned off the a/c and the repair man came the next day. My coil on the unit inside the house has a leak....to the tune of $1000+ to fix. Well, the unit is 15 years old and I've already spent quite a bit on it last year and about 275 on it a couple of months ago....so this was the last straw. So, he topped off the refrigerant, didn't charge me anything, set up an appointment to hear about an a/c with their company for the end of next week. Ah...just what I wanted to do...shop for an a/c. And Monday my suv goes in the shop as its making a weird noise too. ...Tuesday the house gets appraised for the refinancing and Matthew goes back to school :-) So that is the latest here!!

UPDATE!!

I feel quite vindicated actually. I got an actual response from a live person today! I spoke with the Superintendent of Recreation and he said there IS a dog policy. (see the previous blog if you are lost) There are NO dogs allowed. There was an email sent out to the managers of the pool facility and the life guard company so that everyone who was at the pool this morning and those that were not will be aware of the incident and it will NOT be allowed to happen again. The only dogs allowed are Service Animals. Ahhhhh, vindication. Well, now I am waiting to see "no dogs" on the web sites rules. I will give him a week and then email back if that doesn't happen to my satisfaction. He will find out I can be very persistant!!

In other news.......I am so tired of looking at blank walls and no couches/chairs in my basement!! I've looked off and on at some furniture stores for something but nothing has caught my eye or has screamed..."buy me". Now I've been looking at Craigslist. Maybe I'm too picky....lol.

DOG Days of Summer....

So it's FINALLY the last day of swim lessons this morning. It's been fun but next year we are so not getting the first lesson of the day! The 45 minutes of peace and quiet has been nice and lounging at the pool too. I do long for a community pool for sure. Well, the time of relaxing came to an abrupt end when I saw a woman today with a dog! Yes...you read that right....a dog. No, she wasn't blind. For those of you not hip on my scarcasm..I mean it wasn't a seeing eye dog. I would think that would be the ONLY acceptable dog allowed in a pool park of this kind. It is a BRAND NEW facility that I'm sure cost millions what gives her the right to bring her in her dog? So, I asked the woman in charge of the swim lessons what their dog policy was. Apparently, this was the second time she has brought her dog and I wasn't the only inquiry....and there was no dog policy. GASP! What? Are ya freaking kidding me? My reply? Oh there will be by the time I'm done. Big smile on my face...look of concern on her face. Hell has no furry as a tax payer miffed! I have a call into the director of the facility!!!!!!!! Good grief...there are kids with allergies, what if a dog bites someone....hello...can you say law suit?? duh!! I'll update later when I hear back.

So Matthew passed his class and I finally got up close enough to get a few pics and I watched him swim! He does need to work on his coordination a bit but he does have the beginnings to the freestyle started. I promised him next year we would start lessons earlier so he could maybe get two sessons in and yes, he would still be doing summer school. :-) School starts in 12 days! Ahhh....not that I'm counting or anything.

Swim Lesson Pics

I am finally getting around to posting some pics from swim lessons that started last Monday. Last Monday it rained off and on but they still started lessons. Tuesday it was cool and then Wed it rained so much (3.7 inches) that they cancelled them all together. By Friday it was back to hot and muggy. This morning, it was blazzing hot at 8:30 in the morning and is supposed to be the hottest day of the year at 100. My yard with all the rain from last week looks GREEN again and totally needs mowing but its too hot for that for sure!!! Matthew has certainly taken to swimming. He has become a little fish in the water. His goal is the water slide with the quote...mom, we can do it together. Gasp! They don't let the parents too close to the kids during the lessons but I'll try and get closer for some better pics. I like the one where his teacher looks either freaked out or is yelling. LOL. She is very nice and has them very well under control. In a couple of the pics you can see there is a life gaurd standing by. There is one at each of the swim lesson stations. I've been very impressed with that. They were fanny packs that have rescue masks in them. Certainly more advanced than when I was a kid going to the pool. No age comments!