Big (Trash) Day

Today was big trash day for me and Kristina, which is very exciting for us. We were finally able to get rid of all the crap in the garage and the remnants of the shed on the side yard. Though sadly this also had to include getting rid of the Davis' couches that were stored in the garage. These were the most comfortable couches in the world, not to mention they brought back some good memories of hang outs at the Davis house. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing those upstairs when we first got them. Due to the nastiness of the garage they grew mold and were very dusty and rendered unusable.




It is a big relief to get rid of all those things on the side yard and the rest of the stuff in the garage though. We had been wanting to do it for a really long time, but didn't have anyway of disposing of it. We are also hoping that it will help a little with the air quality in the house as well, because Kristina has been complaining about it. The job was a bummer to do because I had to bundle up all the loose wood with string, and cut it to size with a sub-par circular saw. Though to be perfectly honest, two cinder blocks with the wood between them and me jumping on it did a better job of it. I was amazed at how much junk there was to throw out. I mean the house has only been lived in for 10 months, how could we have accumulated so much stuff to throw away? Crazy.

Unrelated picture of Kristina running away
from the U.S. Capitol.

But that was not the only reason today was a big day. Today was the day that my DirecTV was repaired. As you may or may not know I tried to fix it myself with less than desirable results. But....but, it was not all my fault because the repair man said that when the branch fell it warped the dish so even when he aligned it it still didn't work properly. So he had to replace the entire dish, which he didn't charge us for. I thought that was very decent of him. Also, the cable is now buried, which he also took care of, to prevent any recurrences.

All in all, a very satisfying day.

Backyard finished

Finally the time is here. After months and months of working sun up to sun down the backyard is finally finished. That last part wasn't true, but it was two days of pretty irritating work, and more tedious than difficult. Making sure all (or at least most) of the rocks were gone was the main job of it. But yesterday I finally finished that last portion, cleaned it up, planted, fertilized and watered. The only downfall is now we have to take Cody out on a leash again because his runner goes right over the newly planted area and this lawn is going to need all the help it can get.

And if look close you can see my DirecTV cable on the ground.

That being said, I am being met with some confusion when I mention the DirecTV incident. Well here is the story.

I was sitting on the toilet one morning reading my book. It was semi-windy outside but nothing too crazy. Now for those of you who don't know our backyard is completely surrounded by trees, both on the side of the yard and looming over the yard. So anyway, I'm sitting there and it's a pretty tense part of the book, so I'm kind of on edge, when I hear this really loud crash from right outside the bathroom window. Needless to say it scared the crap out of me.... So I look out the window to see this huge branch a little bit wider than my thigh and about 15 feet long in a couple of pieces all across the middle part of the yard. The branch was really dry and dead looking so it must have broken up when it fell.

I go outside to see if it had done anything, not really feeling safe in the house anymore, if there are falling trees I wanted to see them coming. My first thought was that it was a bummer that it had fallen on top of the microwave that was sitting in the middle of the yard. (Sidebar: This was a microwave that was given to us by my parents but we didn't end up using it. So naturally we brought it outside and plugged it in and put all kinds of different things in it to see what it would do. Pretty much every little kids dream. Light bulbs are the best we found by the way, I highly recommend it.

But then, to my even greater dismay, I see that the branch had taken down my DirecTV cable that runs from my house to a tree in the backyard. As the ground was frozen when I had the dish installed we couldn't very well bury the thing. One can imagine how I regret not doing that now. So the branch had fallen pretty much directly on it and ripped down the cable and took down the panel of siding that the cable was attached to. So I rush inside to assess the damage, and lo and behold, when I flip on the TV....nothing. Back outside everything was still connected where it was supposed to be on the dish, it must have just been knocked out of alignment.

There is more to this story but this is a long enough post already so I'll let you go now.