Home Sweet Home

Unless something crazy happens, our home search has finally come to a close. This past week we had an inspector come check out the condo we'd made an offer on. He found a few things, but nothing major. It was mainly cosmetic stuff. We countered for a slight discount in order to repair the stuff ourselves. I got slightly nervous when it took them more than a day to respond. However they finally came back and countered halfway between ours and the original. I responded with a relieved "We'll take it."

Closing is on Monday. That will give us just under a week to clean it, move our stuff, and clean our current home for the owners to return.

It will be nice to not live out of a suitcase soon.

Red Tips

An ongoing job I've had for the past couple of weeks was to trim some red tips (Photinia spp.). I grossly underestimated the time it would take me to trim and chip all these shrubs. I use the term shrub loosely because as you can tell from the pictures, these had turned into small trees.

Dad recently bought a chipper and this job put it to the test. It did very well chipping the limbs, however the thick foliage proved to be more difficult to get to go through. After many more hours than anticipated, some help from Dad and Matt, and a broken chainsaw, I eventually got done. It really opened up his driveway and allowed some sunlight to get in.

Left driveway. I don't have an after picture of this side.

Right driveway.

Almost done.

Finally done. Sorry for the poor quality. Cell phone camera with not much light.

Once again, another lesson learned.

Green Side Up

Two days of this past week were spent laying sod for a client. Another first for me now that I'm on my own. They have a great back yard area that was recently landscaped with stone retaining walls. They also just finished adding on to their back deck. The turf area, or what was left of it, was bermudagrass. However, it was way too shady for that species thus the reason for there not being much there.We decided to go with Emerald zoysiagrass, a much more shade tolerant species. The leftover bermuda and weeds got two doses of round-up before the new turf was put down. I prepped the soil bed a little and started laying sod around noon on the first day. I had to wheelbarrow each load of sod down a small hill to the backyard. I got a little over a pallet down the first day. I got the rest down early afternoon on day two. I spent a couple hours cutting it in and thoroughly watering.

Emerald Zoysiagrass

The first wheelbarrow load

One Pallet

Two Pallets

Three Pallets

The only mistake I made and it was almost a big one, was greatly overestimating how much sod I needed. I ordered 4 pallets and only used exactly 3. How could you be so far off you might ask. Laziness. I measured his backyard twice to figure out how much I needed. The first time I just stepped off to get an estimate, which came out to 2000 square feet. The second time was with an actual tape measure. In my head the number didn't seem that much different from what I had calculated the first time. One pallet will cover 450 square feet, so I ordered 4 pallets. As I approached a slight panic about what I'm going to do with this extra pallet of sod,  I went back and checked my real measurements and sure enough, it came out to 1300, pretty much exactly 3 pallets. What an amateur thing to do and I should have known better, especially when I can't afford to be absorbing a whole pallet of sod into my profit for the day. Fortunately the Lord was being gracious to be and allowed me an escape. My parents next-door neighbor just happened to be resodding his yard the next day. So I called him and he said he would take it. Other than having hand load and unload an entire pallet of sod, it turned out okay.

I definitely learned my lesson.

Third Time's the Charm

Its a common phrase in life and its been true in a few scenarios for Rebecca and me. Including Rebecca being the third girl I dated and me being the third boy Rebecca dated.

Another one to hopefully add to the list is our first home was the third we made an offer on. Condo number two countered much higher than what we were willing to spend on it. Condo three is the same layout as the second one, but cheaper and in better shape, so it was a no brainer to go with this one. As of today we have the contract signed. So the next step is to get an inspector. We are kind of on a tight schedule because we want to close by the end of the month for two reasons. Our house sitting gig ends October 3rd and something called a homestead tax has to be filed by October 1st or else your taxes are more expensive. 

The condo will probably need a few updates during the course that we live there, but nothing has to be done for us to move-in. Once again we are so fortunate to have so much and the Lord has been and always will be faithful to provide.

Thursday Night Lights

Once again Samford provided some weeknight entertainment/work for Rebecca and me. Their home football opener was this past Thursday night so Rebecca had to document it. Whether she really needed my help or just appeasing my request, she got me a sideline media pass. I was pumped about special access and acted similar to Wayne and Garth when they got backstage passes. This was my first time to be on the sidelines during a football game. Its like a little city down there. It turned out to be a very good game. Samford came from behind to win by three. I helped take pictures during the first half. During the second half, I was up in the press box putting Rebecca's pictures on her hard drive so she could give them to the athletic media guy after the game. 

I had a lot of fun being a media guy. Rebecca's enjoyment of football has yet to blossom. I'm afraid it may never come out of dormancy. However, her lack of interest in the game helps to balance me getting too caught up in the game. It makes for a good team.

My own personalized media badge.

I know bulldogs don't have the best genes, but this one is pathetic.  It can barely stand and was about to drown in its own drool.

House Hunters

For the past 6 weeks Rebecca and I have been searching heavily for a place to live. We only have 2 1/2 weeks left in our house sitting gig, so time is running out. Looking for a home is a full time job. We have found two condos we like and made offers on both. The whole process is so complex and expensive. The first offer we made the seller decided to take it off the market, which I found odd. They didn't even try to counter. Maybe we low balled them so much it scared them from selling. The second offer is still on the table and has been there for almost 36 hours now. So we've been anxiously awaiting a phone call to tell us if we have a home or not.

The Adopted Bulldogs

Rebecca and I are having to adopt some new bulldogs since they are now her employer. Rebecca started her Samford job about three weeks ago. Since she will be going to most of their events, I will be tagging along. A lot of those events are sports, so I will pull for the employer.

This week we spent last night and tonight on the beautiful campus. Its fun getting to enter back in to college life without all the school work. Its a small school compared to MSU, so it has more of a high school feel where everyone knows each other.

Last night we went to salsa dancing that was part of "back to school" week. I take my camera along also to get in some practice. I doubt Rebecca will ever actually use one of my shots. We got to campus and saw a large group of students congregating and eating in their quad area. We assumed this was the salsa area so we started taking pictures. I nice guy came over to us after a few minutes and inquired about where he could get copies of the pictures. Rebecca then asked if this was where salsa dancing was going to take place. He informed us this was the University Ministry (Shiloh) and they were about to go into the chapel for their weekly service. So kind of a funny conversation.

We asked a student if he knew where salsa dancing was happening, and he pointed us in the right direction. We're still getting use to the buildings. There was a much smaller crowd for dancing. They did have free tacos that we got to partake of. Once again I was glad to be behind the camera instead of dancing.

Tonight was volleyball. Samford defeated Troy 3-1. I didn't take any pictures since I couldn't connect to the flash system. Volleyball is probably the most interesting of the girl sports to me. Maybe its because there isn't a guy equivalent in circles I've been in.

We're so thankful for her job. She gets to experience lots of neat things and I get to tag along for some.