It's been a while, I know. I was going to give Beth a hard time for not posting in eons, then realized it's been almost as long for me. My justification - she has kids and I don't. I don't have as much to update about. So there, Beth, start updating! :-)
There's not much to update, that's why I haven't. I went to Utah for Christmas to hang out with some of the family. We had a good time. It was fun seeing Jefferson get all excited about his presents, and extra funny seeing him turn his nose at the one thing Kara hand made for him. He's a cute little guy. We remodeled a bathroom for my parents, which was in desperate need of a facelift. I now consider myself a plumber, official training be damned. On a side note, once I got home, I changed out a light fixture for a ceiling fan/light fixture. So I now qualify as an electrician, right? I have all kinds of things to add to my resume. Anyway, in between all this remodeling excitement, I managed to get sick. Really sick. Like I haven't been in 6 years. There's a funny significance to that. Anyway, I spent most of the last 2-1/2 days of the trip in bed in the basement. Locked away. :-)
I managed to make it home without getting sick on the plane, and spent the rest of my vacation being a bum. Not really what I had planned, but such is life. The funky illnesses have managed to stick around, I'm not really sure what's going on. But I'm plugging along. Work is really picking up now. We have one building structure in the air, which is fun. Now the fun part of coordinating 10 different subcontractors to get their work in without running into everyone else begins. You'd think this would be easy. Not so much. So we have meetings, then more meetings, and a few more just to make sure everyone understands. Plus I have all the meetings I have to run for the Corps, and it makes for not fun days. Last week was a bear. I had at least one 2-hour meeting each day, that I ran. So I couldn't sleep or play games in them. Not that I would, that's irresponsible..... :-). Plus all of the upper management guys were here. So it was a little crazy.
As a result, I have little desire to do anything today. Apparently this is a common feeling in my office. My superintendent just came into my office and said he didn't feel like doing anything today. And my safety guy went home sick. It's a good thing we don't actually do the work outside.
So my other adventure has been determining what house project I want to blow money on. Chances are I will be putting the house up for sale this summer, so I don't want to spend much. But there are a couple of things that need to get done to make it more sellable. One option is to tear out the carpet floor in my master bath and install tile. The other is to do some landscape work at the front of the house. It is a pool of muck, and doesn't drain well. Which in this environment, well, that needs to be fixed. I got a bid from someone to do the bathroom, and it came in at $5500. I about choked when he told me. I did my own estimate, and came up with $2500. When I asked him for the breakdown, he hem-hawed and didn't answer. Guess what mister, no work for you!! Why do people seem to not understand I know what I'm doing? That's 4 times now I have told a contractor what I do, have done my own estimate, and need them to come up with one. And all four times their numbers have come back at least twice as high as mine. I realize you have a mark-up, but sheesh, that's ridiculous. So if I choose this project, I get to learn how to tile. Not really excited about this one. We'll see how motivated I get.
My other project is determining if I dare do my own taxes this year. With the divorce, 2 house refinances, working for two different companies, and unemployment stint, I'm guessing there's something in there that will get me in trouble. I played around on H&R Block's web site last night, and I think I might be okay. But I'll do a little more research before officially deciding if I want to risk Big Brother checking out my finances next year.
That's about it for now. No pictures, sorry. I know some people like pictures. Next time. At least you're somewhat caught up now.
3 comments:
Technically mom made the present. Jefferson just had trains on the brain.
I have been publicly reprimanded, I'll get right to work....tomorrow.
I'm impressed with all your remodeling abilities!! You want to come show me and jeff a few things? We have big plans, no money, and no know-how. Probably not a good combination. I am so sorry you spent a good amount of your break sick. Why is that they way it always happens? Anyway, glad you are hanging in there.
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