Deck Progress- the 3rd Weekend

Jim and Robyn decided to make another trip to Kansas to help us finish our deck. Tim and Jim started working on Friday, while I was finishing up my last day of school. I'm not sure which one was better, a day of wild kids or a day of manual labor.

We had perfect weather the entire weekend, except for Sunday, but even a little rain couldn't stop our deck building!Here is the final finished product, well almost.
We ended up being 3 deck boards short, 1 for the deck and 2 for the stairs. Plus we still need to finish screwing down all of the deck boards.
Our next project will be to find furniture and flowers to go on the deck.
We now have a caged animal, Daisy.

#40 Done

#40- Give someone flowers for no reason
Our school secretaries do so much for us as school. As the end of the school year was ending, I thought I needed to do something to thank them, so I settled on flowers and a card.
I tried decorating the pots, but vetoed the idea and decided I should have decorated the pots before I planted the flowers (not sure why I didn't think of that before!).
Thanks Sherri and Judy for all you do! Enjoy the flowers!

Deck Progress- the 2nd Weekend

The second weekend of deck building began with Tim and I filling the 6 holes with concrete. Jim purchased a concrete mixer, so we were lucky enough to have it, but it was still a lot of work! Tim started mixing concrete about 9:00 and we finally finished about 3:00 (just in time to head to Illinois).

I thought about using the deck as a math problem for my fifth graders. "Mr. McClelland has 6 deck holes and each hole requires 6 bags of concrete. Each bag of concrete weighs 80 pounds, what is the total amount of concrete Mr. McClelland needs in pounds to fill all 6 holes?" The fifth graders are on summer break, so you do the math...

Each hole was 36" deep and roughly 14" wide.
The final post hole included the signatures of the workers: Tim, Jody, & Daisy.

Spring Projects Part 4- In Progress

Our 4th spring project is to build a deck. Jim and Robyn made the trip last weekend to help us get started on the project. Thanks so much for your help!!

This is the semi-before picture

It started with this on Friday afternoon:
And looked like this by Friday evening:
Saturday started with this:
Digging the post holes
Sunday finished up with setting the forms to start pouring the concrete. After Daisy scared the inspector away on Monday, he finally came back on Thursday and gave us the o.k. to start pouring the concrete.
(I bet you didn't know Daisy was an attack dog.)

Done, Done, and Almost Done

Done: #21 Go without TV for a week. My week with TV turned out to be a productive week, I was able to do some cleaning and crafting. It also made me evaluate both how much time I watch TV and what I watch on TV. Hopefully my TV habits have changed for the better!

Done: #60 Clean out my closet and donate items to Goodwill. I completed this one a couple of weeks ago and it is so nice to have my closet clean and organized. I donated 2 bags of clothes and 1 bag of shoes (they weren't full bags) all to Goodwill. The Goodwill in Olathe is overloaded with clothes, so next time I think I might look for another organization to donate them to where they are really needed.

Almost Done: After tomorrow we only have one week of school left! Hooray for summer!

#21 In progress...

I've decided that this is my week with no TV. I haven't caved and watched TV yet, but it is only Tuesday. I find the times I miss TV the most are when I'm getting ready in the morning and when I'm grading papers or working on the computer. I only sit and watch the TV for a few shows, but I usually have it on in the background in the evening, so no TV makes for a quiet house. Since I haven't been watching TV, I've found a few other things to occupy my time....This week is teacher appreciation week, I knew I wanted to do something for my teammates, so when I stumbled onto this idea, it was perfect. After a trip to Michael's (my new favorite store) and Hobby Lobby for supplies, and a night of crafting, here is the final product.

I plan on filling each box with some candy and leaving it on their desk. Hopefully this will accomplish #36 as well. (I'm trying to multi-task)

The one without a flower on top is for my male teammate, I didn't want to leave him out.

I can't take credit for these cute cake boxes, here is the website with the tutorial for how to make them, enjoy!

Spring Projects Part 3

This weekend my mom came for a visit and helped us update the landscaping of our front yard. We replaced a couple of dead plants, added a new plant, and a few new flowers. See if you can find the "Debbie Touch". I also had a request to send updated pictures of our lawn after the power raking event, so here you go!Here is the updated picture of the lawn and a view of the landscaping. We are looking for some decorative touch to go between the rose bushes under the window, maybe a St. Louis Cardinal.

We decided that we needed something between the roses and spirea, so we planted this. (I forgot the name)

The original lilac bush we planted here died, so this is the replacement. Hopefully, this one will last.

This rose bush is another replacement for one that died. These potted flowers will go on our porch and eventually our new deck.