THE DECK

FINALLY.....we have a new deck!!!  This could be the longest post EVER!  I have been so worried about the deck for years.  It is over the garage and was bad.  The deck was original to the house so about 16 years old.  It was wobbly and the walls were about to come down and the wood was rotten.  My neighbor had hers redone and so I contacted her guy and he came out and got us up and running in 3 days!!  One day for demolition and 2 days for rebuild.  It has been so awesome to go out there and feel safe and know that we aren't going to fall to the ground and die!  I have some before and after pictures:

Here are the before....from here you can see the wall bowing out and if you notice the planks in the corner popping up...

Here you can see the planks on the outside of the deck completely separating and the nail coming out...

Here is a pic looking up at the deck and the planks all lifted up and coming apart....

I took this pic....see the warping and the nails AND I got a bumblebee in the pic....

This is a view from on the deck....here you can see how much the outside wall had moved and how bad the wood planks were...and yes...we had stained it years ago...we thought we were getting a nice stain but it did turn out red...

NOW....happy day....here are a couple of demolition pics:

We love our tall deck walls so we don't have to see neighbors and they can't see us...with the walls gone...HELLO NEIGHBOR!

Here is one with the walls down and one of our guys that fixed everything.....

Another view.....totally took down the wall between me and my neighbor....you can see his hanging basket in the background.....

Here is what is left after the first day.  They kept the main steel beam and built up from there but there were more surprises...

It turns out the that the wood holding the deck up to the house under our back kitchen door was rotted and had to be replaced too....for the love....we are so lucky this thing didn't collapse.  These are pics from downstairs looking up at the back door....

Next picture is the big truck coming with all the new wood at like 6:30 in the morning....I know our neighbors love us!  The truck was sooo big that he had to park at the end and use the tiny drivy thing to bring the wood to our house AND yes I know there is a name for the "tiny drivy thing" but I am at a loss right now as to what the correct name is......my cousin David would probably kill me right now for not knowing what to call the tiny drivy thing.....

Here is his dropping the wood....

He had to make a couple more trips but got it there and finally we have a new deck!!  Here are the after shots...

Here is a corner shot before:

Same corner now:

Sha'Mingo is not gone....we just moved her to the other side of the deck....

And yes...we are getting prices to get the back of the house painted and our deck guy will be coming back in July to seal the deck after the wood is dry. 

I also bought all new brackets for our hummingbird feeders...

AND then....we had this new pharmacy/consignment shop open up where I work.  This place is KILLING me....the artists that sell there are incredible.  I picked up a piece for the deck to hang on the deck.....I loved the idea of the bird flying over the flowers...

I was so happy with that but then I thought....how sweet it would be to have a cloud on the other side to balance it out.  So I went to the store and the owner contacted the artist and they made me a cloud.  I actually got to meet them today and they were so happy and no one had ever asked for a cloud before but they are going to make more.  They did a great job and I will be sending a picture of their final work with the bird and cloud and our existing flowers to them.....I think we are done and done....just have to do the clear water-proofing and done!  BTW.....the puppies love going out there....they do frolic so!

Counting Crows

I have the best boss in the world!!!  Seriously....I love my job and have been there for coming up on 10 years and I am so lucky!  Segue..my favorite band is the Counting Crows....I have loved them forever.  Adam Duritz (lead singer) has written songs that have gotten me through so much.  His songs are joyful and melancholy and just awesome!  Now I agree, when the Crows first came out with "Mr. Jones", his dreadlocks were cool but he keeps rocking them and I am not so sure he needs them but he gets a pass because of  his music and his big beautiful dreamy eyes:

Sorry......I haz a crush!  Anyway, my boss got me tickets to go see the Crows at the Ryman Theater in Nashville.  That theater was incredible!!!!  The theater is set up with pews instead of seats and we were on the 11th row!!!!!  I took the Original Boof with me....girl road trip!!  We stayed at the Opryland hotel and it was fun.  On the way up we went to Lynchburg to tour the Jack Daniels distillery even though neither one of us drink that but what the heck.....it was an adventure but we won't do that again....the smell was horrific....seriously......super hot yeast boiling in giant vats.....blech!

I am, of course, a bigger fan of the Crows than the Original Boof but I have somewhat converted her.  She likes some of their songs and they played the ones she likes.  I was singing with 2,000 other people word for word.....Adam even stopped singing so we could finish the songs....it was awesome!

Now Original Boof has a little bit different taste in music than I do so in trade off, I will be attending the KISS/Motley Crue concert in July.  Pray for me!

I tried to take pics at the concert but it was dark and none of them turned out....BOO!

The Leak

Got up Saturday morning and went to the kitchen to feed the kids and kept hearing what sounded like water running in the freezer.  No water coming out from under the refrigerator....just this dripping water noise.  Kept listening and looking and let it go.  Had plans to go out of town to have lunch with Grandma, my mom, aunt and my uncles.  Headed to the garage and there it was.....THERE was the water.  It had been maybe leaking all night?  It was coming from the refrigerator upstairs and through the floor into the basement.  LOVELY!  Here is a pic of the basement....it doesn't look like much but it ran all the way across the basement, under the the pile of stuff that we soooooo need to go through and get rid of.  It was a mess!

You can see the reflection of my back tire in the puddle.  What was crazy was the water wasn't even coming through the refrig water line hole.....oh no....it had traveled down the wall behind the stove and cabinets and THEN came through.  Praying that it all dried up and we don't have black killer mold because I can't exactly pull my gas stove and cabinets out!  Here is a pic of the garage ceiling:

AND not to mention that it was dripping all over my freshly washed car!!  It was hard to take a pic of this but you can see the water coming down the door.

Trip for me to see Grandma was off.  Mom went to represent.  I ran upstairs and called a plumber.  Joey showed up and was very nice.  He pulled the refrig out and there was water puddling.  He checked the water lines and everything he was allowed to check and found nothing.  He went in the basement and turned the water off and then told me I needed to call an appliance repair guy because something was wrong IN the refrig and they aren't allowed to touch that.  I will give Joey a pass because at least he apologized for the $85.00 charge for him to come out for about 15 minutes.

Now I am heading to the yellow pages to look for an appliance repair guy.  Found one and they said they would be there Saturday afternoon.  No problem since the water was off but I had to clean up all the water that spilled out into the kitchen when Joey moved the refrigerator out.  The kitchen mats had to go out on the deck to dry and there was mopping to be done....no problem.  I wanted to try and clean out behind the frig but Joey had moved it back a little and I couldn't move it so I could get back there AND not that I was sad about it because have any of you moved your refrig lately to see what is going on back there?  I was going to take a pic of that and said nah.....dust and water and yuckiness!

So at the end, the appliance guy came and we had a bad water valve and the filter had cracked.  There went another $250.00 but c'est la vie....we have clean coils and a new water valve and filter and he shop vac'd under and it is all good!

I did go online and price refrigerators, just in case this one couldn't be fixed and of course I found the one I want and of course it is way too expensive but in my dreams....one day.....

Russian Gymnasts

This is just insane......this is not normal.....the human body should not be able to do these things....for the love!

Baby Christian

Okay.....this video moved me so much.....Christian's Mom is just so positive and beautiful and strong and brave and did the right thing.  It is a little bit of a longer video but so worth seeing how a mom should be in the face of adversity......God bless her and Christian and the whole family.  People need to be more kind and aware....if you can make it to the 5 minute mark....so worth it!

Who Wants To Ride a 78 Foot High Wave?

NOT ME!!  This guy is from Massachusetts and just got the Guinness World Record for surfing largest wave ever!  This happened in Portugal.....crazy!

Peer Gynt Flash Mob

Flash mobs can be funny and sweet and can make you smile. This one definitely made me smile! The Copenhagen Phil surprised the subway.....love it!