When I heard how cold it was going to be this weekend I knew it would be a very boring couple of days. That's why I decided to put in a bunch of overtime instead of just mope around the house. I've got to say though, I didn't think it would snow. I had a nice little dusting this morning on the car. Weird.
I blame global warming. Or maybe El Nino.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Crucial Conversations
I just finished up two full days of training in something called Crucial Conversations. It was a workshop that gave you tools and insights into how to handle difficult conversations. I was fairly impressed with the class and while I don't think it will help in my current job, I do think it will help me out in the future.
The basic idea behind it was this: Whenever you feel like you are stuck in a situation that probably means you have not had a crucial conversation that you need to have. You need to build up a common purpose and respect from there in order to have that conversation. Then you need to guide the conversation so that a good solution comes out of it.
I'm sure I'll annoy the pants off of Jen now that I have all of these conversational tools. Maybe I'll make her read the book and then we'll never argue again. Yeah, right! :^)
The basic idea behind it was this: Whenever you feel like you are stuck in a situation that probably means you have not had a crucial conversation that you need to have. You need to build up a common purpose and respect from there in order to have that conversation. Then you need to guide the conversation so that a good solution comes out of it.
I'm sure I'll annoy the pants off of Jen now that I have all of these conversational tools. Maybe I'll make her read the book and then we'll never argue again. Yeah, right! :^)
Monday, April 18, 2005
Heavy Lifting
Jen and I tackled the front bushes this past weekend. It was quite the undertaking. We ripped stuff out on Saturday and put stuff back in on Sunday. Luckily, we were able to borrow my neighbor's truck for the weekend to help us out.
We started pulling out the bushes with the aid of the truck. I just hooked some tie-downs around the bush and then yanked them out. Unfortunately, only one of the bushes came out using this method. A couple of others came out part-way and the rest didn't really work out.
So that meant I had to break out the axe and the shovel. A couple of hours later we had ourselves one large pile of dead bush and one large pile of tired Mark. It took us the rest of the day to pull out all of the little roots & clean up the area. Then we had to go dump all of the dead bushes & dirt out in the country in an undisclosed location. :^)
Sunday started out with a couple loads of topsoil to build up the flower bed. We decided to provide our plants with something besides rock-hard clay for them to live in. Our soil is just plain awful.
After throwing my back out shoveling 3,000 pounds of dirt we then proceeded to plant the new bushes. I'll give some before & after pictures when I get home. We planted two pygmy barberry bushes in the little area between the sidewalk, porch, & garage. In the main bed we planted a holly bush at each end, a regular red barberry in the middle, and two yellow eucy-somethings in between those. It turned out pretty nice. Still a lot of work to be done though.
The neatest thing was finding out that when you plant holly you need both a boy and a girl. There's a little cross-polination that needs to happen to get the pretty blooms. I found that interesting.
Anyway, now I'm tired. Ugh.
We started pulling out the bushes with the aid of the truck. I just hooked some tie-downs around the bush and then yanked them out. Unfortunately, only one of the bushes came out using this method. A couple of others came out part-way and the rest didn't really work out.
So that meant I had to break out the axe and the shovel. A couple of hours later we had ourselves one large pile of dead bush and one large pile of tired Mark. It took us the rest of the day to pull out all of the little roots & clean up the area. Then we had to go dump all of the dead bushes & dirt out in the country in an undisclosed location. :^)
Sunday started out with a couple loads of topsoil to build up the flower bed. We decided to provide our plants with something besides rock-hard clay for them to live in. Our soil is just plain awful.
After throwing my back out shoveling 3,000 pounds of dirt we then proceeded to plant the new bushes. I'll give some before & after pictures when I get home. We planted two pygmy barberry bushes in the little area between the sidewalk, porch, & garage. In the main bed we planted a holly bush at each end, a regular red barberry in the middle, and two yellow eucy-somethings in between those. It turned out pretty nice. Still a lot of work to be done though.
The neatest thing was finding out that when you plant holly you need both a boy and a girl. There's a little cross-polination that needs to happen to get the pretty blooms. I found that interesting.
Anyway, now I'm tired. Ugh.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Free Grub
Every once in a while AADC gives their employees something nice. This morning they gave us a free breakfast, served to us by our management. It was kind of neat. Unhealthy, but neat.
So the rest of the morning will be filled with a food induced haze that should effectively limit my ability to get anything at all done. Mmmmmm.... bacon.
So the rest of the morning will be filled with a food induced haze that should effectively limit my ability to get anything at all done. Mmmmmm.... bacon.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Spring has arrived!
I see that I haven't written anything in almost two weeks. I guess that's just because not much has been going on. We had some friends visit, but that's about it.
The best news right now is that spring has arrived in full force. We'd had some beautiful days lately. It was 74 F yesterday with crystal clear skies. I took a nice long walk at lunch and then Jen and I took another long walk in the evening. The "nice" thing about living through a cold winter is that you appreciate the spring and summer that much more.
The arrival of spring means two things to Jen and I. First, it's time to start working outside. I've got a list of about 30 things we need to accomplish. I've already finished most of the lawn aerating. We need to install an extension to our garden for some veggies, rip out and replace the shrubs in front of our house, and on and on. I like to work outside though so it should be fun. Our grass already needs a trim. The Scotts fertilizer plan I've been using is working wonders on our yard. I think it will really make it nice when we decide to sell it.
The second thing spring means is that it's time to start grilling. Yeah! Some friends of our gave us their old gas grill last fall. We hadn't tried it out until just a couple days ago. I got it all cleaned up and was nicely surprised to see that it works quite well. We've already grilled hamburgers and hot dogs twice, shish-kabobs (sp?) last night, and tonight is going to be brats. Ahhh, the power of fire. I think we might just grill out every single night until the snow starts falling again. :^)
The best news right now is that spring has arrived in full force. We'd had some beautiful days lately. It was 74 F yesterday with crystal clear skies. I took a nice long walk at lunch and then Jen and I took another long walk in the evening. The "nice" thing about living through a cold winter is that you appreciate the spring and summer that much more.
The arrival of spring means two things to Jen and I. First, it's time to start working outside. I've got a list of about 30 things we need to accomplish. I've already finished most of the lawn aerating. We need to install an extension to our garden for some veggies, rip out and replace the shrubs in front of our house, and on and on. I like to work outside though so it should be fun. Our grass already needs a trim. The Scotts fertilizer plan I've been using is working wonders on our yard. I think it will really make it nice when we decide to sell it.
The second thing spring means is that it's time to start grilling. Yeah! Some friends of our gave us their old gas grill last fall. We hadn't tried it out until just a couple days ago. I got it all cleaned up and was nicely surprised to see that it works quite well. We've already grilled hamburgers and hot dogs twice, shish-kabobs (sp?) last night, and tonight is going to be brats. Ahhh, the power of fire. I think we might just grill out every single night until the snow starts falling again. :^)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
