First of all I would like to thank all of you for your kind words and support during the last few days. This is always the worst time of year for me but once the girls have made it to California safe and sound I usually feel better. I did talk to them and they had a safe trip. I miss them so much but they will be home before I know it and I have a lot to keep me busy in the mean time! lol

Yesterday was completely exhausting. Me, Marshall, my stepdad, stepsister and stepbrother all gathered in the backyard at 8:00 am Okay, they were outside at 8am, I was in the shower because I refuse to spend a day working unless I shower first. Marshall thought it strange since I was going to get dirty and grimy anyway but to me that is even more reason to shower! lol Anyway, we spent the entire day doing yardwork. We did the usual things, mowed the grass, killed weeds, trimmed trees and bushes, then we moved huge piles of dirt that had been dug up from the ditch last year to the back of the shop to cover electrical boxes that should have been buried two years ago. We also moved rocks from the side of the house to build up the dirt around it so that hopefully we won't flood so often in the basement.

Then Marshall started having fun with the bobcat. He cleared out a huge section of the yard between the house and the shop because we plan to put in patio brick so that I can finally buy a patio set. I am so excited! :-) This was all done around 2:00 we then decided to go into town and pick up the bricks and swing set. We go to Menards (hardware/home store) and find this really cool wooden swingset on sale. It is the one that Jenny and I both liked so we decided to get that one. I picked out the bricks I liked (cobblestone) and my stepdad decideds that instead of buying the sand we need to fill in beneath the bricks at Menards him and Marshall would go get the dump truck and pick up a truckload of sand from a construction supply place he has an account with. He assures Jenny and myself that we would have no problem getting the bricks and swingset home in the truck that we had.

Did I mention that we had borrowed Marshall's dad's new pickup truck? We order the supplys that we needed and we were directed to go to the back yard to pick everything up. I decide to load the bricks first so we head to that section. Jenny goes to find someone to help us load up the bricks while I open the back end of the truck. I look at the cobblestone and see that one entire pallet contains 60 bricks.....we need 72. The guy comes with his forklift and looks at us like we are insane. He explains in slow english as if we are stupid that each brick weighs 50lbs. The entire load would weigh about 2 tons. There is no way in hell I was going to try to load 2 tons of brick into the back of Marshall's dad's truck! Jenny then tells the guy that we also have swingset materials to pick up. Again he looks at us like we are stupid. We tell him to load as many bricks as he thinks the truck will safely hold leaving us enough room for the swingset stuff. He loads 20 bricks. We then head to the lumber section to pick up what we need for the swingset. We find a young kid to help us figure out what in the hell it is we need. He points to a section of wood and says you need 6 of those. He puts a few in and instructs us to help load them in the truck. He then tells us to drive down further and points to another stack and says you need 12 of those. He loads up 2 other boards from a different pile. Jenny added the slide and the truck was completely full. He then says we need 21 pieces of wood from another pile and 8 4x4's among other stuff.

At this point I was hot, tired, thirsty and pissed because my stepdad just left us there to deal with it and we had no way of getting ahold of him to tell him and Marshall to come back with another truck. Jenny says I was overreacting but I don't care. I was so mad I even stole a few of her cigarettes and I called my mom to tell her that her husband was a moron. We finally got ahold of Bill and Marshall and after they dumped the sand they brought the dump truck to haul the rest of the crap. Once I got home and bitched a little more I felt better. lol We worked until late and tonight we will be setting the bricks. Wish us luck and let's hope I don't hurt anyone. hehe