My father-in-law asked me if I would be available Sunday to help him swap a few deck boards at his place. “It should be a quick job. We’re only replacing a few bad ones,” he said. Well, it indeed started off with “a few bad” boards…
On the porch itself, we put in three new boards. On the ramp, we used 4 long boards to replace 7 boards. As you can see from the above photo, the thought eventually was to just go ahead and replace all the ramp boards. And we did.
It actually came out pretty good and only took about half the day. Then at some point, the decision was made to do the whole porch.
In the above photo, you can see the three boards we replaced. Once we knew we were doing the whole porch, we had to rip out the rest of the boards. It was a job! My father-in-law and brother-in-law ran up to Home Depot to get more boards and more screws while I ripped out the deck boards.
When they returned, they helped me with the remaining boards. We worked pretty much up until dinner time and we called it a day. We still had half the porch to finish which meant we were back at it on Monday afternoon. I stayed until about 6pm, and left because I needed to get the kids home, bathed and in bed for school the next day. They were almost finished when I left.
Tuesday morning, I had to stop over there after dropping Ella off at school. My wife bought something from a fundraiser and I had to bring over the money for it. When I walked up the ramp I saw that they had all but the very end board done. They didn’t finish it because my father-in-law was going to put in a different size board to avoid cutting the size they were using.
It looked fantastic. I can tell you, though, Sunday night I was sore. Monday night, I was stiff and sore. My hips were on fire, probably because we were hoping over deck boarding all day. My knees were killing me too because we were on them the entire time we were screwing in deck boards.
I’m always glad to help out my father-in-law. Lord knows how many times he has helped me! I’m happy it is done and that my mother-in-law is happy with the way it looks.
Looking back at the past seven days, it’s been busy!
Still Kickin’
We had some issues with the soccer league that we signed Andrew up for. The communication prior to the actually first day was a mess. Do we need a uniform or not? Will the coach be there or not? It was not very well organized.
The first week, there was no coach. They texted the night before saying that neither the head coach or the assistant coach would be able to be there. This led to a mess of text messages wondering what the kids were going to do. They had two teen players lead the kids through some drills. For not knowing what they were supposed to do, the teens did OK.
The following week, the coach showed up. She had some drills planned, but she was the only one there. She was obviously overwhelmed. It was hard for her to keep the kids attention. With 30 minutes left, she decided to let the kids have “free play.” That basically meant that most of the left.
Week 3, the coach texted to say that neither coach could make it again. Andrew decided to stay home that week. We were totally ok with it, too. This led to an email from a league bigwig. “We noticed that only 5 of the 12 players showed up this week. Is there any concerns that you have? Is there something wrong?”
He opened up a can of worms. I wrote him a scathing e-mail back. I told him about the communication and the things that were never explained properly. I complained that we had to buy a uniform, when we were told that Andrew’s age group was going to be given a T-shirt to play in. I complained about the coach and the fact that there was no plan whatsoever for what was happening each week. I expressed my disappointment with the league and the poor planning and communication.
I never got an email back. However, the team got a new coach. He was texting us early in the week and keeping us abreast of what was in store. It was night and day when we got there last week. This coach was GOOD. He kept the kids engaged for the whole time. They had a blast. He even encouraged siblings to come and play, too, which Ella loved!
After those first couple weeks, Andrew kept saying that he didn’t want to go to soccer. He really was hating it. The new coach was supportive, and encouraging to every kid on the team. Andrew loved being able to help him and all of a sudden, he is loving soccer. Go figure.
Sign Here
School has been the absolute best thing for Ella. She comes home with stories every day. She talks about her friends and what they did at school. She tells us who the day’s “helper” was and what everyone wore to school that day.
They have her working on writing her name. She’s getting pretty good at it. First name now and last name next week. I love seeing how hard she is working …
As I got in the car to head to work today, Sam stopped me. She handed me a rolled up piece of paper. Ella had painted a picture at school. She wanted Sam to give it to me to put up at work. I don’t have my own office. I share the tech room with the rest of the staff. A beautiful work of art like this should be shared, so I put it on the bulletin board!
90% Done
I posted recently about finally being able to stain my deck. This week I stained the posts white. It looks great. I really thought I was done, but noticed in this photo that blue under the wood. I think I am going to stain that white, too. Very happy with the way it looks.
Winning!
It’s been nice to have some winning teams in Michigan lately. Monday night, my Detroit Lions wowed folks on Monday Night Football. I love the new black uniforms.
The last time the Lions beat the Seahawks was back in 2012! They had lost the last six games they played against them and that worried some folks. There was no need to worry, as Jared Goff had a stellar (and perfect) day! It was a record day for him, completing all 18 of his passes for 292 yards and two touchdowns.
Before Monday, only six players in NFL history have finished a game with a 100% completion rate with at least eight attempts. Goff is the first QB to finish perfect with more than 10 attempts and first to do it with over 200 yards.
What was even cooler was that Goff caught a 7-yard touchdown pass from Amon-Ra St. Brown on an end-around pass. Goff said that the pay has been in the play book for awhile, but they never seemed to have the right time to use it.
The Detroit Tigers surprised every one over the past few weeks. Back on August 11, they Tigers were 55-63 and 10 games out of a play off spot. Their chance of making the playoffs was 0.2%!!! When they clinched a Wild Card spot, Tiger’s announcer, Jason Benetti, had the perfect thing to say:
“A city that doesn’t care about the odds has a baseball team to match.”
In the Wildcard Playoffs, they faced the 2nd hottest team in the American League – The Houston Astros. Since August 11, the Detroit Tigers are 33-13! Yesterday, they swept the Astros and will face Cleveland in the American League Divisional Series! Game 1 is Saturday!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 