Monceaux.org

Today is my birthday! I am now 28 years old. Lately I feel like I'm 128 years old. Today was a good day, even if I did have to go to work. Kristie woke me up with a yummy breakfast. Kristie also gave me some balloons with white chocolate peanut butter eggs attached, and a large Hershey kiss. She also got me an elliptical trainer. It works very well….I just need to use it more

Once arriving at work, my project manager, Patti, brought me some strawberries and a Tazmanian Devil balloon. The strawberries were quite good. I had a voice mail from Sadie singing happy birthday to me. Very cute. You almost can't tell from her voice what a little tornado she is. You can listen to the message here.
Kristie's parents and Ming came to town to take us out to eat at Rusty's. They brought me a balloon that was tied to Ming, but it escaped off into the blue, blue sky. They also brought me a John Deere cake and a gift card to Wal-Mart. At Rusty's, I had the broiled and fried shrimp. Very, very good.

We returned home to the highlight of the day. Ming had gotten onto the table and ate my Hershey kiss, got into the cake (slightly), and concluded by pooping on the floor. It was very funny. She finished up the evening by eating all of the bugs off of the kitchen floor. She is such the little meddler!

There will be some photos on the site soon.

I just wanted to thank everyone for giving me such a nice birthday!!!

Last weekend our dryer was acting up. It smelled like it wanted to catch on fire. For about $60 I got the Sears guy out here to check it out. The motor needed to be replaced. Sears wanted to do it for about 250 bucks. I bought the motor for 85 bucks at a local appliance shop and put it in myself. The labor to put it in would have cost more than the motor itself. Anyways, it seems to be working.

Today we finished the trim and doors on the shed. I was able to fashion a replacement for the missing door hanger out of wood. It seems to work well. We went to Wal-Mart and got some anchors to hold the shed down. In addition, we bought 150 more 12 inch stepping stones to create a patio. It took us three trips as we could only carry about 50 at a time in my truck. We have about 60 left to get. Photos should be up soon.

Well, today we began assembling our little storage shed. I began by finishing spreading sand in all of the cracks between the stone blocks we put down last weekend. The shed we bought is an 8' x 10' sub-$200 metal shed. We started assembling around noon. By dusk, we were about 90% finished. The mosquitos convinced us to call it a day and try again tomorrow. Word of warning to others…when the directions say to not assemble it on a windy day, that means any wind whatsoever. One of the corners of the building fell and was bent to hell. I was able to fix it to some degree. The damage is definitely visible, but seems structurally sound.

We got the walls up and the roof on. Not much left to it besides the doors and some trim. Then I'll anchor it to the concrete blocks. Also, they ripped me off by including only 3 of the door hangers needed to put the doors in. I'm short one. I think I'll attempt to fashion something from a block of wood and see if i cannot get it working. I'm ready for this shed to be complete, and don't care to wait on a part that may or may not ever get sent.

Our neighbors came over and helped us. It made things easier. So I thank them for their help. It was greatly appreciated.

I am not sure that I've ever put so many bolts and screws into anything before. If it falls apart, it won't be for a lack of fastening devices. So tomorrow we will try to finish. I don't expect it to take any more than a couple of hours. Home Depot will be on the list of places to visit, as I require some bolts to anchor the shed. We will have photos up soon.

Well, the coolest thing next to getting a sunburn is apparently finding out that you have termites in your home. Found termites in our master bathroom earlier this week. Luckily there wasn't much damage. We got Terminix out and they took care of the problem. So now we should be termite-free for the forseeable future…or Terminix will pay to fix any damages. Anyways, this week just keeps getting better and better.

This weekend we got a good deal (98 cents) on some 12 inch stepping stones. We used these to make a foundation for the little storage building we bought the previous weekend in Biloxi. We had to load and unload 80 of these stones. It was quite a bit of work. Then I had to dig up the grass in an 8×10 foot area so that we could lay the stones. Then I put down several bags of sand and proceeded to put the stones down. I think it came out pretty well. See the photos. Unfortunately, during this whole process I managed to get quite sunburned. Guess I'll remember to put sunblock on my back next time.

Kristie and I went to see Clay Walker perform at Grand Casino Biloxi this weekend. It was a good concert. See the photos. We ate at Landry's Seafood restaurant. Very good food. On the way out of town, I bought a little storage shed for our back yard. Fun weekend getaway.