Recent Happenings.

I spent all of last week getting the yard ready for planting things in it. Basically, Amanda and I chopped up some bushes, dug a bunch of dirt, inhaled a lot of dust and swung an ax around for a few days.

I met up with a few more landscaping fellows and here's how it went. During the third meeting, I was holding the estimate from my second meeting. It was for $2,900. After walking the guy through what he had to do (basically, lay sod everywhere), he started to tally up the estimate. He said, "well, the labor is going to be $2,500."

I stopped him right there and let him know that I appreciated his time, but it wasn't going to work out. He asked what my other estimates were, and I showed him the one in my hand. He hemmed a little, with minimal hawing, and let me know that he'd do it for $2,650. Awesome.

I shook his hand and he was on his way. He started today and should be finished up tomorrow.

Also, over the weekend, I ordered 200 retaining wall blocks. Hopefully, they'll show up today and I'll dig a bunch of crap up and install them.

Yesterday, Mr. and Mrs. Paul and Judith Topham showed up to help out with the gardening. The day previous, Amanda and I spent more money on plants/mulch than I expected to spend total in my whole life a year ago. Paul and Judy came down from their quaint New Hampshire life to join the fast paced world of house flipping. Either that, or Judy loves to garden and was more than happy to help us out in the yard.

After four or so hours, we had planted and watered everything we bought, ate some steak tips, and called it a weekend.

This week, I'm going to try to pry some more money out of the loan fellow, get the yard squared away, build a retaining wall and do some other super fun stuff in and around the house.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm busy at work and at home, as one could imagine. I'll have, and I mean it this time, pictures and video for you this week. I promise.