Thursday, May 28, 2009

Paper cups needed

Jill and I were finally able to replace our espresso machine that bit the dust last Winter. Thanks to some lavish purchases we had sufficient credit card points to buy ourselves a much nicer espresso machine. It's not a fantastic machine but unlike our old one this one is fully cleanable and has sufficient instructions on how to do so. I'm fortunate enough to know how to make these delicious coffee drinks thanks to the years (decade?) that I spent at the Coffee Grove in Villa Park. I think I actually learned how to make drinks while on a short staffed day an employee had to use the bathroom. I offered to watch the door. Two hours after said person returned from the bathroom I removed my apron and enjoyed a free beverage.

This isn't the first time I worked someplace without actually working there. Besides the time I covered my brother in the Burger King drive through a year and a half after I quit working there I also did a stint at First Class Pizza. I went in to order a free pizza and my friend who owned the place plopped a ball of dough on the counter and said, "You know where the cheese is at." I made about 15 pizzas that night because I had nothing better to do.

Anyhoo, I've got a new espresso machine and I'm enjoying a drink of the Mocha persuasion. I'll likely have an espresso or cappuccino after dinner tonight because I'm cool like that. $10 worth of beans will likely pay for itself by later this evening. It will be nice to go back to only paying for an expensive coffee drink while traveling.

For those of you keeping track, my front lawn is looking awesome. The back lawn is getting there. I began raking the entire lawn this weekend to remove the dead grass from last year that is choking out the live grass trying to grow from underneath it. We had a nice all day rain on Tuesday which helped quite a bit. The Sun is back though so I'll have to go back to watering the lawn. I have timers on my hoses but they don't quite get every spot like a real sprinkler system does. Still it's a pretty honest job for $130 worth of hoses, timers, and sprinkers compared to a $3500 built in sprinkler system. It would probably work a little better if I hadn't gone el cheapo on the sprinklers.

Rewind to June 2008. We had just moved in and were pretty sure a sprinkler system was the way to go for us. I ran to Home Depot and picked up the cheapest sprinkler heads and hose I could find thinking they were only temporary. The sprinkler guy came and went with an astronomical estimate. I never went back and bought sufficient hoses and sprinklers. I've made due with them and will likely continue to do so until next Spring when I go scientific on our yard's ass. I'll be pulling out the measuring tape and the graph paper to plot out where the sprinklers will go. It will be some time before we install a permanent system because we still haven't done a lot of landscaping. I want most of our big things to be done so I know where things will need to go. We're going to start a planter next Spring when money will hopefully be less of an issue.

I'll snap some pictures today of what we have going on yard wise (after I mow the backyard of course) so all three of my readers won't have to imagine what I'm talking about. I'm certain they're all pretty excited.

2 comments:

  1. That is exciting! Our grass isn't burnt anymore. Right after we moved into the house in Sep. of 07, Matt got the brilliant idea of putting down the wrong kind of weed killer and ended up frying just one whole section of the lawn. It looked ridiculous. Now we just have a major clover problem.

    We put in 4 shrubs this weekend. I'm SO HAPPY about that. They are just basic boxwoods that get up to 3 feet tall. We had to rip out these HIDEOUS shrubs last fall. So, everything just looked so bare. We have to get one my shrub for the other side of the steps because we don't like the one that we originally bought. We also put down red mulch which makes everything look so much better and takes away from the icky mint green color of our house.

    I have to weed something fierce on the side of ours house. We have these red and black garden bugs that are feeding on a few of my hostas and making them smaller than they were last summer when I first planted them.

    Wish me luck as I wish the same to you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can come over and weed here if you like. There are hardly any weeds. You just have to bake in the Sun. Our backyard is need of some shade.

    ReplyDelete