The First Week of School

(and what I accomplished.)

Having my mornings back during the week has given me the time to get more done than I would have expected possible given that we're only into the first full week of school.  Wait, there was Labor Day on Monday so that's only four days this week of child-free mornings and yet it seems like I've got a month of backed-up task list items done.

The main thing I got done was the decks and bricks.  We have a deck, a covered porch and a bricked area under each of those two areas.  The wood was in desperate need of an oxalic acid treatment, a power washing and then a water sealing treatment.  Each of those steps takes time and organization of the items on the surface to start (which means moving lots of things around while you work.)

The brick surfaces needed to be pressure washed and then re-sanded.  The bricks were placed in a sand matrix and over time the sand washes away with rain and general wear.  It's fun to brush sand between the cracks and I even got help from my children, but it's a longer process than it is fun and it's nice to be done with the job. 

Then, those same bricks need to be water sealed as well to help cut down on the efflorescence (a seeping of salts to the top of the bricks that leaves a white covering.) 

The decks and bricks look great and I had a chance to water seal the play structure as well.  I also got caught up on all my emails and computer-based "to do" items for the school.  So all in all, it was a great week to have the children in school. 

The Big Boy Update:  As we were leaving from eating lunch today my son saw the painted handicapped sign on a parking spot.  He looked at it and then said to me, "that man is very blue."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Mashed potato stealer.  She liked daddy's mashed potatoes.  Her brother didn't.  When he wasn't at the table she would walk around and sit in his seat, use his spoon to put his mashed potatoes onto her plate, walk back to her seat and then eat the stolen mashed potatoes with her own spoon.  She did this more than once.  He never noticed.