Best.News.EVER

Okay, so maybe not ever...winning the lottery or something would be much better, but for our family (Chris, Kodi, and myself), we're really excited and happy.

All day Sunday Chris worked on school. Most of you know he's pursuing his MSEE right now. Most of you also know that at one point, we were both going back to school for an Engineering Management degree, but due to changes in our companies reimbursement policies, we had to drop trying to get that degree.

Back to Sunday. Chris got a little A.D.D. and started looking at what all he had left to finish up his degree. Working full time and going to school full time is pretty tough, especially with the way UF does it's electrical engineering long distance learning. He does the exact same thing as kids on campus...he gets graded the same, has the same homeworks, papers, projects, exams, etc. as people that are just going to school full time for their Master's and can dedicate the 50 hours Chris does working a week to just school.

In a few more weeks, after finals, he'll have 15 hours towards his MSEE...or so he thought. In his A.D.D.ness, he started looking through graduate requirements and realized that he only has to take 21 credit hours of EE classes. The other 9 hours can be electives. He emailed the graduate advisor who stated that one of the classes that we took from the engineering management program would automatically count towards his 30 hours for his degree. She also let him know that he could petition the graduate coordinator for EE and see if they'd let him count his second class that he took towards his MSEE.

So he wrote the petition. He got an email back from the graduate coordinator (who was also our senior design advisor) today saying that yes, it could count!!! That means that Chris's ADDness just cut off an ENTIRE semester of school!!! He's got THREE classes left to take after this semester and he'll be DONE!!!

I'm so happy...I can't begin to explain how exciting having my husband back full time FOUR months early is to me!! THREE more classes...we can do it!!

Rock Project - Part 1

The rock project isn't 100% complete yet, but I'll still post the before and after pictures as promised. We broke the work down into two sections, one area around the pool pump, and the other behind the actual pool itself. The pool pump area was smaller, but needed more digging out than the other area, so we tackled that first.

Here's the before:





I dug out the first quarter of the section...then Chris dug out the rest and made me use the little shovel to dig out around the pool pump equipment. Chris is all about instant gratification on these projects!



Chris: Babe, I need a break.
Me: A photo break?! Perfect!
Chris with his big shovel and me with my little one:



After we finished digging it all out, we raked it all even, and then sprayed a heavy coat of roundup on it. After waiting 30 minutes (taking a lunch break), we laid down wet newspaper (to further deter growth - thanks for the idea Janelle!), put the border/paver's down, and then put the rocks on top of the newspaper.



Kodi got bored by the end of it! We're almost done with part 1!


Friday evening I took a can of brown spray paint, moved the rocks back from the paver's, and spray painted the paver's and the stepping stones. I still need to do one more coat on the tops and sides of the stepping stones, but I think it actually turned out pretty decent! We saved a ton of $$ by re-using the existing paver's that were there and just spray painting them the color we wanted. It's outdoor spray paint, so it should last for a long time! We've still got to put in top soil, and maybe sod (if the grass doesn't spread) next to the paver's, but here's where part 1 stands now:




That's 1 ton of rock in there that we moved and put into place ourselves just for this area! I'll post part 2 later on in the week. Happy Monday!  I'm linking up to these fun parties...make sure to check them out!

More Space Cadet

Just because I got a new phone, doesn't mean that I'm going to be any less absent minded with it.

Chris: Ha, what the heck is your phone doing in Kodi's closet?
Me: Hahaha, I must've left it there when I gave him treats before we left. Oops!

Few hours later...

Me: Babe, have you see my phone?! I can't find it!
Chris: I already told you, it's in Kodi's closet.
Me: You just LEFT it there?!?!
Chris: Yeah, if I moved it, I might forget where I put it, and then I'd get blamed for losing it. This way, I know where your absent mindedness left it.

Chris 1, Kara 0.




P.S. The closet door was closed when I first walked in.