Spring Break - Part 2 - The Garage

We came home from our little trip to Boise to find a dumpster in our driveway.  Part of me thought, "It worked!"  

I'd ordered the dumpster delivery the week before. We had plans to tear down the ceiling of our garage and I didn't want to deal with a big mess from that. I figured the easiest thing to do would be to throw everything away in a dumpster. 

My friend Macy had told me about the dumpster she ordered from PSI and how good their customer service was.  So I called them up and the customer service lady helped me figure out what size I needed and took my payment for the delivery and the first dump.  The customer service was great and the process was easy. But there was still part of me that was like, "Are they really going to deliver a dumpster on Wednesday?"

So when we came home and saw the dumpster I was pretty happy.  

This was one of the many moments where I am reminded that I really am a grown up. I'm able to successfully order dumpsters. How cool is that!

So what was the dumpster actually for?  Let's back up to last fall. 

We had a pretty bad mouse infestation in the garage last fall. Brandon was able to kill all the mice and clean up the droppings in the garage, but he knew they'd been in the insulation and he wasn't able to clean that out. 

The insulation itself wasn't in the best shape to begin with. In many places the insulation was sagging away from the roofline. 

And the "ceiling" in most places was really just cardboard. 

Brandon and I started talking about options and realized that we should just pull all that cardboard and insulation down and throw it away. We decided that if we were going to do all that we might as well also replace the lights. We planned to do this in the spring. 

As spring got closer I decided that the best time to do this would be during spring break when Brandon would also be home from work for a few days. 

So I ordered that dumpster to be delivered on Wednesday which meant we could get right to work on Thursday morning. 

Brandon and I got up at 6:00 on Thursday. I ran to Smiths for milk and cereal so we didn't have to do a big grocery shopping trip that day. 

Brandon started in the garage.  Here's how it looked when I got back from the store. We had a lot of work cut out for us. Before we could even begin to take down the ceiling we had to get everything out of the way. 

I spent nearly two hours just moving that pile of wood that Brandon is standing behind. A lot of this wood came from when we took the junky shed down. We'd been saving it in case we had a project that needed it.  But after almost 2 years we admitted that most of the wood was just junk and we'd never use it.  So I put it in a pile by the dumpster. I planned to throw it in on top of the insulation. 

I did save some of the wood for fire wood.  And there were a few good pieces in there that we saved in case we needed them. But most went out to the dumpster. Later in the day I put a "free wood" sign out there. A neighbor from down the street came and took some of the wood. 

I also moved the bikes and many other things to the covered patio. 

I made sure to take some before pictures of the lights and ceiling. 

I was excited to pull this sign down from the ceiling. It had been a nice left over from the previous owner, but it was time for it to go. 

Here's the one part of the ceiling that is actually made out of wood.  Brandon had been using it as a random storage area. We had to pull everything down from there as well. 

After the garage was cleaned out Brandon started putting plastic drop clothes over the shelves and other things along the walls. It would have been way too much work to clean off these shelves so it was better to just cover them well. 

I had to take a break and make some phone calls with Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare. Medicaid protection was ending on April 1st. At first we'd had a letter saying the kids would still qualify for their Medicaid, but then we got a letter saying that we were over the income limits. I looked it up and we were over by $160. So I called them and disputed some of the calculations they were using.  They didn't account for all the expenses I'd reported for Brandon's business.  And they were using my pay stubs from when I was working extra hours to catch up on several things.  I was able to get things corrected with Health and Welfare so that they kids still qualify for Medicaid. 

I finished up with that and went back outside to help Brandon finish taping up the drop cloths. 

Here's a picture of what our driveway was looking like. The dumpster was at the end of the driveway by the side walk. Then there was a pile of wood behind it.  Then there was a pile of DI stuff. Up in the car port we'd piled a bunch of stuff that hadn't fit on the covered patio. I'm sure our neighbors were like, "what on earth is happening over there?"

Around 10:00 it was FINALLY time to actually start pulling down the insulation. Brandon and I had bought protective gear for us and the twins to wear. I didn't want to worry about those mice nests dropping on our heads. The insulation was fiberglass insulation and I didn't want us breathing in any of those particles.  Plus everything was just so dusty. The PPE was very needed and appreciated. 

I'd only bought suits for Charlotte and Lydia because I didn't think Derrick and Veronica would actually want to help. Veronica did come out and take pictures for me for a little bit, but she was content to watch movies while the rest of us worked.  Derrick was with his behavioral therapist for the morning so we didn't have to worry about him. Later he just watched movies with Veronica. 

It worked really well to have Brandon and one of the twins up in the "attic" that was the one section with a board floor. They could easily pull most of the batting insulation down from there.

Me and the other twin would pick up the insulation and load it onto the wheel barrow.  Then we'd take it down to the dumpster.  

Here I am taking a load of insulation to the dumpster.  This is actually some of the "cleaner" stuff we were dealing with.  There were some that had grass and other things in them surrounding the mouse nests.

Here's one of the twins. I have no idea which one.  They took turns with who was helping me and who was in the attic with Brandon. 

Here's insulation hanging down.

Brandon had most of the insulation down in about an hour. At 11:30 I had to take a break and get ready for work.  (For some reason I'd decided that it would still be a good idea to go to work this day.) Actually even if I didn't have work I probably would have needed a break anyway.  I'd been walking up and down my driveway all morning. I'd was wearing my heavy duty foot brace and my shoes with orthotics, but my foot was still starting to hurt. So I went inside and took a shower. Then I went to work.

I'm glad I went to work that afternoon. There were a bunch of payments to straighten out and other things to take care of. Maybe it all could have waited another day, but it was good to get it taken care of that day. 

When I came home Lydia was in the dumpster. She and Charlotte had done this a lot when I was still helping. They would squish down the insulation so we could pile more on top. She'd taken a break too, but had gone back to work about 20 minutes before I got home. 

I got back into my PPE and worked with Lydia to clean up the floor of the garage. 

It felt pretty good when EVERYTHING was off the floor. 

Look at this. What a change from 6:00 that morning. 

Here's what the ceiling looked like. I'd so much rather look at the rafters than the dusty old cardboard. 

I called PSI and told them we'd be ready for the dumpster to get dumped on Friday.  I could have had them take the dumpster away too, but Brandon and I liked the simplicity of the dumpster so much that we wanted to keep it a little longer and put more things in it. So I told PSI not to take the dumpster yet. 

This was our stopping place for the day. Brandon came in and took a shower. I ordered pizza and then took Derrick to his Occupational Therapy appt. (He only goes twice a month so I didn't want to miss this appt.) Then we picked up the pizza from Pizza Hut. 

It was so nice to eat that and not have to worry about making it or cleaning up the dishes from making it.  

Brandon had made sure all the girls took showers while I was gone. 

After dinner all I wanted to do was watch a movie - which was code for take a nap.  I told the kids that Brandon and I were watching a movie and they could join us if they wanted. 

I laid down on the couch in the family room and was asleep before Brandon was done picking out a movie. I woke up about an hour into the movie Inception.  At first Charlotte was the only one of the kids watching the movie, but gradually they all came down. Brandon and I explained the gist of the movie, but there were points I was like, "I'd doesn't really make sense. Just enjoy the visuals."

We went to bed around 11:00. 

The next morning I woke up and heard a garbage truck. At first I was like, "oh the garbage is getting picked up early.  And then I was like, "WAIT the garbage doesn't come on Friday! That's the dump truck!"  I got out of bed and took pictures of the dumpster getting dumped.  Goodbye nasty insulation. 

 

On Friday's I go to work in the morning so I went into work around 9:00 and put in a couple hours. When I left work I saw Brandon drive in front of me while I was waiting to pull out of the parking lot.  He'd been running errands all morning.  He'd already bought wood and new lights at Lowes, and dropped things off at DI. He was now on his way to recycle a bunch of metal. 

I came home and started filling the dumpster again. First up were all the branches that I'd trimmed off our giant rosebush in January.  I'd just left them in a pile around the bush.  I started pulling the branches into the front yard and throwing them into the dumpster. Charlotte and Lydia came out and helped me. 

I was paying them $3 and hour for their help so they had some financial incentive to be helping me, but they were also just really excited to be doing stuff with the dumpster. Charlotte kept saying things like, "We do such cool things in our family! We have a dumpster! Who else gets to fill up a dumpster on their spring break!"  

After all the branches were in the dumpster we put the old mattresses on top of them. Charlotte and Lydia climbed in and helped squish everything down. 

This was one final fun adventure with these mattresses.  These mattresses came with the girls' bunkbed. We still have the bunk bed, but replaced the mattresses with ones with more padding about 2 years ago. The mattresses should have gone to the dump last spring, but we put them on the patio when we cleaned out the garage and the kids LOVED playing on them. Later they moved the mattresses up to the tree house where they spend the summer. The mattresses were rained on and spent a lot of time in the sun. It was time to say goodbye to them. 

I told Veronica to come out and play in the dumpster for a minute.  She joined the twins in jumping on the mattresses like they were a trampoline. 

Then we piled the last of the junky wood on top of the mattresses. It started snowing on us while we did this.  I'm so glad we did all the insulation on Thursday when the weather was better. 

The last things we piled on were our old arm chairs.  These had been on the patio since we got a new couch in December.  They'd been looking pretty junky on that patio, but we were the only ones that could see them. Now they were on display for the whole neighborhood. I called PSI to schedule the dumpster pick up. They don't work on Saturday or Sunday so our arm chairs would be on display all weekend until Monday.   

Charlotte and Lydia climbed in and snuggled on the chairs. Best spring break ever right?

Brandon spent most of the afternoon building a large shelf. He'd built the one on the right last year and it was amazing. So we definitely wanted another one.  This replaces the smaller shelves that we moved out to my garden shed. 

I helped move the things from the patio and car port back into the garage. 

Here's the cleared off patio.  It hasn't been this clean since last fall. 

Brandon also used expanding foam to seal up some gaps between the roof boards and the wall boards.  There were so many spots where we could see daylight through the gaps.  The garage is so much warmer now. You'd think that it would be colder without the insulation, but apparently that insulation wasn't doing crap. 

I can't remember what we did for dinner on Friday, but I do know it was simple. I needed a break from everyone so I went on a long walk. (And finally caught up on the Baconsale Episode for the week.)  When I got back everyone was watching a movie downstairs. I wasn't really interested in a movie so I just hung out in my room and did stuff on my laptop.

First I got on our bank account. Our tax refund had popped into the bank account that week and I'd been paid too. I'd been overwhelmed by how much money was in the account. (I know, what a problem to have.) So I just ignored it. Now I finally had a moment to figure things out and divey up the money to the places I wanted it to go. 

Next I created the Treasurer's report for an upcoming PTO meeting. 

After that I realized that now was a good time to set up the QuickBooks account for Brandon's business. Last season I just used excel, but it was kind of clunky. I wanted more professional looking invoices and a simpler way of tracking expenses and deposits.  So QuickBooks. I use QuickBooks a little bit at my real job so it was mostly familiar. 

What you do on a Friday night really shows what your priorities are right?

On Saturday morning I took the kids old bikes to Once Upon A Child. I couldn't believe how small these bikes looked.  I remember when all of these bikes seemed really big. Once Upon a Child paid $25 each for Charlotte and Lydia's bikes.  These were bikes that we bought with our stimulus money during Covid and they were still in really good shape. Derrick's and Veronica's were DI specials so they had cosmetic damage. Once Upon a Child didn't want them. (I didn't think they would.)  So I took the bikes and donated them back to DI.  

I also went grocery shopping. 

Back at home we continued working on the garage. Brandon was starting to take down the lights. I helped with the big heavy florescent light banks.  Those things were HEAVY.  And dusty. I almost put a N95 mask back on.

Most of my day was spent in the garden.  The weather was still terrible, but the soil had dried out enough that I was finally able to turn it over and plant some seeds. I planted carrots, spinach, and onions in this first bed. 

I prepped the other beds, but it's too early to plant the things I want to plant in those beds. There are a lot of weed seeds in those beds and I didn't want those weeds to sprout.  So I covered them with cardboard.  (This isn't ceiling cardboard. This is from the boxes the bikes came in.)

Brandon and I went to Lowes so he could by 50 more feet of wire as well as plugs and switches for the garage. I was so bored on that aisle, but Brandon knew what he was doing.

After dinner we all went to Arctic Circle for one last "Spring Break" thing.  I'd promised everyone that we would get shakes there during spring break.  So we did that. It was fun. 

And that's pretty much the end of our spring break. 

The garage project went on into the next week so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading.