This is Just Weird

Hey guys! First of all, let me tell those of you who didn't see on the post below.... that I have begun another blog, (operating as a link from this) for my writing-things! (i.e. poetry, stories, thoughts on writing, etc.) I figured that I'd make those topics their own little resting place and that way only those of you who wanted to read my scribblings could go over there and follow it, or use my link on the sidebar here. Anyway, it is called The Inkpen Authoress. (Click on the name if you please! :) So we both will still be posting here, but my writing things are at the new blog.
New topic.
What do we kids do to amuse ourselves while riding to and from jobs? Well, today Sarah, (for some reason) started a game where you sing only the first word of a song, and everyone else guesses what song it is. That was random, fun, and even Dad played it. I was singing the word "I" and trying to get them to guess the right song, and all Sarah would do is sing, "have a mule and her name is Sal!" and then we'd crack up laughing, and I warble my little "I" over again. This time Sarah replied, "Love my mule and her name is Sal?" "Raised my mule and her name is Sal?" and generally made herself and us crack up.
We experienced the first of the summer's landscaping trials this afternoon: Some of you may better like to call it "The `go-green' sandwich melt". (Which in plainer language is when you make a meat sandwich at home, bring it in the car, and by lunchtime, the cheese is in an insipid state where it is neither melted nor unmelted, and the meat is neither thoroughly hot nor cold, and your lettuce is steamed, and the mustard sort of sticks to everything else. :( Not tasty)
Sarah and I sat there cracking jokes about our sandwiches and trying to choke them down. Sarah did a "Vitameatavegamin girl" shiver at her first bite. I made a resolute face and mined toward the middle. She pretended she was a termite. I wailed, "Fire in the hole!" and took a big bite which I regretted. We looked at eachother and I tipped my sandwich in a friendly manner saying, "Sarah..stuff, stuff, stodge, stodge!" and we both tried to continue. Finally I gave up. Sarah won hands down by pretending to be Templeton from Charlotte's Web, singing the "Smorgasbord" song the whole time. I just laughed and comforted myself by the recollection that any homeless people rummaging through trashcans would find a nice, melty, neither-here-nor-there sandwich to make up their dinner. *Copies Sarah's shiver!*
Oh! And on the way home we were in the midst of a raving, tearing thunderstorm and so Daniel turned on Lord of The Rings music to match the weather, and we scared ourselves silly! ;)
-Rachel

A Work Day Synopsis

'ello! How are all personages on this sunny, and warm day?;) I just thought I'd do a post on a regular work/lawn day and how it goes.(Since that's what we've been busy with recently. And why I don't have a ton of time to post.:)

9:00 We get ready for work, make a lunch to bring, and start loading equipment in the trailer

9:30 Are usually ready to leave unless a repair or paperwork type stuff need to be finished

10:30 We're on the road and almost at our first destination

The day is spent doing lawns which include:

Mowing

Weed-whacking

Edging

Blowing

Policing beds for weeds and trash

And, when needed, spraying weeds

The work crew usually consists of 3 people on Thursdays and Fridays(the lawn days). The crew right now switches out between these people:

Dad

Daniel

Matthew

Sarah

Leah (still in training)

So the reason why I've been going a lot these past weeks is because we just got a new walk-behind mower and we all are still learning about it, so Dad hasn't wanted Leah to start using it yet. She hasn't had any experience with a walk-behind, just a push-mower. Dad and Daniel go to work every work day, and on maintenance days they take one other person, unless it's a mulch or pruning or renovation type job.(When they take more than 1)

We usually have stops to make throughout the day like going to deposit checks in the bank,(ours is still an hour away:) stops for gas, diesel, drinks,etc. and picking up mower parts at shops, go to the discount bread store and even sometimes to bid a job. On occasions when we didn't pack lunch our favorite places to go are Wawa, Chick-fil-a, or Sub-Way. Yumm! Have any of ya'll gotten lunch at Wawa before? They have a really cool set up with computer screens that you customize your sub/sandwich at and order there. So anyway this is what my receipt usually looks like:

Ciabatta Shorti

Italian Meats

Provolone Cheese

***T-O-A-S-T***

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Onions

Little bit of Mayo

Yellow Mustard

Little bit of Vinegar

Little bit of Oil

Hot Peppers

Sweet Peppers

Roasted Peppers

Oregano

Pepper

So there ya go! The Ciabatta Melts there are really good!:)

Anyhow, we usually do around 10 lawns in a day and get home around 7:00 or so. We come home to a great dinner and have a nice evening! Well, I think that's about it! I hope this was something of a different sort to vary our posts!:)

-Sarah

I've Done Been Promoted! ;)

Hey guys! For those of you who don't know us personally, you may not have known that we have a family landscaping business: Solid Rock Lawn and Landscape LLC. We are all very active in the business, and for a long time Sarah and I have gone out weekly to maintain our contracts with Dad and Daniel, along with helping out on the bigger, higher-end jobs. You might say that our "specialty" is high-end work. We have the landscape contracts on several very nice homes, and Daniel has gotten to be quite an expert on a 15 foot ladder with a hedge-trimmer, trimming pyramidal holly bushes and making them come out nicely without a second look! :) Here are some pictures of jobs we have done:

This is a Starbucks we did some simple landscaping for

This is a job in the "Rah-ther" fashionable district of East Beach. This is the same home that we prepared for a city-wide garden tour! (That sounded so uppity! :) Doesn't Daniel look mysterious, slinking around on the side?

Here is a sod-job we did. Last one to race onto the emerald grass and flop down is a rotten egg!

This picture and the next are of a home that we landscaped toward the beginning of our business. It had nothing. Literally bare ground, and the big trees you see. It was total blank canvass basically. We put in the steel edging, all the landscaping, the rocks, etc. We are quite proud of this one! Here, we learned that planting 500 little pachysandra plants in the freezing rain and mud is no fun! (Were you there Matthew?) :)

So, as you can see, we do some good work as a family! I don't mean to sound stuck-up, but I don't think there is anything wrong in admiring a job well done! Okay. So last night Dad sat us down and presented a new business plan. From now on we are keeping hours: 9-5.

I am being taken off of regular "outdoor" work, and am appointed Office Manager. That means the office is my domain entirely. I am in charge of the billing each month, of keeping files in order and filing new items, of typing up proposals for Dad, entering new addresses of customers into the computer, keeping an eye on when we must renew contracts, stocking office supplies, printing off any number of things, balancing the business (and home) checking account, etc. Dad gave me the grand run-through this morning, and I am going to be working in here 1-2 hours a day.

Sarah is now our "Media Director" of sorts. She will be designing a website for our business, and will be in charge of doing things of a media sort.

Leah will take my place on the maintenance crew. Wow! So we are getting a bit more official here! I am excited about being able to take the administrative side off of Dad's shoulders. He was cute. This morning he was discussing how it can be confusing to keep track of when contracts need to be renewed, and I suggested, thinking he had thought of this and didn't want to do it this way, "We could write the date they expire on the calendar."

The look on his face was so cute, because the idea had never occurred to him! I think this will be a great practice for me in future life! Who knows! Whoever marries me may get a bonus expert bookkeeper! ;) Well, enjoy the pictures and I"ll see you later! -Rachel