March 7 - 14, 2025 - Visitors - Patio Expanded - American Legion - Skirting Back in Place - Gravel Replaces Mulch - Grill Wheel Repair

 My Blog Reflection

Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.

Ella Fitzgerald

Friday March 7, 2025

My sister, Renee, and her husband, Jim, flew down to visit for a few days. Jim wanted to help with some projects so I quickly honored his wishes.

Saturday March 8, 2025

Jim helped me with a project to expand the patio area behind the house to better accommodate the grill and Blackstone griddle. Next to the sidewalk we found a double row of 12" x 12" pavers completely covered by weeds. We scraped off all the weeds. The weeds had covered the blocks so long that they had established many tiny roots in the stones.

We added seventeen 12" x 12" pavers to enlarge the area. This gives me more room to attend to my cooking. You can see the new gray pavers that were added under the cooking equipment.

As we finished up the project we discovered another double row of 12" pavers perpendicular to the first. This double row was also totally covered with the creeping vine weeds which takes over grass lawns down here. The weeds had attached themselves to these pavers as well.

We ended up with an additional 2' x 6' walk area. This gives me extra room to access the back shed. This row of pavers stopped two feet from the electric meter box. Four more pavers need to be added to finish off this area. This is how it looked once all the weeds were removed.

After installing four more pavers, giving the old ones a good cleaning, and filling in the cracks with mortar to keep down the weeds, I am going to paint all of them gray with the extra paint from the shed painting earlier this year.

Sunday March 9, 2025

It was a beautiful day so we took a ride to the American Legion Hall in Madeira Beach. It just recently re-opened after major damage from the hurricane. By luck we were able to get a table by the water. We enjoyed a couple of drinks and appetizers while soaking up the sun. Renee and Jim had never been there before and enjoyed it immensely. Usually we would see dolphins swimming but none today. The hurricane may have altered their habitat.

What we did see of interest out on the water was either a boat that looked like a car or an amphibious car. I couldn't tell. It was pretty far away so this was the best picture I could get.

After a few hours we headed home to attend the Theater Club spring show.

I am a member of the Theater Club and am in charge of cuing up the music for the various performers. At the dress rehearsal the day before we had trouble with the equalizer. My cohort, Jim, retrieved his personal mixer and set it up for the show. It worked much better and the show went on with only a couple of music glitches, which were my fault. In my defense I had to juggle the music, some of which was on YouTube, some on Spotify, and some were MP3s. Additionally I ended up being responsible for the volume settings for the various microphones used by the performers and the announcer. Here is a picture of me and Jim as the show is getting ready to start. Jim was in the show so he couldn't stay there to help me. The announcer, Regis, sat behind me. He has a great announcer's voice. He told me has been doing this for twenty years. (He is 89 years old.)

The show lasted two hours and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It is only $5.00 a ticket so you can't complain too much. It was video taped but no one posted any pictures on the park’s Facebook page for me to pass on to you.

Monday March 10, 2025

Renee and Kelly went to the ladies Red Hats luncheon. While they were gone Jim and I worked on pulling the skirting on the back of the house back into place. It had been blown in by the hurricane. Here is a "before" picture.

We rolled all the stones away then attached screws, with wires around them, to the wood blocks on which the skirting sits. We then slowly pulled on the wires to coax the skirting back into position. I drilled holes through the wood blocks and inserted four long plastic spikes which were left over from the driveway project. My hope is that the spikes will hold the skirting in place in the future. Here is a picture when we were finished. Good as new.

After that project was completed we started removing the mulch from the front planter boxes and replacing it with gravel. 

This picture was taken before we purchased the place. Since then the mulch had turned a darker brown and decayed. The landscaping fabric under it had decayed as well.

Over the summer we received a letter from an HOA committee chastising us for having weeks in these planter boxes and giving us thirty days to correct the situation or face a fine. Here is the picture they sent me.

Don't you love HOAs? It is difficult to deal with weeds when you are a thousand miles away. Luckily neighbors were around and upon contacting them they pulled the weeds for us. I want to minimize "weeds in the planter boxes" in the future the best I could. Getting rid of the mulch would help. I don’t like mulch anyway.

We dug out all of the old mulch and rotted landscape cloth and laid down new, heavy-duty landscape cloth. We then spread thirty-eight bags of white marble gravel. It really brightens the front of the house and should eliminate any weed problem for the foreseeable future. I did not put the tiki lights nor sea birds back out since we are leaving in two weeks. The dirt we dug out and threw in the front yard will dissipate with a few rains.

Tuesday March 11, 2025

Renee and Jim treated us to a wonderful steak supper at "Beau and Mo's Italian Steakhouse" in St. Petersburg. It is listed as the best steakhouse in the area and we all agreed with that. 

We really enjoyed our steak dinners but couldn't finish them. We brought steak and our desserts home for later.

Once home we played a game of cards and ate our desserts to finish off a great evening.

Wednesday March 12, 2025

We had breakfast, visited, and then had a nice lunch of leftover steak. It was then time to take Renee and Jim to the airport. We had a great visit and we look forward to them coming down again next year. I really appreciated Jim's help on some projects and will have to line up a few for him next year. LOL

After dropping them off at the airport we stopped by Home Depot. We picked up four more bags of marble chips for the planter boxes, four 12" x 12" pavers to finish the sidewalk project, and a piece of foam that will hopefully solve the problem of the downspouts getting stopped up with palm tree debris.

In the afternoon I became chilled and stayed chilled the rest of the evening. I had a fever of 99 degrees. I went to bed early with two blankets on to sweat it out.

Thursday March 13, 2025

I woke up in the morning feeling fine and with no fever. I went out and and installed the last four 12" x 12" pavers. I scraped off the weed "roots" from the old pavers the best I could. I then used mortar mix to fill in all the cracks between the blocks and to control weeds. Here is a picture as the mortar mix was drying.

When it is totally dry I will brush it off and paint it gray using the paint left over from the painting of the shed earlier in the year.

I installed some foam gutter guards over the six downspout openings in the gutters hoping they will solve the problem of stopped up downspouts. Time will tell.

The grill I picked out of the trash last year had one bad wheel. I assumed that is why they threw it away because otherwise it was in great shape. Something broke loose inside the  mount for this wheel but I can't really tell what happened because there is no access to it. You can see in this picture that there is no way to "remount" the wheel. 

I decided to JB Weld the wheel to the mounting bracket above. The grill doesn't get moved much so I am hoping this fix will work. If it doesn't I will have to perform major surgery and purchase another wheel for a permanent fix. That would be a project for next year.

Friday March 14, 2025

I washed down the patio blocks and painted them gray. The color looks a lot lighter on the ground than on the shed. I will not move the grill and griddle back onto the pavers for a couple of days to let the paint harden. I'm happy with the result. It will serve the purpose and will be better than having the grill and griddle sitting on the grass, which is where they were before. It will be interesting to see if there is any weed growth between the blocks and on top of the blocks by next fall. 

Next trip I am going to bring down a string trimmer that I have out at the lake lot and don't use. The guys who are contracted to cut the grass and weed eat aren't very particular. Hence the weed growth over the old pavers.

It's a beautiful day so I'm giving myself the rest of the day off. I'm getting lazy in my old age.