duties.

have you ever made a to do list that is so daunting that you begin to panic when you look at it?

i did that today.

it is two pages long.

it spans an entire month (almost).

it is for one job.

ONE JOB.

and it's not even the every step of this job. nope. it's the end of the job. that last hurrah if you will.

it's exhausting to think about.

i mean two pages for one month isn't so terrible. but the task of updating it per every phone call, e-mail, fax, human interaction, and any and all information pertinent to this list of awesomeness.

so cheers to april. at least i'll have things to keep me busy. by things, i mean this list.

oh and you know managing the bank account, answering the phone, paying the bills relatively on time, and whatever else falls into my realm of duties...

ciao.

paperwork.

it's monday and we are back here again:

paperwork.

can there be some sort of paperwork fairy that flies around with her/his magic wand and dust making all the paperwork be done, sorted, and handled accordingly?

i don't like being that magic fairy anymore. well let me restate that. i am okay with doing the paperwork once. even twice if i've got too, but we are on round 7, i believe, of getting this paperwork correct.

preferably not this guy...

do you know how many notaries that has required and how much time has been spent fighting with the printer, driving to a notary, driving to the post office, scanning paperwork, etc? no? me neither, and i frankly do not want to know.

after being on the phone with their lovely office administrator for this project, i believe (again i've certainly said this before) we have finally turned in the proper paperwork.

aside from that. it is beautiful here. so pretty in fact that i had my first pool day of the season yesterday. i am so excited that it is almost acceptable to be at the pool all day every weekend. because that means i can be in a swimsuit at all times. we all know what my main goal in life is: be somewhere where wearing swimsuits is acceptable at all times of the day...

it's been a rather uneventful few days around here. darwin was out of town friday, which meant that paperwork that needed to be turned in before he left was ultimately wrong and i had to hunt him down before he actually skiddadled (absolutely a word, i don't care what the dictionary says) out of town. so that was a fun morning for me. because it didn't just mean finding him to resign things, it meant fighting the printer as well. which always turns out to be a graceful affair for this kid...not. sailor like language, multiple head bangings, a lot of unplugging/plugging back in, and of course the occasional kicking and screaming at it. woosah. woosah. not so much.

here is a picture of a piece i was working on for darwin as a surprise. it still needs one more coat of finish. i have drawn up a couple of bases, so hopefully this piece can come together.

see that stack behind this? that's what i sifted and sorted through to get the heart pine the other day...

we've got a new set of pieces on our website (urbanreclaimed.com). it is a "matching" set of end tables. i say matching because they are from the same tree, but they are not exact matches on dimension. they are BEAUTIFUL though.... go.look.at.them.NOW

that's about all i got for the time being folks. not a very entertaining post i realize, but i am serious about the paperwork fairy. i'll chip in some meager coin for that to come to fruition. 

ciao. 

p.s. look at me with two pictures in one post...woaaaaah

toothfairsource

3rd times a charm.

two things that are the absolute devil:

1. pay applications
2. retainage

i realize that there are probably (actually) a lot more things than that fall into the "absolute devil" category, but those are what i have been dealing with for the past 5 days.

it only comes to be an issue on the last possible day to get everything turned in. because of course it makes that much more sense for it to happen then.

old school notary.

they wouldn't be nearly as bad if they a. didn't have to be notarized and b. they weren't such a pain in the butt to refill out. and we could throw c. in there for shits and giggles of that no one tells you your shit is wrong until the last possible second....(yes two shits in one sentence, i apologize for my sailor like vocabulary - it comes with the territory)

by the way, this is only the 2nd pay-app that has gone horribly awry. we are batting 2 for 2 folks. 2 for 2. we only have 2 more that will need to be filled out...odds are not in our favor this round.

aside from that horror story everything has been pretty back to normal around here.

you know the usual - breaking trucks/fixing trucks, outfitting both trucks with new tires (ouch...), selling our souls to millwork to make sure things get done on time, laughing hysterical until crying (one of my favorites)...

and and and IT'S FINALLY WARM! if you only knew how excited this makes me. shorts, flip flops, sundresses, skirts, ludicrously loud colors, and of course: SWIM SUITS! (you should all be very proud of me, i have not bought one swimsuit this year. -i will also not point out the inordinate amount of them i already own)

if you were wondering: yes i managed to velvit oil 500SF heart pine and 650LF of walnut all by myself.

now with fingers and toes crossed i think we have passed the difficult part of this job (knock on some serious wood folks). aside from well ya know the pay-apps and the rest of the job we have to finish...

disclaimer: i wrote this on tuesday. i am just now finishing it today.

stupid pay-app.

i literally skidded to a halt in front of their office at 4:15. busted through the doors and almost threw the paperwork at them.

to preface: i had already driven all over town to meet darwin (very unsuccessfully in my book - i'm usually really good at time management, not so much tuesday). why did i have to meet darwin? because we had to redo the pay-app for the THIRD time. yes folks 3 times. what a mess.

so once we finally got everything re-notarized, i had to haul tail to their office to drop off paperwork. luckily where we got the pay-app notarized was only about a 10 minute drive there. a harrowing 10 minute drive, but 10 minutes nonetheless.

so fingers and toes crossed. but i think we made it just in the nick of time.

oh and guess what we did yesterday...bought another tire. yes, you read that right. another tire....this one at least was for the deckover.

ciao. 



picture

the proverbial fan.

remember that time i told you that darwin was going out of town and it was time to get all of our ducks in a row as to ensure things ran smoothly and there were no crises (yes that is plural of crisis and yes i realize that it looks stupid) that i would have to handle.

well. we all know how that usually turns out. shit hitting the proverbial fan. and yes, you guessed it. shit.hit.the.fan.

that sure is some nice manure you have there good sir.

as i told you before, we had a big job that we shipped out a week ago. we were so happy that we got everything done on time and delivered without too many surprises. well, SURPRISE. they under-ordered or someone missed a take-off section. neither here nor there, but they were short material.

guess who got to solve that dilemma? if you guessed me, then you are correct.

want to know what involved solving that dilemma?

-schlepping heart pine
-reschlepping heart pine
-selling my soul to millwork
-reselling my soul to millwork
-bombing around kennesaw while my soul was at millwork
-SOOOOO MUCH CAFFEINE
-getting home at 630 on a friday
-getting up at 6 on a saturday
-finding out the finishing guy has a chest cold and you are now in charge of finishing 500SF
-praia rolling in compost heap waste
-showering off compost heap waste
-trying not to vomit while showering off compost heap waste
-schlepping more heart pine
-breaking into a 5 gallon container of velvit oil (crow bar and screw drivers involved)
-lining up over 500SF of heart pine (over 10' long)
-crouching around wiping on velvit oil
-trying not to die of velvit oil inhalation

you know the usual.

and you know what made it all worth it? well aside from satisfaction and pride: getting to do it all again today.

i really should add heart pine schlepper to my resume (right under fork lift extractor. i should also really come up with more glamorous names for these things.)

now comes the fun part. selling my soul to millwork again tomorrow to get 650LF of walnut run so that i can finish it tomorrow so that all this material can ship out wednesday morning bright and early.

wish me luck.

ciao. 


**picture

the scream heard round the world.

well folks darwin is going out of town tomorrow. that means two things inevitably.

1. i will be running the company
2. something will go wrong

there is another list of things as well: we will be running around like chickens with our heads cut off to make sure everything gets done, i won't be able to leave like i previously thought, etc. etc.

i try when darwin is out of town to also be out of town. it makes logistics much easier. people respond well to the shop is closed and will reopen on this day. notsomuch to darwin is out of town and i can't exactly help you....

needless to say this all comes up at the end of a big job where paperwork is necessary to have turned in before friday of this week, which translates to get everything done before tomorrow morning because darwin has a flight to catch in the wee hours. no big deal...

because this is funnier than the original.

except that part of the paperwork has to be notarized and if we don't do it right the first time...well you will be able to hear darwin scream from arizona and me start to sob from atlanta. lots of dollars will be put on hold, and well frankly we can't afford that to happen.

this day could get interesting folks. very interesting. and it's only 7a.m. i've been up since 6. i am already not looking forward to the days events.

last week darwin and i put a combined 1,000 miles on the trucks. most of it was me, in keisha. i was in the truck one morning from 8 until 6 that night. i love driving the trucks, but somedays the commute back into atlanta is absolutely more than i can bear. you become like a little kid at the very end of a car ride to start your vacation, except less excited and more annoying, and when you finally arrive home you don't want to do anything but lay down.

not to mention last friday i took keisha to get an oil change and then thought hey i'll be nice and take her to get her tires rotated because darwin has been talking about it non-stop for the past 2 weeks. a few bills later, a couple of hours of time spent in a waiting room, and keisha has four new tires...not exactly the outcome i was expecting....

turns out dually trucks are expensive to run...who knew?

ciao.


photo source