My Own Ton (Because 15+ Tons Wasn't Enough)

DH tried to get more paver base at one home supply store yesterday morning, but was unsuccessful. They've been sold out for a few days now. He prefers them because they are slightly less expensive than other stores, but that is offset by the fact that they don't have what we need. Since I was out and about doing errands for my morning, I offered to drop by the other home supply store and see if they had any for sale. Ooooof!

The area to the back side of our patio is now a brickyard, framed in
by the stone blocks and wooden palettes DH was moving on Tuesday.
It's our messy staging platform. Oh joy! 

My day started out by taking twelve boxes of paperbacks over to Half-Price Books. They accept anything, but I certainly won't get rich soon. Out of the twelve boxes, I got less than $50 for my books. Still, that's better than just recycling them, and it helped pay for my advance purchase State Fair tickets.

Somewhere under that pile of dirt and stacks of stone blocks, there is
a patio. The small table at front is what holds our utensils when we
are using the charcoal grill hidden by the stone blocks. The patio
table used to be a nice place to sit, but the pile of dirt is the only
thing seated there right now. 

After I dropped the empty boxes off at home, I set off for the other home improvement store. They had been restocked and had a palette of paver base just waiting for me. Grabbing a flat cart, I started pulling out and loading bags. OMG - those were heavy! Each bag weighs about 50 pounds (3.5 stones) and I bought twelve of them - 600 pounds. Then I pushed them on the flat cart through the parking lot and loaded them into my car. Once home, I unloaded them three at a time into the wheelbarrow and took them down to the patio. Finally I unloaded each bag from the wheelbarrow and put them in a pile ready for DH to use.

This is the castle walls so far. The far right is complete and nicely circular, the
left side is in process, and the straight section is the beginning of the
stepped walkway that will lead to our upper back yard. It'll be pretty
awesome when it's completed. Then we'll have to pull apart the patio
itself, lower the level, and repave it. I think that is on next year's agenda. 

Six hundred pounds per twelve bags, moved four times, equals 2400 pounds. Wow! I moved my own ton of dirt. I was quite impressed! Unfortunately the rest of the day was rather unproductive (grocery shop, two loads of laundry) and I fell asleep, exhausted, by 8:30 pm - only to wake up at 2:15 am unable to get back to sleep for my last hour.

This is my pile - my ton. Each of these bags is 50 pounds of paver base. The
walls require a four-inch deep base to support a six-brick height. We've
been going through a lot of paver base. Twelve bags doesn't really look
like a lot when piled up like this, does it? 

So, I did what anyone would do, right? I prepped and cooked the chicken for tonight's dinner at 2:30 am instead of after work tonight. I guess I'm ahead of the game in workload and behind in sleep. I wonder if I can swim in my sleep? I might find out today. Have a great Thursday!