A Sunday of Cleanup and Buildup

Sunday was a busy day, although not horribly so. The temperature wasn't too hot and there was a gentle breeze, a nice change from the storms of earlier in the week. The first thing we did was pull the pickup out of the garage and start filling the back with branches that the wind had knocked off our trees. We joined a line at the compost area, but were one of the first eight trucks allowed in and our load wasn't nearly as bad as the truck ahead of us which appeared to be holding the remains of at least one tree. 

The truck ahead of us at the compost looked like it was holding
the remains of a good sized tree. Our load wasn't nearly as large,
heavy and bulky. Almost everyone was depositing branches and
storm damaged brush and I'm quite sure the compost was a very
busy place on Sunday. 

After depositing our branches, we headed back and DH started working on the flooring for Woodshed #1 while I investigated his progress on the eastern drainage. We discovered, during the STORM, that we got backup and problems with the drainage catchment because of leaves and other detritus being carried down from the roof. Although we discussed putting river rock levees in the ditch, we decided to try screening first, so DH laid several pieces of screen down the ditch. 

I don't know how well you can see it, but there's a section of heavy-duty
screen across the river rocks in the middle of the photo. 

He also broadened the catchment basin itself and raised it several more inches in height. I think it will work well, but he wants to see if he can lower it back another 1-2 inches since he'll need to grade the side yard to be level. Every inch of height requires a lot more compacted dirt before we can add sod and grass seed. 

He widened out the catch basin to hold more water before
overflowing. 

He also raised the walls of the catch basin. It's now probably around four
inches or so high. It's actually a bit too high, so we'll probably pull it
down an inch or two, but this should help the flow of water quite a lot. 

After he got the cross-hatched flooring attached and screwed in, we worked together to get the two angled side pieces of the roof framework on shed #2 clamped into position. He'll work on that today, but his major job today is getting sod for the base of the shed structures. He seeded it, and the compacted dirt held up very well in the storms of last week, but we need to anchor the soil into place as quickly as possible. 

The first thing he did was cut the flooring to size and
attach both layers. screwing every board into the
framework or the board below it. It needs to be very
sturdy, it's going to be holding a lot of weight. 

After he was finished with the flooring, we started working
on the roof for the second unit. It's only held in place
by clamps right now, but the angles and the inclination
are almost identical to the first unit. It's a bit harder to
work on Unit #2 because it's up to high on the dirt berm. 

So a trip to Home Depot is on DH's agenda today - a very dangerous place to go - LOL. Then again, the Home Depot credit card is totally his own card, and he pays it, so I don't have issues. Have a wonderful and fabulous Friday and please, stay safe, be well, and wear your mask. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Black Dirt Leads My Thoughts to Construction - Real and Imagined

Yesterday morning Fra-Dor delivered a 1/2 ton of black fill dirt to my front yard. DH snapped a picture and sent it to me, and I'm sharing with you. If you never knew what 1/2 ton of dirt looked like, now you do - LOL. It took him more than 25 wheelbarrow loads to get it moved from the front yard to the backyard where it's now all happy under tarps to protect it from the rain we should be getting tonight. He's already using it, of course. The first thing he did was start working on that stone drainage which now has been extended and given extra height to avoid spillovers. 

A half-ton of black dirt doesn't look like much in the yard, but it
actually is a LARGE pile of dirt and took DH more than two
hours to get moved from the front yard down to the back, one
wheelbarrow full at a time. 

When dealing with large piles of dirt and many man-hours of shoveling and moving dirt, it makes me have great admiration for the construction of places in our past. Mankind has lofty ideas when it comes to architecture, and some of the most amazing structures were made long before the equipment we have today. No machinery, just sweat and brawn. 

Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is widely considered to be the world's first
temple and predates Stonehenge by more than 6000 years. It's
an amazing place and would be awesome to actually visit, although
I doubt I'll ever get the opportunity. 

Just think of it - the great Pyramids of Egypt, the vast cities of the Mayan people, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, Petra in Jordan, and several mountains that are really tombs in China. All of these places built by human beings (unless you subscribe to the "Ancient Aliens" school of thought), one shovel at a time, one rock at a time. It's one of the reasons why I became an archaeologist those many years ago. I was in awe when confronted by the achievements of our distant ancestors. I still am. 

Many of you are familiar with Tikal and other Mayan ceremonial
centers, but were you aware of what LIDAR is now showing us about
Mayan civilization? Take a look.

LIDAR reading over the jungles show vast cities of the Mayan
civilization still uncovered and waiting to be explored.
Sometimes modern technology can be so amazing! 

So I'm peppering this post with a few posts of the more famous places I mentioned above, and admit that I also think of the huge effort put forth by the Dwarves in the halls and mines of Moria. I know Moria is fictional, but what an incredible place. It took the Fellowship three days to walk from back door to front chasm and bridge through hallways, passages and vaulted rooms of immense size, all excavated by hand. 

Getting through the Mines of Moria isn't easy, but of the many
areas of Middle Earth I've wandered through in my 13 years of
playing Lord of the Rings Online, Moria is my favorite. I'm
always a bit sad when I leave it behind, even though I miss the
open skies and the fresh breezes. 

Have a great Friday and be kind to one another. I'll be back tomorrow. Be well, stay safe, and please, wear a mask. 

A Solid Structure Needs a Good Foundation

DH needs some specialty concrete blocks for the wood shed (which is turning into a major project with lots of roadblocks). After going to Menards yesterday, he was frustrated, having found two of twelve packages of bolts that he needed, and getting nowhere with the concrete blocks. Of course, he can't hear, and customer assistance wasn't very "assistive". He came grumping into the shop after his outing and said "We'll order them on-line tonight, but I won't have them for weeks!" 

These are pretty specialized concrete blocks, but they
look like they'll be able to hold the wood quite
effectively. The wood shed will be carrying quite
a lot of weight, and it'll be outdoors in the heat of
summer and the snows/cold of winter. Sturdy is
essential. 

My question to him was "Wouldn't you rather we ordered them right now? We can do that. My laptop is right here." So, after a few more huffs and puffs, we pulled up the website, found the concrete blocks, and ordered a dozen of them. Apparently that's what will be needed for stability of the uprights. Fine with me. I'll mail the on-line rebate today - it wasn't worth mentioning one more task to him. The blocks are rather interesting, though, even though they won't arrive until July 31st. 

He also needed more of the specialized bolts, so I sent him off to the Maplewood store which said it had a dozen packages available. As it turned out, they only had eight, but it gets him closer to the quantity he needed. *sigh* baby steps ... baby steps ... LOL. 

Although we do get a lot of things at Home Depot, we prefer
to shop at Menards when possible. It's equal distance from
the house, but on comparable items, their pricing is usually
a little better. The negative is we can't use American
Express there, but we manage - LOL. 

After that catastrophe was averted, and he had gone on his grumpy way, Chickie and I settled back down to the final steps in getting our latest order checked in. We accomplished that by mid-afternoon and we're all caught up now with lots of restocked colors for our customers. 

I remember talking about the money I pulled for the three guys who protected our block. Kathy, the coffeeshop owner, came by with three cards yesterday, which I signed after I handed her my cash. Good thing I remembered to grab money yesterday morning - LOL - although I could have borrowed the cash from the shop if needed. But, all is good, and yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day, even if it started on rocky ground. 

I'm calling today's post finished and getting on with my day. I hope your day is filled with happiness and ask that you spread some joy where you go during the weekend. I'll be back on Monday. 

Sharon Arrives Tonight - State Fair Awaits

I was busy yesterday. I cleaned/finished cleaning the upper and main levels of the house. Today I tackle the lower level. The very lowest level is on hold until after Sharon leaves, we are awaiting some storage bins that DH had me order for him last night. I have photos to share, so this will be a photo blog today, and tomorrow through Labor Day I'll be off-line. It's vacation time with Sharon and it's time for the Minnesota State Fair - YIPPEE. So ... photos. Here we go. 

Sharon's room is complete and ready for her. The
sofa bed is pulled out and made (I have a air mattress
on top of the skimpy, icky spring mattress of the
sleeper). Her robe is folded and ready for her use. 

From another view, everything is in waiting. The TV
works, the clock radio is set properly, I did add one
more pillow to the bead after this photo was taken,
as well as a small gift for her. 

The craft room is on hold until new storage bins have arrived. Apparently
the grey top bins of mine will fit DH's space (the far left section), but
the new bins will be less than an inch too large. We'll trade bins
after they arrive and he'll be happy. This is the lower left of the new build. 

The upper left is also starting to come together. The six leftmost
alcoves are the newest construction and they're for DH's stuff.
Magazines in their holders take up a good portion of the left of
my section, and then I move on to books on the right. 

So that's half of the new construction in the craft room. Here are the right hand sections. 

The right section on my side drops to a long credenza/work space
with a centered light and room for my materials in multi-compartment
bins above. You'll get a better view of the upper right in the next photo. 

I still have a lot of organizing to do in the upper right, the area that
will be directly over the credenza. Behind me is my original work desk
that is piled with WAY too much stuff and works in progress. I will
start to clear and organize that after Sharon's visit. 

Two more photos of where we are at now. Here's the breezeway. We only have the soldering table up so far, but just look at how wonderful those new blinds are. They make the dark room so light. He also mounted a shop light directly over the table to increase the light. I have two photos to share with you. 

The table is up and both shades are now installed. They aren't
perfect (slightly short for the width), but they are a VAST
improvement and lighten the room a lot. 

For even more light, he mounted a shop light above the table. We're
getting a plug strip which will be mounted at the far left to make turning
on the light easy, and allow for other items that need power. 

There are times when I'll have TOO much light in this room, but that might be a really nice change. So ... we always look at Sharon's annual visit and the State Fair as the bookend of a summer that starts with my trip to Bead & Button in Milwaukee. What did we get done this summer? A LOT! Almost everything is due to DH's single-minded dedication to getting things done. We'll continue to work on this room and move over as much as possible, but winter is coming and I suspect, because we've had a colder spring/summer than usual, that our winter might be longer and colder than usual. I hope not, but it's a possibility we're all whispering here in the Frozen Northlands. 

So - I'm on radio silence for a few days. Don't post too much - LOL. I'll be back to posting next week Wednesday, so have a wonderful Labor Day holiday here in the USA, and enjoy your extended weekend if you're from elsewhere. *Hugs* to all and I'll share food and people photos when I return. 

The Goal Was Catching Up, The Reality Wasn't

So crazy - that's what awaited me when I got back to the shop after just a few days off. My first task was washing all of the counters. I really hate it when I feel grit as I put things back into position. I still have to do a major floor sweep, but at least the counters look better. 

Customers were nicely spaced out, until mid-afternoon when we suddenly got a bunch of people at the same time. This is challenging for Chickie and I, but a real stretch for my Manager and I since he had to help people and his hearing is compromised. But we persevered, got everyone set up with their purchases, and got everyone back out before the next rainstorm hit. 

I sell sheet metal in copper, nickle silver and
red brass, as well as smaller sheets of
sterling silver. It's always hard to get to the
right thickness for restocking. The new system
is much easier, although it took hours to get
it designed and constructed. 

I sell sheet metal - three different base metals (nickle silver, red brass and copper) in gagues (thicknesses) from 16 (thickest) to 28 (thinnest). These are in storage in 6x36 sheets, and have always been really difficult to access easily for the purposes of restocking. We need to pull the 36" sheets and cut them down to 12" lengths before selling them, and it was always a PITA. Yesterday, my Manager got fed up with the old storage method that was really difficult to work with, so spent several hours making a new storage method that now keeps our overstock vertical instead of horizontal. It took him several hours of work to get this accomplished, but it's great. I'm very happy. 

I like this. We were busy getting the sheet metal
resolved yesterday, and we were also busy with
customers once we had managed to complete
that project. The timing was perfect! 

I spent the day in catch-up mode, though. I didn't get a lot of time to check my own projects out, but at least we had customers through the door, sales to make, and got a major storage system worked out and functional. All in all, it was a winning day. It'll take me a few more days to fall back into the groove and rhythm necessary for effective work, but I have confidence that I'll get there. At least my return to the water for my swim was wonderful. I expect that today's swim will also be. 

On that note, I'm hoping to get caught up with comments and your posts while at work today. At least that's the hope, if my computer cooperates. Have a great Tuesday and be kind. Sending *hugs* to all of you. 

Step By Step

Baby steps - that's how our parking lot has been coming. For many years we had been smelling gas out there, especially when it was raining or with the spring snow melt. Gary, our landlord, finally did some checking and discovered that we had an old fuel tank underneath the lot. Apparently, when it rained or snowed, water was getting into the pipe that had let from the tank into the building. He sunk in another pipe to mark the location (as well as to aerate the tank gases), and started investigating how he could dig up the parking lot and remove the tank.

There's actually a slush fund for removing old oil and petroleum tanks from the ground. The City instituted this when many small gasoline stations quit business, but their fuel tanks still remained underground. New owners were reluctant to purchase the empty properties because removing the tanks and checking for any ground contamination by the petroleum, was extremely expensive. So the City put in a fund to cover the removal and soil testing for hazardous materials.

Remember this? In early August large equipment was digging out old
fuel oil tanks from my parking lot. By the end of the day, they had
uncovered a total of five tanks, and a one-day job had turned into a
two-day nightmare. 

Gary managed to get added to that list, and even though it took several years to get around to the actual extraction, it turned into something well worthwhile when instead of one used fuel oil tank, we actually had five! In early August, the tanks were removed, the soil was tested (fortunately we had no contamination) and several dump truck loads of dirt and rock were added to the parking lot to bring back the surface level.

Then we waited.

We all got used to parking without lines in a parking lot of dirt and sometimes mud. Then activity picked up again in late September when crews began to move the dirt around to grade it into preliminary levels. This week the concrete guys came in on Tuesday and poured and sculpted the concrete curbing. That took almost all of one day and they did a beautiful job. Yesterday, Wednesday, the asphalt team arrived.

In the background, you can see a clear line of demarcation where they had
already finished the multi-angled back row. Originally they thought they
would be finished by 6:00 pm, but because of those angles, it actually took
almost an hour longer. 

After regrading the lot to make put in highs for the cars and lows for water removal, the team got started dumping and applying asphalt. It took the team a while to get any real progress because the in and out angles of the back parking row were tricky. At mid-day, my staff sent me the photo above and the back lot was starting to look like we might have pavement once again.

Here's the final coat being put on in front of the back of the building. I'm really
looking forward to going to work today and being one of the first
to drive on the new asphalt, parking in my usual space, now nicely
outlined by concrete bunkers. We don't have painted striping yet, and
my signage still needs to be put in, but we're much closer
and it's such an improvement! 

At the end of the day, after the store was closed and the sun was almost down, they were compressing the final coat. My manager hung around outside to make sure that the vibration of the trucks wouldn't set off our security alarm as they were finishing up in front of the businesses.

There's no street parking today (fall street cleaning is scheduled), so I'm very grateful that they actually got this done yesterday. I'll be there fairly early today and have an opportunity to be one of the first cars to dirty up my new asphalt. I'm really looking forward to it - LOL.

Have a great Thursday. I got a LOT of work done on my holiday cards faceplate yesterday, so I'm quite happy today. Add in the new asphalt and I'm almost delirious - LOL.

We Have Cement!

Do you remember those fuel tanks that were removed from my store's parking lot in early August? The parking lot has been untouched since those huge holes were filled in and the rusty metal taken away. The trees that used to line the center of the lot were removed and two months of parking in the mud without any guidelines ensued. Fortunately most people using our lot were already familiar with the format - which driveway was the entrance, which the exit, and what angles were usually used for parking. 

One week ago our parking lot was blocked off and the promise of concrete curbs and asphalt was spoken of. But then it rained, so the parking lot was one again opened. We were hopeful that eventually something would happen, though, and two days ago returned to a blocked-off parking lot. Now we have cement! Take a look at all that happened yesterday. 

When I arrived in the morning, there were machines, trucks and
guys in bright neon all over the parking lot. My store's building
is beyond the trees, this corner is the far corner of the parking lot where
it is closest to the street. 

Directly in front of my door was this large green truck from the
"Bituminous Roadway" company. They had done all of the asphalt
in front of the store two years ago when our street was completely
eaten up by dinosaurs and restructured. They do very good work. 

By the time I left at 6:15 pm, I had concrete in front of my back door! I
had to take a rather fancy 90-degree turn from my door to the dirt
on the side, because the concrete wasn't 100% set, but it was
do-able without too much hassle. Chickie had a harder time getting out. 

If you look carefully at the previous photo near the door, you'll see one
solitary footprint. That's from Chickie as she attempted to make the jump
from the store (where I'm standing while taking the photo), to the
dirt on the right side. It's a distance of approximately a foot, but it's
straight sideways. I managed to do it without stepping on the new
cement, but Chickie "left her mark" in the lime. 

The concrete guys did a really nice job. This is the back of the parking lot, the
only place we now have trees left. They did curbs around the trees and angled
the spaces in the way we need it for traffic flow. Within the next day or so,
the asphalt guys should arrive and cover the dirt with new asphalt. Then
we should get new parking lines painted and our "Reserved for our customers"
signs replaced. I'm pretty happy right now! 

It's been quite the haul to get this far, but I'm hoping that we enter the winter with a new, smooth parking lot with definite curbs. It'll help with the water drainage too. I've been in this location since the early 1990's and this project is LONG overdue. I can hardly wait for the next step. 

I hope you have a terrific Wednesday. My day is PACKED with stuff that I need to do, repairs to make, and I'm continuing work on my holiday cards. I'll be collecting names and addresses from all of you soon, so keep your eyes open or message me if you want one of my cards for this year. Enjoy your day and spread kindness wherever you go. 

A Dirty Tale

The huge dirt pile is gone - taken down to the patio area one wheelbarrow load at a time. We did the last of it yesterday morning before heading out to the hardware store where we got caught in a deluge of epic proportions. The "light rain" we had been promised apparently never got the memo because the skies opened up in a cloudburst and we were store-bound for 30 minutes before it lessened enough to run to the car.

Look at this amazing rain bomb that fell in Queensland, Australia. Our cloud
burst wasn't quite that dramatic, but it was very wet and certainly not
"Light Rain". These microbursts of rain happen in certain atmospheric
conditions and can drop a lot of rain in a very short time. 

Back home, after the rain had passed and the sun returned, we spent several hours with lines, levels and pavers working out slopes for drainage and where the new patio level will be. We're going to be shaving off quite a bit. Looking at the old patio now, it's quite obvious that 50+ years of tree roots haven't done the brickwork any favors. It undulates and doesn't drain properly any more, so I'm happy we're redoing it.

We strung line and used a line level to establish a basis, then
worked off that in incremental depths for drainage paths. It
was challenging, but I think we have pavers set at the different
depths now so we have something to work from. 

This week will be a busy one. DH will meet with the utility company representative on Tuesday about getting that electric pole guy wire moved eastward to a better location, and we're also hoping for a final meeting with our landscaper to finalize exactly what we want/need done before we sign the contract.

Using a Bobcat tractor would have made moving the large
pile of dirt from the upper yard down to the patio level a LOT
easier. But we didn't have access to one. They can be a
bit tricky to drive. I drove one a few years ago and,
although fun, it had a steeper learning curve than I
had expected. 

At least there will be no additional truckloads of dirt in my immediate future. DH said that it saved him quite a bit of money, but that it also was four days of backbreaking work to get the pile moved down one wheelbarrow load at a time. If he had rented a Bobcat tractor, it would have been much easier. But then the expense savings would have disappeared. Oh well, he had to try. LOL

Apparently the large pile of dirt in my front yard had
been a single truck load from a truck similar to this one.
I think DH said it was 1.7 tons of dirt - a lot of weight
to move by hand. 

Have an excellent Monday. I'm off to swim and then to my Chiropractor. Then breakfast and finally work. It's not a bad plan, all around. Yippee!

Two Became Five!

I'm here today to attest to the fact that there CAN be too much of a good thing. I knew that the excavators had found a third fuel oil tank late in the day, causing the "one day" job to stretch out into two. What the parking lot dirt truly covered was a surprise to all of us.

I don't do selfies often, but this gives you an idea of the size
of these tanks. I'm standing directly in front of the second
of the two tanks removed on the first day. The square hole
was cut into the tank to allow any water or fuel still in the
tank to be removed. Some of the pipes were stuffed inside
the rusted carcass for ease of disposal. The tank is at least
six feet tall, maybe a bit more than that. 

By the end of the first day, the men had dug out two rusted fuel oil tanks, one holding approximately 2000 gallons, the other approximately 500 gallons. The metal detectors were still indicating metal, so they covered the pit back up and restarted on Thursday morning in pouring rain. They uncovered the third tank, then checked and found a fourth, and finally they also found a fifth. One of these tanks was a vertical tank. The head excavator, who has worked at finding and removing old petroleum tanks from abandoned fuel oil heating systems or gas stations for more than 20 years, said he had only seen one other vertical tank in the hundreds of tanks he had found and removed. Now he had a second one to add to his count.

Here are the three additional tanks in situ. The round opening of the tank
on the far left is actually the opening to the vertical tank. The other two tanks,
with their sides opened up, are horizontal. All of the sludge had to be
siphoned and disposed of as hazardous waste before the tanks themselves
could be pulled. 

They estimated that if all went well and they didn't find any other tanks, they could have them removed and the hole back-filled by mid-afternoon. That's exactly what happened. They emptied the tanks, checked for any soil contamination (fortunately there was no leakage or contamination at all), then loaded the tanks into a huge dump truck which hauled them away. Finally they pulled a dirt and gravel mix over the gigantic hole in the parking lot,tamping it down firmly in several smaller layers first with the excavator shovel, before raking and leveling the fill to match the rest of the parking lot.

Here the tanks have all been removed and are waiting to be loaded
into the dump truck and taken away from the property. The crumpled
tank to the left was the vertical tank. Apparently the metal was quite thin
and it fell into itself when the excavator shovel attempted to pull it
out of the soil. The pile of sand, soil and gravel to the right would
fill the void left by the tanks. 

So now we have a parking lot without stripes or other indicators of where to park. That could be a real problem because the lot is very busy between the four businesses sharing our building, so the landlord is going to string guide ropes and do some painting. The new soil needs to settle for a month, then we'll get new asphalt laid down and new painted striping. By late fall or early winter, this project should be complete. It's really lucky that my state has a slush fund to help pay for the removal of these tanks. If my landlord had to pay for all of this out-of-pocket, I suspect those tanks would have remained buried until next century.

Have a great Friday. We're cold here - about 20 degrees colder than we should be at this time of the year. I'm grateful I'm swimming inside today, but it will be a very cold trot outside to the larger pool tomorrow morning. The temps will return to normal next week, but right now I'm dressed in fall clothing!

I'm Ready for Smooth Sailing

The big question for today is whether or not I will have a back parking lot at the shop. Take a look at the photo below, snapped by my Assistant Manager as she was leaving the store last night. Instead of one tank, they actually found two. To remove them, they had to cut down two trees that were in the center of the parking lot, but at least the trees around the boundaries will remain. New asphalt will be put down, but probably not for a week or two to allow for settling of the backfill.

Looking out from our back door, there is a chain linked fence where the
white pickup truck is parked. The large shovel is parked over where
one of the two mid-parking lot trees had been growing. The two large
rusted cylinders are the old fuel oil tanks. 

Of course, during all of this mess, we also lost our data lines once again. That meant we had to physically phone in all credit card transactions until the lines were back up and running. Apparently things were fixed just in time to batch out for the day, but what a mess! I'm really happy I wasn't at work. I got a lot of texts and offered guidance, but I was not about to trudge on down there just to be ineffective.

We have two pools at my YMCA, a 25-yard indoor pool, and a 50-meter outdoor one.
During the summer months, both pools are open on the weekdays (weather permitting)
and only the 50-meter is open over the weekends. The rest of the year we use
the smaller 25-yard pool only and it can get very crowded and choppy. 

Yesterday also started out with just a single lifeguard for the pools, so I ended up swimming in the 50 meter pool instead of the smaller 25 yard one. I never mind the larger pool, it's really a great place to swim, but I do use a different routine for the longer length laps. Still, it was really nice to be outside as the lights turned off and the dawn arrived.

I'm looking for smooth sailing ahead. Hopefully, today will be a day
without any major crisis. 

I'm hoping that everything in the shop got resolved yesterday, both inside and outside. It would be nice if things went smoothly from this point onward. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thursday. I'm still so very happy that I had a day off, a chance to chat with Aearwen, and an opportunity to get caught up on lots of things around the house. Yippee!

Finally - A Day Off!

With the exception of Sunday, I haven't had a day off for two weeks. Today I'm back to a usual schedule and have my regular "day off". I'm deliriously happy. It's not that I'm going to be going crazy, but I don't have to try to pack my usual multiple loads of laundry along with grocery shopping into several weekday nights. I can actually do everything on a single day which frees up my evenings for other things.

Finally a "day off". I'm so happy! 

In addition, I won't be at the shop today so I won't have to deal with our parking lot being completely torn up and redone. Apparently, many years ago, long before I started renting there and I moved there in 1993, there was a business operating in the old building that required a fuel oil storage tank nearby. Over many years it was capped and forgotten, paved over and lurked beneath the parking lot.

Apparently, at one time, our building was heated via fuel oil. Each
of the four stores has independent HVAC now that is gas driven, and
the fuel tank was long ago capped off and forgotten. 

Several years ago we noticed a strong odor of fuel when we got a lot of rain. The landlord did some hunting and research and rediscovered the tank, which is now considered "hazardous waste". Then he began a long and protracted "discussion" with the city about who would remove this old tank, how it would be paid for, etc. It's been more than three years of discussions, but it's finally being excavated and pulled today. The tank will be removed, the hole will be refilled, and the macadam will be replaced.

The parking lot will be blocked off by yellow tape today and no parking
will be allowed while heavy equipment digs up the old fuel oil tank,
refills the gaping hole, and then repaves the parking lot. A lot of
very loud work. 

No cars will be allowed into the parking lot today, something that will affect the veterinarian  and the t-shirt printing shop next door to me far more than it will affect us. The coffeeshop has a front and back door, so they will be fine, but the vet's only entrance opens onto the parking lot, so they can't get customers for the day, and the t-shirt printing place next door to them will have the same issue. My door for the public opens on the street side, so customers can get to me, they just can't park in the lot. But, I suspect that street parking will be quite crowded today.

I'm happy for my day off, and filled with joy that I won't be there
while they are working on the parking lot. Today is a total
win-win for me! 

It's likely that I'll have to skirt the building to get in and open the store this morning. I have to get the computers up etc., and I have to turn off the security alarm when entering my space. The staff will also have to tiptoe their way out along the wall of the building when they shut down and leave tonight. So today will still hold some challenges.

Everything has to be completed today. Starting late tonight, we'll have dropping temperatures and some serious rain for the next 24-36 hours. At least this project got scheduled for a good day - today's weather promises to be perfect! Enjoy your Wednesday, I know that I will enjoy mine!