Someday I will get a head of the timing. After working such long hours for a little over a month I realize that it is no longer an option for me to do that anymore. Just imagine not balancing your check book for over a month.. putting off the “Honey Do’s” for over a month and letting all of the things you are supposed to do pile up for that long as well.. needless to say, I have no idea where we are financially and have a mountain of things that I need to do with the regular daily additions being piled on top of it every day.
So I do have a question, many people that have known me for, well, really any time at all, realize that I am tight. By tight I mean: “penny pincher”, Cheap, or as I like to consider it, Frugal, innovative.. really it has always come down to the fact that I really don’t like spending all my money in one place because I like to spend it in many places. I don’t like to believe that just because it is expensive or name brand that it is better than things that aren’t. As you follow this post, you will get a better idea as to what I mean because I will be reviewing these things that I consider cheap. Now, getting to the point, as you know I recently had a new driveway put in and replaced my old sidewalk with a new curb, gutter and sidewalk. Initially the thought was to do as much as I could while still having the professionals do the critical installation of the concrete its self. The more we got into it the more I realized that it was not worth it to me to be “Frugal” This last Saturday made that even more evident as I tried to unload the trailer that contained the waste from the old sidewalk. When this project was in process, I had told them to load the waste on my heavy duty trailer (to save on the cost of getting a waste container) in the end my contractor went ahead and got one any way to haul off most all of it. By Most all of it, I mean that the stuff that was already in the trailer remained there. Saturday morning, I hooked up the trusty S10 Blazer to the trailer loaded to the heap and headed out. (now, Yes, I was fully aware that this was heavy and I needed to take it slow since it had no trailer brakes ) so That is exactly what I did. I took it slow and went on as many back roads as possible.. as I approached the dump the blazer was struggling.. there is a long steep hill that leads to the dump. As the engine bogged down I would manually shift it down to keep as much momentum up as possible, really I just ended up going to first and hoping that it would make it at all. At the weigh in, (after I received many odd looks) the gentleman there told me that I was within weight so I could use my pass. ( the limit was 1-TON) but the look on his face indicated that he was really letting it slide since I was really over the limit. Keep in mind that this is a ¼-TON vehicle I was pulling it with. That is not the point though. As I pulled into place to unload and began working to get it off, it became evident that this was not going to be as easy as I thought I used a high lift jack to lift the first piece to near vertical, doing everything I could do to stay out of the “danger zone” if it were to fall.. once at near Vertical, I assumed that I would be able to push it the remaining way over and thus off the trailer.. nope, it did not even move. This one piece of concrete had to weigh 500-1000lbs by its self. (I’m leaning more toward the 1000lbs as I can usually leg press over 400lbs and all I was trying to do was push it over.. .. to keep it short, after destroying every tie-down in my arsenal and with the great assistance of a front loader, the trailer was emptied.
(point? – sometimes it is worth a little extra to pay someone to do things that you “think” you can do yourself)
