And the final secret is ....

Remember a few days ago, me sharing a few deep dark secrets with you? Well, I promised a third one, and I'm here to deliver. You'll want to read the *whole post*.

So basically, the best way around here to get something done, is to mention in front of my *fifteen-year-old* how much something bothers me. He's one of those kids that cleans his room without you asking, takes care of the chickens, or when I come home, he'll have spent 6 hours working on the chicken coop in 98 degree weather - and I never asked.

Yes, those kids exist.

The other thing I can do, is to say this to my husband: "it's important to me". This will pretty much guarantee that he'll do whatever it is I'm asking, even if it's begrudingly. In turn, I use this phrase pretty sparingly. I know when not to blow a good thing.

So the other secret, the other pain, the other pile of ugliness hanging out in my yard was this:

No, not the chicken coop, the pile of crap in front of it.

What is it? (Besides a toilet and some wire of course) Well, we bought this house 3 years ago - almost exactly. This whole thing was a spur of the moment purchase. We weren't looking for a house, and we hadn't saved up for a down payment, closing costs - *anything*. My brother-in-law just so happens to have his real estate license, and because I had said something in passing, he brought this property to my attention on a Saturday. By Sunday, we had put in a contract.

Long story short, the process to close on the house (it's a HUD repo) took about 3 months. It was a pain and a nightmare, but on the up side, that gave us time to save up a down payment and closing costs. Seriously, we did it in 3 months. We worked overtime, we had several garage sales, sold some stuff on ebay, we did it.

Did I mention we had to pay for a roof too? Yeah, it had to be done immediately because most of the problems this house started at the roof, and what's the point of putting in hardwood floors, when the roof is just going to leak on them right?

The point to this story is, that by the time we paid for the closing costs, the down payment, and the roof, we were tapped. OK, not like our rent check was going to bounce, or we were eating ramen for the next 90 days, but we were skimming the bottom of the bucket. Because of this, when we ripped off the roof, we knew we were not going to be able to afford *at that very second* to pay for someone to haul off all the construction waste. It was going to cost several hundred dollars, and in the grand scheme of things, I needed toilets worse.

There was a cement pad there, (remember me talking about the fire in the last post?), well this is where the old garage was before. It's where we decided to put our chicken coop, and it made a great spot to "temporarily" dump construction waste thinking in a couple months we'd borrow a truck and take it to the dump.

Then it got bigger, and bigger and HEAPING. There were those pesky toilets (the former owners broke them all before they left), all the shingles, paneling strips from the walls, and then later we added more from when they put on the foundation.

Sadly, the road to hell is paved with good intentions - and lazy asses.

We just kept putting it off. Trust me, it was a suck job. I was slowly chipping away at it. Every time I had an empty bag from the chicken feed, I'd fill it with crap and put it out for the trash man... and O.M.G. that was just the most redneck sentence ever.

So back to the day we're all outside, and watching the chickens. I say something about how the shed is embarassing me, as does the pile of CRAP. *e.m.b.a.r.a.s.s.i.n.g.* Everyone takes note. Tanner painted the shed. CHECK.

The a few days ago - Wednesday ironically is anti-procrastination day according to flylady - Gene out of the blue told me to rent a truck. I did some research, found a coupon code, and 1/2 hour later was picking up a moving truck.

It only took about 2 hours in the heat with lots of breaks but viola!:

Oh, I know it's not the taj mahal, but lord, it's soooo much nicer to look out the back door. Those chairs are our chicken watching chairs, and the old tub is our temporary "end table" for drinks. LOL. I am already talking to Gene about putting pavers on it and buying a nice patio set.

Yes, my chicken coop will have a deck. No lie.

There was one casualty in the process..
ME!!

I was helping unload and made the mistake of standing behind Gene. Like any good center, he snapped the shingle (football) into my left eye. I totally saw it coming. It was scary and dude I was so upset I thought maybe my eyeball was going to be hanging out of my head.

In reality, all that ended up happening was I walked around like a pirate for one day, and used a lot of eye drops. I did pull some asphalt out of my eye and that's the most bloodshot it's ever been.

I will now stop talking about it because my eye is starting to water thinking about it.
(I have issues)



Now for the fun part...
I've decided to give away a gift card to Home Depot, Lowes, whatever store works for you - one penny for every pound that we took to the dump. They weighed us, so I know exactly :)

All you have to do is guess the weight!

Here's the rules:
1. Only one guess per person - I know things, I'm all seeing and there's hell to pay.
2. You MUST come back to claim your prize - I'll post the winners here next Friday night
3. Anyone can enter, even family or friends (although they never do!)
4. Closest person wins - this is not price is right, so you can go over. (my husband makes up the price is right rule and it annoys me lol)
5. Aren't chickens cute? I just wanted to say that.

Here's a couple hints.
1. The pile had shingles in it - they were crappy shingles, not the nice ones we put back on the house. The roof covers around 1600 square feet of house.
2. We also threw away a washing machine.
3. There were 2 whole toilets. *eyeroll*
4. Isn't this just the coolest white trash contest ever?

I'm anxious to see your guesses!!

PS - I think I'm done living a lie now. I feel cleansed (pun intended)