This past weekend was one of those weekends where I stayed busy for the entire time but didn't get very much done in the way of progress towards my multitude of goals.

I didn't get the rest of the trim put down around the walls or the mini-blind hung in the bathroom.

I didn't get the gravel hauled for the driveway or the holes filled in the little road leading up to it. I didn't mow the grass or sweep out the dead bees from inside the building.

However, I can't mark progress by concentrating on all the things I didn't do. Instead, I am going to try to ply my abilities to look into the things I did accomplish.

I got to have a nice meeting with the fellow who bought the old family farm. He wants to purchase my land there as well, but says he doesn't have that much money right now. However, I find my sympathy a bit lacking for him, considering that he just shelled out about a quarter million for the the old family place. I feel sure he can dig up another $30,000 or so somewhere.

After that, I went to one of my friend's houses and picked up the 32 landscaping timbers I purchased from him. It all started when he bought some lumber off of me and didn't have the cash to pay me. He bought about $70 worth and told me he would pay me in two weeks. In the meantime, he picked up some used landscaping timbers in a trade and offered me the lot of them for $45. After a long and extensive dickering session, I haggled him down to $30.

However, I had to agree to move the timbers, as well as take a load of his garbage in my truck to the landfill, with him helping me load and unload mine and his garbage.

Sometimes these little additions to deals are worth more than the deal itself, especially when you consider that my four-wheel-drive pickup only gets about 14 miles per gallon.

So, I tried to make the most of his labor by throwing away an old carpet that mice had attacked, an electric stove that was beyond repair and several other items of little or no value and extreme bulk. I started off by going after the timbers. After we had loaded them up and moved them to my place, being careful not to get stuck by any of the nails that were protruding out of some of the ends, we filled the truck with the trash from around my house.

We then had to get his garbage, a portion of which was old food out of his freezer — not a pleasant experience to say the least. The rest was regular old household garbage in cans and boxes.

After unloading all of that stuff at the dump, he asked to stop off by the auto parts store to pick up something. I don't really know what he bought, but I picked up a set of spark plugs for my pickup truck. After that, I dropped him off and headed home.

I had several things to get done there, but ended up moving some things from my land to another place, showing a couple engines in the meantime. The next thing I tackled was trying to get my school bus started.

It wasn't an easy task, considering that it hadn't been started in two months or more. However, after charging the battery for awhile, I finally got it to fire up and run. I try to start it when I can, just to make sure it still will. I still need to decide what I am going to do with it, if anything. Maybe I'll continue to use it for a camper this summer.

After that, a few of my family members came by the house and we had a card game, but I somehow managed to be on the losing team every time. For some reason, life goes that way from time to time. I can't stand to lose at cards or any other game, for that matter. Even so, I never show my distaste for losing. If you don't care if you win or lose, why would you play to begin with? I play to win. I bet most people feel the way I do, but most won't admit it. I can't imagine anyone who likes to lose. Of course, I don't get too upset by something like a card game, but I did try to pick a different partner for the next round.

After all, the bad card playing had to be all my partner's fault, right? Anyway, Sunday afternoon I put up a new mailbox and went to my sister's house to help them out a bit. Her husband had 'fixed' the steps on the back of the house and then later they 'fixed' him.

I tried to tell him earlier that the steps were going to fall, in no uncertain terms. They were perched precariously on cinderblocks with two little straps of metal holding them under the band board around the porch. If you know anything about construction, you are cringing already. I tore down the old steps, placed them where they should have been to start with and put it all back together, having only used three five-foot long 2x4 scraps in the process. In the end, the new and improved old steps were stable and strong, ready for a few more years of up and down traffic.

Once that job was done, I then started to put the new spark plugs in my truck when I discovered that there were only six plugs. After looking at my receipt, I verified that I had purchased the right plugs, but the parts store shorted me two. I wasted most of the rest of the afternoon going back to the parts store and getting the rest of the plugs. At least they gave me the right kind of plugs, or at least I think they did. OK then, at least it still runs.

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