Riding Along with Wiersema Waste

My in-laws have owned their own garbage business for just over 11 years. Throughout the 9 years that I have been involved with the Wiersema Family, I have learned bits and pieces about the garbage business, seen the trucks, and heard them talk about the routes, the landfill, etc. So, I have always been a little fascinated as to how it all worked. Recently, I was able to help a little by stuffing envelopes or answering a few calls when they were out of town, which meant that I needed to learn more about the roll-off boxes, dumpsters and so forth. And, I have always wondered where all of the garbage goes. I think of the amount of garbage that my little family generates in a week, so it is hard to imagine the amount of garbage that gets dumped daily in a landfill. I have always thought that the landfill would fill up quickly, and when I tried to picture it, all I could see were just mounds and mounds of garbage piled up everywhere. Mark had tried to explain to me how it all worked, but I just had to see it. So, on Tuesday Mark was driving the roll-off truck and had a few boxes that needed to be emptied at the landfill, and he let me ride along! I know many of you are probably thinking, “Seriously Michelle, you wanted to see the giant mound of garbage?” And the answer is "Of course!" But, I also wanted to see how the roll-off truck worked, and quite honestly the landfill is a bit fascinating!  Check out the pictures below:

This is the roll-off truck that I rode in with Mark.  I never realized how high the cab was until I tried to climb in it.  I'm glad we don't have a picture of that.

 This is on the scale at the landfill. At this time, they are weighing the roll-off box and its contents. The road ahead leads to the top of the landfill where all of the trucks are currently dumping.

The road then becomes a dirt road, but we are actually driving on top of garbage!  Every afternoon, the bulldozers cover all of the garbage with dirt and pack it down.  Then it looks like this.  

 We are almost to the top!  Here you can see one of the bulldozers that is driving over the garbage and moving it so that it can be spread out, and then the dirt will be dumped on top of it.  To the left of the bulldozer is the Tipper.  It takes the semi-truck beds full of garbage and tips them up to empty all of their contents. 

 It's hard to imagine how high up you are until you look over the side of the mound you are currently on.  Much of what you see below is also part of the landfill. 

This is Mark rolling up the tarp that was on top of the roll-off container. 

This is the part of the truck that tips the roll-off container.  You can see how it tips the entire box up to empty the garbage, then we drive forward a bit to be sure that the box is empty.

 This is one of the large trucks at the landfill that brings dirt from the bottom to the top to help cover some of the garbage.  

 Of course, I had to get my picture taken with all of the garbage or no one would have believed that I actually went to the landfill!

 Just call me Garbage Girl. :) The man in the bulldozer stopped to smile for the camera as well, but you can't see that. 

I wish I would have had more pictures of Mark hooking up the roll-off containers and pulling them onto the truck.   I have no idea how Mark knew how close to be, or how he knew the containers were centered, but I guess that comes with experience. And, I guess that is why Mark has been doing this for years!

Some interesting facts I learned about the truck and the landfill:

The roll-off truck weighs approximately 16 ton without any garbage in the container. The truck has several mirrors so that you can see along side the truck and the length of the truck.  There are levers outside the truck by the truck bed on the driver's side, so Mark can get out of the truck and use those while watching the roll-off container be pulled onto the truck bed.  These levers are also found inside the truck, so he can sit in the truck if needed. 

As for the landfill, it is much larger than I imagined.  And, I am amazed that when you are driving to the top of the landfill, you are actually driving on top of garbage but it looks like dirt.  The old part of the landfill that was used years ago is now hilly land covered in grass. Of course, there is garbage underneath, but if I didn't know that it was part of the landfill, I wouldn't have thought any different. I also didn't realize how busy the landfill was throughout the day.  I guess I thought it would just be a few garbage trucks coming to empty, and that would be it.  But, we followed a couple of semi-trucks up the hill and I found out that truckloads of garbage are brought to this landfill from transfer sites.  Much of the garbage from the city of Chicago is transferred out to this landfill due to there not being any other landfills near the city.  So, this landfill is pretty busy!  

So, my trip in the roll-off truck was rather interesting and educating! I honestly pictured the landfill as a huge pile of open garbage.  I had no idea that it was covered every afternoon, and I thought it would fill up in just a couple of years.  This landfill is projected to be open for another 20 years!  I was seriously amazed!  A BIG THANK YOU to Mark and Lisa for letting me ride along, and to Lisa for watching Kaylie so that I could ride along with the garbage man! Looking forward to the next trip!

A Weekend of Fantasy Baseball, Friends, and Fun!

This weekend has been a long awaited weekend for me, but probably more so for my husband. It was the Fantasy Baseball Draft weekend, which is planned months in advance and is a huge deal for all of the guys in the Fantasy Baseball League. They have silly team names (most of which I can not post because they are inappropriate), and it is not just one day of discussing players and strategies, but it is an entire weekend. The draft and their league in general is not to be taken lightly. For example, my husband bought Fantasy Baseball magazines and did "research" prior to the draft to help him pick his players. They have many rules or by-laws and the winner at the end of the season even receives a trophy. This year they even had a Winter Meeting to discuss the draft. And once baseball season starts and Fantasy Baseball gets started, I will learn more about baseball players and their stats than I ever needed to know. As many of you can probably imagine, most of us wives or girlfriends tend to seriously dislike Fantasy Baseball because it occupies a lot of our husbands time and it tends to be the main conversation when they all get together. So, my thoughtful husband had a wonderful idea last year and thought that all of us wives should get together during the draft and have a Girls Day or a Girls Night Out. Last year, we got together and hung out with the kids and then went to dinner and it was a lot of fun. This year, Kaylie went to her Grandma and Grandpa's for a couple of days and a few of us girls got together and did a wine tasting and dinner and then went out for a while. What a great idea and a fun night!

The weekend started for us on Friday when our friends came into town and we grilled out. Kelli and I hung out in the kitchen and talked, while the guys sat in the living room and discussed football while watching basketball and researching baseball on the computer. Who knew you could talk about so many sports all at one time?! Talk about multi-tasking! Then Saturday after Kaylie went to her grandparents, it was time for pedicures and some quick shopping. We got home with just enough time to get ready and head to Hopscotch and Vine for the wine tasting and dinner. We had such a fantastic time! It was so nice to spend some time out with just the girls!

Kelli, Danielle, Anna, and me at Hopscotch and Vine

Anna and Danielle were enjoying the Girls Night Out.

Kelli and I were having a great time!

Drinking a delicious raspberry wine before heading out. Earlier we had a little toast to us girls, and it went like this, "Cheers to Chicks!" Thank you Danielle for you clever and cute toast!

After a great night at Hopscotch and Vine, we decided to stop in a few bars before heading home in a cab. We arrived at our friend's home where all of the guys had finished their draft, and everyone was still enjoying the night.

Sunday, after a little lunch, everyone was on their way home. Justin and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day, and went golfing. I have been golfing one other time, and I think I kind of enjoy it! We golfed 9 holes, and I am certainly not good at it, but it may be a fun little hobby (though way too expensive) to try a few times.

I thought that this part of the golf course was so pretty, so I had to take a picture!

Not so good at teeing off, but I'm working on it!

So, this weekend was very fun and it was so nice to spend time with all of our closest friends. I have to say that this was always the weekend I dreaded before because it was a "Guys Weekend," but now it is also a "Girls Weekend" and is a great reason to get together with all of our close friends! Thanks to all of the guys for now giving us girls a good excuse to make it a weekend for us as well! This was a fun and exciting weekend, but also exhausting at the same time! Looking forward to Monday and bringing home Kaylie!

Project Kaylie's Bathroom...Complete!

This last week, my mom surprised us by getting us the cute bathroom stuff that I had been eyeing at Kohl's for Kaylie's bathroom.  I had been watching the prices and patiently waiting, but she beat me to it and bought the adorable Jumping Beans Owl Friends bathroom set.  The plain little white bathroom needed a little color, and so Kaylie and I made a trip to Home Depot, where we purchased this cute pastel violet paint.   Kaylie was then on her way to her Grandma and Grandpa Wiersema's for a couple days, so I thought I better make good use of the time and get to painting!  So, after a few small errors and the help of my wonderful husband on Wednesday night, the first coat was done!!  Who knew that such a small space would take so much time?!  I seriously underestimated the time it would take to paint, and thought I would have the whole thing done in a few hours!  The next morning, Justin was off to work, and I was determined to get that bathroom done before he was home!  Lucky for me, the second coat was a little easier than the first, and the clean-up was minimal.  So, Kaylie's super cute owl bathroom is complete!

Cute little owl shower curtain.  I just love these little owls.  My Grandma P. would have loved this!

This bath rug is just too cute to stand on.

A little view of the paint color.  I think it is so cute!

Then, I decided to get a little creative with my Cricut...I know, big surprise right?!  So, I found this little quote on the internet, cut it using a fun font and my handy dandy Cricut, and ta-da!  Here you have it!  I also tried making a little owl, which is super cute, but it doesn't match.  So, our little owl friend will be coming down, but still pretty cute!

Look's a little crooked, I may have to do a little re-adjusting.  

Between the bathroom project and a little Spring cleaning, I would say that last week was a very productive one!  I am a list person, and I have several lists going of projects that need to be completed and weekly cleaning that needs to be accomplished.  So, it was very rewarding to get to cross one off of my Project List!  Of course, I am sure something else will come along and replace it!  Well, here is to hoping for another productive week!  Though, if it stays nice and warm outside, I see Kaylie and I doing a lot of playing and a little less working.  Happy Monday! 

New to the Blog...

Well, I finally gave in and decided to try this whole blogging thing.  It looks like so much fun when other people do it, so I thought I better try it too.  As I find more things to talk about, I will add more tabs.  As you can see I have added a tab for my Cricut, mostly because I seriously love it and spend a lot of my free time (what free time I have these days) making new things with it or looking up new projects that I can create using the Cricut.  It is an amazing little machine, so I have added it to the blog. 

Obviously, I had to have a Kaylie tab!  I am lucky enough to spend every day at home with her and she is constantly doing something new, whether it be saying a new word, singing or as of this weekend, walking!  She is constantly entertaining us with her new antics and all of the new things that she is learning.  So...I expect there will be plenty of Kaylie blogs.

My other hobby is cooking, and I am constantly looking up new recipes to try.  Luckily, my husband is adventurous enough to try them all, and bares with me when they don't turn out as delicious as I may have hoped!  However, if it has spinach in it, he is a little reluctant to try it.   So, I will be adding new recipes there as well. 

Hopefully this whole blogging thing will work out, and I will have more to talk about as the days go on.  Thanks for visiting my blog!  Have a Happy Tuesday!