It seems my days are a blur of activity, even when I'm sitting on my butt. If I'm not a frenzied check writer to keep on top of bills that will be coming in during my post-partum days, I'm blitzing to get these kids to finish work samples for their evaluator. Then comes the evening out of nowhere, and my nesting habits have to be cut short to make dinner before I affix myself to my husband's side for the rest of the evening to get fence stuff managed.
Oh, and John decided that this upcoming weekend is fence time. The pickets have been ordered and received, lumber purchased and delivered, paint acquired, tools assembled, and the beginning stages of overall installation have begun. Right now, painting the pickets is the name of the game and you can all call me Tom Sawyer, only without the cunning to manipulate every passer-by into partaking in the work with/for me. It seems all I can do in between sloshing paint all over these pickets is yell at the neighbor kids to quit digging holes in my freakin' garden.
This fence will be SUCH a blessing!
Until then, it is SUCH a time suck!!!
Seriously, our neighbor has a daughter who is very unhinged. If she's not carelessly trampling little kids and hurling dirt at others, she's shrieking at her toddler brother and sister for every tiny offense. Just being near her puts me on edge, and I feel terrible about that. She's got to be in her late tweens, early teens, she is bossy, quick to anger, she nearly knocked John over while running around in our yard, and threw a garden shovel full of dirt in my daughter's eye yesterday evening. I know it was an accident on her part, but she doesn't pay attention to anyone around her until it's time to yell. I hate that I feel so repelled by her; that her very presence makes me want to throw my hands up and immediately remove myself and others from her vicinity.
And she's not the only one. Our other neighbors have two little girls who have no concept of personal property. They used to help me weed my garden and we'd talk about stuff, which I absolutely adored doing and I'd give them some produce in return, but then they took it as license to help themselves to anything in our yard. They used some of my beets as sidewalk chalk, they prematurely picked my apple tree clean of its apples, they tried using our hoses (and water) to spray at other neighbor kids, they have cut paths in our side yards from the constant through-traffic they (and others) create, they have ruined a bike that a friend loaned to us for my youngest, and the other neighbor kids took their example and contributed to all of that.
"Fences make the best neighbors" is no joke.
I was beginning to feel bad that the "Oklahoma panhandle" part of our property cuts so close to one of the other houses, but we paid for it, we are still paying taxes on it, and these kids continue to seemingly do everything in their power to ruin it. I'm kinda finished feeling bad. Once the fence is up, it will be the new home of my clothesline. Once the side yard is fenced in, the garden in the shade will be moved to the sunny spot out front and a hammock will be placed in the shade for our enjoyment.
Anyway, the house is a mess, inside and out. I can't seem to stay on top of it, no matter how motivated and well-planned I am. Oh well. Better keep moving rather than cry here about it. :-)
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