the green house

In the year 2000 my husband and I were married. Two years later we became homeowners. 15 years later we still occupy the same house. Since move-in, we have painted, replaced a roof, furnace, plumbing, electrical, and gutted bathroom and kitchen. We have added flowers, deck, patio, pond, and fence. Countless redecorating and repairing. It never ends. Welcome to home ownership. Upon first sight of our future home, I was drawn to it's big front porch, perennial gardens, wood floors, and dare I say dry basement. Believe it or not, that's a big deal. It had good bones, what seemed like privacy, and the perfect size for my husband, myself, and our 200 lb dog. It even had a fence albeit a chain link, but enclosure none the same. That quickly changed. I do not remember exactly when the house next door started to become a nuisance. I just remember one day suddenly feeling I needed to put some distance between the 2 properties, hence the new 6' privacy fence. Since then, the green house to the north of us has been a revolving door of bad language, bad manners, ill-behaved children, thieves, ex-cons,unemployed foster parents, cable stealing relatives(theirs not ours), countless pets, drug dealers, and Catholic charities. That last one, I still have PTSD. The loudest dirtiest neighbors who left the entire house infested with cockroaches which of course decided to venture to my kitchen drawer thus giving me a mini nervous breakdown. I don't do well with roaches. I'm not one of those who can live in warmer climates or big cities because my irrational fear runs deep.Once I had a 2 inch Florida stowaway in my suitcase and lost my ability to breathe. Rats, mice, snakes, spiders, no problem, but one of those skittery hard-shelled creatures enters my line of sight and I'm done. Anyways, I digress. We have seen all sides of humanity move in and out of the house next door. They never stay long so I try not to worry too much about any of it. Until recently or rather the past 2 years. I believe it was then our current crop of deviants took up residence. I don't recall which came first, worse or more worse, but in any case there they were in all their tank top wearin' party in the driveway, curse at anything and everything, berate your woman, list goes on glory. The fights and police and arguments over spending all the check on weed or not letting me see my kids, etc. etc. The troubled violent tween yelling obscenities every time he went off his meds. I only know that last fact because the foster mom likes to have all her colorful cell phone conversations in the driveway. They all spend a lot of time in the driveway which resides on the other side of my fence. We tend to use the front porch. So now that you have an idea of what I live next to I want to introduce you to their animals or pets if you will. The word pet brings to mind something you love and take care of not these poor animals desperate to get away. This I know because we can't seem to keep them out of our yards. I am constantly dealing with animal waste and all it's loveliness. There is currently one female Pitbull(from downstairs)and one striped feline(from upstairs). For some reason these 2 forlorn ragged animals use our yard as their escape opting to hide in my garage or under the porches or as their personal litter box leaving excrement where we walk or hidden among my flowers. Poop is a nuisance. A big stinky pain in my ass. It makes me crazy. Today I caught her highness leaving a big deposit in my yard before she slunked away nipples dragging on my walkway. I can ignore a lot of things. I can ignore the loudness, the drug deals while I pot plants outside or even the tween destroying something against my fence, but poop, poop as they say is a game changer. Ugh, I hate that expression, but for this, it suits. For the moment I have taken to shoveling and flinging the offense back into their rented yard. I have dropped mothball sachets all over my yard so now I look crazy and my yard smells like an estate sale. For now this is my cowardly passive-aggressive way of taking on the green house. See, I don't want my property or belongings messed with. I don't want to make any trouble, I just want the animals to stop crapping in my yard. Have a little neighborly respect. Unfortunately, respect is not something my neighbors are familiar with or practice. Still I hope for the best. If the owner of the dog would ever come out of his rental than I would try to peacefully speak with him. Seeing that he never does except at 4 am to do bong hits with his customers, leaves me with my current course of action. I don't think this will stop anything, but it gives me a little peace of mind. Venting or rather ranting to you lovely readers gives me peace of mind. I write this with the hope that balance will restore and karma will win. I write this in hopes of a shit free yard. I write this to all future homeowners, may you take a closer look at your potential neighbors before you offer up your dollars and sign the papers. Good night world, I'm going to have a glass of wine.

Journeys

Wow, here we are, 2017. Yikes, this past year has certainly been a ride! I can NOT believe I haven't written since March. You probably thought you'd heard the last of me, but no, you won't be rid of me that easily. When I started this blog I was in the midst of utter despair. I needed an outlet to vent my feelings of frustration over, well, life, hence Kids, Careers, and Crappy Economy was launched. If you've managed to follow along all this time then you know the struggles my husband and I had with our careers and parenthood in a time of deep economic depression. Depression? WTF? The Depression was during my grandmother's time not mine! It was a cruel twist of fate and circumstance that lead us through too many years of angst and worry. That's where my writing came in. I would feel so hopeless that life and the way I wanted it was going to forever elude us. Writing was one of the many ways I coped or at least tried to cope with a succession of what felt like failures on our part as individuals, parents, entrepreneurs. Fast forward to the present( because no good ever comes from ruminating on the past)and there is peace or some semblance of it anyway. I have climbed my version of Everest and I am at the pinnacle looking down on a whole new journey because life doesn't stop when you've achieved one goal; there is always another on the horizon waiting to be conquered. Finally achieving financial peace and I don't mean wealth and material goods. I mean old fashioned paying all the bills and realizing you can still go get $3 tacos and a margarita because life is good and you finally feel calm because the only thing you ever wanted was to not worry about stability. Not having a store rent and utilities to pay anymore has greatly added to my financial freedom. Crunching numbers and realizing I can not only make it on my terms, but go farther than I thought possible doing what I do without the safety net of a storefront has opened so many new doors. So many new adventures, relationships, achievements this past year. Just looking back, even at the hardships because the hardships only pushed me to be better, learn more, try new ways, etc. Without the challenge, how does one learn? So I look back at 2016 and I think, it wasn't a bad year, it wasn't a good year, but it was most definitely a challenging year. Doors opened and doors closed. One major door closing was the passing of my mother-in-law. The sheer suddenness of it took us all by surprise. Honestly, I thought she was going to torture me for the next 10 years. Joking, only joking. I miss that woman something fierce. Small yet mighty with a heart big enough for her family and then some. The bravest strongest woman I knew. Gone. I have no one to call or fight with every morning. So many greats lost this past year. It's funny because I had no intention of writing a 2016 recap. I'm still not sure where I'm going with this post. I sat down to write because I was feeling particularly frustrated with my 8 year old and his homework and his absolute need to procrastinate over everything just to torture this mama. My husband and I try to raise our child the way we were raised. We are trying to teach him the important things like independence, respect, kindness, communication, logic, rules, ACCOUNTABILITY.  This is a household where we use the word no. Trying to make an 8 year old boy learn and understand how to think for himself and take initiative is positively maddening. I'm not talking big issues either, I'm talking about starting with the little things like brushing teeth and getting in the shower on his own or getting dressed for school or remembering spelling words. Knowing to do these things without us asking is all I dream about. I could go on and on about this subject, but then dear readers, I fear your attention may wander and you will click the back button only to send my words whirling through cyberspace. So, I am going to shut it down gently. 2016 is over. We are in a new year. It is a strange year with even stranger things looming on the horizon. I will not let that uncertainty deter me from my journey. I will continue to work hard and try to be a good role model for my child and love these 2 men with all that I have and all that I am. That is really all I wanted to say. Happy new year World. Peace.