#95 He Plants Trees

This past Christmas my hubby bought me two Christmas trees.  Yes, treeS.  I ended up with four Christmas trees in my house and have concluded that it still wasn't enough.  

It's at Christmas time that I tend to find out who is as obsessed with Christmas as I am, and who just likes to have a few days off from work.  I'm usually the minority, but I've made my peace with it.     

In case you missed my Christmas post, here's what the live trees in my house looked like:

There is something special about a live tree at Christmas time.

There is something even more special about a live tree that you can plant in your backyard after Christmas is over.  We did this once before over the course of the six married Christmases we've had, but then took a little break because: a) we waited until it was too close to Christmas and potted Christmas trees were not to be found or b) we were lazy that year and just didn't do it at all.

We made up for it this year by buying two trees.

I'm absolutely in love with the long pine tree.  The other one is beautiful too, after all, it is exactly what a Christmas tree should be, but the long pine one is so rustic and romantic.

Speaking of rustic and romantic....

Hubby finally had the time to plant my trees for me.  The tree to the right in this picture is the one we planted a few years ago.  

Planting the trees was an eye opener to the sad state our backyard is in due to us simply ignoring it for the last....three years.

Reminder: Don't judge me.

While hubby planted the basic Christmas tree in the backyard, I pretended I knew what I was doing and tended to our little splotch of land beside our porch.  There were leaves, weeds, papers, cans, and all kinds of other wonders buried in that area.

Two pregnant trash bags later and the area was ready for hubby to plant the other tree.

Even with all that, I don't think the front area beat the jungle growing in our backyard.

It's pathetic.

Everyday I pray and thank God that my town doesn't issues tickets for people who have disgusting backyards.

The goal now is to try and fix the backyard up and perhaps even start a small garden.

I'm mad, I know.

To be continued?

#84 He is a Home Owner

I have officially become an old lady.  And I'll tell you who the culprit of my old-lady-hood is: home ownership.

Last week, my mom was dropping me off at my house when we saw some neighborhood boys sneaking past the beautiful fence hubby recently built.  They were going past the end of the fence and through a spot at the end of my property where a slat of fence is down.  From there they climbed up onto a board propped on my/my neighbor's fence to my neighbor's back shed.

This sounds confusing and I promise there is a picture further down after more of the story unfolds.

So basically, this is an unsafe situation we're dealing with here and I've got a motley gang of four or five of what I'm judging are 10-year-old boys sneaking past my fence into my and my back neighbor's yard to jump over our fences onto this crazy contraption to get into one of the boy's backyards.

I understand, boys will be boys.  But not on my liability.

So my mother whips her car around the the back and I yell out of my window, in my sweetest teacher voice possible, "Don't cross into my backyard to do that again,"

They all look at my blankly and kind of give the quiet, "Crap, we've been caught" sound.

Then my mother tags on, in her sweet concerned mother voice, "I'm afraid you might get hurt doing that.  It's dangerous.  I'm sure your parents don't want you doing that,"

To which the boy who is my neighbor says that his mother knows he does it and is fine with it.

I seal the deal by emphasizing they are not to do it again and we leave the scene of confrontation.

After a few minutes inside my house, my instincts tell me to peek in the backyard.  And of course, I see the hooligans crossing back over the fence into my yard.  I run outside to confront the disobeyers and say to the boy who is my neighbor, "Hey, didn't I tell you not to cross over into my yard?"

"I had to," he says.

"No, you didn't.  Don't do it again!  I'm liable if something happens to you,"

At this point his back is to me and he's walking away into his house as if I'm his mother or something and he doesn't need to listen to me anymore.  However, if I had been his mother I would have grabbed him by the shoulders and told him, "Hey! You don't walk away from your mother like that!".

I figure he won't pass the message along to his pals, so I go back around the corner of my house to catch the rest of the rascals and tell them what for.

After questioning their listening skills, then following up with a lecture about not crossing into my property and me being liable if they get hurt, a few of the boys don't say a word, but have at least made eye contact with me.  However, this skater punk looking kid stops dead in his tracks and says to me, "It's not your property,"

I'm bewildered at the audacity of this little one, yet quickly reply, "Yes.  It is,"

"No.  It's not,"

"Yes.  It is,"

"No. (Attitude head shake) It's not,"

"Yes.  It is,"

"No.  It's not!"

To which I finally said, "Shut up you disrespectful brat faced punk and never cross my property again,"

Okay, I didn't say that.  It would have been nice to at that point though.

I realized then that I was arguing with someone who was not even half my age, who probably couldn't even say all his times tables correctly, so I said calmly and plainly, "If you go in my property again, I will call the cops,"

As soon as I said that, I almost laughed right there.  Call the cops?  Wow.  I have become an old lady.

Rightfully so though.  It is amazing what owning your own home will do to you.  It will turn you from what you thought you were into an old lady with white hair who peeks out her window every ten minutes making sure those rascals aren't sneaking into your yard again.

And of course, that has been me for the past couple of days.  On Christmas Eve, I watched as the boys stood in position planning to tread on my property again.  The skater punk stood outside of my fence (not on my property) and the boy who is my neighbor was positioned on top of the crazy contraption.  At this point, another slat of fence at the back of the property was also down either because of the wind (yeah, okay...) or their constant crossing over the fence.

P.S. Don't judge my backyard.  It's winter, okay people?

So I decide to snap a few photos which I wish I could post but can only imagine must be illegal for me to do since they are minors.

Hmmm....kind of like them crossing into my and my back neighbor's properties is probably illegal.

As I'm snapping pictures of the boys blatant disobedience, I hear my neighbor (the father) call out to his son, "Get off of there.  I don't want you up there anymore.  It isn't good for the roof (of his shed),"

Well, well, well.  I wouldn't necessarily say, "problem solved", but I can at least say smugly that it looks like mommy isn't okay with this anymore.