Attic Kitty

There's a new kitty hanging out outside my front door. We call him "Attic Kitty", because during the blizzards this winter, he somehow found a way into our attic from the roof.

In the middle of the night of the first snow storm, we heard meowing coming from the attic. He had gotten up on the roof and enlarged a whole that had been in our vent and climbed in and just wanted to let us know he was there. Hubby went up into the attic and fed him, he sounded so pitiful.

We didn't fix the hole until this spring, but we only fed him when the weather was the absolute worst, cause we didn't want to encourage him to stick around. Now he sits out on our front porch step in the morning and when I get home from work, meowing and trying to rub up against me. The kids sneak cat food out to him (like the 5 indoor kitty mouths I have to feed aren't enough.)

He's sweet, maybe 4 months old or just very small. But he seems to have mange or something, he's missing alot of hair on the insides of his back legs. He's completely black. Hubby says he's a he, I haven't looked, lol. Last week we went the whole week without feeding him, hoping he'd go back home, and instead, he left us most of 2 very fat mice on the sidewalk. Guess he thought we'd run out of food. Very thoughtful of him, but eww!

I imagine he "belongs" to the guy who keeps a bunch of feral cats in his abandoned house across the street, or one of the new neighbors, so I don't want to take him to the SPCA or anything, so I just live and let live. I DO NOT NEED another CAT!

The neighbors from hell

Do you have problem neighbors? How does a non-confrontational woman deal with really bad neighbors? I try not to let the little stuff bother me. Over 12 years I have watched this family deteriorate. I feel sorry for them. At the same time, I pray every day that they get foreclosed upon, or she loses her daycare liscence, or the sneaky little boy finally gets caught doing something really bad and they takehim away.

The stuff that goes on over there, I can't believe she still has clients. My son's birthday party, and they are throwing stuff over the fence. Fishing lures, of all things, at least not injurous, like the time theythrew rocks and hit my littlest onein the face. Non-confrontational I may be, but that time I went over there angry. I pounded on the door for 5 minutes. All the little daycare kids went running inside whenthey heard my DS scream and start crying. You would think at least an adult daycare provider could answer the door? Nope.

It wasn't until I found her phone number and left a message on her answering machine that they could tlk to the cops if they didn't want totalk to me about it that they returned my phone call. The Grandmother was apparently filling in for the care provider, she wasn't there. Grandma proceeded to let me know she didn't know who did it, but that it wasn't her grandson.

Today, after watching more lures fly over the fence, I clean the pool and find a large, sharp, shard of concrete at the bottom of my pool, along with several Maryland river rocks, and more fishing lures. I'd had it. DH and I walked over there and knocked on her door. She didn't answer, but one of her daycare kids did. We ask for her and she comes to the door all defensive already. We tell her, we are not trying to be a bother, but this shit needs to stop.

We tell her about the party, she says she wasn't even home yesterday. We tell her that's besides the point. Her backyard was full of kids throwing stuff over the fence. She says she'll have to ask her son about it. No apology, no remorse. So then we give her the rocks and the concrete. She tells me it wasn't her daycare kids, they haven't been outside, an outright lie, because I was watching them while they played with a ball in the yard, and threw more fishing lures. She also proceeds to tell me it wasn't Anthony, becasue he's not home. I told her, I saw with my own eyes the fishing lures flying over the fence and the girls outside playing ball, and she proceeds to ask them if they threw anything over the fence. No they say.

I tell her I'm sure you couldn't afford to spend a mortgage payment on a new pool liner anymore than I can, and she needs to make sure it stops, and we left. So what do I do? What are my rights? Certainly not the first time I've thought of spending a mortgage payment on a video surveillance system to protect my property investment, since it seems I'm always lying to her. Show her proof? It's a damn shame. I have to hope their only goal was the willfull destruction of property, and not the injury or death of one of my kids or pets with that sharp chunk of concrete. Damn shame. Do I pray for them, or pray for deliverance from them? Any suggestions?

Bak 2 Skewl

DD started last week. The DS's got an extra week of summer, but they, too, are back in school. I so hate to see the summer end. Summer is sun and swimming, the beach and amusement parks, sleeping in and staying up late, vacations and visits. I love all the seasons, but summer is my favorite. This summer was especially great. The new pool lead to many days outside with the family. The barbecue was fired up almost every day. The patio got a lot of use, and we ate together as a family every night. Even DH said this was the best summer he could ever remember. PLUS, I finally caught up with a missing bff on Facebook, and we managed to get together for a weekend and meet each others families. Makes Labor day almost a killjoy. I am sad that the pool needs to be closed soon.

Strangely, the kids were ready to go back to school. DD missed her friends, and was looking forward to her Dance minor this year. She has already brought home the first fundraiser of the year, as well as the first field trip permission slip. They are going to hit the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire on October 14th. She will perform with the other 8th grade Vocal majors from Cab Calloway, and she has to wear a costume. Very exciting for her.

The DS's New School held their annual beginning of the school year tribunal. Noah wants to have a bug class. The boy is buggy about bugs! I can see him going into Forensics like Grisholm from CSI and being able to tell how long a body has been decomposing by counting the bugs and studying the maggot life cycle. Ewww!!!

Kenny is jealous about the Field trip. I did tell him he could write a proposal and set up a field trip as well, but he is afraid he can't do a good job. That is his focus for the year, to learn how to conquer his fear of nearly everything. I don't know how much of his issues stem from fear, and how much is from distrust and a distinct lack of faith in anything. but we will do what we can for this young boy, and hope for the best.

Another summer is gone, but Fall is just around the corner. Here comes the beautiful changing colors of the leaves and the denuding of the trees. Halloween is drawing near, always a fun holiday, and DD has asked for a Broadway show for her coming birthday.

My hope is that the mildness of the summer bodes well for a crispy cold and snowy winter, with lots of snow days, huddled in front of the fire place and nursing hot chocolate mugs to warm our frozen, snowman-making hands. Goodbye summer, you will be missed!

Stay-cation part 2

So, yeah, the landscaper came in at $2400, twice what I had left in the budget. So, we are doing the work ourselves, which leaves me with a big pile of dirt still in the backyard. I did find someone on Craigslist looking for fill dirt, I hope they'll take it all! But, since I wasn't paying for the landscaper, we decided to spend a little money on a new grill. Our old one, about 10 years old, was done. We got a good deal on a nice grill at Lowe's, and DH cooked out Saturday and Sunday night. All the kids had friends over at least once this weekend, and the pool is holding up great! We are getting ready for the middle Childs 12th birthday, and will be setting up for a luau this weekend. Aloha!

Stay-cation!

The pool is in! After spending all that money last year on landscaping the back yard (to help sell the house) we decided to stay. With the downswing in the market and nobody enjoying a whole lot of job security, we decided to stay where we are comfortable. So...we decided to put in a pool! This will pay for itself in 2 years, as we can vacation at home.It took one nice day for the great company we hired to put it in. Now its just a matter of getting the chemicals right. Of course, as it has rained 20 out of the last 24 days, our yard was more of a swamp than a backyard, and boy did the installation leave a mess! There's tons of top soil, not to mention the sod mixed in, left in a huge pile. And we still need to finish backfilling. Had a landscaper come today to tell us exactly what we can do with it all. He'll give me a price in 3 - 4 days, I'm sure it'll be a doozy! So, if anyone wants lots of clay filled, rooty, soddy topsoil, come have at it! and if you want to put in a little manual labor on the back fill, we'll put up some beer and a barbeque and a dip in the pool after!

Teddy Bear 5/11/1998 - 5/16/2009 Rest in Peace

Teddy Bear, you were a great watchdog. You were a loyal companion, never more than 3 feet from my chair. I'm sorry for those times I accidentally rolled over your foot, then yelled at you for always being under my feet because I felt bad. I'm sorry I didn't pay enough attention to you. I already miss your happy dance when I come home. I wonder if now grass will grow in your favorite pee spot. I feel guilty for not being able to let the vets run more & more tests until they found out what was wrong with you. I'm glad you have finally found peace and painless rest and I'll see you at the Rainbow bridge. I love and miss you, Teddy.

I Hate Tuesdays

Yes, I hate Tuesdays. It's my least favorite day of the week. Mondays are bad enough, having to return to the grindstone after a too short weekend. But Tuesdays...Tuesdays positively reek! Every single stinking Tuesday, World of Warcraft shuts down for "maintenance". Usually, you can't even tell what they've "maintained". I wish they would fix the flightpath from Dalaran, Dalaran is DC city. If you play, and you have a character over lvl 65, you totally know what I'm saying. But today, today is the big patch. Everybody in the guild has been talking about it. Swimming mounts, dual spec, shorter cool downs on the hearth stones, all very cool. What's not cool? Apparently my DPS. 850 Dps(Damage per second) is apparently very bad for a lvl 80 hunter. I don't know what the problem is. Ive got the best weapon I can afford, and haven't seen much better in the Auction House. I know some players have 1500 Dps, but usually they are Death Knights, and DKs are cheaters as far as I'm concerned. They need to nerf DKs bad. So I guess I'll have to suck it up and ask my guildies what I might be doing wrong, idk. Time to check and see if we are back on line again, and maybe check on the lasagna, too. =)