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?

I'm high? and I can't sleep!

I have recently quit smoking. This is day 3. My head spins and I am dizzy, and a little silly. My friends tell me I am high on Oxygen. Hmmm. Why? Doesn't everyone breath oxygen? Apparently all the weird things in cigarettes block some of the oxygen receptors in our brains. Suddenly, I'm getting oxygen like I haven't in more years than I can count right now. Everyone is being uber supportive, and I'm really not suffering nearly as much as I thought I would. I'm cold turkey. Yes I'm cold alot. Plus, I can't stay asleep at night. It seems like I am waking up every hour. I don't know why, but I feel very awake. Then I just go back to sleep. I took the day off, and got some extra sleep this morning. I'm starting to be afraid to drive, I become so sleepy out of no-where. But thats it. A craving will come, for less than a minute. I wiggle my fingers and take a deep breath and it goes away. I'm good. I don't want to spend the money anymore, I don't want to die of Lung Cancer, I want to see my grand children someday (not soon, mind you, it can wait, lol), but yeah. So I am a non-smoker, big deal.

WOW! A story of addiction

OK, My husband turned me on, and now I'm addicted.

To a blood elf priest character, wandering around the realm of Aggramar in Eversong woods. It started last weekend, while dh was planning to meet his friend, Dan, in the alternate reality. They do this once or twice a week, with geeky little headsets carrying on til the wee hours of the morning. He lamented once again how great it would be if we could play together, so I decided to try it. Actually, the kicker was watching my daughter make her character dance, and before you know it, she had started a complete dance party, with at least 10 other players stopping to dance with her(sans music). I just thought that was the neatest thing, well, at least until someone started removing her armor, leaving her in her underwear. So, I got online and he stood behind me, telling me how to power attacks and win experience points, how to loot the vanquished, and receive and complete quests. For me, the hardest part is walking right now. No, its not complicated, arrow left and right for turns, up to walk forward, and down to walk backwards. A note to the novice, walking backwards to try to retreat from an enemy? it doesn't work so well, any better than if you were to try it for real. Anyway, I keep getting stuck behind fences and barrels and benches. I mean, come on, really? And every time you have to enter a building to get a quest or training or beat somebody up, there are always circular ramps, with NO HAND RAILS! I mean, COME ON! How many times do I have to die because I fell off the stupid thing! And how freaking far do I have to walk to get back to my corpse? And whats the point of that anyway? Virtual punishment for dying? Oh! Oh! and getting bumped off the server and returning to find you had died in a battle you were clearly winning? Pah! I guess if there weren't some frustrations, I'd never get to bed. So after playing a few hours, hubby decides to start a new character so we can play together, because, well, you know, he can't join me on level four with his level 60 character, right? Only to find out, he had started me on the same account he plays on! So I deleted my character, and created a new one on our second account and started all over. we played together for a couple of hours, but now he's lost interest again, so I've played without him. Now he's a level 4, and I've gone on to level twelve, and will have to repeat everything so he can catch up. Uhg! I should just make one character to play by myself, and one to play with him. See! This has taken over my life! DO NOT play this game, if you haven't started already. I punished myself for taking all this time away from the housework, by making myself wash and fold socks. now to sneak over and start that new character.

The thrills of selling your home!

So we are in the process of trying to fix our house up to get ready to sell. There's nothing too bad, but you know everything needs a new coat of paint, the backyard is atrocious, and the boiler is on it's last leg. We also damaged the linoleum when we put the furniture on it to put laminate floors on the rest of the house, so we will have to replace the linoleum. It needed replacing anyway, the wear is starting to show. It's amazing what you are willing to live with when it's your house, but isn't good enough for prospective buyers, especially in this market, I'm afraid we will be very lucky to get out of it what we owe. But we need more room, and a house in dd's school district, so this we must do. We had a contractor out for the boiler today. He said it probably wouldn't have lasted the winter, so staying or going we needed one anyway. $5016, 20% down, and no interest for a year. It'll be a good selling point to add to the ad. "new windows & AC 2007, new boiler, kitchen floor '08, fresh paint an landscaping" Did I mention the back yard? We put in a great patio last year, as well as a tree house and Hammock swings. Of course, under the hammock swings, is just dirt now. I am having another contractor on Friday to come and give me an estimate on what it would take to get the yard up to par. If I can get away with 2 grand to tear out and sod the backyard, I'll do it. Otherwise, well, I'll just see what they advise. I can't wait to get into a new house and get on with our lives! Of course, every time I find a house I really like, it gets sold right away. Wahh! I have to pray the perfect house will come available right when I find a buyer for mine!

My first post

OK, I set this account up quite sometime ago, and have never blogged anything. Here it is at 2 am and I can't sleep, too much running through my head. Scary and exciting all at the same time.Big upheavals at work this week. Improvements. Realignments. Reorganization. A flattening of the reporting structure. Little boxes everywhere on the new Org Charts. Where's my box? My department no longer exists! Oh, there's my box, well, it's not garaunteed to be my box, but I've got a pretty good shot at keeping it. New department, new manager, new supervisor. At least I have a box, some don't. Good friends, good workers, more pedigreed than I. Would I trade places with them if I could? I'd like to say yes. A year ago I would have, for the severance and a little more time with the kids while they are young. But in these economic times? Sorry, no can do. Most of those leaving have degrees, they'll find other jobs. I can justify it that way in my mind, I guess, if it makes me feel better. I have too much to do. I have too much to pay for. I want so much, just like anybody else. We can always put the boys back in public school, dh says. That's always his fallback. He'd feel better if they were in a "normal" school, learning something. But that wouldn't make enough of a difference, so I'll take my new little white box, and keep the private, unique, New School for now. Maybe I'll get to learn something new. Maybe I'll go back to school, who knows. Maybe in another 6 months I'll get a severance package, too. Maybe, maybe, maybe. See why I can't sleep?