Landscape drama

WE GOT AN EXTENSION!!!

Yes! It is true. We did indeed get an extension. We have an extra month to finish our yard. Which may be a little more do-able...maybe. The yard has been gutted and the debris has made it to the dump. We still have a long way to go. I just want to put up a sign that says
"I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY!"

I spoke to the officer who cited us the ticket, she was............um......... lovely!

Her: "You have no reason for your yard to look that way after a year! A month maybe; but not a year"

Me: Well if you think the outside is bad you should of seen the inside.

Her: Well....

Me: I'd like to live inside and sleep here not outside, so all our work is happening on the inside. We were truly going to do it this spring.

Her: When is Spring?

Me: March 20th.

Her: Well, I can work with you as long as you are working on it. But, it shouldn't look like that after a year.

She took some notes of our conversation and our personal timeline. She said she'd be back to verify our progress! Oh I just hope EVERYONE IS HAPPY!!!!

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!!!

We received a NOTICE OF VIOLATION from the city yesterday and we're pretty upset about it too! When we bought this REPO house last year we knew the yard was going to get ripped out and re-done. But before we did the lawn we needed to fix the inside so that we could live in it! So therefore the outside doesn't get attention. We have patches of grass here and there-mostly there. We also get some(a lot of) weeds and the side yard is so over grown with ...with you name it! Somebody on our street totally called in and complained about our yard! Our street is very long so we don't know everybody- just our surrounding neighbors. We have no clue which friendly neighbor called! Apparently we are not the only ones on this street who have been tattled on either. The funny thing this street is

not part of an H.O.A. We have until the 4th of February (yeah that's in less than 3 weeks) to get landscaping done by then to avoid a $1000.00 dollar a DAY fine!!! We need to gut it, install new sprinklers , and lay grass? No way! What the crap? 1000 dollars a day? Really? Who is this person? We have been working so hard on our house and these people clearly have no idea. What? DO they think for the last year we've been sitting on our couch doing nothing? The thing is we truly were going to attack the yard this spring(because that's when you're supposed to landscape...spring or fall). We are trying to fight this and get the date extended to the spring....we shall see.

Poor Rom was outside all day chopping down all kinds of trees, bushes, flower bushels(gasp we cut the trees). He went a little crazy with the chain saw. He was pretty mad! Every time I would go check on him I'd yell up and down the street

"MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!!"



The neighbors want landscaping huh?

(I found this picture on the web. Maybe the neighbors would rather look at something like this....hehehe)

Dumb jobs

Working on a "repo" house never ends! This year for one of my new years resolutions is to finish the dumb jobs around the house. Yes the dumb jobs. For example our family room: we painted last year (with an air brush which is the only way to go-fast and efficient) however we also got the paint on the ceiling. So, there has been an inch of green paint on the ceiling that surrounds the entire room. But who really wants to paint the ceiling, its such a dumb job. You have to move everything again and live very messy for a couple of days while it drys just to do another coat! Besides there are so many other things we want to get done that the little (dumb) jobs are not even a priority and we just get used to them. On the tedious dumb job list:

Paint the celing

putty and caulk the floor boards

hem the curtains

paint the kitchen window Sill

paint the two brackets white (in the picture above) for the curtains

Switch out the light fixtures in the upstairs hallway

etc etc etc...

You see they are all very easy tasks, just dumb, however very time consuming! But this year is the year! And we've already accomplished one task being the ceiling! We're already off to a good start (and its only January...sweet) !!!!

Christmas wrap up

Christmas is always so fun, for all ages. This year we totally felt grown up in our own house, we even hosted the Christmas Eve dinner for my family. It was really fun to have my nephews in the house and feel their excitement!

We woke up Christmas morning anxious to see what Santa had brought for us. The fire truck stockings were darling, however, freaking HUGE to fill up (didn't think that one through very well)

Fresh out of bed (lovely I know) peeking downstairs with a blanket wrapped around you is a very exciting thing...as you know
Romney and I were very happy with our gifts for one another and had a great morning.

We had our first kiss on Christmas 6 years ago! Heres a shout out to kissing!! With many more to come!!!

...Even though we were kissless on New Years Eve(rom was working)...
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and had a Happy New Year!!!!