The Block Contest

Some of you may be thinking "gee, she's very ambitious to be working so much on the yard, I mean, they've only been living there for just about a month..." Perhaps I should offer some background information. Partly, it's true that I am so very excited about having a backyard that I can mow, weed, trim, and garden all my own. However I might have started out pacing myself a little bit differently if we didn't start receiving notices from the block captain about "clean-ups" and a contest that involved at least 35 judges from various city agencies. We didn't want to be the reason for anybody loosing a contest and trust me when I tell you that we would have been the reason...remember the Amazon...
There must have been at least 5 notices, many addressed to our house directly. There was also a block meeting where I got to meet the majority of the neighbors who live on the same street as our backyard (the front of our house faces one street, the yard faces another--it's a lotta yard!). At this meeting, I learned all about my "end" and how it's a "problem end" because "people don't care what the end of their yards look like" and the street is "just a glorified driveway for them". A-hem. I am sitting right here thank you. So given the established tension between the little houses and the big houses, AND that the block captain confided to me that the people who used to live in my house "never took care of this street side", I mean really we had to represent. So there's the background for the neurotic attention to the yard, because the contest was this week!
Our latest achievements include a brand new paint job to the garage courtesy of our household painter Ms. HJ. She did a really awesome job. At one point she needed to use the little girls room and asked me to do some painting because there was rain on its way and we had to work fast. Let me start by saying that I like ladders, and I'm not typically afraid of heights, I mean, I hung off that tree to break it (see Hulk) but she was up REALLY high and I was kinda nervous. I did my little corner and was very very glad when she got back, thank god it was a fast trip cause I really preferred my feet on the ground. Maybe it was the angle, I mean painting a garage is a little awkward. Maybe I'm just making excuses but I was very glad that the height wasn't an issue for her at all! And she did a stellar job.
You might be wondering what the hell I was doing while HJ was doing all this painting. Well, some of my time was spent holding the ladder to ease my own anxiety about just how high she was...but the majority of my time was spent weeding, yes it's true, now you can see our driveway. But let me tell you, there were several times I thought I might need to stop and just leave those weeds where they wanted to be cause when I pulled, sometimes there was some concrete moving along with them. I mean we're talking BIG pieces of our driveway...so I weedwacked those. I weedwacked alot, you know if you hold it the right way it'll work as an edger for you. My sweetie's dad came by to let me borrow it and offer some supportive encouragement to me when HJ said she was just fine on that ladder and I wanted to keep holding it even if it wasn't going anywhere--it's times like these that it really helps to have someone take my side, all the better if it's her family. hee hee.
Now all the weeds are gone, the vines are gone, the mulberry tree is gone, we hope the poison ivy is gone, the garage has a fresh coat of paint (at least on one side) and the contest is over.
I think we need a "Most Improved Yard" award, or at least some big good neighbor points...I mean, we took their contest seriously and all when we could have said forget it, we just moved in, screw you and your silly contest. Did I mention we got from free paint, brushes, roller, and a drop cloth? Yeah, that part was cool. Free stuff is always good.
Oh, and lastly, the kittens are back...