Something of a full moon

The past four or five days have been non-stop conflict. Our puppy Ash won’t listen to anything we ask him to do and has decided that we’re not allowed to clip his nails, touch his paws, touch his rear end, or dry his belly when it rains. My mom, sister and I had different ideas about bachelorette pre-party and party invitations, largely around gender. Everything that I’ve touched at work has turned to dust.

It hasn’t been fun.

In the midst of the wedding planning we’re having all of the pre-winter work done on our house that we can. We’ve had our eavestroughs replaced, our windows and patio doors are about to be replaced, we’re re-configuring the back yard, knocking down a corrugated tin garage, making section of the fence slide open for secure parking, and we’re installing a dog run. And we’ve been hoping to have the house painted before the wedding so fiancé’s out of town family can see the place a little gussied up, as most of these other projects will still be in progress.

It’s some what of a big undertaking, and we still have a lot of cash tied up in the wedding. Thank god we’re compulsive savers.

As we’ve lived here over the past two months the ‘personality quirks’ of one of our neighbors have started to manifest themselves. They’re excessive worriers. And part of our yard isn’t fenced according to the property lines, but is in ‘their’ front yard. You may be able to see where this is going.

We let them know that we would be painting the house, that friends of ours were on the crew, that we knew about their concerns around the clean up of the paint scrapings as well about paint getting on their house while we painted the side close to them. We would be very careful, reasonable and responsible. They wanted to talk, so we went over.

Over the course of a 20 minute conversation, we were told repeatedly that our house was a piece of junk that was just barely skirting total collapse. Nothing is to code! The fence is too high! The renovation companies we have spoken to are poorly informed or lying to us! The dogs are going to be a problem! And my personal favourites:

1. The protruding parts of the corrugation on the garage that we’ll be knocking down are on their property.
2. The gentleman in the house hold has been taking pictures of our house “for our benefit” because of the “poor work” that has been done by the vendors we’re working with.
3. If there is any paint on their house when the painters are done, they will sue us.

He laughed, and casually threatened to sue us. He laughed again and boasted about how he spends all his spare time in litigation with neighbors. Jesus Christ, what did we get ourselves into living here?

Yesterday was spent in somewhat of a panic, calling parent’s friends who are lawyers and talking to our families about how best to proceed. The other part of the problem is that our backyard also has a shared area that they can let themselves into at any time, giving them access to our puppies and our privacy, which is disturbing in light of those comments.

And then my aunt made a brilliant suggestion – if this guy really has sued people so many times there will be records if we do a court search. I found the website in about 2 mins. and searched their names. The only time they have been before the courts is in settling a will. I wish this made me feel a lot better, but knowing that the threats were empty just made me feel slightly less sick.

Our plan of attack, after a lot of worrying, is to just go ahead. Their house is falling apart, they are in violation of a number of codes that we could call them on – not the other way around, and if they don’t have the money to fix their eavestroughs, falling apart windows, broken sidewalks, or peeling fences I’m betting they have no money to put into law suits. And if they really want to litigate I’m sure that anything they try will be thrown out.

We’re going to make sure the painters don’t put any plastic or anything on their home, they will just handroll that side of the house instead of spraying it. We are going to take high-res pictures of their home before and after the paint job and then we’re going to build a 6 foot fence from the corner of our garage up to the edge of our house. Everyone will still have access to the shared stip of land between our two houses, but there will no longer be any access to our backyard what so ever, and they will probably feel like they’re having a concession made towards them because we’re not fencing that joint area into our yard.

Even with a plan, it’s hard to feel good about this.

We went for a walk, grabbed some candy and slurpees, talked – and found a thrift store that was having an amazing sale!

I may not be able to fix things with my neighbors, but getting two fall sweaters, a gorgous cardigan, a T-Shirt and new knitting needles for $3.00 may be enough to kick start my healing.

To kick start it further, I was tagged by Laylou in a fashion meme! Six Unspectacular Things About Myself, The Fashion Edition so here you go!

1. I went through my own personal 1980s phase in 2001. I actually chose to have permed hair and straight bangs.
2. Aside from trips to the US & shoe/sock/underwear purchases I buy vintage 99% of the time, I can’t handle the price mark up. It gives me hives.
3. Until last year going into vintage/thrift stores gave me hives – I couldn’t find anything no matter what was in the store and I always came out empty handed. It was extremely frusterating! Now before I go I refresh myself on what patterns are ‘this season’ and what holes I need to fill in my wardrobe. Immediately it becomes a hundred times easier.
4. I love skinny jeans. I love them as much as all the emo kids who now attend your old high school do. I would recommend Cheap Monday’s to everyone – you can buy them online or find a store that sources them, but they’re designer dry denim for $65 – $70 a pair.
5. Up until last year I had my ears stretched to a 0 gauge, wore a nose ring, and glasses. I let my ears grow in when we got engaged, and I’m really happy with how they look now – and that I can wear earrings again! I’m a lot less gamer chic, but my face is a lot less busy!
6. My favourite piece of jewelry is a gold version of this Thaumatrope Illusion necklace from Sleepy Hollow. Either way it’s facing people stop to ask about it, I love how mysterious and old fashioned it is.

Rules

1. Link the person who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. List 6 unspectacular things about you
4. Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them

I tag anyone who wants to try!