That House

(Not my house.)

Yup, I will confess. My house is that house in your neighborhood. I am the proud owner of the shabbiest house on the block. It’s not that the house that is in shambles but the yard. The yard is a disaster zone. When we first moved in, I was so excited about the idea of having a yard. I could have a garden, plant some trees, some bushes and just personalize the crap out of our yard. What I have now, two years after moving in, is my cute little garden, which is hardly recognizable with the weeds overwhelming what has dared to bloom. The grass is hardly cut and dry. And I’m thankful for the dry weather lately because it means the grass has grown slower which really translates to only having gotten one notice from the village to cut our grass instead of the two or three we had at this point last summer. My husband and I just don’t have time to give it the attention it needs and when we do find free time, we just don’t want it to be spent in our yard. I miss having our townhouse for this reason alone sometimes. So for the 5% of the time I feel guilty, I say sorry neighbors.

With that being said I figure you got a clear picture of what my house looks like. (And for another reference see picture above, it’s really not far off the mark.) What baffles me sometimes is my neighbor’s behavior. They have a nice yard. They cut the grass regularly. They refresh the mulch around their trees and they even take the time to water it to keep it looking green. Good job neighbors! But the baffling part is that they leave one lawn-mower length of grass uncut for us. Since the moment we moved in, we noticed they do not cut a strip of grass that is attached to their yard. It is on the outside side of our driveway and it looks like where their yard begins. The driveway seems like a clear border between their yard and mine. So I can only assume that it must fall on our property and they leave it uncut. Fair enough. BUT, they see how we are. We hardly cut our grass. So instead of them having a really nice yard, they have a really nice yard with one ugly strip on the side. I wish I had taken a picture before the last time we cut our yard because it’s comical to see. And it’s really a 10 second clip of grass that needs to be cut. It’s not a big deal. But always, they skip it. Though I realize it’s 100% my responsibility to cut that grass (I assume, where are the property lines when I need them?) I can’t help at be annoyed at my neighbors stubborn behavior. We have no problem mowing it if it really is our small slice of yard but being we aren’t the best landscapers, I would just think they would want to spend an extra 10 seconds to make their lawn look finished.

I realize we’re jerks because of this but you can’t be a saint all the time right?