... When No One Else is Watching

Mean People Suck

Yep,,, mean people suck, and Rob and I are probably the mean people in the neighborhood. I've always thought of myself to be a pretty nice person, I treat people the way I would like to be treated, I try to be welcoming to people I don't know and engage them in conversation and I wave to all the neighbors as they drive by. Nice, right? It's just that ever since we moved into this new neighborhood we have noticed how rude and beligerent the pre-teens and teenagers are. It's incredible, it's like their parents have not taught them any kind of manners and it is really getting on my nerves. The more I watch these kids the more I believe in our plan of sending our children to parochial school and letting the nuns rap their fingers if they misbehave (and I am not one for any kind of physical punishment, but wow! you should see these teenagers, maybe a little rap of the knuckles would do them some good!)

Backstory: We live in a new construction neighborhood and most of the yards don't have fences yet (yeah, talk about building neighborly animosity right from the get-go, no one wants to pay for expensive fencing so heaven help you if you ask your neighbor if they would like to go in half for the fence. Most of them say no and just say, "let me know when you do it though, it will be nice to have a fence!" Can you believe that? Pretty much they're saying, "I would love to have a fence but I'm not gonna be the one to pay for it, yet thank you for adding to my property value!" I feel that if you can't afford to go in half for a fence, you shouldn't be buying the house!) Stepping off the soapbox and going on with my story. Since most of the yards don't have fencing kids are running through your property all the time and feel they can do anything they want, namely, destroy your property. When Rob and I moved in we payed a small fortune to level out our yard by building a rock wall to raise our backyard and make it more even. We are directly behind a property that is being built and it has a lot of crap in the yard and loose rock. The kids in the neighborhood figure that it is great to go on that lot and throw the junk and rocks up onto our yard and then throw the rock at the rock wall we built,,, as well as the vacant house! Well, I figured I would be a decent human being and tell the kids that they really shouldn't be throwing the rocks at the house and at other people's property because something was going to get broken. One of the teenagers told me, "whatever lady" and promptly stomped off about ten feet and proceeded to stare me down - someone should have told her that she will never win in a stare down with me,,, I'm way too good at that game. She finally relented but the only thing I was thinking was, "didn't your parents teach you anything about respect!?" The kicker was the father of one of the other children was standing there the entire time, just watching. Great parenting,,,, great parenting.

It happened again today when Rob was looking out our dining room window to the front yard. Some older kids were picking on a smaller kid and then they were pushing him against our tree to the point it was bending the base of the tree and we thought it was going to break. I was more concerned about the smaller kid but Rob figured they were just being kids and decided to open the front door to see if it would get them to stop. They looked at us and continued being little brats, Rob then told them to stop hanging on the tree and to get off the property if they weren't going to treat our yard with some respect. The kids moved into the street and we stayed out on our porch to see what was happening, one of the boys then said, "why are you just standing there staring at us? Why don't you just go inside?!" Huh? What? I would swear we were on our property and we pay the mortgage so why does this little punk care what we do? I stood there speechless, blinking furiously, but Rob tried to engage the kid in conversation. The kid continued to say jerky things and I finally said, "you've got to be kidding me." Which got a, "what did you say, lady?" out of him. I then told him that I couldn't believe how little respect he had for adults and I don't want to see him on my property again. Wow,,, I'm mean. I just can't believe that a 13 year old can be so disrespectful. If an adult told me to stop hanging on a tree when I was his age I would have apologized profusely and then run home.

I guess I am just confused at how children turn out to be such disrespectful teenagers. Why aren't parents teaching kids that they have to have respect for others around them,,, how did things change so drastically in the last 20, 30, 40 years? I see more parents wanting to be friends to their kids nowadays rather than parenting them. It's okay if a child doesn't always like their parents because they're not given everything they want. Unfortunately, parenting skills have drastically declined over the years and I'm terrified to see how children will end up in the next twenty years if we don't have some kind of turn around. I now completely understand a story I saw on the news a couple of months ago where teachers were saying they are actually scared to teach in some classrooms because kids are becoming so vulgar and violent. I shouldn't be scared of asking children to stop treating my yard as a playground because I fear them throwing a rock through my window one day. Now I am reminded of a point Rob made today, he said, "I would go and talk to their parents, but where do you think they're learning their behavior from?" Exactly!

It's a Heatwave!

It's been a difficult week in this household of mine. Susannah says that she never hears me complain,,, well, she definitely wasn't around me this week.

Salt Lake City had a minor heat wave, so much so that we hit all-time highs three out of the last five weekdays. Our air conditioner was not prepared for hot weather and I finally reached my breaking point today. We knew we were going to have problems with the AC when we moved into this house but didn't worry so much because the builder said the home warranty would extend to our ownership and wouldn't be expiring until July. I asked our realtor to get this in writing at least three times but alas, she did not. Since I had been in the room when he stated the warranty time period I didn't think we would have any problems with the builder fixing our problem,,, the house is only a year old after all. Well, on Monday, after a weekend of trying to figure out why the AC wasn't working Rob called the builder and told him of our problem. The man had the gall to say, "wow, I wish there was something we could do for you but unfortunately, the warranty period is up." What?!?!?!?! Rob then went on to tell him about how they didn't put ANY windows in the back of the house that open. Yeah, you read that correctly, all of the windows in our family room and kitchen area are full-paneled windows. The only way to get air circulating is if we open the door and let the wind and dust (since we live in a new-construction area) whip through. I don't remember signing on to live in the Sahara! Well, his response to this was, "oh, are you going to put double-pane windows in?" SHUT UP!!!!!! That's what I would have yelled at him if I were on the phone with him, but I married a polite and civilized man who simply asked for the name of the company who had installed the unit. Once he got the name he called them and they told him their labor warranty had also expired and if we wanted to have them come out to fix the faulty installation that they did we would have to pay them $125 per hour. Funny,,,, hilarious! These contractor people should be comedians, shouldn't they?

I should probably tell you that Rob had already looked over everything that was going on in the unit and had cleaned everything he could, but couldn't get to the part he thought was the culprit,,, the evaporator coil. All he wanted someone to do was come out and replace or fix the part due to faulty installation and build up of dirt due to the system being installed and not run for so long a period of time. We finally decided the only thing left to do was call our home warranty provider. They told us it would cost us $55 to have someone come out and do the service call but everything else would be included. The AC company they provided for us said they would be out on Friday - we spoke to them on Monday - so we had to live for five days with no air conditioning in 90 degree heat. Poor Avery, my little naked baby was a trooper! When Doug (AC guy) got here on Friday Rob told him right away that he thought it was the evaporator coil but Doug said he had been doing this for 20 years and he had never had to check that (you can see where this is going, right?) He tried to blame everything else there possibly was but in the end, when we finally got the company who installed the system in our house on the line and they said it was probably the evaporator coil, did he check the freaking coil! What do you know,,, that's what it was. He tells us that he doesn't have the equipment he needs to do some of the maintenance the system requires and he'll have to come back on Monday because he has two other appointments after us. What?!?! When did we get thrown down to the bottom of the list? On top of that he tells us that because this has to do with cleaning, the insurance company the warranty is held with will probably not pay for it. The only thing the warranty company will pay for is time if a part has to be replaced not the cleaning of a part we can't get to without breaking the system. So pretty much since the AC and all it's parts are covered for five years anyway on warranty, what's the point in having the home protection warranty if it doesn't cover this type of fix? You've probably figured it out by now,,, it's a scam,,, home warranties mean crap,,, nada! Rob tried to get Doug to come out that evening or Saturday but because this guy had so many freaking excuses he didn't get here until 5pm this evening. I'm at the bottom of my rope. I'm on that cliff just waiting for someone to push me over because I have never felt like jumping off of it until now.

It is now almost 9pm and we still have no AC. I'm wondering if we will ever have AC. I don't enjoy feeling like I am back in my grandmother's house in England during one of their monumental heat waves. I guess I should try to spin a positive on this situation,,, at least we're saving money!

Resolutions

I have never been one to make New Year's Resolutions, I think it's just a set up for failure. But I have no qualms with setting up some resolutions for summer. I don't want to think of them as things I HAVE to do but things I would LIKE to do. So, here we go.

• Turn off the television. I'll admit it, I watch a lot of televison. I don't consider it an awful thing since I am not one to sit on the couch and watch soap operas, I am more apt to turn on the Food Network to find some good recipes or watch TLC's Baby Story. My real problem comes in the evening when I have a show I HAVE TO WATCH! Now that most of the shows are coming to their season finales this will be an easy goal, I think. It's a good thing Grey's Anatomy is done for the season, I get my Sunday evenings back and Rob doesn't have to listen to me yell at the television anymore.
• Lose ten pounds. I've been quite lax in the exercise department since Avery was born. Not because I want to be, it's just that I don't seem to have as much energy in the evening when Rob gets home to watch her for me. I'm going to put the lack of energy to the side and not use it as an excuse, Just Do It, that's the slogan right? That's going to be my new mantra,,, that or "get your lazy ass off the sofa and start moving!"
• Get off the computer. I love to surf the internet and see what new information is out there. Unfortunately, this hobby can take a ton of time out of my day and I am sad when I think of all the things I could have accomplished with the time I was wasting looking at the computer screen. I'm allotting myself an hour a day to the computer, that's it!
• Take more pictures. This may seem odd to many but it is perfectly logical for me. Rob and I recently purchase a beautiful, new camera. I, unfortunately, am a little terrified of the thing. It was quite expensive and I am scared to death of breaking it. I am determined to get over my fear and really learn all the ins and outs of our new purchase.
• My final resolution is to post more pictures. And who is more deserving to be shown to the world than "the girl?" Here's some recent pictures that were taken,,, she's just too cute for her own good!

Torn

So, just when I think I have figured out how I feel about Tom Cruise he goes and throws me for a loop. Up until last year I loved Tom Cruise,,, and especially the movies Cocktail and Top Gun. Love 'em!!! But then he started with all the hullabaloo about post-partum depression and women who take medication for it are wrong and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I really feel that he did a dis-service to women by stating many of the things he did and putting down psychiatric treatment to go with it. I know women personally that have been helped tremendously for PPD, whether it be by medication or psychological treatment. I have no problem with people having a difference of opinion, it's all how you handle yourself. I feel he was very rude to people while trying to get his points across. There are such better ways to handle things. It's okay for people to not agree but you don't have to be insulting to state your opinion, and in many ways, that's how I feel he treated people, he was insulting. After the rampage he went on I decided I would never go to any of his movies because that would mean I was supporting his behavior.

Well, now he is starting to edge his way back into likable territory. I'm almost willing to go see Mission Impossible III. Why, you ask? He made an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres Show today, a show that just happened to have all single mothers in the audience. Being raised by a single mother, I have seen first hand the struggles these women go through to raise well-mannered, smart and bright children. It's difficult and a struggle everyday, hoping that there will be enough money to put food on the table every day while also being the only one to really build their child's self-esteem, etc. Tom Cruise obviously understands this as well because he was raised by a single mother. He brought a gift for Ellen's mother but then he also had some staff bring out roses for every woman in the audience! It might not seem like a lot to some people but do you know how nice it is for a single mother to get roses? She doesn't have a husband to buy her flowers and most children are young and don't have the money to go out and even buy a single daisy for their mother (you don't want to know how many crappy handmade gifts my mom got for birthdays and Christmas over the years,,, although she will tell you those were the best gifts she ever received.) To receive roses from the most powerful movie star on earth is pretty awesome! So yes,,, now I will probably have to get my mom to watch "the girl" and Rob and I will go to see MI:III just because he bought some women flowers,,, it's not an apology for what he said to people regarding PPD but it's a start.

I'm a Slave for.....

Entertainment gossip! I admit it, I have an addiction to entertainment magazines and websites. It's so bad that Rob says it's my worst fault. I'm really not too offended by this because he could have come up with much worse. Believe me,,, I have A LOT of bad habits!

Tonight, while reading my trash celebrity website I saw that Britney Spears is pregnant again. I'm trying not to be too judgemental but,,,, WOW! I could list about a trillion reasons why this is a bad decision,,, but at the same time I realize every child is a blessing and will someday, hopefully, have something to contribute to society. BUT!!!!! Let's list the reasons why this isn't so good,,, this deserves bullet points.

• She's married to Kevin Federline - a man who left the mother of his daughter and unborn son to traipse around the world and eventually marry Britney (and try to be the next Vanilla Ice but we really shouldn't insult Vanilla by using him as a reference point.) Does this girl really think he is a good role model for children? And he's not even cute,,, she could buy such a better husband.
• She's had two visits from Child Protective Services since her son was born in October. Not really a stellar track record,,, she needs more practice.
• She was caught driving with her son in her lap without a seatbelt on. And I don't really believe the whole hooey about her being scared about her safety,,, she didn't really look that terrified in the pictures but I can understand how the paparazzi make good scape goats.
• She still chews gum with her mouth open,,, she was on David Letterman and chomped on her gum the whole time. What drives me more insane that Utah drivers? People who chomp on gum in public. At least be ladylike and chew with the mouth closed,,, especially if you're appearing on television and plan on teaching your children manners.
• There's more I could list but now I am just being rude,,, not good.

I think the Britney pregnancy is starting to scare me off of celebrity news. I am starting to realize that Hollywood is such a jacked up place and unfortunately, so many people are getting their morals from celebrities that don't even know what the word moral means. I need a new addiction,,, maybe I should take up scrapbooking!

(Just kidding,,, I just wanted Sus and Ashley to get excited about the scrapbooking reference!)