Fence

So, after much debate, we decided to get a 6 foot wood fence for our yard. The neighbor kids are still going into our yard. Even after speaking with them about how dangerous it was, and speaking to their parents, they continue to come into our yard to play on MY kid's things. They don't even bother to ask. I was warned by our good neighbors and another neighbor named Liz (she is decent so far). Apparently, the kids wait until my kids have gone outside to play in the snow (leaving their footprints) and then they decide to go into our yard. This is very smart of them, as I didn't think you check footprints.

I have also been finding a lot of dog shit still in my yard. The last time this happened, I picked up a couple of piles and put them on the sidewalk. I took the girls' sidewalk chalk and wrote something to the effect of: "If this is yours, you need to stop letting your dog shit in my yard". This did nothing, obviously. I also called animal control on our bad neighbors because they were leaving their dog outside in a small cage for over 24 hrs in -20 degree weather. Animal control gave them a warning, as I did not want my name on the report at the time. Now, I don't care.

It has been snowing pretty much since the last time I posted until now. This week it is supposed to rain, but we have been gaining major headway on the project.

We have a contractor friend who is in the Army (retired), and will be coming out this weekend. He has offered to help us put up the fence, and we have asked some of my hubby's other Army buddies to help as well. We picked a 6 ft wall (sounds crazy when I say that outloud), made of wood. We will put a two-door gate in the back, just in case we need to bring some type of cars or trucks to work on the backyard. We will also put locked gates on either side of the house.

Eventually, we will put up a metal black fence in the front. We have been having issues with people letting their dogs onto our property and not cleaning up after them. This will no longer be an issue if we just put up a fence out there. This metal fence will also be a way for us to lock the unwanted neighbors out of our front yard. They like to knock on our door now with random complaints.

The barbed wire was removed this past weekend. My husband went out there with wire cutters and destroyed it. He contacted the farmer (there is a cattle path behind our property), whom it belongs to, and told him to pick it up or risk stepping on it. It was on our side of the property. We're not really sure WHY he put it on OUR property and not his - mainly because we were the ONLY property on the cattle path with the barbed wire. We also spoke to the city about it and were given the "okay" to remove it.

We got permits for our fence. Our bad neighbors found out and caused a stink over it. Since they couldn't stop the work on our fence, they decided to weakly threaten us. Did you know that when you put up a fence around your yard, and it's on the border of someone else's - sometimes they will split the bill? I had no idea about that. We DID ask evil neighbors if they wanted to split the bill since the biggest portion of our fence will be on their side. They declined and stated they will be putting up their own vinyl fence (bad idea, the slats will crack easily out here).

Apparently, they have been going around the neighborhood claiming that IF we put up our fence - they will paint it or remove parts of it. I prewarned them that if they did such a thing, it was considered destroying property as it would be on our property. We made sure to get a land surveyor from the city. He came out this past monday and marked everything for us. We are putting the fence about 3-4 inches into our property so that no one can "claim" the fene as their own, and destroy it. We also go a work permit to put the fence up, so even if they complain, there will be zero issues.

You'll all be happy to know that I have met a new neighbor. Her name is Liz, and she is married (2 yrs) with a small child. She was interesting and not very mean at all. They moved in this past month. Apparently, her yard (she bought the house on the other side of the good neighbors) was covered in weeds too, although not near as bad nor is her property even close to the same size of ours. She offered to lend us her saw for our fence project.

I have not done the walkway. We got in contact with a contractor who will completely level our front yard for $50.00. We did NOT put in sod yet, or make way for the sprinkler system. We were informed, during the winter, that the little snots were still going into our yard. So, all of our effort has transformed to this fence project.

I removed all of the bricks and horrible sprinnklers for him to do that in the next month. My good neighbors and Liz have been coming over every day for the past week, taking the plants that we don't want etc. Most of our yard was overgrown and we had some issues with the trees being too close to the house. We have since ordered new bushes and plants for our planting beds.

These are what we picked out:
http://www.michiganbulb.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_13407_A_Blue+Girl+Hybrid+Tea+Rose_E_
http://michiganbulb.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_72765_A_Irish+Moss_E_

We decided to do blue roses for the front bushes (we used to have dead ones, so anything is an upgrade at this point), and irish mosh for in between the bushes.

We removed a LOT of the rocks (thanks for asking Newt), and a lot of the gravel. Our good neighbors took some of the bigger ones to their own yard (we had no use for them), and we are now down to only that one big pile in the back. The side of our house still has rocks laid down, so we will be gathering them up as soon as we finish the fence.

The weeds are all gone. It is now safely into spring, and we can say that our attack on them last year has done the trick. However, there are a lot of little twigs that have been needed to be raked up. I have been doing that myself, and filling up our trash can once a week (it's a big green trash can that they pick up every monday). It fills quickly and we cannot afford to go to the dump - nor have a way to transport it. (Dump costs $100.00 per trip)

I'm not going to lie, we did look into hiring professionals for our fence. However, the cost of materials alone is costing us $6,000. After doing research on the fence, we took 14-16 weeks just for them to come out and give an estimate. That was a long time. After we did get the estimate, we found out that it will cost an additional $3,000 for installation at least. This is too costly for us, as we are attempting to do other things with our yard as well. So, we are saving ourselves a lot of time (they estimated about another 12 weeks to come out for installation) and money.

I would also like to update the walkway path for everyone. I DID get all of the materials listed above, and then some. We decided on the right side facing the house, that we would also do an additional brick driveway. It would match the other brick walkway, and it would be less costly then just throwing down a slab of concrete. (This would cost us about $2,000 as opposed to the brick which was about $900)

I also bought solar lights for the pathway, for when it is completed. This is what they look like:

http://www.lightinguniverse.com/pathway-lighting/kichler-lighting-15319pz-mission-path-garden-pathway-light_g20675.html?isku=398977&linkloc=cataLogProductItemsImage

That is the closest picture I could find of it. The only difference is the glass for actual light is brushed glass, clear. It looks cracked from far away, even though it's really not and we DO have the option of hanging it but with the wind here we decided to just put a pole through the bottom and make it stand up.

So, even though it has been a while, most of the outside has not really been touched due to the snow. We are going to wait on the sod until the end of Aug. and then hopefull have the same contractor who leveled our front to lay down the sod and install the sprinklers. It will only cost us about $1,500.

Also, the neighbors across the way have moved out. They left a note on my car (I was watching them through the window), that they were basically moving because our yard was such an eye-sore. LOL What a bunch of snots. No cops have been called recently, however they DID call the water company on us and they called the fire marshall again. This is yet another reason why we want a fence. The fire marshall had the nerve to actually walk onto MY property and inspect it. Little did he know, I was home and I was watching him. He didn't leave a fine this time, nor even a letter. I confronted him about trespassing.

The water company was called because our evil neighbors know that before we moved in, a pipe burst. (Yes, I did make sure to ask who complained. It was the evil neighbors to the right of us, on both accounts.) The water company came out and inspected our water meters, but couldn't find anything of value to report us on. We did have a leaking toilet the week before, but that was fixed within 2 days. So, they didn't even have a reason to come out and waste their time.

I also painted inside the house when it was snowing outside. Here are some pictures. This is my youngest daughter's room right after the paint job. It took us 2 days to complete, mainly because the moldings and doors were this ugly tan color and refused to turn white. (The kids' rooms are the only ones with this ugly color) (Please ignore the weird lighting, parts of the roomy ou can't see are her butterfly pictures and her curtains. We only put up the one in the picture, it is clear with pink sparkle flowers on it. The lighting was horrible, and quite honestly after I finished I gave up on painting for a very long time. Her bedsheets and blankets are white with purple and pink flowers, purple lamp, and yes...her closet is really purple. It's not even organized in that picture.)

http://tinypic.com/m/ejc5lz/4
http://tinypic.com/m/ejc5m1/4
http://tinypic.com/m/ejc5m8/4
http://tinypic.com/m/ejc5mb/4
http://tinypic.com/m/ejc5mc/4

Ross Store

My husband is graduating from college (I know, he has a degree in literature and math...he is graduating with a degree for philosophy now - which will be his job after the Army), I have to go and put some new pin on his uniform for show. No biggie right. Except, I don't usually wear dresses and the ONLY dress or "dressy" clothes that I might have, are from before we were even married. So, none of them fit.

I saw an ad on tv about how Ross was having a huge sale on shoes. I saw a pair of shoes on it that I thought were cute, and while we were there looking at the shoes we might as well look for a dress for his event. Which we did. We didn't buy the shoes. We've never gone shopping there before and frankly didn't know what to expect. This is a small town, but I can always shop online if I can't find anything. I'd prefer to try on the dress, so I know if it fits or not.

My husband was wearing his fatigues, mainly because he had just rushed home from work to take me shopping. This is a rare event for us, since we both don't really like to go clothes shopping at all. However, this time we absolutely needed to get something new.

So, we wound up pulling down 12 dresses total and maybe 2 shirts. There are apparently all kinds of sundresses out there now, and I wanted to see which type would fit or rather look best. However, some of them have zippers and I definately needed help zipping up. Plus, it's always good to have someone tell you if something looks bad and who better then your spouse.

Naturally, as we have done in the last 20 years of our marriage, my husband helped me put on the dresses. I have no female relations nearby, nor any female friends (we just moved here). Obviously, my husband would be helping me. This the case for MANY married couples in the military, and I would not be surprised to see a civilian couple doing it as well. I mean, did they expect my 4 yr old to zip me up and tell me how it looks?

There wasn't a problem for the first 8 dresses. My husband went to return the first 8 to the little sales clerk that is in charge of the dressing rooms, and was told that a customer had complained about him being in the ladies dressing room. So, he wasn't allowed back there anymore. I had the option of either putting on the dress halfway and coming out to have him help me, or putting on the dress and coming out to have him assess it. Either way, I would be walking thru the dressing room half-naked (bra around my throat for easier changing), and standing for the world to see me.

I was not pleased, and saw this as a sign of sexism. If he was a girl, naturally this wouldn't of happened. This has never happened to us before, and to make matters worse we knew exactly who had complained. It wasn't like my husband was running around lost in there, randomly peeking in dressing rooms. No, he was in my room the entire time (first door on the right) and only left it once to return some things we weren't getting. They had a limit of 8 items, and we had 12 total. So, obviously, I needed to try on the others since I couldn't find a decent one out of the original 8.

Okay, so let's get to the complaint. I literally was keeping my bra pushed up so I could get in and out of the dresses fast. Some required the bra, and some didn't. I had no pants on, obviously, and some of these dresses were REALLY short. The complainer was a hugely obese woman wearing all black. She was trying on jeans. LOL She had no one helping her, and honestly I wouldn't need help trying on jeans either. Apparently, the fatty had issues with my husband helping his WIFE zip up.

I didn't see this as really "fair", because I saw another husband in there at the same time and because I didn't see why IIII had to be the one to walk out. Why should I have to walk outside of the dressing room because some fat bitch complained? Why should I have to go to extra lengths to make some fat bitch feel comfortable? That is what really irked me. I would now need to either do it myself, which I obviously couldn't, or I would have to embarass myself in front of the entire store. Fuck that shit. I didn't walk outside the dressing room, until I was done changing. I barely even tried the rest on. Even my husband was peeved and was thinking of leaving.

So, after a few comments about his tours in Iraq (I honestly felt bad for the sales woman), he stayed outside. I found a dress that I liked, however it had a zipper and I couldn't tell if it fit correctly or not. So I naturally told my husband that and we searched for either a bigger size or were just going to buy the one I had half-tried on. So, we tried searching for a bigger size and upon not finding one we asked customer service. Customer service was pretty much useless, so we decided to buy the one I had found.

Ever notice when you are checking out, that they always ask the same questions? Naturally, they asked if we had found everything okay. My instant response was, "Nope, couldnt even try this dress on because it has a zipper and my husband isn't allowed to help me try it on." The check-out girl immediately changed the subject.

Putting this episode to rest, my husband was the one that decided he won't be shopping there anymore. We have had zero issues with Victoria's Secret, Old Navy, Target, Walmart, Delia's, Aeropastle...etc. He has always been "allowed" to help me out in the dressing room. But, apparently, Ross is still stuck in the 60s OR they just value their fat customers more then their veterans. Plus, the fact that they have NOTHING in the back of the store for bigger sizes...it is a rather a weak selection anyways.

Edit: To the fat bitch who complained - you are a fucking cow. My husband doesn't want to see YOUR teets. He wants to see MINE. Go on a diet and stop with the bullshit excuses for your weight. Even with medical conditions, you CAN lose the weight if you actually get off your ass and stop expecting people to give you a cookie everytime you do something. If you are the size of a bus, you have no right to complain about ANYTHING. Your stench alone offends me. Aside from your weight, you told my HUSBAND AN IRAQ WAR VET NOT TO HELP HIS WIFE?! HE FIGHTS FOR YOUR RIGHT TO SAY THAT!

Recurring Bartholian Cyst (Update)

I did go ahead and have part of my cyst removed. However, it kept coming back after my good doctor removed as much as she could. Although, now that it has been removed for the what? 5th? time, it is much smaller. About the size of a golf ball. Much better, however the pain is still there and so far nothing can be done about it.

After much debate, lots of doctor's appointments at the last minute, and little to no option - we have come to the conclusion that my cyst acting up might actually be a varicose vein in my labia. Apparently during sex, walking, and even just sitting on a couch, your vaginal walls fill with blood. This is called blood pooling. The newest theory is that I have a varicose vein in the same spot as my cyst, that is constantly filling with blood and basically spurting it into the incorrect place. It could also just be rubbing the wrong way, the same way a hemorrhoid would do (except it's not a hemmorrhoid).

In order to "fix" that, we have two choices. This is called bullet vs. shotgun option list. The "bullet" option would be to see an intervention radiologist to do a rare proceedure normally used on people with kidney problems (in order to become an intervention radiologist, it is supposed 3 extra years of schooling that most people do not do). While in their office, they give you local anesthetic and wire a tube through your femural vein/artery up to the vein that is causing the problems. This is the option I have picked to do for now.

If that does not work, then we are going to try the "shotgun" method. This would include the intervention radiologist, cleaning and destroying any active cyst, and killing nerve endings. This is considered a rash form of treatment and should only be used as a last resort. I have discussed killing my nerve endings before, so I will not go into detail about that now.

The only problem with my "bullet" option is that hardly any radiologists even DO this proceedure on people with kidney failure, let alone for a bartholian cyst. It is widely believed that varicose veins occur in pregnant women (in their vaginal walls), and CAN become into a bigger problem such as having painful sex. However, trying to find someone who WILL close off a varicose vein (since there are literally over 100 thousand veins in your labia), is problematic. Not only do doctors almost never do this for people, it is considered very dangerous, but it is very hard to find someone who is trained to do so. There is risk of poisoning your blood and risk of closing off the WRONG vein. There is obviously risk of infection and death.

So, for now, I wait for the call to go into surgery. Yet another "out patient" proceedure. They say I should be up and walking within 24 hrs, I highly doubt that though. I am just hoping we can find SOMEONE who will do this for me. This vein issue is not so new, but according to my female doctor, most male doctors refuse to even consider that there might be some sort of vein problem down there.

We shall see...if it doesn't work, we'll go with the "shotgun" option. At the moment, we are hoping it isn't a bartholian cyst recurring (we are basically taking a stab in the dark for treatment at this point). If it IS recurring, then I am in for the "shotgun" and praying that somehow it will fix it. If it turns out to be the vein, then I will never need to take pain medication again nor go in for any additional surgeries. So, here's hoping.

Edit: My doctor says that a lot of pregnant women come into her office with basically the same "interviews" of their symptoms. Pain during sex, swollen for over 2 hrs afterwards, and issues walking for the next 12 hrs. Although I am not pregnant, this might be an after-effect of my having a cyster during my two pregnancies. This is NOT something that is easily spotted, nor is it something easily fixed. Either way, if you have this vein issue, you are in for the run around trying to find a specialist that will do this proceedure for you.