Its a circus!!

So, I come home after being gone for 2 days petsiting...and there is a freakin' car wash/garage sale/circus in our front yard!! Brittany, Martie, and a bunch of other random drugged out looking parents are having a "fundraiser car wash." They have signs up everywhere on neon poster board, a makeshift coffee area in the front yard, and silver tassles over the entrance. It looks ridiculous! Oh, plus they decided to sell some of their crap while they were at it so there is a mini yard sale too. At least it isnt as much crap as they had in their past junk sale, but still.
I was so irritated that I decided to take Domino to the dog park before I blew up. But, I went to go outside and there were cars blocking my car in. Once I finally got them to move and made it to the end of the driveway, some random lady had a step ladder in the middle of it and she was messing with the oh-so-tacky banner thing....awesome! Needless to say, I spent a long time at the park.
We need to move!

(Sorry about the crappy pic, it is from my cell phone. It really dosent do justice to the situation because all the cars were gone and you cant see all the signs. But, it shows the crappy silver banner thing that we have to drive through to get in our driveway!)

How can you have this much crap?!

Our lovely duplex-sharing neighbors have tons and tons of crap! Plus, they have too many people living in the little space, so as I have mentioned before, their crap spills outside of their house and into our space (grr...)! I woke up this morning and had to put my pants in the dryer to de-wrinkle. I found a pile of stuff on top of the dryer and another way too big load in the dryer. We have a schedule for the laundry room (that I even posted, color coded, in the laundry room!) that is essentially every other day. They have no where to put all of their laundry so it usually just lives in the laundry room....in the way!

This is their clean laundry! How do people live like this?!

So that was my morning, great way to start it off. Then I came home to this;

Apparently our front door is now a parking spot. This lady dosent even live here, she is a friend of Arturo and Talia (who also are not supposed to be living here!). She used to be here all the time with her screaming kids, well past 10pm, on school nights. Lucky us, she is back!

As if this wasn't enough for 1 day, this happened! We need to move!!!

Home is what you make of it.

So, I have been stressed! I started class and spend my weeks at the school working like crazy! My days have been 10-12 hours long...plus transportation. We live in a suburb of Seattle, so its not a quick commute. Anyways, when I get to come home it is great. It is such a wonderful release of tension to come home and change into sweat pants after a day like that. Even here.
So, what I am saying is; even though this place is crazy and frustrating on the outside, it is the inside that makes it home. Home isnt defined by the material or practical aspects of the house, it is who you come home to and the environment that you collaboratively create.

My house and my neighborhood is a mess, but our home is beautiful!

wordless wednesday

Birth control!

I was sitting on our couch today checking my e-mail and actually enjoying the calmness of Apple Lane. Enter Arturo and Talia. Talia comes out yelling at her son with every other word being the f word. They are supposedly going somewhere while Artie is screaming at the top of his lungs. Arturo starts yelling at Artie also telling him to go inside. He just wants to go wherever his parents are going. Keep in mind the reason Artie is screaming is because he wants his parents' attention, he is only two after all. Artie continues to scream and scream. Talia cannot take the pressure and yells, "He can't come because he's a fucking crybaby!" I do not know about you, but I grew up in a family of five and my parents never yelled curse words at us. Now I am not a parent yet, but when I am I hope when my kids are screaming for my attention that I will be able to give it to them.

The dogs are multiplying!

We have introduced you to Lola, Sasha, Blackie, and of course our Domino. Suddenly though, there are 2 pit bulls living in our area! Before anyone gets any ideas, we have nothing against pitbulls, I (Crystal) actually love them enough to have written an entire post about them. But, these people are not the best owners to be entrusted with a pitbull. They already let all the other dogs run around and chase cars.

So, I was sitting in my office area yesterday typing away at a paper when I hear Deana screaming "Sasha" in a frantic tone. I look out the window to see 2 men with broom sticks surrounding the pitbulls and Deana grasping Sasha by her collar. Looks like there was a dog fight.

This sucks on many levels. First it means we cant leave Domino outside on his tie out. He is a huge baby without an aggressive bone as it is, but dogs on tie outs are no competetition for loose dogs. Secondly, as soon as they decide they don't want to deal with it anymore I'm sure I know the fate of these pups. They will go to another friend and likely end up fighting or being put to sleep.

I hate to see the way the pets in this community are being treated. We do a very good job with Domino. He is always on a leash, we pick up his poop weekly (along with everyone else's because they poop in our area!), we keep him away from the other dogs and we feed him good food. Nobody else does any of this! Their dogs run around everywhere pooping wherever they darn well please, and they poop a lot because they eat crappy food. I actually saw a bag in the trash the other day that didn't even have a name, just "dog food" come on people would you eat something called "human food?!". It is all very annoying and it is really not a good atmosphere to add untrained pitbulls to.

So, we are just waiting for a serious dog fight where someone gets hurt, Lola to come back from one of her journeys pregnant because they wont spay her (don't get me started on un-altered dogs!), or for people to just give up and pass the dogs on to someone else equally unqualified to be a pet owner!....We will keep you updated :(

Wordless Wednesday