Here we are, the final Random Tuesday before Christmas.  Is your brain as discombobulated as mine is trying to get all the last minute stuff done?  If so, feel free to set your mind free with all the other discombobulated brain surges.  That makes no sense, but I’m tired, so I’m just going to roll with it.

Anyone else out there with a 2nd grader who takes forever to complete a simple homework assignment?  I was about ready to go beat my head against a wall (or any other solid surface) trying to get Princess Nagger to complete an ultra simple writing assignment last night.  That she was supposed to do Friday.  Apparently she had writer’s block.  Who knew writer’s block could happen at that age?  Part of the problem is the fact that she is ‘Literal Girl’ so when a writing prompt is singular, she thinks she’ll get in trouble if she expands it to be plural.  I keep telling her that her teacher wants to see her creativity, not squelch it.

The annoyingly noisy neighbors really pissed me off yesterday.  I guess 32 degrees and falling temps weren’t cold enough to thwart the 13 year old from riding his annoying loud dirt bike up and down the driveway.  The hubby has asked that he not speed up and down the section of the driveway that runs between our two houses, since it’s only about 10 feet from our house (and right up against their house), and with their house being 2-1/2 stories and ours being 3 stories, the sound is exacerbated and reverberates loudly.  You certainly can’t be talking on the phone when he does that, because not only is it headache-inducing, but you can’t hear what’s being said on the other end of the line with the constant revving and speeding back and forth and back and forth for hours.

I asked the kid not to ride right there (and even though he nodded like he was going to be courteous, proceeded to continue to do his speeding back and forth – only with more persistent revving).  At one point he even stopped parallel to our back porch and simply sat there revving the engine with a smug look on his face just to taunt our dogs into barking.  Little jerk.  I finally called the neighbor to ask them to intervene and ask him not to ride back and forth in that particular spot – to which the neighbor replied “It’s our driveway, he can ride there if he wants to.”  My response?  “OK, fine.”  I hung up on him, then grabbed the keys to my Santa Fe and proceeded to hit the panic button to trigger my car alarm over and over again.  That  must have gotten my message across since the kid finally stopped.  Now hubby’s talking about recruiting a friend of ours to help us put up a 6-foot fence between our properties over the weekend.  Merry Christmas.  I’ll keep you posted.

Needless to say, I can’t wait until we’re able to move back to the Seattle area where my family is and (hopefully) buy a house that’s not so close in proximity to a neighbor who loves to create noise at all hours of the day and night just because they can, everyone else be damned.

Let’s move on to more happy things, shall we?  After all, it is Christmas week!

I finally put a tree up Sunday – this is the latest I’ve ever gotten a tree up!  I’ll have to post pictures soon, it’s sort of comical because I ended up going and getting one of the 6-1/2 foot $38 pre-lit trees from Wal*Mart just to have something to put up.  I figure it’ll be a good play room Christmas tree in our future house, since I’m planning on replacing our defunct 9-foot pre-lit one when they have the good after-Christmas sales on those.  Since our ceilings are so high, this tree looks really small, but Princess Nagger loves it since she can reach the higher branches simply by standing on her little purple chair.  She says the tree is ‘just her size’.  She’s already placed some of her dinosaurs and dragons amongst the branches to get the decorating started.

Today’s going to be a busy day – along with putting together a bunch of gift baskets to ship out (and some to deliver in person tomorrow), I’ll be wrapping gifts like a madwoman – I definitely have to get Princess Nagger’s all wrapped since tomorrow is the last day of school before their Christmas break.  I still haven’t gotten the gifts wrapped and boxed up to ship out West.  At least my family and friends out there know they’ll get their goodies (hopefully) by the New Year.  Looks like our Christmas cards will be arriving to everyone in time for New Year, too, since they’re still sitting on the counter waiting to be taken care of.  Oops! Can we put the week on hold to give me some extra time?  No? Darn.

I guess I better get busy – enjoy your Tuesday!


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25 Comments

  1. Ugh, noisy neighbors. We have it pretty good, even with living in an apartment. I can’t complain. So you are planning on moving back to Washington? That will be great to be around family again! I totally understand that!
    Tara used to take so much time to do the smallest amount of homework. I’m leaving it up to her this year, not stressing about it, she does it (she says) in E3 – the last period of the day where they have free time to do homework. I have made the stance the this is the year she has to learn to no depend on me….. I know it can’t be like that when they are young, but Tara was not taking ownership. Her grades might suffer a bit this year, but it is eighth grade and as long as she passes to 9th, I’m writing it off as a year of readjustment!

  2. What a bummer! Noisy neighbors can be the pits. I live in the country so none of that around me. I have plenty of buffer. So cool!!
    I hope the Princess got her work done finally!! Ha! Writers’ block!! Who knew!?
    Don’t forget to take some time to drink some spiked nog and put your feet up. ‘Tis the season you know!
    Merry Christmas
    Hugs
    SueAnn

  3. I hate noisy neighbours too.. luckily the ones I have are considerate and not noisy as we stay in an apartment. Hope that you get your wish to move to Seattle.

  4. Our WalMart tree has held up a good four years, though this year a string of the pre-attached lights burned out and I cannot fix it. My solution was cheap strings of lights to add onto it.

    And yes, I am very discombobulated; I am almost ready for Xmas to be done with!

  5. Hate to add to your discombobulated frustrations but the homework drag isn’t exclusive to 2nd grade…it’s my daily battle and I have a 4th grader 9th grader, and a 12th grader. School breaks are my only reprieve.
    Doing a bit of hopping this morning.. ..found your button over at Meno Mom.
    Hop by Lucy’s when you get a chance. http://closertolucy.blogspot.com

  6. Rude neighbors are the worst. Ours revs his motorcycle at 4:30am to go to work. Is that really necessary?

    And I hope you get your gifts wrapped, your cards sent and your presents shipped! Merry Christmas to you and your family!

  7. Your neighbor sounds awful, but I loved how you got even. When I was little, we had a similar issues with our across the street neighbor. They were so cruel and insensitive. I still sometimes am amazed at how my cop dad never beat up the father. After one too many incidents, they were walking their dog in front of my house (on our lawn) where my wheelchair bound grandmother sat. My mom asked the daughter to clean it up, and she assured my mom and grandma that she would. Instead she drove away. It must have been the last straw. My dad scooped up the poop and carried it across the street and smeared it on their driveway. The father went crazy. My dad retold the story and said, “first, I am putting on your driveway, next it goes in the mailbox. The third time (pointing to his gun) I will shoot your dog.” Needless to say, this NEVER happened again!

  8. Seattle? Ooo, we’ll be neighbours, but with an international border between us instead of a 6 foot fence. And what a coincidence, I’m just taking a break from doing homework with my grade 2 child.

  9. That’s probably my favorite thing about our home, we live smack in the middle of 6 acres. No neighbor problems! I never understand our friends who pay much more to live in the city right up against their neighbors.
    My 11yr old son takes forever to do his homework too….it’s so fun! NOT!

  10. We had neighbors in New Jersey who, when we asked the parents to tell the teenager not to drive into the cul-de-sac at high speed, the father proceeded to immediately and often, drive into said cul-de-sac at 40 MPH (its was an 8 home street with lots of young kids. The street was short…. 25 was too fast to drive in there.) I couldn’t wait to get out of there!

  11. can you call the cops on Noisy Neighbors? or would they make life worse for you?

    I was that “literal girl” when I was younger (so was/is my youngest- and I actually still am sometimes)

    (visiting you via Random Tuesday Thoughts)

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