My lovely across-the-street neighbor, Kara, sent me an e-mail the other day.
Jessica Burgess
Clearly Unedited
"I wanted to wish you a happy one-year-in-the-neighborhood- iversary," she wrote. "I hope you don't rue the day you moved into our little block."
Golly, I thought. It really has been exactly 12 months since we moved into our house. Time has just flown! And in the last year, we've gotten so much done on our little "fixer-upper!"
For example, we have finished painting nearly one half of the spare room.
(Corners are harder than they look.)
(Also, the part near the ceiling is kind of impossible.)
When we get done with that, which should be any day now, we'll be able to move the office furniture out of the living room. Not that the computer desk does not look nice shoved against the TV. It's a very saucy look!
Also, since we've moved in, we've purchased curtains for every window in the house. They look very contemporary, lying there on the floor. Next to the computer desk.
What I'm really proud of, though, are the flowerbeds in front of the house. When we first moved in, they were covered in wood chips and devoid of any plant life. But through an aggressive regimen of neglect, they are now flourishing with a lush, green expanse of weeds. I am sure we will win a neighborhood beautification award any day now!
Unfortunately, this guy who pays half the mortgage thinks that we could do a little something "extra" to the flowerbeds, such as plant flowers in them.
"Fine," I said, and went to the nursery and purchased $89 worth of crap. I mean plants. Whatever. It seems stupid to pay for them when they grow for free.
Then I placed them in their little plastic flats on the ground, near the flowerbeds. There they stayed, for many days. I was hoping they would dry out and die, but it rained and foiled my murderous plans.
"Let's do the flowerbeds today," my boyfriend said last Saturday.
"No," I said. "I have important binge-drinking plans today that cannot be rescheduled."
"Yes," he said. "It'll only take a little while."
"I hate you," I said. "Let's break up."
"OK," he said. "After we plant the flowers."
So we planted the stupid flowers and they look very pretty and whatever.
And maybe by our second year here, we'll have figured out how to water the lawn. Alert the neighborhood beautification award committee.
Jessica forks the sign of the evil eye every time she passes Home Depot. E-mail her at jburgess@quickdfw.com.
