Stumped (literally)

This is a hoot.

Kyle and I were gone this afternoon working on a project and upon our arrival home I noticed our neighbor shoving branches into his garbage bin. As we pulled closer to our driveway we noticed he had actually removed a bush from our yard! You can see a distinct property divide between ours and his, by our grass mowing.

Kyle and I looked at each other dumfounded... We've never been in a situation like this so we both were like "what are we supposed to do?"

We decided to go over and ask him why he decided to remove a piece of our property, but he beat us to the punch. He knocked on our door and said "I'm asking you after the fact if it's okay for me to remove your bush." Kyle then asked why he removed it without our permission.

"Well, its roots were soaking up all of my yard's nutrients and it's difficult to keep my lawn green."

So, we were responsible for this? A small bush near our property line? (Actually, it's about a foot West of his yard to be precise).

Anyway, after a petty discussion and him offering to "pay half" for the stump removal, we just kindly asked him to get our permission BEFORE removing anything else from our yard.

In the end, really no big deal... but, if anyone is reading this... please tell me your opinion on what your reaction would be or help us recover with a past similar story of yours.

God says to love your neighbors. Well, that may be a difficult thing to do!

Till next time- here's our gorgeous stump.

Exterior Living Space

Kyle and I have a front patio, right? Kyle's not a big fan of hanging out on the porch, but I definitely am! It's fun to watch our neighborhood come alive. I've already seen a few things and witnessed a few people who live on the street and make me start to second guess why we paid money to live in such a strange, but entertaining area. Nonetheless, the people who make up our community seem to give Oklahoma City it's character :)

I'm thinking it's a good thing, though, that Kyle doesn't like hanging around on the front porch as much as I do. This is because I had a girlfriend come over last Wednesday night to have a couple Corona's and watch the sunset (and the neighborhood action). So, I stopped by Wally World on my way home from work and picked up a couple inexpensive patio chairs. (I hate saying cheap, but they really are cheap). I brought them home and managed to tear off the tags and meticulously place them on the patio before she got here. However, as I tore off the tags, I read one that warns its customers of it's maximum weight. I'm sorry, but even if Kyle was an Olympic decathlete, he would still weigh more than what those chairs allow! I feel bad, so I'm glad they didn't cost much so we can invest in some that hold his little behind without being afraid he'll break the dang thing...

Also, our flowers in front of the home were overgrown and wilting when we moved in. So, in my quest to fulfill my homeownership woman duties, I pulled them all out and planted fresh little flowers. Kyle got home and thought he would be the manly lawn waterer since I had been the gardener... however, we ended up acting like a couple kids with our big water fight and both ended up soaked. So much for being adults!

I did get up a little earlier this morning to water them, so I think Kyle's counting down the days those bad boys will stay alive after I forget my new morning ritual.

Furniture & A/C -less!

Well, we decided to check out another person who may be remodeling our home... so, we are still enduring the waiting game. To top things off, our A/C went out over the 4th of July weekend! It was a smoldering 100 degrees outside, making our home (with multiple windows on each side of the home) around 95 degrees around 5pm every day. Spaz & Sparkz got fed up and asked us if they could go somewhere cooler. So, Kyle and I took them over to Grandma & Grandpa Wiley's house to stay the night Saturday. The dogs were happy they weren't panting anymore! We've since had someone come in, and we're still working on repairing it.

As soon as we moved back into our home, we tried using our washer & dryer for the first time (they came with the home and are still pretty new). Of course, our washer proceeded to flood our kitchen! It was as easy as a plug-in, but if I hear "welcome to homeownership" from one of our friends one more time I think I'm going to puke! Just kidding. It's been interesting, but as long as it's Kyle and I going through it together, and God watching over us, we can laugh about it all.

Anyhoo, here are some pictures of our "furnitureless" home. I mainly stacked everything we own in the garage as we plan on having a big communal garage sale here with some friends at the end of the month. We figured the less "stuff" we have laying around, the less difficult it will be for us to adapt to living in one room while we undergo the remodel.

So, here's a view of our lovely, unpainted, furnitureless home! The best part of having little else but a couch & two desks in our living room is definitely watching Spaz & Sparkz battle it out as they slide around, sometimes spilling it, on the hardwood floors!!