Today is my first day off and the day we scheduled to take the rabbits and goose to our friend’s house. First of all, we had to catch the one rabbit that had been lose for 3 days. It never went very far since it’s bunny friends were in the cages in our front yard. Finally, we cornered it under the porch of the guy who lives behind us. No I don’t know his name even though he lieves less than 20 feet from be bedroom wall, but he was outside working on his truck on cinderblocks (we’re in a white trash neighborhood remember?) and helped us catch it. I apologized and offered to take it from him.  But he said he’d bring it to the cage.  He petted it and nuzzled it and said he used to raise giant angora rabbits… go figure. I’d have never figured it of this scruffy looking redneck. I swear people never cease to amaze me. So he finally put the rabbit in the cage, just as our friend showed up. We loaded our van and his with the cages and sun shelters  for the cages, the food and the scrap wood from the big junk pile. He likes to burn stuff, so he was glad to take the wood.

We followed him waaaaaayyyy out to his place. A nicer, newer looking trailer (the ones with vinyl siding, unlike our tin siding trailer), It also had a huge built on addition on the back with a big deck. Really nice place.  He had a big garden he’d tilled a section of for Fall already.  He was thrilled at the opportunity to have the free rabbit manure in his garden. His wife came out and greeted us and looked over the animals.  She seemed really taken with the goose. He is really friendly. Then our friend asked if we’d like to go to dinner with him and his wife.  I was going to take DH to dinner anyway, but hadn’t decided where. So, we all agreed to meet at the Chinese restaurant.  Had a great time talking about Broadway shows and new TV shows coming up and the Olympics. Conversations we never had with our kids. When it came time to go, nearly 2 hours later, our friend had the check and was adamant that he was paying and it was his Bday present to my DH. I wanted to argue, but decided to let it go and accept graciously. I hated to leave them so quickly (he was still paying the bill), but I wanted to see if we could get to Best Buy before they closed. So, off we went. We got to the store just in time, found the exact gift I’d looked at and decided on online.  I picked it up and showed it to him and said it was my gift to him, but he could change it now if he preferred something else. Fortunately, he loved it.  After a brief scare of not being able to find my wallet (I put it in a side pocket of my purse doh!) I paid for it, and we headed to Barnes and Noble to get him a Green Tea Frappuccino and I got a caramel latte. I found a lot of interesting romance novels I would LOVE to curl up with, but decided not to spend any money on books.  We looked around a little, then headed on back home.

Even though we were coming home to our tin-sided trailer in the old section of the trailer park… it looked pretty nice with the gazebo all cleaned up and no junk sitting anywhere and those cages were gone! Yay!  Even in just the moonlight it looks fabulous. DH didn’t get a chance to mow it today, but that’s ok. He’ll mow it before his vacation is over, that’s for sure. Tomorrow his buddies are all coming over. He’s earned a day of  gaming with the guys.  He doesn’t go back to work til Thursday. Still plenty of time to take care of more things that need to be done. Now that the cages are gone, I’ll take pics tomorrow.

Today is the first day of my DH’s (Dear Husband’s) vacation. He had asked his gaming group if they wanted to come over and play games this afternoon. I emailed them all and told them there would not be a game afterall, and for DH to see me when he got the email.  So when he asked what was up, I explained the whole encounter with the landlord and how his mother’s animals had to go and how I had called her and she refused to come home and take care of them and hadn’t sent any money for food or anything… and how he hadn’t been taking care of the yard and it was overgrown and there were piles of junk we had to get rid of that I’d asked him to haul off forever, and now the landlord wanted it gone too.  So, I told him, no more buddies coming over to the house til it’s all cleaned up, animals gone and everything fixed.

Here’s what the yard looked like before the Landlord even saw it…

So, this morning after work (I get off work at 3am) I did some cleaning up and started a load of laundry and then went to bed because I just couldn’t keep my eyes open (I’d had to get up early the day before to go run errands).  So, I set the alarm for DH to get up at 5:30 to get the girls up, so I could get some sleep.

I finally woke up around 1:30pm feeling pretty good, and realized I didn’t hear anything. I got up and went to the bathroom and heard the radio outside. When I looked out the window, he was moving stuff around in the yard. Then I heard him put stuff in the van and leave to dump stuff. Turns out, he fixed the leaky pipe near the water heater, got rid of all the bagged garbage in the house and sitting outside by the trashcan and in the junkpile. trimmed the overgrown shrubs and wild rose vine and straightened up stuff around the yard. Did a load of laundry and had washed a ton of dishes (we seem to always have dirty dishes no matter what).

When the girls got home, he had chores for each one to do and they had a set time limit they could get them done in or they lost priviledges for the rest of the day. So, the animals got fed and watered, laundry was folded, living room was straightened up, and the stray garbage outside that wasn’t in bags was picked up and dumped.  He said he was going to talk to one of his gaming buddies to see if he could keep the rabbits and goose at his house  since he lives in the country. Then he could take the girls to go feed them and water them every other day instead of driving an hour one way to his mother’s house 3 times a week. He also cooked dinner later and brought it to me when I was working.

So, when his gaming buddy called and asked if he’d like to come to his house to play cards, I didn’t fuss about it other than how he was leaving me to get the kids bathed and tucked  into bed on time while I’m working.  He said he would have a word with 16 and make sure she knew what time to get them in bed and when they needed a bath etc.

I don’t believe he called the other gaming buddy to ask about the animals. He’s going to have to do that tomorrow. He also is going to have to go pay the water bill before it gets turned off, and make a phone call to the insurance company about a letter we received.  If he doesn’t do those things, I’m going to have to put my foot down and not let him go to his buddies to play cards either.  I’ve never really been forceful about not letting him do things in the typical cliche wife way.  I usually ask him several times til it seems like I’m nagging, then eventually give up or do it myself. But this time, I knew it had to be done, and this seemed the best way. I was actually pretty easy. We’ll see if he keeps it up on Day 2 of Vacation.

I’ll take pics of the After and post them later.