By Kat on 7/25/2008 1:49 PM

 In our neighborhood, the 4th of July is kind of like the mid-point of fireworks celebrations. My neighbors start lighting off blazing rockets and buzzing balls of fire a week or two before the 4th and continue until at least a week or two after. Last year Dog Poop Kid, age 12ish, who would not leave us alone on the 4th! He lit off our fireworks, ate our food and would not stop bother us to light off more. The next morning he was back at our door asking for leftover fireworks. We gave him some sparklers and bottle rockets to get rid of him but he came back for more. While we were working in the yard we left our garage open and each time we came around he would be picking through the firework box looking for his favorites. Our warnings and threats fell up deaf ears so we've had to just keep our garage door closed always.

This year he had a new family on our street to stalk. They had fireworks going off in late June so they were better prey. Apparently word got around the neighborhood pretty quickly because around 2 o'clock in the morning, that neighbor came out to her garage for one last smoke break before bed. When she opened the door from the house, she realized she had left the large garage door open and there was someone in the garage. It wasn't Dog Poop Kid but another 14 year old from down the street.

The kid grabbed a bunch of things and took off. She called the police and long story short, identified him and pressed charges. The parents of this kid thought he was spending the night at the neighbor's house. He was spending the night at the neighbor's house -- just not only at the house that the parents thought.

By Kat on 7/22/2008 11:35 PM

 Who are your neighbors? Are they also your friends? Do you have any neighbors who were friends BEFORE they became neighbors? At what point does a neighbor become a friend? At what point does a friend who became a neighbor become just a neighbor?

This blog has I have a tendency to get me in trouble so I will start by saying that there have been several instances in the past few years that I have felt hurt and offended and I am going to talk about them today. If this hurts and offends anyone I know, I'm sorry but this is my outlet and sounding board. It keeps me sane.

Note: The most recent portion of this story has been addressed with the friend who hurt my feelings. I just wanted to write about it because it is a suburbs issue and I thought it made for a good blog entry.

A few years ago my BFF known here as DD Momma and I went a show with our other friend from here on out known as…I can't even think of a nickname for her so we'll call her Shorty. The show was a bar and it was for some friends of Shorty. DD Momma, Shorty and I were what you might call really good friends. Shorty introduced DD Momma as her neighbor and introduced me as her neighbor's friend. I was completely offended! I was under the impression that if you had dinners with one another 1-2 times per week, had coffee every week, went shopping together, vacationed together, got someone's husband a job AND wore my wedding tiara in your wedding, we were friends. I guess only time can tell the true story; Shorty and I are no longer friends in her book OR in my book.

A friend of ours moved into our neighborhood. We've always referred to this person either as "our friend" or "our friend and our neighbor" (friend first) or our friend who also happens to be our neighbor. Recently, Jay and I've been referred to as "the neighbors" or "his neighbors".

I want to hear from you! Are you friends with any of your neighbors? Do you refer to them as neighbors or friends?

By Kat on 6/20/2008 11:11 AM

1. Help out with the youth group 5 times (when Jacob is around).
2. Donate our pledged amount of money to the church
3. Lose 60 pounds.

4. Exercise 5 times per week for a month.

5. Get back into rowing.

6. Kick the soda habit in the butt

7. Join or begin a walking group

8. Find a job that I love (most of the time).

9. Buy a 2^nd piece of property.

10. Have a girl's night out 3 times per month for a year.

11. Live off of my planned budget for 1 consecutive month

12. Pay off all of my credit cards

13. Keep my car very clean (spotless) for one month

14. Get diamond earrings

15. Keep up with my oil changes

16. Keep up with the dog's shots

17. Go to an OSU football game

18. Go to a Colts football game

19. Break a 150 at bowling

20. Attend 2 Alumni rowing events

21. Vote for a president and have 10 great reasons why!

22. Go sailing and be a part of it

23. Keep up with this list at least once per month.

24. 30 consecutive days of no television

25. 10 consecutive days with no internet

26. Sell 100 items on ebay

27. Paint the living room

28. Paint the kitchen

29. Paint the master bathroom

30. Finish painting the upstairs bathroom

31. Finish painting the downstairs bathroom

32. Tile a backsplash in the kitchen

33. Replace the kitchen cabinet doors with some glass

34. Re-floor the kitchen

35. Replace the flooring in the living room/dinning room

36. Put up that fence

37. Organize the closet

38. Get a china hutch

39. Organize the game closet

40. Organize the downstairs closet

41. Make my bed everyday for one month

42. Finish one of my books

43. Post one blog per day for 2 consecutive months

44. Write my will.

45. Read 100 books.

46. Visit Greece

 

 

Australia

 

 

49. Visit Havasu 2 times per year.

50. Go on a train trip

51. See a Broadway show on Broadway!

52. Geo-cache with Jacob and find 200 more caches

53.Visit Christmas at the Zoo

54. Visit the zoo on a normal day

55. Visit every winery in Indiana

 

 

57. Visit 3 art galleries or showings

58. Attend 2 really big concerts

59. Visit the Art Museum each season

60. Attend the theatre (not movie) 5 times

61. Work on at least 4 devotions with Jacob.

62. Attend church activities at least 2 times per month

63. Daily quiet time for one month

64. Find my niche at church (where can I serve/give back)

65. Get my degree

66. Take a class for fun
67. Learn to dance

68. Transfer 8mm camcorder tapes to digital format
69. Scan and upload photos from mom and dad's house

70. Scan and upload all of the photos at my house

71. Scan and upload photos from Jacob's parent's house
72. Take one photo every day for a year
73. Complete a 26-Things Scavenger Hunt
74. Eat only raw foods for an entire day

75. Volunteer to read at church 5 times

76. Visit my old church in Greenwood

77. Train for a marathon

78. Complete a marathon

79. Take my heart medication daily.

80. Be active in Partylite for one year or quit.

81. Sleep on the beach

82. Scuba dive with dad

83. Take a hot air balloon ride

84. Get a parks pass and USE it!

85. Clean the heck out of the garage and get rid of it all!

86. Go snowboarding at least once

87. Date night with Jacob 2 times per month

88. Find a friend to also make a 101 things list!

89. Try 50 new restaurants

90. Interview my grandparents

91. Participate in Race for the Cure

92. Organize my computer files

93. Back-up everything on my computer

94. Go ice skating

95. Play laser tag

96. Enter something into the state fair

97. Go one month without eating out.

98. Eat one two meals per week at the kitchen table with Jacob.

99. Organize miscellaneous scraps of paper.

100. Organize my recipes.
101. Make a new list of 101 Things to Do & donate $5 to James' memorial fund for every task on this list that I do not complete.

 

56. Make wine with J

 

48. Go on an out of country trip with my parents again

 

47. Visit

By Kat on 6/16/2008 4:57 PM

Recently our neighborhood had a neighborhood meeting and many interesting things happened. Most interesting was when this lady who I've never seen before told my husband to shut his mouth. I'll explain more of that another time. I didn't know what nickname I could come up with for this woman but we described her to one of our friends in the neighborhood as, "a mean old lady with nice skin". When I showed this friend where she lived he said, "OH! You mean Hit and Run".

I must say allegedly all of this happened because I don't know for a fact. This is all from harmless neighborhood "reporting", what some might call GOSSIP! Allegedly "Hit and Run" (as she is now affectionately known) was a former employee of the Sheriffs Department. With this responsibility comes a police car. One day Hit and Run was grocery shopping around the corner from our neighborhood and she backed out into another vehicle, causing heavy damage to the other vehicle. Well, with a name like Hit and Run, you can imagine what she did.

Unluckily for her, the grocery store has video surveillance and all of this was caught on tape! Lucky for the owner of the other vehicle, Hit and Run was caught red handed. The legend goes that she was asked to retire from the force and turn in her vehicle. In my version of the story, she had a few afternoon cocktails but again, this is just my version and completely untrue.