My mother's flower garden is complete, for now. There are some little flowers i'm not too sure will survive, but, hey, i can replace them.
Here is what happened with the garden.
i give Mom her two gifts and start negotiations on where and how big. i meet much resistance and avoidance.
(they are doing some indoor remodeling this week. Some cans in the pantry exploded last month and caused massive damage so the pantry has to be rebuilt. Last year, the water heater died and flooded the kitchen and family room with water, so they have needed to replace the floor. They decided to pull up the carpet in the family room and do linoleum for both rooms. The back door is in the family room and has a faulty seal, so the doorframe has stayed wet and rotted at the base. They are replacing that whole doorframe and door, too. AND re-painting the family room.)
So, the next day i go over there to find my mom standing in the front yard with the seed mat, reading directions.
i wasn't prepared! i had not gotten that far in the talks!
So i rush over to try and skip a little bit ahead and get her to see my vision . . . she thinks she does and we mark off a good-sized garden and plant the seed mat.
Two days pass and i come back to find her in the yard with a shovel and a bunch of plants . . . DAMMIT! Yet again, i rush over for some damage control. She has a rose bush in the ground already, but the rest of the plants are still in plastic containers. OK, i can work with this.
What she says is that she got the feeling and was up at Home Depot anyway so . . . She got one rose bush, some day lilies and dwarf lily-of-the-Niles, a couple of Blues, some zinnias, and a misc. flower or five.
For the next two days, Angel and i were on our hands and knees pulling up all the Bermuda grass with a little hand-held garden claw. Four inches below the awesome root system of the grass was hard black and red Texas clay. Mostly black.
(If you have never encountered this substance you may think i'm joking when i say it is almost rock. i'm not joking. It�s easier to break up some rocks that to even dent this clay. And if your yard is made of clay and the weather is hot and dry, you will get large crevasses in your yard, so water it often before your dog and some of the neighborhood children go missing.)
i am sunburned. i spent most of yesterday pushing as hard as i could to get it done and we did.
As soon as i was done with the garden, i went inside to help paint the family room. After the painting was done i did the dishes. While i was doing the dishes, i realized it was about 10pm and Ronica had field day so she was very tired AND past her bedtime. (funny that the mommylanders used to think i was such a freak for my non-traditional ways, but now i have a non-traditional man and the ways have changed! We have a bedtime! Crazy!) We threw her in the shower right then since we had done some laundry and had PJs for her. That way, when she fell asleep in the car, she didn't have to sleep in her filthy clothes because no army of CPS officers could have made me wake her up last night! i love my daughter very much but i know what she is ~ a bitch when she's tired. A very whiney bitch if you wake her up. We bailed when she was done.
Now i am afraid to leave my house for fear that the sun may look upon me, but Jian wants me to take him to get food. as long as he's paying today, i'm good with it, but now i have to put clothes on . . .
Well, since i am angry with Chip and his non-child-support-paying ass, i have one song quote for him.
"SLEEP TO DREAM" ~ Fiona Apple
"Don't make it a big deal, don't be so sensitive
We're not playing a game anymore; you don't have to be so defensive
Don't you plead me your case, don't bother to explain
Don't even show me your face, 'cuz it's a crying shame
Just go back to the rock from under which you came
Take the sorrow you gave and all the stakes you claim --
and don't forget the blame
I got my feet on the ground, and I don't go to sleep to dream
You got your head in the clouds, and you're not at all what you seem
This mind, this body, and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways
So don't forget what I told you, don't come around, I got my own hell to raise"
confessed on Wednesday, May. 22, 2002