Hell Bent for Sprinklers -or- The Rantings of a Middle Class Housewife
This evening I had to sit down and admit to myself that I am under some stress with our current yard project. Yes, it's almost over, but there's still lots of people/things left to coordinate with the final getting of the hot tub and the installation of it in the yard. Today I had an inspector from the hot tub place come and check out our site. He approved it -- hurray! I also called the woman responsible for scheduling the delivery and we're set for later this month. Woot! Now I'm waiting for the quote from the electrician, and if it's in the ballpark, I'll schedule him to (hopefully) come as soon as he can after the hot tub is delivered. After that happens, a guy from the hot tub store will return to show us how to work the thing so that we don't destroy it.
Gah. So many details, lots of little things that hopefully will culminate in finally being able to relax. I need a hot tub because I'm stressed out from getting a hot tub. I can has hot tub?
Our awesome landscaper gave me some rather unsettling news today. It turns out that the landscaping we had done last November was done wrong. And by "wrong" I mean that the elaborate drip system that meanders around every plant in the perimeter of our yard isn't actually attached to anything. In other words, the thousands of dollars worth of plants aren't being watered every night like I thought they were. I've been sleeping peacefully, imagining life-giving water tenderly spraying my japanese maples and podocarpus and lavender, and now it feels like I woke up from a nightmare where my precious plants are only several hot days away from total death. Apparently, dupes of this nature are common in the landscaping industry. The ignorant homeowner sees that his plants aren't doing well and calls back the landscaper, who "fixes" the problem but only after discovering something that requires the homeowner to spend even more money. The whole idea kind of boggles my mind. Now we have to figure out how to handle the situation with the landscaper who dicked us over and we also have to play nice with our current landscaper to get him to fix the problem. It's not about money, but as you can imagine, contractors don't like fixing other contractor's mistakes, especially when they think you should have used them as the contractor in the first place.
[Such a long and complicated story and probably painfully boring to read. This post is such the ranting of a middle class housewife.]
So that's the real reason I'm stressed right now. When everything goes according to plan--even if the plan is long and complicated--I'm cool. But when issues come up that are messy and require diplomacy and patience, I can maintain the cool but my energy is sapped at two or three times the normal rate. Sometimes I can't even maintain the cool and that's when I take things out on Mike. But that's another post. All I can say is not only d0 I owe my friend Jennie for bringing over her son to influence Thomas in the ways of the potty trained, but I also owe her doubly for this gigantic bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies that I've been stuffing my face with all week to ease the stress of this project. Thank you, Jennie!
Gah. So many details, lots of little things that hopefully will culminate in finally being able to relax. I need a hot tub because I'm stressed out from getting a hot tub. I can has hot tub?
Our awesome landscaper gave me some rather unsettling news today. It turns out that the landscaping we had done last November was done wrong. And by "wrong" I mean that the elaborate drip system that meanders around every plant in the perimeter of our yard isn't actually attached to anything. In other words, the thousands of dollars worth of plants aren't being watered every night like I thought they were. I've been sleeping peacefully, imagining life-giving water tenderly spraying my japanese maples and podocarpus and lavender, and now it feels like I woke up from a nightmare where my precious plants are only several hot days away from total death. Apparently, dupes of this nature are common in the landscaping industry. The ignorant homeowner sees that his plants aren't doing well and calls back the landscaper, who "fixes" the problem but only after discovering something that requires the homeowner to spend even more money. The whole idea kind of boggles my mind. Now we have to figure out how to handle the situation with the landscaper who dicked us over and we also have to play nice with our current landscaper to get him to fix the problem. It's not about money, but as you can imagine, contractors don't like fixing other contractor's mistakes, especially when they think you should have used them as the contractor in the first place.
[Such a long and complicated story and probably painfully boring to read. This post is such the ranting of a middle class housewife.]
So that's the real reason I'm stressed right now. When everything goes according to plan--even if the plan is long and complicated--I'm cool. But when issues come up that are messy and require diplomacy and patience, I can maintain the cool but my energy is sapped at two or three times the normal rate. Sometimes I can't even maintain the cool and that's when I take things out on Mike. But that's another post. All I can say is not only d0 I owe my friend Jennie for bringing over her son to influence Thomas in the ways of the potty trained, but I also owe her doubly for this gigantic bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies that I've been stuffing my face with all week to ease the stress of this project. Thank you, Jennie!
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