Nora, I hope you have a nice relaxing weekend. Did you have a release party last night? How did it go?

dirty!

dirty!

Ahahahaha! That might be later though.

...not that kind of release party.

Is Beasts and Brass sold out? It snuck up on me. Am also willing to volunteer if you need another pair of hands.

It is not sold out to my knowledge! [link]

If I hear that they need more volunteers, I will let you know...

I think that's how life IS. There is no clear-cut progression. You just keep moving and eventually the forward steps outnumber the back.

I try to remember this, but it just feels like the backward steps outnumber the forward steps more often than not. I get discouraged, probably too easily.

I've found other people to give me some of the parental validation I'd been wanting - my dance teacher, my aunt, my friends, Buffistas!

I've said it before, I'll say it again -- the support of the Buffistas is amazing. If I didn't have you guys to vent to, I would have been in a clock tower with a rifle by now.

I meet with my other PT on Tuesday (who I like and trust much more), and I want to talk to him about it. But I'm really not sure what to say. I want to be able to handle this in a professional matter that will hopefully get some results rather than with the anger and sadness I'm feeling right now.

I think that you should just say this:

I just can't do everything on my own and, While better, I am also nowhere near the goal my doctor had for me in going to PT in the first place.

If nothing else, your doctor's goal should be something that they pay attention to.

I've said it before, I'll say it again -- the support of the Buffistas is amazing. If I didn't have you guys to vent to, I would have been in a clock tower with a rifle by now.

Yes, this. Especially on days like this.

I think that you should just say this:

Thanks, Vortex. I'm going to try and write some things down between now and Tuesday so that I can have an intelligent conversation without becoming too emotional.

And I should probably get something like donuts to bring with me for the valet woman that listened to me rant and cry.

Something happened this evening/afternoon that has taken awhile to set in and really upset me.

We live in a sub that is mostly filled with older people. I'd say the average age is around 60 - 65. A lot of retirees, a lot of folks with kids and grandkids my age. There are some pretty strict rules from the HOA as far as what can be outside (patio furniture is fine) and what is not (no drying racks/clotheslines, nothing that is put into the grass). All front gardens must be maintained by the occupant/owner and must be "completed" by June 30. All decks (everyone must have at least one!) must be stained at least once every two years.

Now, our front garden is pretty heinous. It has three dappled willow bushes in it that get out of control. I mean, they get HUGE. I've gotten permission from the landlord to pull them out because they are much much much too big for the space. After all, front hedges are not allowed to go higher than the bottom sill of the front windows. I just haven't gotten around to it. I don't much like gardening and I've been hanging out at the pool cause that is way more fun.

Today, some woman that's a neighbor comes to our sliding glass door and says, "Can I trim the hedges in the front? I'm one of those people that just gets really nutty over the wway our community looks."

...

I had been woken up from a nap to deal with this and now I have this person who has never, ever in the year and a half that we have lived here ever bothered to come over and say hello, standing on my deck, scolding me for not keeping up the garden and saying, "Fine. Then I'll do it, if you can't be bothered." I found myself mumbling about running around after the girls and not getting to it and wanting to just pull the damn things out at which point she says, "Well, *I* KNOW [landlord]. Are you having trouble with him because I could call him and get him to deal with this."

Lady, I've just had better things to do. I don't like that our unit is the ugly one. I hate it. I just haven't found myself in the space or with the funds to be able to deal with it.

But now, I feel shamed. And dirty. And embarassed that people look at our house and shake their heads. I hate being that house in the neighborhood. I truly do. It's dumb and totally out of proportion, but I feel like a total adult failure who can't even get her garden figured out.

HOAs are often insane. As are people who have too much time on their hands.