gottawonder

There are things to be grateful for, and I'll get to that, but today was pretty stressful for me and my sweetie.

First, his sister and her husband and their two kids came to visit us, as a pit-stop because they are carrying onward to Calgary after this. We tried telling them that right now was not a good time to stop in; the roof was coming down today, and it would be a dangerous work site, and there was almost nothing left for them to do to help (anything left now is serious demolition, being done with machines and sledgehammers).

Nope. They insisted on coming. My sweetie tried finding them useful things to do, but was freaking out the whole time that they might get hurt. His sister's husband ended up cutting through a live wire; everyone is fine, but still. Mostly, they were in the way and created extra stress for my husband.

We were also in no real position to be social. Our time to cook would be non-existent, we couldn't really take time away from everything to visit or have fun. My sweetie's sister was kind of put out that we couldn't take a day off to go to the water park....?

I went to my riding lesson today, because I am NOT going to cut back on riding any more than I already have. I did dig up more plants for an hour or so right before I had to leave for lessons, but I could tell that my sweetie's sister was likely thinking that I was being lazy and letting them do all the work. It's tough to emphasize to her that I really wasn't going to be that useful in the kind of demolition being done today (I had been planning on just staying out of their way anyhow), and that I've been working PLENTY, and riding is about the only thing I've done in weeks that isn't just working on the house. It's my sanity day.

Anyhow, I came home from riding, to see that part of the roof was indeed down now. I also saw that our friend operating the equipment had driven right over a flower bed that he said he could avoid, and that my husband had told me I didn't need to transplant. I was so upset that all I had to do was leave for two hours, and this bullshit was happening. I could have TOTALLY moved it, but everyone said I didn't need to, so I didn't, because who needs extra work?

Needless to say, I was so angry and tired of the wanton destruction of my yard (I've had to work hard not to be upset at the many ruts and torn up grass everywhere on the lawn, and things like the deck being dragged out and left on the grass, and material stripped off the house in piles everywhere, hoses and pipes and extension cords everywhere, because I know that is part of a project like this) that I just walked away from everyone to go do something else. I couldn't exactly get angry at the machine operator, who was working for just whatever salvaged materials he could use, even though I had specifically pointed out the flower bed to him and told him not to drive over it. Yup, I was good and furious, and wasn't allowed to vent. So I focused on moving some stuff off the remaining part of the deck and taking it to the garden shed.

Then, my husband came over to talk about having his sister and family get a tour of our farm house. I was so angry that I was like..."YEAH, SURE, OF COURSE I CAN COOK SUPPER FOR THEM AND GIVE THEM A TOUR OF OUR HOUSE!!!!!!" This is also part of why I didn't think today was a good day for them to come. Our new house has boxes of stuff everywhere, and I was just TIRED of hosting. His parents just left, and I didn't have a lot of fun with his Dad being disgusting, and now I had to be nice to more family when I was in no way, shape, or form prepared to host anyone. I had no fucks left to give.

His sister heard the anger in my voice, and in a huff, they all just left without saying goodbye to me. I'm sure that she figured I was a bitch for going riding and leaving them to "do all of the work" (even though it was manufactured make-work by my husband, trying to keep them out of harm's way), and I'm sure she thought I was a bitch for being so angry about my flower bed.

Everyone else had already gone home, apparently because I was angry about the flower bed. I hadn't really said anything to anyone, I just told my husband how upset I was, and left the group to go do things by myself so that I could be furious alone. Well, what do they expect?

According to my sweetie, he had talked to the machine operator, who said he would NOT disturb the flower bed. My sweetie helped guide him AWAY from the flowers, but apparently this guy just chose to ignore my husband and backed straight up over the flowers anyhow, because it was a little easier that way. My husband was angry at this guy too, because he had said he wouldn't hurt the flower bed, and my husband KNEW I would be angry and direct it at him.

So, I was able to move past my anger with my husband, because I think he was genuinely trying to save the flower bed, but not at the whole scenario, and how the operator ignored our request. I guess I have to move what's left of it now, because we aren't finished demolition by any means, and it will likely happen again.

On top of all of that, my sweetie had convinced me to let this same back hoe guy dig some holes for the rosebushes I was moving, because it would be so much quicker to let him do it with a machine while I was away at my riding lesson. Of course, it was an unholy mess, with holes large enough to bury a sofa, piles of dirt, piles of torn up sod. Ridiculously huge holes for two roses. I could have dug a couple of holes myself, but my sweetie thought this would be better. It is likely going to take many times the effort to fix this mess, and it will be ugly for the rest of the year because of the torn up sod.

I still had to work for a couple of hours making MORE new flowerbed for the plants I had dug up earlier today, before I left for riding. I was just exhausted, even though I didn't "do any work" today.

Also, there was frustration with the owner of the barn, because she has two sons who are about 3 and 5 years old, and she lets them more or less torture the kittens she got for the barn. You know what kids are like, they drag kittens around like stuffed animals, hold them by the neck, drag them by one leg, pick them up by grabbing the hair on their backs. They were doing all of this, and I tried to correct them, but if their Mom won't enforce better behavior, they aren't going to listen to me, are they. One of the other teen riders was freaking out to me about this, because they couldn't do anything to stop the kids from harming the kittens either.

So, many shitty things about today.

This is a picture of the giant, gaping hole that was supposed to be for a rose bush.