Instead of making us step over the dog poo...

...why don't you just pick up after your dog?

For the life of me, I just don't get how hard it is to pick up after your pet. Yet, Along a 2 mile walk through the neighborhood and along the trail, I think we stepped over/walked around no less than 10 piles. Thankfully none of them "steaming."

I've had dogs as pets before. I know how gross it can be. But you know what? It's not that hard to take care of. If your dog poops, pick. it. up.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to my next-door neighbors. In the 4.5 years we've lived in this house, we've never needed blinds on the bay window in the dining room. Thanks to you're being overly-friendly, and just plain weird, they've now been installed.

Early last summer, the neighbors to the north of us moved away. They were pretty cool. Kept to themselves mostly, yet decent neighbors and friendly. Late in the summer the house finally sold, and the new neighbors moved in. Seemed fine, then their whole freaking family moved in, added like 10 additional cars to the neighborhood, then moved up the street. Other than that minor annoyance they're OK. Or at least I thought so.

I like to use my dining room table as my craft area, so some evenings I spend a bit of time in there working on my latest creation. Often I'll look up from what I was doing to find one of the neighbors staring out their window that faces ours, right into the house.

Then last weekend my Mom was visiting, and I heard a car drive up. Naturally I look out the window to see if it's our house (it wasn't) but there's the neighbor lady. Standing on the sidewalk. Peering in, noticing me looking out, and waving. The window sits behind the fence, and the sidewalk isn't exactly right up against the fence!

The final straw was this morning. I was swapping laundry and decided the exercise pants I was wearing needed to go in that load. No biggie. I'm in my own home, so walking back upstairs in a sweatshirt and underpants shouldn't be a problem, right? Not when you have our neighbors who FELT THE NEED TO PEER IN AND WAVE.

I never had issues like this when we lived in the townhouse, much less the apartment! Much closer quarters there! Ugh. Well at least my plantation blinds look nice. And they'll keep out the heat (and the looky-lous) this summer.