Perhaps I should actually make the title of this post, "You Know Your House is a Hot Mess When..." It's no secret that Alex and I have been a bit preoccupied over the last several months. Between our day jobs, Lulu's battle against cancer, subsequent surgery, then radiation, and now surgery for Mel this week to remove a cyst on his side, two teeth, and a mass in his mouth, we're finding it difficult to carve out time for our serious home renovation projects. But as most of us know, home ownership isn't just about remaking and improving spaces, it's also about maintaining your home and yard (no matter how small that yard may be).

We've both known that a lot of these maintenance items have been put on the back burner, but I suppose we were living in pure blissful denial that we'd eventually need to deal with them...well until last week, anyway. While in the guest room applying makeup and drying my hair reality was unapologetically thrust into my mid-morning face. (Wait a second, why am I using the guest room to ready myself, you might wonder? For the last several years, the guest room dresser has served as my make shift vanity while our master bath has been in a state of flux. Okay, back to my story.) During this time of markup application I heard a repeated SCRAPE, SCRAPE, SCRAPE noise coming from our alley area. 

Wondering what it is I might see, I peered out the window of the guest room to discover that a neighbor's handyman/gardener was in the alley adjacent to our home and was raking up the ivy and tree debris along our house and patio wall. While part of me was mortified that it had become such an eyesore that a neighbor stepped in to tackle it, the other part of me was relieved knowing that it would be done. I hope this doesn't make me a bad person/neighbor. Apparently our blight was just too much for them, and for that, I'm very sorry.

I sheepishly slipped through the back gate, thanked the gentleman for his time and efforts, and thrust a stack of wrapped sugar cookies in his hands as a gesture of my now unending gratitude. I then called Alex to tell him what had transpired, share a few choice words, then let off a little steam about the fact that we were now "that house in the neighborhood!" 

As much as I prefer that the events hadn't transpired, this was the wake up call I needed. This was enough to kick my tail into gear and I knew I needed to pay special attention to our front "yard" before some family of raccoons decided they'd had enough with our filth.

I use the term "yard" loosely as our house sits directly on the sidewalk, but we do have two planted urns and a small patch of garden surrounding the city tree out front. The urn arrangements were looking sparse, and were in need of a little cleaning up.