More Whitetrashness...In Living Color

Yesterday I wrote about my fear that I was crossing the line into "whitetrashness."  I realize that being from the South, there's a certain amount of it that just goes with the territory.  Much like the fact that I know how to "put up" jelly and pickles, that you are supposed to take homemade food to baby showers, funerals, and other social functions, and that folks are going to ask who your "people" are before they fully make up their mind about you.

I grew up in a small town, but in a residential area.  We never had a garden, and aside from having two cats that had kittens on the same day once...we didn't have many pets and certainly didn't have them in the house.  I didn't grow up with snakes (other than one encounter picking blackberries once), rodents (other than a stint with a hamster or two), or bugs (except lightning bugs that we caught on summer nights outside playing with friends.)  Since I've been living out here...I've run up on all sorts of critters.

And yes...my dogs live in the house.

About twelve years ago, we were living in town and had decided that we wanted to find some land in Pike Road.  Pike Road is just outside of Montgomery and is just starting to organize itself properly as a town.  Our population is about 5,000 people and there's a lot of land out here.  Big Dave grew up in Greenville and wasn't used to having neighbors other than a church that met once a month or so next door.  Living in town was nice...and certainly convenient...but he didn't have room to breathe.  Big Dave likes to putter...is an early riser, and doesn't mind doing all of those things that I don't particularly care for like cleaning the pool or mowing the lawn.  He generally keeps those things taken care of without any intervention on my part.  This totally rocks...because heaven knows...I have to stay after him about just about everything else.

Or so I think, anyway. (Although Exhibits A, B, C, D, E & F are enough evidence for me.)

We live on a five acre lot.  We designed the house from our heads and took a napkin to an architect.  Never mind that neither of us have A) any spacial ability whatsoever, B) a clue about how this house should have flowed.  He did a nice job...but I wish he had told us that we were out of our minds about a few things.  But honestly?  It's okay.  So our master bath isn't big?  So what if we don't have a separate dining room?  We wanted a house where people felt comfortable.  A place that would be big enough to raise our kids...but wouldn't be too big when they moved out on their own.  A home where it wasn't the end of the world if someone tracked water from the pool on the way to the bathroom or folks wanted to eat popcorn on the couch.  And that's what we have.  For better or worse.

Here are a few photos that I mentioned in last night's blogpost.  Are we crossing the line to "whitetrashness"?  You be the judge...

This is "Big Blue."  Okay, you might be thinking...um, Karen, that looks like a pool.  True, true.  However, think "Boise State" when you look at this...I know I do!  This is SO much brighter than the last pool liner we had.  The other one - granted - had been with us for nine years. But now I look outside and it is BLUE!  . 

Here's another view.  At the rate that this water is flowing in the pool, it ought to be full sometime within the next three days.  Our water bill for April will not be Duh! Winning!  So not.

Here's the pattern.  See the "faux tile" look that Big Dave was so enamored with?  Actually, it looks better in the pool than in this piece that they gave us in case we need to patch something.  I really don't want to think about that "patching" eventuality right now.  I want to live in my NEW LINER! bubble for the next ten years or so.

No, we aren't having a party...and there are only three of us living here right now.  Here's a photo of some of the cars currently in the driveway.  The white Explorer in the back hasn't moved in two years.  It isn't on blocks...but since its axle is broken...it isn't going anywhere without Mr. Tow Truck.  There's the Accord (running), the Tiburon (new to us), and Brian's old Explorer (running...and needs to be sold).  Parking on the grass?  Oh yeah.  That's crossing the line to "whitetrashness", don't you think?

Here's all seven of the cars.  In addition to the four cars in the other photo, we have my in-laws' truck that we are temporarily babysitting, Big Dave's truck and Jill's old Miata (that was my sister Linda's old Miata before that).  I was so not kidding about that "Hotel California" of cars thing.

Bear in mind that I took this picture from the road at 7:00 a.m. wearing my hot pink moumou...barefooted...and was running behind the cars every time one of my neighbors passed (which was at least four times.)  I counted it as my aerobic activity for the day.  The neighbors to my left know us and would probably just laugh and wave.  They've seen worse.  The ones to the right never come out of their house...so I figured that they probably couldn't care less what I was doing.  Our neighbors across the street just built a gorgeous house...and I'm sure that if they saw me that it is just further confirmation that we're out of our minds and are intent on running down their property value. 

Oh, and by the way, just ignore those weeds you see.  Big Dave rode around on his lawnmower and squirted weed killer all over the yard.  We have five acres...so sod was so not an option.

Here's the driveway.  Yeah...it's a bit skinny on gravel, yes?   Big Dave can't decide whether he wants to have the driveway curve around to a second entrance, or if he wants to build something that looks a little less trashy in front of the house.  We're torn.  I figure by the time I can apply for retirement he may make up his mind.  Please bear in mind that our neighbors on both sides, and the perfect new house across the street all have nice paved driveways.  Paved as in "non-gravel.".
Here's the trailer will all of Big Dave's construction scrap crap on it.  If you look closely...you'll notice that the tire is flat.  He'll pump it up and take this load to the dump at some point in time.  I think he's waiting for the perfect moment.  Frankly, he's mighty picky about that moment since I know that we've been waiting at least six months.  But you know what?  This weekend is it!  He's either "toting" it off...or I'm setting fire to it. 

See the basketball goal?  Nobody has shot hoops since 2006.  Yeah.  That bad boy needs to come down.  It will likely not do so voluntarily...which is a good thing and a bad thing.  Good in that we do get storms blowing through here about every other month during hurricane season.  That thing made it through Hurricane Ivan...so it's seriously "installed."  I believe that it will take a jackhammer to get through that concrete.  Great.

Well, that's the outside of our house...or at least some of what I wrote about last night.  Okay, it's not horrible.  But you'll notice that I didn't enclose the photos of the pool before we replaced the liner.  That's because I was far too mortified...and because I didn't think to photograph it.  Some things are best left unphotographed. 

I didn't show you pictures of the flower beds that seriously need weeding, the garden that is on top of the septic tank fill hump or what ever it is called, the untrimmed tea olives that smell awesome but look a wee bit scraggly right now, or the storage building that Big Dave just had to have last year and had excellent intentions of staining. 

But hey, it's home.

I'll clean up a little bit and then show you the inside at some later date.  It isn't horrible, but I have a lot of things out of place right now because David painted the house back in September.  Oh, it's nearly April, you say?  Yep...par for the course around here.

Hopefully, we will be able to use the pool as a springboard to getting everything else around here straightened up.  In the meantime...we're going to enjoy Big Blue if I can ever get past the immense blueness of it.  Oh, why am I whining?  I'm sure that I'll eventually get used to his awesome smurfness soon enough. If not, I can go outside and hang Christmas lights or secretly curse my neighbor (the ones that never leave the house) for not cutting the little strip of land between our houses...for the past EIGHT FLIPPING YEARS!!!

No, I'm not bitter.  Not at all.