I think some people just like to make other people miserable.
This is the case with my mother-in-law. No matter what I do, I can’t satisfy her.
Case in point; I mow the lawn, weed, edge and care for the flower beds….But in her eyes, I don’t do it right. Every year I go through this. She doesn’t understand that every so often, you need to dig bulbs up, separate them and bring them closer to the surface to make them continue to bloom and flourish. Every year I weed out the Hosta beds and after they have bloomed and start to die back, I cut them off and allow them to hibernate until the next spring….They have come up stronger every year and I think much prettier than when they were left to grow wild on their own. I have grown marigolds every year and when the blooms die, I take them apart and save the seeds for the next year….I planted Four O’ Clocks that seed themselves and come up every year making the front flower bed full of color.
I carefully mow around plants that have been planted willy-nilly in the yard with no barriers to prevent them from growing where they please….I use hand edgers to get all the weeds and grass away from their bases to make them pretty….But I “don’t do it right”…..
Well guess what? I am the only one who takes the time to work in the yard and to keep it neat and pretty. I’m not allowed to plant bushes or flowering trees because she doesn’t like them…Not even azaleas, Dogwood or Forsythia…
The 81 year old lady across the street pays me to mow her lawn once a week….$17….I use the mower we have here as Barbara hasn’t owned a mower in 10 years. And every time I mow, I hear crap about “Doesn’t Barb own her own mower?” The answer is NO!!! But no one pays me to mow our yard and we do pay for the gas that goes in the mower.
Yesterday, after I got off work, I mowed Barb’s yard, then mowed and edged our yard. Do I get a thank you or a “The yard looks nice” from my Mother-in-Law??? No!! I get “The grass is uneven”….because out front where the cars are parked I can not mow right up against the curbs and the ground isn’t level where trees once were….or I hear “That edger needs a guard on it” because it kicks up the grass it clips when I edge. Or I heard how the Easter Lillies that were in the back yard didn’t come up this year….. probably because we didn’t have a hard winter and they are getting too deep in the ground.
Now she is telling me she wants to take up the landscape timbers and bricks around the flower beds to replace it with plastic fencing. Well Plastic fencing will allow the grass and weeds to take over the flower beds….and if that happens, I will quit weeding…Plastic fencing also cracks, breaks, fades, etc due to weather conditions or age….It would need replacing probably every year….
She complains about only having $12 left until the end of the month, but she spends at least $20 a week on lottery tickets….so far she hasn’t won anything near what she has spent in the 20 years she has been playing it….
Maybe I am wrong, but if you are that poor in the middle of the month, shouldn’t you be doing anything you can to save money??? Landscape timbers are generally pressure treated and made to last a long time….I have been in this house for 4 years and the timbers were here long before that….If she is that concerned about how everything in the yard looks, why doesn’t she get off her butt and get out in the yard and do the work herself….
I know I’m on a tirade and it’s not Wednesday, but Heaven help me…..I do what I can.
There is a saying about Pleasing some of the people some of the time; "You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time." But she is one person I can never please….no matter what I do and I am tired of trying to live up to her expectations….
My Daddy always taught me, “If you don’t like what is being done, change it, or do it yourself”
I think it is time I gave up trying to please her and let her do it herself.
Hugs and love to all!
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