ingrid

One of the hardest things about living in the city is just getting rid of things properly.

A lot of things have changed drastically about my life in the last few years.  First of all, I have these kids and people in their misguided kindness want to give them cheap, plastic crap.  Plastic is truly an amazing invention, and there are wonderful uses for this miracle invention.  Unfortunately, those wonderful inventions usually do not come from the Dollar Store or have “MADE IN CHINA” written on the bottom of them.  This stuff flows into my life at an alarming rate, especially considering that I don’t buy any of it.  It is prizes at school, presents from kid friends, stuff strangers give my children in stores because they were particularly cute that day.  The end result is all the same though.  I trip over it, pull it out of Inez’s mouth, pick it up from the yard or the bathroom floor one too many times and it is banned to the Salvation Army box.  Once there, I must covertly smuggle it out of the house and trundle it into the trunk of the car.  It has to be in a box WITH a lid on it, not viewable by child eyes, as the minute they see it they wail, “But I LOOOOOOVE this!”.  Love my ass.  I just found it in the toilet.

Once in the box, in the trunk of the car, the job is still not done.  First of all, my husband is fighting me every step of the way because he doesn’t want stuff in the trunk.  He takes it out, I put it in, he takes it out, I put it in, he takes it out….  Once it goes in, I really need to get to a donation site quickly to make sure that it doesn’t end up in the front foyer again, but this is hard considering my daily schedule.  I also have to get the box to the proper donation site without kids looking in or seeing a donation receiving person looking in.  ”But I loooooooved that!” will ensue if this rule is breached, and even worse, the person receiving the donation has been known to take out the PIECE of GOD DAMN PLASTIC and give it back to my child!

Second thing that is hard about city living is living without a farm truck.  I don’t have one.  I don’t know anyone who has one.  Every other week we have a 33 gallon container of yard debris that we can put out, but moving into a largely unkempt house on an unkempt lot, there has been a ton of weeding and pruning and yard work to execute.  There is bamboo, which is a plant from the devil.  You cut it, it grows, you cut it, it grows,  you…. anyway, I think you understand.  Throughout the last few years, I have created way more than 33 gallons every other week of yard debris.  I compost, (two different bins!), I cut it up, I mulch as much as I can, but still I have too much and no way to haul it away.  When it does start to overwhelm the yard, I can rent a pick up ($35 for 3 hours), and haul the stuff to a yard debris place (between $10 and $20 a load).  If I got a babysitter while doing this job, that is $11 an hour.  As you can imagine, it adds up and it wasn’t much fun in the first place.

The third thing that is hard to get rid of is just plain old wood waste.  It isn’t legal to fire up a big old bon fire like we used to do in Sheridan.  Around here you have to haul stuff away to a specific facility (see above).  Currently I am trying to get rid of our old chicken coop.  Rather than sawzall it up and hope that my Dad would haul it off when he comes to visit, I thought I would Craigslist it for free.  Poor choice.  Although I found a taker, and waited for her all day, she never showed up.  It turned out she didn’t have a pick up.  So the old coop sits in my front yard, waiting for a taker… hopefully with an F-10.

In: General bitchin', Projects That I Do With My Clever Little Fingers | | #