Looking for a new home?

So there's a super-cute little house for sale on our street. It's TINY and seriously needs some work (like new floors), but it's cheap. For those of you not from Portland or for those of you unfamiliar with the housing market here, $165,000 will get you 750 square feet (yes, 750. I didn't leave out a digit) in a neighborhood that's up-and-coming to be up-and-coming.

I mean, our little community here DOES have standards for potential members. If one or more of these criteria sounds like you, please let me know and I will put you in touch with the realtor immediately

§You have at least one dog you apparently do not allow in your house and you leave them outside to bark. Constantly.

§You choose not to smoke cigarettes in your house, but instead stand on your back porch, all the while hacking up one or both lungs while the smoke drifts over to your neighbors' yards. This is especially nice in the summer.

§You are suspected by your neighbors of being a drug dealer, and in fact, at least one of your neighbors has alerted the neighborhood fuzz.

§You have a trailer in your backyard, where you allow your son and his girlfriend to stay, and from which they come and go at all hours.

§You have at least one vehicle with a damaged/missing muffler, which you enjoy "revving" for 20 minutes or longer.

§You have a constant stream of used appliances in your front yard, which you and your friends haul away on a daily basis, only to replace them with others. It appears this is your career.

§You live in a tiny house with your spouse and 3 teenage daughters who appear typical: squealing, fighting, laughing, etc., but who also prevent your neighbors from keeping their windows open at night in the summer.

§You have an adult child who has mixed himself up with "the wrong crowd" (that is, most likely drug dealers), and pisses them off, wherein they retaliate by throwing a Molotov Cocktail at your house.

It's like our own little gated community without the gates. Come see the paradise.

The Argument for Dandelions

Whoever it was that came up with what qualifies as a weed should explain themselves.

When my husband and I bought our house 3+ years ago, the idea of a nearly-double city lot was appealing. 1. We paid but a song for it (a good song, mind you. The equivalent of "Bohemian Rhapsody", let's say), 2. Our house is situated basically in the middle of the lot, so our neighbors don't seem so close, and 3. Lots of yard to play with and landscape and hang out in.

The first 2 points have paid off. Number 3? Well, if we were retired or I was a stay-at-home dog-mom or we made enough dough to pay someone to be our gardener, then this blog wouldn't exist, frankly.

The house itself didn't need too much work, just some cosmetic changes to suit our personal tastes. What really needed help was the yard. A lot of grass, random plants, and berries. Oh my good lord, the berries. I love berries as much as the next person, but hello. They are like weeds that jump across borders and fences (feel free to insert some sort of "joke" about immigrants here.) And dandelions? When you pull them out or pop their little heads off, that is not the end of dandelions. I thought if we pulled a bunch of them out, and left them out as a warning for other dandelions, they would back off. It only makes them stronger. They unite and conquer. And we can't use an herbicide for them because of our pets, not to mention the impact of the environment.

So my question is: who decided that dandelions are weeds? I read recently that sometimes a weed is just a misplaced flower or plant. I can think of lots of things that are classified as plants that are even more prolific (in a bad way) than dandelions. Ivy? Lemon balm? Japanese honeysuckle? Don't plant any of these in the ground unless you want to be taken over by a plant, a la Little Shop of Horrors.

Frankly, I'm just too lazy to try and keep up with getting rid of weeds completely. Our yard will never look like a carefully manicured park. But as long as I can sit on the patio and enjoy an adult beverage and feel good about the work we've done, I'm okay with that.