How Did We Get Here

~A quick lesson on turning a negative into a positive~

How did we get here? And I don’t mean how we ended up on a farm with over a hundred animals. I mean how did we get here. Right now, right here, years before we intended. You see, we had bought a house and completely gutted it and designed it exactly how we wanted. Yes it was a little small but it was perfect for now. Until we were ready to go ahead and take the plunge on our homesteading dreams. Our plans got moved up.
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So we got some puppies! These puppies were supposed to stay small (Boston Terrier and King Charles Cavalier Spaniel mixes). They did not stay small. They very quickly realized they could jump the little chain link fence in the back yard. So, we had to move up our plans of replacing the fence in the back and adding a safety fence in the front. So we did this. Our neighbors knew of our plans to do this. A few days before we did this one of our neighbors became aware of a restriction document for the neighborhood that said no fences in front of the dwelling. So we took a ride around the neighborhood and discovered that a bunch of other homes had fences in front of their homes. With other homes having the same violations, it makes the document obsolete. (There was also sections saying no campers or trailers or businesses to be run out of the homes, and absurdly enough, NO CHICKENS).

Let’s step back for a second. This community had a Volunteer Community Association, of which I was a board member. I talked to no less than five of the other board members about this fence that we decided to put up, after we found out about this document. Each of these people told us to just go ahead and do it. So we did.

The fence goes up. We plant our front yard vegetable garden and the fence is acting as a trellis for our cucumbers and our squash. Being an active member of the board, I am getting ready to host my third fundraiser since we joined this volunteer association. Something that had not been done in a decade in this neighborhood. The playgrounds were rotted and unsafe for the children to use. So what do you do? You raise money. I put hundreds of dollars into this trying to get $3500 for the new playgrounds, and you know what? We got it.

So what happens directly after I run the third fundraiser? We get a letter in the mail from the president of the association, dated prior to the last fundraiser, telling us to take down the fence or else. We didn’t take the fence down. It was keeping our children in the yard instead of the road and our food was growing on it! The bylaws of the association didn’t mention the restrictions and so to us it was not a deal breaker on being a member. So they sent another letter, saying that we are dismissed from the association and our pool membership had been revoked. Our four-year-old was on the swim team. There were three weeks left of swim team. These people told a four-year-old he couldn’t go swimming anymore.

But you know what else they said? We were no longer allowed in the park! You know that one that I personally spent hundreds of dollars on and countless hours trying to raise money for new equipment. These people were so heartless and such bullies that they took that away from our children. The worst part was that you didn’t even have to be a member of the association to use the park! So had we never joined this association we wouldn’t even had an issue with the park and wouldn’t have been allowed in the pool anyways. They say it’s a thankless job and I never did it for the thanks. What they don’t tell you is that a bully will always be a bully and their children will also be bullies, and if you find one of these adults, you should stay far away because nothing they are a part of will ever be worth needing to associate with them.

Our family being kicked out of the association and mostly the park, caused a huge uproar in the neighborhood. People liked us. It was really just two bullies on the board that had an issue. I have the old emails to prove it. Lots of neighbors wanted us to sue them, which we could have, and bankrupted them. But that wasn’t fair to all the people who lived there who had nothing to do with this. We weren’t going to do that to all the other innocent children just because some nasty people did it to ours. What were we going to do? Move. And you know what moving does? It grandfather’s that fence into the property so no one can ever tell the owners they can’t have it, ever again. And that is how we started on a house hunt only one year after moving into our home.

It might all seem petty but I was seven months pregnant with our fourth child, this drama and overbearing uncomfortableness really took a toll on my body and my mental health. We did not buy into that neighborhood because it was the best thing since sliced bread. We bought there because it was cheap. Cheap cheap. We lost friends over this. We simply did not want to be there anymore, could not be there anymore, for our mental health, and for our children.

These bullies pushed us into our future that we thought was ten years away. Our future is now. We are living our dreams, our dreams are becoming our reality. We have our bullies to thank.