What a weekend

What. A. Weekend.

We packed up our entire house (and life as we know it) and sent it to Chicago in a truck. That included our most precious possessions- our children!!

Sitting where our couch used to be

Enjoying some lunch, then hitting the road!

Saying goodbye was so hard and I was left with so many mixed emotions.

But there wasn't much time to attend to that. Jason and I have lots to do to get our house ready to sell. This week we have painters, house cleaners, and carpet cleaners scheduled. And we ourselves will be doing little things here and there as well.

One piece I thought I had checked off my to-do list was the gardens. I knew they needed one last clean-up, the bushes need a trimming again, and I knew I'd have to pull some grass and weeds as well, but I'd already done the majority of the work, cleaning up the beds, setting a new border, and planting beautiful flowers. Little did I know I would be revisiting this task yet again.

Last night, after the moving truck took all our furniture, we decided we'd stay at a friend's house (who happens to be on vacation) instead of trying to sleep on a blow-up mattress on our floor. We returned home this morning, ready to work, only to discover a neighbor boy dragging our lawnmower from our (fenced-in!) backyard. Upon seeing us pull into the driveway, he set the handle down, and walked off. We were completely stunned and puzzled, but began unloading items from our truck, before it occurred to us to check what else might have been taken from the backyard. Upon entering the backyard I found two teenage children (one boy, one girl) trying to climb the fence, presumably to escape. I was so shocked I barely managed to choke out, "what are you doing?". The girl told me that a "neighbor" told her it was okay to come get some compost. I am not good with confrontation, and I do not handle stress and adrenaline well, so all I could manage to think to say was simply, "we live here. We did not give anyone permission to take anything. You need to leave." The teens quickly (and probably happily) complied, and ran from the yard.

It wasn't until after they left that our senses came to us to really check what had happened. After inspection we discovered they had taken my gardening tools (two small shovels, a small rake and a larger one, two pairs of hedge trimmers, and four pairs of gardening gloves), they had emptied mulch from our wheelbarrow (dumped it in the middle of our yard) and had filled the wheelbarrow with soil from my raised garden bed, and compost from our composter. When I came around the front I discovered they had dug up a good portion of my lovely petunias and impatiens. The strange thing was they took the flowers from such random places- entire sections in some places, groupings from other places, then single flowers here and there (instead of taking an entire grouping of a pink, purple, and yellow flower, they instead took single ones from separate groupings).

Half of the flowers are missing!

I was so angry. So much hard work (and money!) and been poured into those flowers. And I was SO pleased with how it had turned out. I was quite happy with the way the flowers around the tree had really filled in, just in time for listing the house, and everything else was colorful and thriving.

And the whole things was just perplexing. There were numerous items they could have taken (a full propane tank for grilling, a DVD player, empty storage bins that were in great condition), but all they took were gardening supplies and flowers (and they tried to take a mower and some dirt). I mean... who does that??

After calming down a bit, Jason and I took a drive around the neighborhood. We went in the opposite direction that we'd seen the children go, because that made sense, right? Wrong. We ended up heading down the cul-de-sac where we'd seen one of the children run, and immediately I spotted my flowers. Planted in the garden!

Pink, purple, and yellow flowers around
their mailbox

Jason asked if I was SURE they were my flowers. I was positive. But still, how could I prove they were MY flowers? But then... then I saw MY shovel. My shovel my sister gave me as a housewarming gift when we first moved in. Just lying in the yard.

I yelled at Jason to call the police, or ring the doorbell, or something! So we parked the car in our driveway and walked over to the house. I laughed to discover that the "culprits" had not covered their tracks very well...

Hard to see in the pic- a dirt trail

An adult answered the door (well... not really... no one answered and we were about to leave when the garage door opened). Jason tried to ask about the flowers and the guy just said, "my kids...". He explained that he woke up and saw all the flowers and asked the kids where they'd gotten them. The kids told them we'd moved out and "left all this stuff behind" so they took it. He also explained that they'd told him that we'd come home while they were there. He said, "you're welcome to take your flowers back" to which I replied, "your kids can dig them up again and return them." (actually, me being me, I actually said, "can you please have your kids dig them up and return them?).

We left for Home Depot and returned to find a pile of sad-looking flowers on our front porch along with our large rake and hedge trimmers. When I went to re-plant the flowers I noticed I was still missing a shovel and my gardening gloves. I had specifically left these items here so I could work in the yard and wasn't going to be able to without them. I told Jason he was going to have to go back and ask for them, which he wasn't happy about, but I wasn't about to buy new gardening supplies to replace our stolen ones. He returned with the small rake and the gloves, but still not the shovel I wanted. I sent him back once again. This time he met with the grandmother of the house who also explained that they'd woken to flowers and the kids said they'd gotten them from our house. She said she'd been saying she wanted flowers, so the kids must have wanted to surprise her. All three kids were there this time and even claimed there was nothing else left until Jason said I was adamant there was still a shovel. Only the youngest apologized.

Of course I'm angry about the whole thing. Angry that someone would steal flowers, angry that I had to replant them, angry that they look awful now after all that hard work and money, angry that I have to deal with this at all. But do you want to know what makes me the MOST angry? It's not the kids and the fact that they stole our stuff. It's the parents and the fact that they did absolutely nothing.

If my children told me they had taken flowers from someone else's yard, house empty or not, I would have demanded they return them. If they told me the people who owned the house had returned, I would have immediately sent them to apologize and return the stolen items. If the people whose items had been stolen showed up at our house?? I wouldn't have even thought for a second of telling the owners to dig up their own flowers. Without question, my children would not only have dug them up and returned the flowers, they would have replanted new ones, and they would have mowed the yard, swept the driveway, pulled weeds, until they wished they'd never set foot in that yard in the first place.

But these adults stood there with their kids and didn't say a thing. Never asked for an apology. Never really apologized themselves. And I'm starting to wonder if they were actually the ones behind it. I just can't fathom teenage kids being that desperate to garden. And really, how can you demand your children apologize (or force them to work in repayment) if you were the ones who put them up to it in the first place? The idea that these children were possibly encouraged by adults to do this infuriates me even more.

So, tonight I will say a prayer for the family. I will pray that the children will find guidance from someone who will teach them right and wrong. I will pray that the family will overcome whatever monetary shortcomings they have that cause them to need to steal dirt. And I will pray for God to help me to forgive them, because I am finding that very hard at the moment.

At least my day ended well with a Facetime call with my boys as they got to see our new house for the first time!

Drew immediately recognized his room and James' room (my mom painted them the same colors they are here) and he loved running around and playing "echo".

My emotions are riding roller coasters right now, but in the end, I know this is what our family needs, and in spite of all the hard work, and the harder goodbyes, I am excited about our journey.