What. A. Cluster.

So, hey there! I apologize for the silence, but the last few weeks have been nothing short of insane.

The day before our lease was to begin, we went over (with the landlord's go ahead) to check the place out again. I wanted to make sure our area rugs and a few other things would fit. While we did that, Liam (my 3 year old) went out into the little fenced in area to play. He was digging in a patch of dirt with a tiny backhoe toy.

Seth comes in the other door and tells me the weirdo kids from next door are in the trees in the brush making noises. Brush and trees are on 'our' property. I go to head out the back door, just in time to see a rather large 12 year old attempt to pelt my son with rocks. Like, slunk all creepy out of the brush and began pitching rocks over the fence. I yell at him to not throw rocks at my child and then holler for Seth to go get the mom or whoever is home next door.

He does. Mommy dearest doesn't believe the sweet little angel would ever do such a thing, until my husband tells her I watched it happen. She literally told my husband to go home. Well, not ten minutes later, we get a knock at the door from the next house over. That's where the little shit actually lives. Again, no one believes this fucking kid would ever do such a thing, even though I SAW IT!! So, I email the landlord. She says "He's such a kind soul and would never!" And then she demanded that I go apologize to THEM, because the kid was "very traumatized over this".

Long story short, fuck that. We got our money back. I don't want to live next to some little psycho who would hurt a tiny child. Or those ineffective piece of crap parents. Or give money money to a landlord like that. I didn't call the police, but in retrospect, I wish I had.

In our scramble, we made a choice. We're going home. The Ithaca NY area isn't for us. We have had nothing but issues in the 2+ ears we've been there. Shady people. Everyone is holier than thou. And even if the very few people who are awesome were more plentiful, that won't change the cost of living being 3x what it is everywhere else in this part of NY. I get it, Cornell. Whatever. $1500 or more for rent? No thanks. It just ran it's course.

You can get these bumper stickers there that read "Ithaca, NY. 10sq miles surrounded by reality." Well, that's true. But not in a good way. I found that Ithaca is 10 square miles filled with people who believe they are better than everyone else, and would love nothing more than to tell you why.


So we are now on day 2 of our $575/month trailer, ten minutes from every member of my husband's family. Who I adore. My job, which I quit to move, affords me the ability to walk into any similar agency and be hired nearly on the spot. I'm already through 6 layers of background checks that would typically take a month or better to come back. And if it came right down to it, I could work a minimum wage job, or a couple part time deals, and still pay all our expenses on my own.

This isn't ideal. It isn't what we wanted. But, it's okay. And I can deal with okay. We're in a 4 unit little park thing. As soon as we pulled in with a truck, a group of guys rolled out of the trailer across from us to unload our moving truck for us. The wife of one of the younger ones gave my kids snacks and brought her own toddler out to play with mine. I've been greeted every morning by the neighbors. These are things I've NEVER had happen. Maybe living in this postage stamp sized town, in a trailer in a teeny trailer park, won't be so bad.

We move the rest of our stuff this upcoming weekend. Which is nice, because in our scramble to load up my dad;s truck and trailer after U-Haul cancelled our truck, I managed to bring no dishes.