Life in the Projects

Did I mention my neighbor is CRAZY? She is. She screams all day long at her 2 little kids which I assume are really her grandkids because she is "older". She doesn't have a normal speaking voice. Just a screaming voice. Sometimes she screams in Spanish, sometimes in English, and sometimes in Spanglish. Most often she will pepper it with choice words of profanity. Now, you have to remember, the 2 kids are like 3 and 4 years old. She will yell at them that she is tired of their sh**. "Shut up" or the Spanish version is a common thing we hear. I've even heard her threaten the kids, "I'm gonna kick your a**!" The kids yell a lot themselves and are often aggressive on the playground with the other little kids. Hmmm, I wonder where they learned that?
A few weeks ago around 8:00 p.m. she was so out of control screaming at the little girl because of something naughty she had done that the girl was bawling and saying that she needed to throw up, she was so upset. Our common wall was shaking--I couldn't tell if she was beating the girl or just stomping or something, causing the wall to shake so hard I thought the pictures would fall off. I called 9-1-1! The police came and she brushed it all off, saying that the little girl knocked a mirror off the wall and then just went balistic screaming and such. I couldn't believe that she blamed everything on the child. The police assessed the situation and reminded her to keep her voice down because it carried to all the neighbors. That was it. I was ticked! She did a little better for a while, but there is still screaming.
Last night at 9:30, my bed time, there was all this hammering going on. We couldn't tell if she was hanging up pictures or what. One of the downstairs neighbors came up and knocked on her door, said something to her we couldn't quite hear, but the noise continued. Feisty Brianna said, "I'm going over there to say something!" She knocks on the door and the kids yell, "It's open! Who is it?" What the crap? She could have been a murderer and they were just asking her to come in. Brianna identified herself as the next-door neighbor and the lady opened the door. She was immediately on the defensive. Brianna said, "What is all the noise? It's 9:30!" The lady said, "What's the problem? It's 9:30 not 11:00!" Really? I came out and said, "I get up at 3:30 every morning and can't sleep with all the noise." She said something like, "The people across the hall always have crazy parties and make all kind of noise and you always complain about me!" I told her this was the first time she and I had words. She, of course, doesn't know that I called the cops on her. She said she hears us all the time. Running water while we brush our teeth? Okay, I'll give her that. Other than that, we are pretty much like church mice. Anyway, I let my emotions take over instead of thinking first, but I told her she screams all day and is verbally abusive to the kids. "I raised 4 kids and that's not how you speak to children." She said, "I raised 7 kids!" Well, then, you should know better how to do it, then! She admitted, yes she screams, everyone knows it, but it is her "privacy". And then she closed her door and kept on hammering. I called the manager and complained to him. He's pretty much useless. He said he'd call her, but I doubt he did.
Needless to say, I was then all worked up and couldn't fall asleep for about another hour and a half. I'm tired today. And now it's going to be super awkward whenever we see her, that's why I never said anything before. Oh well, she's crazy. That's my defense. We want her GONE!
By the way, here's her picture. Amazing that I was able to find this picture of her online, huh? No lie, this is pretty much what she looks like--white hair and all!

Sleepy

My body has adjusted fairly well to this crazy schedule which includes early morning Seminary. I arise each school day at 3:30--an ungodly hour, I know. But I need the time to get ready for work and seminary, make lunches for Bryce and me, maybe spend 2 minutes in the kitchen tidying up, and then out the door by 5:20 in order to get to the stake center in time for my prayer meeting at 5:30. I try to get to bed no later than 9:30 at night. More often than not, however, you will find me conked out in my bed before 9:00. My sleep is precious and I have to make a conscious effort to get at least 6 hours each night or I seriously cannot function at work all day.

I discovered something this morning. When my cell phone clock set itself back one hour with the end of daylight savings, my cell phone alarm clock also set itself back an hour. I didn't use my alarm Sunday night to Monday because my phone was charging. But this morning at 2:30 a.m. I was awakened from the deepest of sleep to my cell phone alarm going off. I was seriously so disoriented. "Where am I? What day is it? Why is my alarm going off at 2:30 a.m.?" Once I put all the pieces together, I then had to reset my alarm so that it wouldn't go off again before 3:30. It took me at least another 10 minutes to fall asleep. So frustrating! So today is one of those days where I very likely will be looking like this: