Someone Once Said...

"A tree can make the front yard beautiful." Okay fine - I said that. And I meant it. Now let me tell you a little story about a tree that could - and then got knocked down.

On this fun (and not-so-fun) journey of building a champagne taste dream home on a state worker's beer budget, I knew there would be ups and downs. But I never knew that one "down" was going to happen.

Blaine & I chose a little piece of property in a neighborhood that we adored. A lot of deciding factors went into choosing this particular lot - but when it came down to it, we finally made a choice on our lot...the one with the tree in the front...the one where we could perfectly position our garage windows so the tree would be a focal point between them...the one where we might just have to be a few feet to one side closer to the neighbor to be able to have this tree "just right." So that is what we did - we began building our house around a beautiful tree (some called it a Birch, some called it a Cottonwood - it looked like an Aspen to me.) All I knew was I loved this tree.

And then the phone call came. Blaine said, "are you sitting down?" I knew something was wrong because he had tried to call me twice and had sent 3 emails to "discuss something about house." I said, "sure I am sitting...what's wrong?" I had gone through half a dozen scenarios in my head: the house burned down, the concrete cracked in half, the back fill cost $3 million dollars...I had thought of everything. But in my thought process I said "don't freak out. Whatever it is...it can be rebuilt." I had no idea... I was wrong....

Blaine: "I hate to tell you this...." Misti: "What...for crying out loud?"
Blaine: "They cut down our tree." Misti: "WHAT? @(*&(&%#(&#!!!!!"
Blaine: "The excavating guy cut down our tree!"
<Insert crazy lady voice here - you know the voice of the lady on The Christmas Story where Ralphie's mom calls another mom to tell her that Ralphie learned the curse word "fudge" from her son>
Misti: "@@#@%#% blah, blah, blah--- OOOOHHH fudge!"

I was furious. And the whole world knew it. That was my tree - the one I adored and loved. The one that was going to make my front yard beautiful. She was gone.....forever. Now she lays deader than a doornail in my backyard ready to be cremated.

Here she is: the lone little tree in my front yard. She left my front yard at a whopping 15-20 years old standing 50 feet tall. (I think that she took it better than we did.) She will replaced (and soon) but never forgotten. RIP little beautiful tree......

Now speaking of Deader than a Doornail - where is my excavating guy?