Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Keeping up with the Joneses

Ben and I just moved into a new house, new neighborhood, new ward, the whole she-bang. Well, this past Sunday I got this little weekly newsletter in Relief Society and they had listed names and addresses of new families in the ward, along with little "capsules" describing them. Next to our name it said, "Just moved in, and already landscaping." Well, Ben and I spent a little while trying to figure out how one might read into that little gem of a statement. Here were some of our thoughts:

"Who do you think you are, Smiths, putting in grass, when everyone else clearly has dirt. You think you're better, do ya, skipping the year grace period?"

"The Smiths must have green thumbs--landscaping and gardening must be their special talent. We should keep that in mind for future enrichment lessons."

In my mind, the most likely scenario is some poor woman sitting in front of her computer asking her husband, "Honey, who are the Smiths?" He replies, " I don't know, but I can see their house from here and some guy is planting a bush."

Don't get me wrong, I think our new ward is swell, and I appreciate their effort to make us feel welcome. But I am just not quite comfortable with being associated with landscaping. I would have been much more satisfied if they had put "She looks like a snob and he's pretty cocky, but dang, they have cute kids."

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

beautiful hailey. i once complained to my mother for not putting na "h" in my name. i kept having girls p.e. on my middle school class schedule. what was i thinking? i much prefer it this way.
cristian

bionictrout said...

i always (still) wanted to be named jim. what a cool name. jim smith. that just sounds tough. i bet cristian and his girly name wouldn't mess with me if i were named jim...

Anonymous said...

Well, at least your Relief Society newsletter is normal nosey old ladies. When my mom and dad moved into their new ward in Yelm, WA, the RS newsletter put out a reminder to bathe their children before church meetings... apparently the ward-house gets hot and smells travel fast. Gross!

Unknown said...

Just finished reading your posts and many of your husband's. I just have to say that I'm glad the Smiths are blogging. Very enjoyable.

topher clark said...

I would go with the first deduction, because no matter what I always smell judgement in relief society letters. They are judging you, Hailey. Judging you, and thinking you are snobby with your fancy landscaping.

Lisa said...

Coming from a family who recently landscaped after TWO YEARS in our "new" house, I concur with Topher.

Best thing to do is flip your hair in Relief Society and talk really loudly about your kickin' sprinkler system. Then, ask someone what's the difference between a perrenial and and annual, cause you just KEEP FORGETTING!

Hailey said...

Ooh, Lisa, you were so right about the comments--I'm loving them!

As for the landscaping, Ben and I have never bought a house before, so we didn't know we weren't supposed to put in grass right away! Honest!

Anonymous said...

from Suzette:
You are too funny Hailey. I love getting a glimpse at how the "other side lives". I am nowhere near the Joneses; my ward (and people in general) have such low expectations of me right now. They are all saying, "forget the house, forget the yard, just find yourself a husband for heaven sake." And then I think: but I sort of like it this way: dangling at the bottom of the expectation pole. I can cause trouble without getting into trouble. ha ha. SMS

Anonymous said...

Hey---am I good or what? I---yes, I---in big capital letters picked out that wonderful name of yours...LONG before it became popular with every other ordinary person in the world!! And be grateful...how would you like to go around your whole life with a name that gets the response, "But you're a girl!!?" ...Oh, duh...I hadn't noticed...

Shawn

Betina said...

I saw pictures of your home on Ben's blog. It is fantastic, and the yard looks great. You should see our yard, it is really bad. I would love to invite you and Ben up for landscape coaching, of course this would mean taking 3 weeks off work on Ben's part to do free landscaping for his cousin. Perhaps not in your best interest.

Again, I must say, nice landscaping!

topher clark said...

Um, yeah, so NEW BLOG????