Today I am mailing out $94 of Pittsbugh parking tickets. They seem to hit me all once, different neighborhoods, different days of the week I have to park on different sides of the street for a street cleaner that does everything but clean.

They aren’t so bad in Wilkinsburgh where we live, since the ticket itself is the envelope you send your money in. It’s very easy, just take it off your wind shield, fill it with loot, attach a stamp and your done.

In Pittsburgh where I work in the Hill District, it is a much different story. I swear their tickets are made of tissue paper, so skimpy you can’t do anything with it but hide it in your glove compartment to never be seen again…until you get the letter saying your late with your payment with the cost of the ticket doubled. What a scam! Even when you get the deliquency notice you still have to search for who to make the check out to, where to send it.

This is not how I want to spend my money!

…you spend the whole day working in your yard instead of playing your new $8.99 PSP and XBox games from Circuit City.

I have to say that I am pretty proud of how far our yard and garden has come since we moved in. The grass has gone from patchy and sad to a lush green and the garden is all new. We are still learning what works, but its getting there. By the time we move out I think we will have the hang of it.