No Soliciting, Thankyouverymuch.

Hmm… So thaaaat’s what it feels like to fall off of the face of the earth. Now I know! I’m glad this blog is a personal hobby, otherwise I would have been fired a long time ago. The thing is, I’ve been plenty busy painting furniture, glass doors, family heirlooms, going out of town, losing my dog and praying he comes back home and those people who have him will RETURN OUR CALLS SO WE CAN GET HIM BACK, UGH! Had to get that out, but no real time for plucking words out of my head and turning them into pixels. Ultimately, I missed blogging so I’m back!

A couple of weeks ago, it was a friday night and about 8 o’clock which means it was totally dark already. I’m home alone, which doesn’t really bother me until… Doorbell. Oh great, the neighbor kids are ring and running again, I’ll show them!!! I grab the door to open it and any residue of pleasantness on my face just falls off. SMACK! It’s on the ground. I am not a happy camper. It’s a solicitor, not a cute little girl scout, it’s one of the questionable ones because as he is giving me his spiel I detect the faint odor of alchohol.  Of course, I pretend like I’m not home alone, but it doesn’t help me after he leaves because I know that I’m home alone. I always feel so bad when I reject whatever “sponsorships” or magazines they are selling, because they are standing at my front door and KNOW where I live.

I know there are legit solicitors and then there are the questionable ones, this was the latter. I’m no stranger to charity so don’t leave thinking I’m all grinchy. Heck, last night I left a 50% tip at Chili’s!

Now that I practically wrote a stupid long college paper, here’s what I did to prevent this from happening. Alright. My front door. Don’t mind the colors and general unmatchedness OR the spring/summer wreath that I have not yet switched out for my winter/fall wreath. Obviously I need to expand my wreath selection, like, ANOTHER day.

On the front of my storm door, I wrote out what I wanted with dry erase marker on the OUTSIDE of the door. Once I got it how I liked it, I painted the INSIDE of it white. You know, so they couldn’t scratch it out, ring the bell, and claim it doesn’t exist.

From the inside, it doesn’t look like the paint covered all the well, but it did. I wasn’t too fond of the general chunkiness of the type, I was limited by my brushes. To fix it, I took and X-acto knife and shaved the letters down for something prettier. It ended up taking a little while. After it was all said and done, I think I tripped over my Silhouette machine and was all like hand to forehead, DUH! Coulda, woulda, shoulda used it but oh well, it’s done and I don’t mind it.

From far away… I like to think of it as a soft gentle reminder. Like someone saying in a sweet voice, “Please don’t ring my bell” rather that the giant black and silver stickers with that harsh, bold font that screams, “GO AWAY!!!”

And the close up… Problem solved!

So far it has a 100% success rate and can easily be removed when I find it in my heart to be more charitable.  I used to work at a women’s restoration program in a questionable part of town where people would come up to the door selling fruit and holding a giant knife to, I guess, cut? the fruit???I had explicit instructions to NOT unlock the door for ANYONE unless given approval thus my justified fear of strangers at the door was born.

Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable when certain people come to the door unannounced?