Me the bad neighbor!

We have this lady that lives across the street from us. I call her the psycho religious lady as she is the one with the “Jesus” sign in her front yard and has a cross made out of flowers next to her mail box. People often stop and ask if something is buried under the cross, there isn’t anything. She is some kind of Methodist, but has been disillusioned by their stance on gay marriage, though she continues to attend their services as that is where her daughters goes. We’ve given her some LDS videos and she has had the missionaries visit many times prior to and since we moved in, but she is one of these people that believes it doesn’t matter what church as long as you are a believer.

Anyway I digress, a couple of months ago while I was home on maternity leave I was sitting outside on the driveway holding Turner, while Hayden was playing in his little pool. Dana, the psycho religious lady, came over with her camera and requested to take a picture of Tuner. I wasn’t real thrilled with the prospect as why would she want a picture of my child, but I agreed. She then proceeded to inform me she has been taking pictures of my family when we are out in our front yard. She does this while standing in the front room of her house. Needless to say this unnerved me just a little bit. She then tells me she wants to post the pictures on Snapfish. This totally weirded me out. Needless to say I can't go into my front yard anymore without full makeup and my hair done, just in case.



I hate to be rude or mean to anyone, but I’m really not a people person, and with Dana I have had to set some boundaries or she would be over at my house all the time. I don’t mind helping her out occasionally, but I feel like if I give her an inch she tries to take a yard, especially since Hayden came along. I feel bad for her as she has three daughters who live in the area, but never come over and I know I should be more compassionate, but sometimes it takes all I have to deal with my life of work and family and I don’t want to deal with her also. What to do? It’s not like Dave and I aren’t the first ones over to her house and shoveling her drive when it snows. But this is the same women who threatened to call DCFS on me when I was pregnant with Hayden because I was mowing the lawn and she didn’t think I should be (just a side note, I love mowing the lawn). This is also the same women who called me one Christmas several years ago and asked if I would come over and watch her open her Christmas presents. It wasn’t until I was over there that I realized they were all presents she had bought herself. So again I feel bad for her and struggle with wanting to be a good neighbor, but maintaining a balance which doesn’t interfere with my family.