Sometime that spring Amanda moved out of the camper and into a motor-home that was parked on the same farm as the camper. Amanda claimed the motor-home was given to her by a friend. She spent a lot of time on moving into this thing. It was one more reason she couldn't spend the time she wanted to here.
Once the motor-home came into the picture, I asked her plenty of questions about it, both about the circumstance under which she got it and about its condition. I was trying to ascertain if it might be a viable option for Amanda to park it here if I should decide that having Amanda around might be useful but I did not share my these thoughts with Amanda.
She answered my questions but I wouldn't call her forthcoming but I certainly didn't see the limited information she shared was self-serving....but it definitely was. In the meantime I kept asking more questions and Amanda kept feeding me answers she thought would not scare me off.
I was frustrated with these communications because her answers seemed vague but much about Amanda seemed vague. I wrote this off to her being a private person so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Boy, was that a mistake. Hindsight clearly shows she was private because she was keeping secrets.....lots of them. I imagine she would say she didn't lie to me but manipulating the truth and omitting information are just another form of lying.....and Amanda was most definitely a liar. Of course, I didn't realize that until it was too late.
From our first talks, Amanda knew I wanted very specific help here. I needed things done that weren't being addressed NOT someone to assist with those things that were already being done daily. There would be an appropriate time to alleviate the workload for Dave and Lindsay after the neglected repairs and maintenance were caught up. The last thing I wanted was to have the stress of more people here only to maintain the status quo. I cannot even tell you how many times we had this conversation about my priorities and my needs because it was such a regular topic of our conversations. The help I wanted here was with grooming and turning out horses, repairs and cleaning up my farm.
The way things were going with Erin and with what Jessica had done there was one thing I knew for sure. Never again would I allow someone to move into my home. I thought such a stipulation would save us a lot of grief. Also I thought I had made mistakes in not setting specific enough boundaries. I believed if it was all spelled out up front having someone here could actually work. Boy was I wrong.
Believing those stipulations would make a difference, I think it was sometime during Erin's stay that I talked to Amanda about the possibility of parking the motor-home here. That way she wouldn't need to commute, she'd be available on the grounds to work with the horses and get the farm in order so we could have an open house. Before that could happen, some things needed to happen with that motor-home. It had been sitting for a while and it would have to be road worthy.
Presumably getting that accomplished is what accounted for the gap of time it took between the actual offer to bring her motor-home here and when that was accomplished but you'll have to see what you think as this story unfolds. I can tell you a lot of things had changed between the time I made this offer to Amanda and when that motor-home actually arrived on our farm. I was operating in good faith but I am not so sure that Amanda was. We'll see what you think as this story unfolds.
To be continued.....
More Tactics...and Shared Methods.......
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