On another note, this story reminds me of a story of my own.

We have a lot of pine trees in our backyard so the grass is often bald and muddy. With 2 children and a dog, we opted to buy some sod to give the grass a new face for the girls to play on. I'm into gardening, myself, so I was really excited about it and my partner wanted to take it on.

When he was done, he was quite proud of it and called to show me. I noticed he left a strip of old and overgrown grass that met the concrete and began the sod off to the side of it. It also had some minor bald patches throughout it, he thought would fill in just fine. No big deal, right?

In my head I was thinking, WTF? Why spend time and money like that? In my head, he cut corners. Our views were very different, as well as our standards. It really bothered me and wished I had done it myself. I like clean lines and a finished look. I'm a bit of a perfectionist with certain things.

I wasn't "mean" about it but did ask why he didn't start from the concrete. He looked wounded pretty quick. He doesn't handle constructive feedback well, either, so I felt bad for him afterwards, and his efforts.. and felt bad that I needed things to be more thoroughly done.

So I get how you're feeling.. and your mom, as well. We can't make everyone happy, though. We all have our own visions on things, I guess.