Hello Neighbor

When I was growing up we lived in what some would consider a poor neighborhood in the lower valley. I'm obsessed with looking at homes for sale so I looked up the house we lived in and it last sold for $89,000. It was a small three bedroom, one and a half bath house with a garage we never used in the backyard. It was perfect for us and it was happy. I grew up with a friend two houses away, more across the street, and some down the street. We seemed to know everyone on the block and everyone on the block waved and said hello when they saw each other.

Fast forward to the house we moved into when we moved it on up to the east side. I became friends with a girl across the street the day we moved in. The other girls across the street became best friends shortly after. The boy and girl who lived behind me invited me to jump the fence and play a week later. Again, neighbors being neighborly was the way to go. If we drove or walked down the street everyone we passed stopped what they're doing and waved.

When we got married we lived in an apartment and didn't really talk to anyone regularly but everyone always said hello or waved. When we had Gibbie we moved to different apartments and there were a lot more families and more friendly conversations. We then started thinking about buying a house. We didn't keep in touch with anyone from the apartments when we moved.

We've lived in our current home for well over a year. I've seen the lady who lives to the left of us once, her kids a handful of times as they came and went. The Hubs says the lady is married but I've never seen her husband. The family to the right of us has a son a little older than Gibbie an another a little younger than Gibbie. I've seen the kids three times, the family a few more times. They've had birthday parties for their boys and we haven't been invited to any of them. I definitely should have invited them to Gibbie's last birthday but I never see them at home. (Next year I'm just going to tape the invitation to their door if they're not home.) There is one other lady two doors over who actually talks to us and knows our name. She even gave Gibbie a Christmas present! Other than that the only interactions I've had with my neighbors is when the girl down the street got her boyfriend to knock on my door because she thought I broke into her car (with my arms full of mail and toddler to boot). (Also, if you want to know about the paranoid girl down the street just go back to this post right here.)

Is it me or is the world getting less neighborly? Or maybe it's just the neighborhood I live in. I always wave and smile and say hello anytime I see someone outside. I get an occasional response but more often than not people pretend they don't see me. Does this happen in your neighborhood? I'm seriously considering baking a few pies and passing them out to see if maybe people are just too busy with their own lives or they genuinely don't want to be friends with their neighbors.

Flashback Friday

I am too obsessed with having a format for this blog. I get to Tuesdays and think I have to write about something important instead of just my day to day and skip it. Then the skipping turns into days of skipping and then here I am a week after I say I'm back with a random blog. Meh, if you're reading this then chances are you interested in my regular day to day so we'll see how it goes from here on out.

For now, have some old school photos.

All mamas can stand with me when I say a HOW WAS SHE EVER SO LITTLE?

Last year's pumpkin carving adventure. I should have counted all the times she said "ew."

I think she was threatening me.

Such a sweet little thing.

Did you all know I have a black sister? I bet you didn't.

Little drummer girl.

This was the first cookout we had at our house last year soon after moving in.

All smiles, as usual.

Playing with her baby while wearing her giant tutu. What a girl!

My friend made this last year when I was super excited about the return of Grey's Anatomy. The actual photo was taken pre-baby, pre-marriage, pre-engagement even. Pre-real life.

I love sharing old photos because it reminds me of how far I've come in my life. If you would have talked me when the last photo was taken I was a completely different person from when the first photo was taken.

Flashback Friday

On Fridays I like to make myself miserable and happy all at the same time and look at old pictures of our lives before Gibbie and when Gibbie was super itty bitty and stuff. Join me in my misery/happiness!

 So here's me when I was six months pregnant:

photo by Leslie M. Harper

I felt like I was so gigantic! My giant belly is the only thing I liked about being pregnant. I honestly don't want to do that again, I really didn't get the whole pregnancy is beautiful thing. I had terrible gas, peed when I sneezed, heartburn from the bottom pits of hell, and I was never comfortable.

Here's the adorable Gibbie just before she turned one:

And here she is from about one year ago:

All sorts of tired from packing and getting ready to move.

She was unpacking everything I packed. It was very discouraging. It obviously didn't hinder us too much because he's a picture of us signing papers for our house exactly one year ago today:

We're all grown up and stuff!!! I should seriously consider finishing the unpacking.

I use an app called Time Hop that links to my Facebook profile and shows me everything I've posted from 1, 2, and 3 years ago on any date. I love feeling nostalgic so I love this app. On rare occasions it shows me posts from 4 years ago too. That's where I get all of these pictures for my flashback Fridays from.