Our House is Special

We've been in our house for 11 years! The journey of our house was a long five months, we lost a lot of houses I really wanted, but I believe we got the perfect house for us in the end. 

My daughter and I went on a walk after lunch recently on a Tuesday afternoon on one of her home school days. I wrote about why I love the school we go to, and being able to take walks with her in our neighborhood during the week is an example of the extra time she and I have gotten to spend together. On this particular day, we ran into a neighbor one street over.

This neighbor is an artist and she showed us her latest charcoal drawing. She talked to us about the birds in their yard, the flowers she planted, and we had a nice chat together. After saying goodbye, we kept walking. I waved to a neighbor mowing his lawn outside. I don't personally know him, but we frequently see him outside working in his yard.

As we came back around to our street, we walked about halfway home and ran into a neighbor, J, who has shared so many plants with us.  

She dropped this off for us this past Christmas.

As we got to her house, the neighbor across the street had just parked their car.  J called them over to our side of the street and introduced us to each other. After our brief meeting, J explained to me how they got into the neighborhood. Their parents and siblings were down a few streets over in another part. This house was the closest they could find for their other son whom I had just met. 

J and I talked and shared some life moments. I gave her the 5-minute synopsis of my latest and ongoing family stress. She shared with me her mother had just passed. We bonded over an eternal joy and hope which helps us to keep our eyes on the prize.  

As our conversation wrapped up, the neighbor who lives next to us was walking his dog by. I noticed only one dog. I asked if they had to say goodbye to Allie. They did. She was 15. After a brief conversation about plants, we both said goodbye to J and walked down the street to our houses. This neighbor is 79 and turning 80 in June. 

By the time my daughter and I returned home, it was nearly 2:30. Being that I start work in the afternoon and work through evening hours, I have to watch the time on my "fun" to make sure I can get to work on time. Although I wasn't late by any means, it was much later than I had anticipated on making it back home. Our walk lasted nearly an hour and it was getting hot outside. 

Although I returned home physically tired and a bit stressed at having to teach 4 hours of lessons that afternoon and evening, it was joyous. I love getting to walk through my neighborhood and smile at neighbors I know and have conversations with them and share life. I love feeling the comfort my neighbors bring when I see them and being able to enjoy their company. I don't take this for granted because I know not everyone has this or feels this way. I know I didn't grow up with it in either of the houses we lived in when I was a child. 

Our house is very special. 

The Sweetest Fig

I remember reading this book as a child. It freaked me out so I never read it more than once. 

 

 

I read it again as an adult. It made a lot more sense, specifically since I was able to link the author as the same person who wrote Jumanji. I was reminded of this book because my neighbor had figs which she shared with me last week. I've tried fresh figs before but they were never a craving or favorite of mine. 

 

I forgot to get a photo of all the figs she shared with me so these were the leftover I didn't bake with.

 

This time, as I ate one fresh, I was able to better appreciate the flavor. They're very sweet when ripe. Crunching on the seeds is a sensation not everyone would appreciate, but it reminded me of eating dragon fruit. My neighbor shared over a dozen figs with me, and although eating them fresh would have been nice, we were leaving town in a few days and needed to clear out our refrigerator. 

 

I was ready to blend them all into a smoothie, but my friend shared a recipe with me for an almond fig cake. I told her I wasn't sure I would make it because we were going out of town for the weekend and needed to finish them ASAP. My friend told me her cake was gone within 24 hours after baking. Now that's a smart marketing pitch. I decided to bake the cake and actually had all the ingredients on hand. It really was gone in 24 hours! (Had we not left town it might have made it to 36, but it was a yummy cake).

 

The almond flavor of the cake is more pronounced than the figs so if you don't like almonds, you won't like this cake.  Mine turned out a little darker than I expected because (I think) I set the oven too high for the first 20 minutes without realizing. I ended up having to improvise the cooking time and temperature in order for the cake to bake as intended. If you look at the photo in the recipe, it's a pretty dark cake, so I don't actually know what happened. But it ended up tasting very good. 

 

If you have access to fresh figs, I highly recommend making this cake (assuming no allergies to almonds and no excessive pickiness to flavor) at least once. Figs are definitely great to be eaten fresh, but I enjoyed this cake, too.  

 

Bye, Neighbor

Our neighbor across the street is moving. It's quite bittersweet for us because we've had many wonderful memories with this neighbor and they've been very kind to us. When we initially moved into the house, our kitchen sink clogged. Our neighbor saw us out late at night poking around our clean-out. He came over and helped us snake it. No significant debris came up, but somehow the kitchen clog cleared. 

During my first pregnancy, I was outside raking leaves one afternoon and he came over and helped me suck them up with his nifty leaf vacuum. I don't know if he knew I was pregnant or not, but he was very kind. 

When our daughter turned one, we invited them over for a small neighbor get-together to celebrate her. That same month, his wife turned 70 and we celebrated her. After having both kids, we've spontaneously knocked on their door to see if they had some time just to chat and they've graciously welcomed us into their home and let the kids poke around their belongings while we chatted. 

As I watch cars drive up and park to go in for showings, it's sad knowing their home will soon belong to someone else. But it also occurred to me that they've done this before. They've seen a neighbor sell their house and change ownership. I've done this before as a buyer when we bought this house. 

When I came to see our house for the first time, I parked across the street, in front of their house. I remember looking to my right and thinking to myself, This is a pretty house with great curb appeal. And then I crossed the street and went to see my future home. Perhaps they happened to look out the window a few times and notice the cars passing by with prospective buyers. Maybe they had noticed me. 

Now I'm the one seeing the cars...

We had a fun story last year delivering their Christmas card. This year we will need to put theirs in the mail, and we won't get to stop and chat for a while. We're going to miss them. 

Daily Musings

When we moved into the neighborhood, I told myself I wanted to meet the neighbors and get to know some of them. It just felt more friendly that way and I wouldn’t feel awkward running into them. Pre-covid, we knew about three neighbors really well and a few more by name. 

Since covid, we’ve met another handful and now we know over 10 neighbors. A few days ago, I loaded the kids up to walk around the neighborhood and deliver our Christmas cards. We stopped at the first house and rang the doorbell. After a bit, the dad came to the door and we gave him our card. We chatted very briefly before we parted ways. The wind was a lot stronger than I had anticipated so 55 degrees felt much colder than I thought. I told myself I'd go next-door, deliver one more card, and then go home. We went next-door and rang the doorbell. We waited a little while, and I didn't think they were going to open the door so we started back down the steps. Then, our neighbor opened the door and we had a delightful little conversation with him. 

When we left his house, I decided to keep going. The wind felt stronger because we were walking on a north south street and the wind was blowing north. I told myself once we turned the corner and started on an east west street, it would feel much better. In fact, it actually did. We walked to the street one over from ours and went to deliver a card to a sweet neighbor we'd met last year during Covid. She had randomly opened her door one day and came out to talk to us. I think my son was only about six months old at the time. And now he was telling her "buh-bye." 

Our last house on the way back was the neighbor directly across the street from us. I still remember driving up to see our house when it was for sale and parking in front of their house because that's the direction my car was facing. I remember thinking to myself that their house had lovely curb appeal. Shortly after we moved in, they had their front door painted a shade of maroon. Aggie maroon. I told them I was a longhorn but would not be painting our front door burnt orange. They invited us in to show the kids their Christmas decorations. I pushed our stroller about 2/3 of the way up their steps so it wasn't sitting in the middle of the sidewalk below. 

We stayed and had a lovely chat and the children were able to explore and peruse the rooms of their house. In the middle of our visit, he received a phone call. Turns out, it was the neighbor across from their house who lived next-door to us. He was calling because he saw something that looked like a homeless person's cart in front of their house. Our neighbor laughed and joked it was his wife's. Then he told him it was our stroller. Everyone had a good laugh. 

The kids checking our their ride.

When my daughter started telling me she was hungry, I knew it was time for us to make our way home and get lunch ready. As we made our way to the front door, she found another room to explore and somewhat forgot about being hungry. Children...gotta love them. 

We arrived home and I told my husband about the stroller story. He laughed. Somehow I ended up picking the worst day to take a walk around the neighborhood and deliver Christmas cards, but it turned out to be such a fun morning. We do love our neighbors :)