The Waiting Walk

Neighbors can make a huge impact on your love of a home. I’ve heard of people moving away just because they can’t handle the neighbors. It’s hard to know, though, when you move into a place, whether the neighbors are going to be good, bad, or neutral. In today’s culture, neutral is a typical stance, and most people would be satisfied with that.

When looking to buy our current home, I came by for an inspection and the neighbors happened to be outside. I actually got to meet the people on both sides of us before buying. And I thought, “These are really nice people.”

I don’t know what the future holds with my neighbors yet, but we are certainly off to a good start. I know their names, and even more impressive, some of them are even learning all the kids’ names as well as mine! We’ve exchanged numbers. I have a tupperware of blueberries in the fridge from one neighbor, fresh picked that morning! I have a pie in the freezer from the other!

And my kids’ favorite part of this whole thing, we are sitting in a cool house right now. So many homes here in Portland area don’t have AC and this one does not (yet) have AC either. Most of the year that’s not a problem. We spent the first month opening the windows at night, and closing them in the morning, and it was fine. But the current heat wave had us all sweating. My neighbors offered the use of two in-room units that they had used before getting their AC unit installed. They were just in storage, and “this isn’t the time of year when any kid of AC should be sitting in storage!”

To say that I have been blessed with good neighbors seems like that’s already a big understatement. It has been such a great experience. I look forward to exploring these relationships more. I look forward to finding fun ways to be a good neighbor to them as well.

And we are all thankful for a cool house!