Saturday, July 28, 2012

Yard sales and unfriendly neighbors

We are finally having our yard sale (OK, it's a driveway sale - but you know what I mean!)!  I have been planning it for months!  I posted on all my groups & FB pages.  I invited everyone I know to bring stuff and yard sale with me.  I cleaned everything & priced everything too!  Here I sit, all by myself (except for the moments that SAW sticks his head out the door to check on stuff & when MJ sits out here with me). So far, as of lunchtime on day 2, I have made about $30.  Not the big haul I was hoping for!  But, basically it's free money, so I know I shouldn't complain.  I was really hoping to not have to haul all this stuff back into the garage and find storage space for it AGAIN!  Yes, some of it will be going to the Airman's Attic, but some of this I know is worth some money and I am holding out hope that someone else will want it!  We have had a lot of drivebys (you know, when they just stop at the end of the driveway and look out the window but never get out of the car).  Personally, drivebys are the worst!  I mean, doesn't my stuff warrant more than a glance out the window?  I have one large table that is very crowded & there's no way that from the driveway you can see what's on it! 
Enough complaining about that... I've got bigger things to complain about today!
We were so freaking excited when we saw that someone was finally moving into the house next door!  the day their moving van showed up I rushed into the kitchen and baked them a loaf or apricot coffee cake and packaged it up with some of the apricot syrup I made to drizzle over the top.  SAW and I knocked on the door & handed over the "Welcome to the neighborhood!" gift!  We quickly introduced ourselves and let them get back to their moving in!  We had high hopes that we were going to become great friends with our new neighbors.  They also have kids SAW and Bugs ages so that made everyone happy!  They have a dog also, that made our dogs pretty happy.  Happy enough that Bloo decided she needed to hang out ON TOP of the fence and chat with them, and Gizmo decided that he needed to dig under the fence and go play!  The day he had to come knock on our door to come get the dog out of his yard was a very unfriendly day!  I apologized profusely and told him that we were working on it (we didn't have neighbors when we brought the dogs home so this was new for them).  A couple days later gizmo was over there again...  It hasn't happened since then,they also have not spoken to us since then.  We smile and wave and say hi every time we see them outside (I mean, how can we not - we share a garage wall and a driveway so we see them a lot!).  They never respond.  Ever. Not even a wave or a nod.  Except for their teenage girl (who was very interested in SAW the first day they moved in), but even she only smiles and nods after she is in her car & driving out!  WTF?? (BTW - according to Bug that means "Well that's Fantastic!")  My hopes and dreams of being friends with our neighbors is crushed.  I feel horribly guilty about it too.  I am also a bit perturbed though, the reason the dogs stopped trying to say hi to them is because they only go outside a couple times a day now and someone has to sit and "supervise" the whole 5 minutes.  My dogs LIKE to be outside.  Gizmo would stay out there all day if he could just lounging in the shade on his blanket.  But, we just can't risk the chance of them trying to go over/under the fence again.  It's sad.  The only upside of that (for the dogs) is that we take them to the dog park A LOT now!  Almost every night.  They get to run and play with other dogs and we get to sit in the shade and chat with friendly dog owners that tell us stories about their awesome neighbors!  UGH!


So do you guys have good neighbors?  What is the deciding factor that makes a neighbor good/bad?  

Monday, July 16, 2012

Self Esteem Playlist

I was reading on Cafemom about a Self Esteem playlist that someone created.  I started thinking that it's a great idea!  I have playlists for when I'm having a bad day, when I'm sad or angry, but I can always use more music!  We all can, right?
So Now I'm thinking about what songs would be on my playlist to boost me up and what would my number one song be?
This might take me a bit to figure out and gather up all the music, so until then - tell me what your #1 song would be?