In Mourning

Every year on May 8th I dress in mourning clothes.

I mourn the memory of closing on this house. Yes, 4 years ago today, John & I came to the devil's playground for the closing on this house.  This year, my black pants are currently in the washer, my black top no longer fits me thanks to my high carb intake over the past 16 months, &, well, I never did wear a hat, but one year I bought some black netting to wear over my face.  I never looked so good   : )

Although it is another day of mourning, this year it is also a day of hope.  Well, hope with a mixture of total panic!!!  Yesterday I was contacted by our realtor.  We actually received a bid on our house without ever having a viewing!  Stranger things have happened, I suppose, but this has got to be one of the strangest.  Unfortunately, the couple wanting to buy it was approved for a loan way, way, way below our asking price so we had to turn them down, but this odd bid has gotten me to thinking that we might possibly sell this house much faster than we ever imagined & this is making me a nervous wreck!!!  After telling the real estate agent that we just couldn't sell at that price, I sat down at my computer to try to determine where we will live when the house sells, looking much like the woman in the photo below but sadly without the  Chinese food.  

As if this bid from left field wasn't enough, our realtor was also contacted by our next door neighbor who asked if we would consider selling him the hay field behind our house, roughly 12 acres.  This man is one of the devil's playground's leading citizens so that should give you an idea of what kind of neighbor he has been to us.  When we moved here, we were rather naive.  This is a rural farm community & we imagined friendly neighbors knocking at our door to welcome us after we moved in.  We even joked with each other that some of them would probably bring us a chicken or a goat or something   : )   Well, no one welcomed us at all.  This neighbor saw us outside in our yard plenty of times, but it took him an entire year to walk over to the fence, call to us & introduce himself.  In the next breath he asked us if we were going to have livestock out back.  We said no, & he then asked if we would allow him to graze his cows on that land.  He said he would take care of readying the land & everything else.  We were fine with letting him do that.  We told the person who had been cutting the field that we didn't need him anymore.  One month went by, then two, then three, etc. The neighbor never readied the land, never brought in any cows, & never bothered to tell us he wasn't going to do it.  The hay grew wild that year & we had a terrible time trying to find someone the following year to cut it down & haul it away.  This is also the neighbor I've mentioned a time or two in the past ... the one with the 2 pit bulls that he lets run wild.  He bought these dogs a year & a half after we moved in.  They would come into our yard at all hours, relieve themselves everywhere, eat the food we threw out for the birds, chase cars, & jump all over us & anyone else who happened to be here.  We couldn't leave our garage door open anymore to let air in because the dogs would come in & chew things up.  Two years ago we had landscaping done around our foundation.  It was very pricey.  The day after the beds were finished, I walked outside to find the dogs lying in one of the beds.  They had dug holes in it & tore a downspout & drain off the side of the house, broke it into pieces, chewed it up.  That was the last straw.  We informed the neighbor of what had happened.  The neighbor apologized & said he would repair the damage.  He never did, & his dogs continued to run wild.  John started screaming at them & chasing them away every time they came over here & I think this guy's wife got tired of hearing it because they suddenly built a pen for the dogs.  However, the dogs have been roaming free more & more often recently. They have already walked through the landscaping we had done a couple weeks ago, ate a nest of baby bunnies, & the day before yesterday they were trying to get at some baby birds in a nest in a low tree ... & this guy has the nerve to ask our realtor if we would sell him that back piece of land! Unreal! 

I have some fun stuff to share with you ... maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.  It depends on how the day goes.  I'm going to do a bit of straightening up so the rooms where I have piled all the moving & storage boxes don't look too messy, & I'll see what other trouble I can get into   : )