Our house in the middle of our street.

I told myself I would go to bed early tonight because I have been so tired all day, but here I am typing out a post.

Not that I even have that much to write about.

We talked to a couple neighbors we haven't talked to in forever this past weekend, and I realized during the winter we're not just being unfriendly - who can stand out in the yard or the driveway and chat when it's 35 degrees and raining outside? So, finally some sunshine and warm temps have reunited us with those who live on our street.

Speaking of neighbors. A woman down the street whose husband happens to be the president of our little "neighborhood association" (I use the term loosely), emailed me tonight. I guess that's one of the perks to being married to the neighborhood association president; you get a hold of people's email addresses and phone numbers.

Anyway, she started off innocently commenting that they miss us at the "neighborhood association" meetings. (We don't go because a.) I started working on the evenings they have the meetings - it is totally a coincidence - honestly, b.) John has been living in other states for six months, and c.) even if John was in town, those meetings are so circular and fruitless it makes my husband want to slowly tear his fingernails out while listening to "Yellow Submarine" over and over again.)

Then she came to the real point of the email which was to have me solicit the business of our neighbors whose house has been on and off the market for the past year for her own home staging company. I'm torn between whether her asking about their "situation" is being neighborly or nosy. In any case, I promised her that the next time I see my neighbor outside I would ask him about prospects of selling the house and mention we have another neighbor down the street who does home staging. Doesn't hurt to ask, right?

Although, I guess some things might hurt considering you're generally stuck with your neighbors and it would be totally uncomfortable to have bad blood between you. Except in the winter months when you'd never even have to see each other.

(These particular neighbors are apparently trying to move, though, so...couldn't hurt.)

The hardest part is catching our neighbor outside. And, yes, I realize I could go ring doorbells to communicate with people, but I had a bad experience once and will never do that again. Ever. (That's a whole other post.) Is that wrong? How well do you know your neighbors? Do you just chat when you all happen to be outside at the same time, or do you make concerted efforts to converse?

Most other people you know have something in common with you: you go to the same church, you grew up together, you work in the same place, you have mutual friends, etc. We have nothing in common with some of our neighbors other than living on the same street. For instance, we don't have grandkids (we don't even have kids), we do not deck out our garage in such a way as you could eat off the floor, we do not enjoy racing cars, and (unfortunately and inexplicably after 4-6 years of language classes) we do not speak Spanish. It's a shame...that I let all that get in the way of trying to relate to my neighbors AND that I cannot speak Spanish.

And now that I've made myself feel adequately guilty for being an introvert, I shall spend the next week neurotically watching out the windows for my neighbor to go outside.

So I can solicit his business for "neighborhood association" lady down the street.

That'll make me feel better.