"LovE yoUr nEigHboR aS yOuRseLF"

when clay and i moved into tuckaway (also known as suckaway in one online review) we decided we wanted to really make an effort to get to know our neighbors and invest in their lives. well we are slowly getting to know them and we have some interesting people living around us. i thought i would take a few minutes and introduce them to you as well.

neighbor #1












this is ralph and marilyn. they live directly below us. i believe they are a retired, older couple. i have talked with them several times and they are very kind. as you can tell from the front porch adornment, they like cats. i seem to run into mr. ralph quite a bit. he is very friendly and talkative. the only problem is that i can't understand all of what he says. if you know me well, you know that hearing is not the strongest of my five senses especially if i can't see the speaker's mouth or they are heavy mumblers. so the majority of my conversation with ralph i end up kind of smiling and nodding my head most of the time. ralph has also taken to calling animals my "boyfriends". one day another neighbors black lab puppy was wondering around outside and kept following me to my car. ralph made a comment along the lines of "looks like your boyfriend doesn't want to leave you alone". well that's not too weird, but then the other day clay and i were going for a walk. we passed ralph working in his small patch of grass by his porch. we said hello and asked what he was doing. he looked at me and said, "oh, just feeding your boyfriends." he was putting some bird seed in a bird feeder. interesting.

neighbor #2












we have not actually met these neighbors yet. for awhile i was convinced that either it was empty or someone had died inside and not been discovered yet. there is nothing on the porch and we had never seen anyone come in or out. i finally asked some other neighbors if they knew who lived there and they said it was the person who drove the burnt orange car. now, this car is burnt orange, yes. but it has a longhorn license plate turned upside down...a little conflicting, don't you think? according to neighbor #3 it is a pregnant woman, her husband, their child and a cat. i have never seen anyone except the cat (in the window). mysterious.

neighbor #3












this is kerri and donnie. they moved in right about the same time we did and they love flowers. there porch is covered...literally covered and kerri has taken it upon herself to decorate the whole common grassy areas with lots of flowers. it's pretty. we have definitely spoken to them quite a bit and gotten to know them a little better than #1 and #2. they are about our parents age and are really interesting. from what i have gathered they have hit a rough time in their life and are trying to sell their house and decided to move into an apt. for the time being. they are very nice and i definitely enjoy the flowers everywhere.

it has been interesting for clay and i to be surrounded by so many people that are so different from us. we have had our eyes open to just how lucky we are. on multiple occasions we have been able to hear two different neighbors arguing through the walls. some pretty violent arguing as well. we know we are here for a reason and we know that the Lord calls us to "love our neighbor as ourself". we really want to be able to get to know our neighbors and invest in their lives. we see most of them on a pretty regular basis and it would be really sad to say hello, have some small talk and let a year pass without really getting to know the people that live around us.