Thankful for my neighborhood

​Since the coronavirus craziness started and the stay at home order was put in place I think we have all learned a few things about working from home, being around your family & significant others 24/7, or maybe not being around family for the past 7 weeks.. We’ve deep cleaned our house half a dozen times, we’ve spent our monthly grocery budget each week at the store, learned new recipes, ordered in too much, and figured out new routines and focused on being grateful during these challenging times. Any chance we had to be outside, we have been. Whether it was walking out dog 6 times a day, grilling & bon fires with the neighbors or half-assing some yard work. After the last almost 2 months of being at home there are a few things I’ve learned about my neighborhood that I wanted to share with you. Hopefully you have been finding things to be grateful for in your home and neighborhood too.
I’d love it if you shared them!

1. Walking trail & pond: behind our house is a narrow path that leads you about half a mile in either direction through the trees and along a large pond that separates my neighborhood from the apartment complex down the street. You wouldn’t know the trail was there unless you already knew where it was. Since we haven’t been able to go anywhere we’ve been taking our dog on daily walks and his favorite place to be is on the trail. We see geese (who now have babies running around everywhere!), turtles, birds & squirrels, but rarely do we see anyone else on the trail. It feels like a secret path that is all ours.
2. Coming together: have you heard of the app Nextdoor? If you haven’t you should definitely check it out. It brings together all your neighbors in the surrounding neighborhoods and allows them to send out crime alerts, information, post events, post news, and post supportive messages. I started a group for my immediate neighbors and we are working on putting together a neighborhood yard sale for after quarantine is over!
3. Next door: another perk about my neighborhood are my neighbors. With everyone out and about, looking out for each other, making sure everyone is ok and has what they need, we have met some really amazing people. On our left is the sweetest couple you can imagine. We trade care packages back and forth; they left a case of white claw on our porch a few weeks ago! She is also an ex-librarian so my reading list has grown exponentially. On our right are new neighbors who have a beagle the same age as our German Shepard pup. The first thing he does when we take him outside now is look next door to see if Baxter is outside to play.
4. Our mail carrier: this sounds weird, but seriously the woman who delivers mail to our neighborhood is phenomenal. When we first got our pup Ace, we happened to be outside when she drove by. She could see the truck was scaring the little guy so she turned it off and let him come sniff her. It was super sweet and now he likes to go for a walk at mail time. No hard feelings between our dog and the mail woman!
5. Quiet: even though we are in the Bon Air area, we somehow got lucky enough with a magic neighborhood where we don’t have a ton of thru traffic. The houses are also spread out a little more than a lot of neighborhoods these days so we have a fantastic backyard. Perfectly set up with a fire pit. corn hole (boards that we actually made ourselves in the workshop shed), horse shoes, fairy lights, and a baby pool for our spoiled rotten dog.

These are just a few things we have come to be grateful for in the past couple of months of staying at home. I’d love to know what you have started to appreciate or learn about your home and neighborhood. Stay safe everyone!