Welcome to the neighborhood

It's been a nice few days for me. Lately every time I go out and walk with Ginger I end up meeting neighbors for the first time! We just moved to this house back in June and until this weekend I really hadn't met anyone. In fact, Husband commented just the other day how no one seemed especially friendly here. He had waved at the man that lives across the street, and the guy just stared at him and then continued mowing his lawn. Nice! A few folks walk their dogs past our house early in the morning and most have refused to even make eye contact. I was just getting ready to be resigned to the fact that we had just not moved to a friendly kind of place.

Well, all that changed in the last few days! Maybe we just hadn't landed on the right neighbors. I took Ginger to a small park down the road on Saturday, and ended up meeting and chatting with two neighbors named Joe and Arlene....and their sweet dogs, too...a Boykin spaniel named Morgan (that Ginger has fallen in love with!) and two mixed breeds named Sallie and Max. Then, on the way back home an old woman named Diana walked to the end of her driveway as we passed by and introduced herself. I also met her little granddaughter, Bailey, who had started first grade last week and wanted to tell me all about it.That was sweet (and Bailey loved Ginger and petted her half to death!)  Diana also had dogs...4 of them...but I can't remember their names. During our conversation she told me the names of the people that live in several houses on our street and a little fact about each one. "That's Mr. and Mrs.--, they used to own that one florist shop downtown, and that's where Mrs. So and So used to live, she's in a nursing home now but her kids keep the house and yard up....and Mr. -- lives there, he has a dog and a cat..."  It made me smile, and Ginger loved all the attention from the people and their dogs.

So my weekend got off to a good start. Then I went to work Sat. night to the retail store I manage, and found out we made our sales target in the second quarter and I will be getting a bonus! That made me incredibly happy, not just for the money but also because I am so proud of my team and what we were able to accomplish!  Everyone has worked really hard these last couple of months.

Then today I was actually able to leave work a bit early, and get in some blogging/reading/knitting time. Happy happy day! I plan to make a "Garden Tomato Pie" for dinner. It's kind of like a quiche, and it has tomatoes (obviously), green onions, 3 cheeses, fresh basil, and crumbled bacon. mmmm! Then we'll settle in and watch a movie. And then we might even take a nighttime walk with Ginger...in our new neighborhood.