Why I Love my Neighborhood

A while back, when I was training for my first 5k, I remember reading people's Facebook posts about how peaceful their morning runs were, and looking at their pictures of deer they passed. You know what I loved about my early morning runs? I loved that I could count on seeing the exact same homeless people pushing their carts down the streets at the same time every day, and that every day we would say hello to each other. I loved that even before the sun came up, people were out walking their dogs, hurrying to get home to get ready for work. 

And today, I decided to go out and run again. (Well, "run" is a bit of an optimistic word, but I'll go with it). And I was reminded once again why I love my neighborhood. 

1.  Because this was my view today. And it's right down the street from my kids' school. 

2.  Because my husband goes to 7-eleven for snacks and comes home with food in Spanish packaging. 

3.  Because you can catch a contact high if you breathe deep enough when you take your kids to play in the woods behind your neighbor's house. (Ok, so this isn't exactly something I love, but whatevs, we've just learned to not walk too far in).  

4.  Because my children think nothing of sharing a seat at the ice cream shop because all of the seats are taken. 

5.  Because our neighbors leave us little surprise Halloween treats on our door step, so we get to take more pictures of ourselves. 

So yes, while it's true that on a quiet summer night, we aren't quite sure if the noises we hear are fireworks or gun shots, we love this little space on the map that we get to call home. And that, my friends, is a very wonderful thing.