A Room with a View (left)

Apparently, from the instant we saw our new house (on a Friday) to the time we found out our contract had been accepted (the following Monday), the lot next door was snatched up by an enterprising builder with the intent of building a "spec" home. Spec is short for speculative which in this case alludes to the fact that some guy has borrowed a ton of money to build a lovely home in hopes it will be immediately bought by a family willing to pay a ton more money than it actually cost to construct. I wish him the best of luck, because if he does sell it at a shameful profit, I'm pretty sure my home's value automatically goes up. And if it benefits me, generally I'm all for it.

If I look out the windows across the room on my left, I can just see the tip of the cleared lot, some piles of supplies, and the occasional construction worker coming to wash his hands at the makeshift faucet they have on site. My 18 month-old, Jack, takes time every morning to wave and say "Hello, men!" and again every evening pauses his play to wave once more and say "Bye, men!" Both obvious signs of a genuine affection for his fellow man as well as pure genius when it comes to vocabulary. My mother-in-law glances out almost as often to try and anticipate what job will be accomplished that day (today they're working on the walls for the second floor), and to wonder aloud about the possibility of stretching a 200 foot hose from their faucet to our pool under cover of night, thus reducing the ungodly water bill we've been footing lately. Also genius, but of a slightly darker nature.

The fact that this builder's success means more equity for me should make this nothing but a win-win situation. All that changed with a visit from the very nice lady who runs the homeowners association. (For a mere $35 per year, we are enrolled in the River Run Homeowner's association. However, there is no community pool, tennis court or walking trail -- so while membership undoubtedly has its privileges, I'm really not at all sure what those might be.) She needed our vital statistics for inclusion in the neighborhood phone list, which really is a helpful little document. A quick examination of the last phone list let me know the names of all my neighbors, whose kids baby-sit, pet-sit, house-sit or mow lawns, and let me know that former Governor Don Siegelman lives in my neighborhood. All things that are helpful and/or good to know. Since I'm completely confined to my room, her visit was with my mother-in-law. Long story short, she confided that her husband sold the lot to the builder. And both she and my mother-in-law spent the better part of the conversation lamenting the fact that we hadn't bought our house sooner, because we could have bought their lot as well and had a nice play area for the kids.

This is a real downer for me, because it's absolutely true. Now every time I look left, instead of seeing dollar signs, I see the incredibly cool swingset/jungle gym that will never be. I see enough area for our pitifully bored dog to burn off some energy. Instead of a lovely 2-story house, I see a blocked view of the woods. My only hope for regaining some good feeling about the house next door lies in the hope that a really nice couple with kids in the birth to 2 yrs. age range will pay a horribly inflated sum to move in next door. If you or someone you know fits this description, please head for River Run immediately.

That pretty much sums up the left side of my room. If I'm still this bored tomorrow, look for a complete summation of the view from the right side of my room. I'm sure the anticipation is maddening.