Better Neighbors...

While it isn’t quite the new year and I do have a few more days I have not decided what resolutions I am going to make for 2008 yet. In fact I am not sure what my 2007 resolutions were… Anyway, one that I am considering for 2008 is being a better neighbor. Russ and I love our house and our street and we know the neighbors around us and speak to them when we see them and there are a few others down the way that we say hi to when we see them and others we wave to in passing, but we don’t really know that many of them. We are not looking to find new best friends in our neighbors, but I feel like we should know a few more than we do. It is not that Russ and I aren’t great neighbors because we really are in the sense that we keep our house and yard up and Cash is friendly and not a barker, but we don’t really go out of way to meet new neighbors or go see any of the approximate million new babies that have been born on the street since we moved in almost two years ago. This is mainly because Russ and I are both relatively shy especially around people we don’t know or don’t know well. We have broken out of shells to go to the annual Halloween street party the last two years, but it is hard to meet neighbors who are all chasing their toddlers and tending to crying infants and the only neighbors who come to the street party besides us are those who have toddlers or crying infants. I am not exactly sure how we will try and become better neighbors, but I thought a good start would be to deliver a small holiday baked good to the neighbors on either side of us and across the street. So, I made small loaves of my mother in law’s recipe for pumpkin bread and Russ sweetly delivered them only to discover that the neighbors on either side were out of town and the one across the street who was at home and appreciated the bread is also trying to sell their house and will probably be gone soon anyway… Oh well, at least we are trying, right?

I am not posting the pumpkin bread recipe as this is a family recipe that may well be put to good use one day when Jane opens a restaurant or café or writes a cookbook. It is very yummy and the perfect blend of pumpkin and spice. Russ rates it a 9.