This is Not My Beautiful House Part 2

We bought the house nineteen years ago last Saturday. The property is a little over an acre and bordered by a creek. Although it was taken over with weeds, brush, trees, etc. so we bought it on faith that the creek actually existed. I wish I could say we took pictures but we didn't. It was so overwhelming that it didn't even occur to us.

We didn't care though. Kevin's commute was almost an hour long and mine was a half-hour. It took a little bit for us to adjust to living so far out. There was a store about four miles away but it had convenience store prices so if we needed something, we mostly did without until the weekend.

For a little while we had no neighbors. The property on one side wasn't developed yet and the house on the other side appeared uninhabitable. Then the devil moved in. The devil's name was Joe, he had a common law wife whom we called the Crazy Lady because she had these lifeless, bright blue eyes and she kept asking us if we'd seen her cat. We had never seen a cat.

Joe was a thug. He was a biker. He trashed everything he owned. He also had an epic temper, it took nothing to set him off. He had pit bulls, really not nice, stereotypical pit bulls. He used to start his truck at 6 am every morning by holding the accelerator to the floor and leaving it there. We used to lay in bed and pray that the engine would blow up. So for the first few years, we simply didn't make eye contact as we went about our daily lives.

There were plenty of calls to the sheriff. I told you the one story about him holing up in the house. When he finally left permanently, it was because the county drug swat team swarmed the place. Rumor has it he swims with the fishes now. So all's well that ends well.

Kevin's sister-in-law's father bought the property next to us a few months after we did. He basically plunked a mobile home down and called it good for the first few years. With his help, we were able to uncover the creek and lower property so we could actually see & enjoy it.

Fast forward about eight years later, we had adapted to living in the country quite efficiently. The first winter we had two feet of snow for about two weeks. We experienced some really intense thunder & lightning storms that got caught in the mountains. We had an unidentified animal living in the woods between the father-in-law-in-law's house. We've had an earthquake. It's been an interesting nineteen years.

Then the family moved in.