Justin Guarini and Rednecks

Do you remember Justin Guarini from the first season of American Idol? Yeah, the guy with the curly hair. We had a waiter tonight who sported a similar "do". He was a great waiter and seemed really nice. However, right as he left our table after refilling my DP, Addi decided to blurt out, "Ewww, yucky curly hair man!" Nice.

We went over (AGAIN) how you shouldn't say things you don't like about people unless we are at home and those people are not visiting our house. Fortunately she is fairly sensitive, so when I mentioned that it might hurt his feelings to hear her say she didn't like his hair, she instantly realized that was something she didn't want to do.

Driving to eat tonight led me to thinking of a story some of our neighbors' told us about the former owners of our house. Not seeing the connection? Well, I'll fill you in...there is a house at the other end of our neighborhood that must be filled with a family who feels it is their duty to remind the rest us we are living in "Nascar Country". Not only that, but that they also enjoy "all things redneck", if you will. (I'm sure some of you are thinking the two naturally go hand in hand. I've learned while living in the "country" that this is not necessarily true.) I'm sure you can imagine what the outside of their house looks like...too many cars crammed into the driveway, various flags and yard decor, and, my personal favorite, candle lights in their windows. Yes, the ones usually reserved for Christmas. What's a good redneck house without a year round celebration of Christmas?! Oh, but these are progressive rednecks...they change the light bulbs out for various holidays...red for Christmas, pink for Valentines Day, and now green for St. Patrick's Day. I guess they don't want to appear lazy. I mean, who would think they were too lazy to put up their Christmas decorations, if they took the time to change out the bulbs to match the current holiday? As I mentioned, the house is located at the other end of the neighborhood so tonight was my first glimpse of their homage for St. Patrick. Bryan and I chuckled and then I thought of a redneck story of our own house. (Yes, I'm finally getting to the point!)

We knew when we moved in that our house had been neglected by the previous owners for quite some time. There was scotch tape holding our breakfast room light fixture together, the flower beds had some sort of poison ivy looking stuff overtaking them, and you couldn't even see the chains holding the dining room's or entry way's chandeliers because of all the black dust. Seriously, there was at least a half-inch of dust build up all the way around those chains. Granted, the ceilings in those rooms are 18 feet high, but maybe when you put your house on the market you should find a ladder and shake that dust off!

In any event, the story goes that the lady of the house had an affair with a neighbor, the husband left her, she hurt her back and had to stop working so she filled her days sitting on the porch drinking wine. Their boys were grown at that point and I'm not clear on where they lived, but in the least, they spent plenty of time here having hot tub parties in the middle of the afternoon and poker games in the garage all hours of the night. It seems the rest of their time was filled working on their Harley's and then test driving around the neighborhood. Not your ideal neighbors!

At some point a tree fell over and a huge limb went through the garage. As you can see in this picture, there are second story windows that lead out to the roof over the garage. Instead of removing the limb, the family decided to make use of it. For Easter they hung eggs on the branches, for July 4th flags, for Christmas wreaths and lights, and so on. I'm not sure when the limb was removed. That, at least had been done before we ever saw the house.

Now the garage holds my car, we've replaced the breakfast room light, and I try to dust semi-regularly. As for the hot tub, well that's a story for another post.