New Neighbors

We have some new neighbors across the street.

They are not fun.  They are not friendly.  They are not enjoyable.  They are not quiet.

Well, we have some temporary new neighbors across the street.

They don't seem to bother me overmuch during the week.  Maybe it is because I am up and out the door before they are stirring.  However, this week I was home for a couple of days with a sinus infection.  This week I didn't feel well.  This week I was whiney and grumpy.  This week I needed rest.  Those new neighbors didn't really seem to cooperate.

I felt so bad that I didn't even really want to eat.  We had heat and eat leftovers on Tuesday.  I barely had energy to stir up chicken noodle soup on Wednesday.  We skipped dinner entirely and just went to bed on Thursday.  The new neighbors never varied their routine.

My head hurt.  My sinuses were stuffy and painful.  My whole body was aching.  I was sniffling and snuffling and struggling to breathe.  It even ached to blink my eyes.  Yet, those new neighbors didn't really take that into consideration.

I hobbled back to work yesterday and stumbled through the day.  Then, I trekked home from work and picked up take-out for dinner.  I propped myself up at the table and munched through limas and mac and cheese and then wobbled off to bed, leaving the foam containers sitting on the table.  The new neighbors seemed to care less.

Since it is Saturday, I thought I would sleep in and take a leisurely day.  If all I got done was to vacuum the bits of leaves and sprigs of grass and dust up off the floor that would be plenty.  Then, I noticed the neighbors.  They were not quiet and not pastoral.  They were not friendly or encouraging for me to take it easy and relax.

All these days that I leave out to go to work and things look quiet and easy going across the street have been a sham, evidently.  I mean, when I return home in the afternoon I have noticed changes but didn't really consider what that might entail...till this week.

Today I was awakened by beep...beep...beep and the sound of the tracks of a dozier.  It started at just about daylight I believe.  Then, at around seven o'clock this morning the sounds of a jackhammer began, followed by the clank and clunk of loading rocks into dump trucks.

You see, our new temporary neighbors are preparing the way for over one hundred houses to be built right across the street.  So, they are building roads and cutting down embankments and breaking up giant boulders and moving rock pieces from here to there and there to here.  They are not friendly and welcomed to somebody whose head is already aching and wanting rest.

I guess the good Lord has ways of preparing us for moving from a rural farmland setting toward a more densely populated urban area.  It comes in the way of jackhammers, dump trucks, clanking, and clunking, and beep...beep...beep making me look forward to the idyllic landscape of a few houses instead of their construction equipment.