Nick met our new neighbor the other night.

He and his roommate actually moved in to the house next door on the same weekend we moved into our house, but we hadn’t even seen them until Monday night when, to make a long story short, the one roommate came to notify us that ADT contacted the previous owner, John, because the alarm had been going off. [Side note: He is friends with the previous owner, so previous owner called to him to make sure everything was alright. In our defense, previous owner didn’t leave any instructions about the ADT system and therefore we did not have an access code. We didn’t even know it was still connected.]

I think new neighbor’s name is Casey. He gave Nick a piece of paper with his name and phone #, along with previous owner’s contact info, which we put up on the fridge. But this got me thinking about all the times I’ve seen in movies where a new person moves in and all the neighbors bring “welcome casseroles”. We’ve been here for two weeks now and no one has offered us a tasty casserole to ease our move-in stress. Our interaction with Casey has been the ONLY interaction we’ve had with anyone on our street. What gives?

Did people even do that in the first place? When I was growing up, the only neighbors we had were family so no one new moved in close enough for them to really be neighbors (yeah, you’ve heard the term a “country mile”?) so we never prepared food for them. After I moved away, I lived in apartment after apartment with college students and young professionals coming and going. No baking required there.

We’re settling into our own little community and I look forward to developing relationships with my neighbors and all those on our street. But no welcome casseroles have come our way. Perhaps as our ways of life have advanced, so have the welcome wagons. Casey, the new neighbor, said he also has a little dog and suggested we get together for a barbeque and doggie play date. After all, we both have huge yards that any dog would love. Perhaps this is our casserole.

Do you guys have any suggestions as to how we can go about meeting the neighbors? Should we bake them casseroles?

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