It’s almost 7am, so 2-3 more hours of barking, then the bulk of it should be done for the day. Ain’t God just great to me? All good things really do come to an end. I totally believe that. Every single place I’ve lived in that started off peaceful eventually got worse and worse. Some places turned noisy overnight, others slowly. So what are we going to have to do? Move every few months to a few years as each place gets too noisy? Is that all that’s in our cards as far as housing goes? To move to a place and just when we’re about to be grateful to finally have good neighbors, have them move out and bad ones move in? To start off with good neighbors that suddenly decide not to give a shit about others around them after a few months of being kind and considerate? Is that it?

It used to be so wonderful here despite the lack of space. I was just so amazed to finally be in such a quiet place, quieter than any other place I ever lived, including Maricopa at its quietest. But now it’s worse than the Oregon dump, excluding the car stereos. The barking isn’t as bad as the duplex was, obviously, because there, the dog was right outside our window. But these dogs here are closer than the canal dog was. And it’s made even worse by the layout of this place. In the Oregon dump, the front of the house wasn’t as bad since the barking was coming from the back. But here there is no front or back, so the barking is everywhere. Even in the bathroom with the door shut I can still hear it loud and clear. And knowing that the weekend is coming up doesn’t give me any peace of mind either because I know Jesse will be in and out all day Saturday and Sunday. It just may not start till 8am - noon as opposed to 5:30 am. I swear he’s only home just to sleep! Fortunately, I’ll be asleep by then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some evening barking tonight too, like last Friday night. My guess is that that’s when he goes to a bar after working such long hours all week.

The last thing I want to do is return to the city where it could end up 10 times noisier if it wasn’t from the get-go. Yet all this shit has had me thinking about and missing being in a normal house. Images of those houses I saw on Craigslist are floating through my mind constantly. I’m sick of being cramped into tiny little cottages, duplexes, motel rooms, and trailers. I want a normal house that’s around 1000-1500 square feet. But it’s me that’s asking for it so that makes it too much to ask for. I also miss living in something that isn’t as old or older than I am. Oh, to have a modern house with at least two bedrooms and 1½ baths on a solid concrete foundation! It doesn’t freeze here too often, so houses don’t have to be raised. Tom says we’ll more than likely want to move closer to wherever he ends up working, but if he’s right about us being able to buy a house within a few years, then it would’ve been easier to just stay here until then. I like variety, but at the same time I’m SICK of moving!

But I’m also getting mighty sick of having my activities now have to revolve around when the dogs bark. I can’t do anything that requires a quiet background now like proofreading or resuming my Italian lessons, although I need a break from that for a while anyway. The spelling and vocabulary are still a piece of cake. But the grammar’s still driving me crazy, too.