Which House is Which?

People in my neighborhood are already starting to take down their outdoor Christmas decorations (odd, considering they can't be bothered to take their trash cans in at the end of trash day!). This makes me sad, but not for the reason you might think it would. I am not mourning the passing of another holiday season. I'm mourning the loss of the ability to find my house at night.

You see, our house is, like, the 16^th house on the block. There's even a street in between the main street and our house. But that only knocks the count down a few houses. So in addition to being the 16^th on the block, we're the 14^th after the first street on the right. See, not much difference.

You know how, when you're looking for someone's house, they usually tell you that they're the 4^th house on the right, or right at the end of the cul-de sac, or some such thing? I can't do that!

In such situations, have you ever tried to count past the first 5 houses on the block? No? Try it. It is statistically impossible to count past the 5^th house. It gets even harder if you happen to make it into double digits, because by then all the houses start to look the same and when you try to peek at the small house numbers on the front as you're driving by, you lose count. And then you're like, "Did I just past the 5th or the 15^th house? Which way did they say it was again? How many houses have we passed? Now we have to turn around and start all over! Fuck."

We have lived in this house 7 months. 7 months! And sometimes I still go past my house and have to turn around and regain my bearings! In the middle of the day!

In the beginning, it was easy! We live in a brand new development, and we were pretty much the only residents down our way for much of the summer. Look for the solar lights by the driveway, the truck on the curb, and the "Protected by (insert security company here)" sign. Now, all the houses are occupied. And EVERYONE has solar lights by their driveway, a "protected by…" sign in front of their house, and parks their truck on the curb! Several of them are even the same color, so color coding doesn't work, either.

But, see, this Christmas our neighbors to the right put blue lights on the roof of their garage. So I knew we were the house right before the blue lights (obviously, this only works at night. I haven't come up with a good daytime solution, yet). And now they're gone. So I'm back to creeping through my neighborhood at 2 mph to make sure I don't pass my house.

And that makes me sad.

I discussed getting some obnoxious lawn ornament with dh, so I would have no trouble identifying our house during the day. He pretty much vetoed that idea as soon as it came out of my mouth. Not a fan of lawn decorations of any kind. And normally I'm not, either. But this is a matter of survival!

And I don't think the HOA would approve of us painting the garage door neon pink…