When I sit on the left side of the sofa in the family room I can see out the window in the living room across the house.

Every now and then I would get a bit freaked out because I imagined I saw someone looking through the window. Then I realized that there is a small pine tree just outside the window and that it was probably swaying and it seemed like a person peeping through the window. I kept reminding myself to have the landscaper remove it in the spring.

Well, back in January, I walked in the 20" of snow with my camera to take a picture of a huge icicle that was dangling from the east side of the house. It was then that I saw footprints leading from the neighbors’ house to the window of our living room.

Now, it really wasn’t comforting to realize that I had not been imagining someone peeping through our window. In fact, I was rather upset that the girls next door have a need to spy into our home. Three summers ago I unknowingly stopped them from ringing our doorbell and running away. I was looking out the window of the office at a mother blue jay teaching her baby how to fly when I saw the older girl run from our house to hers. That was seconds after the door bell rang for the third time that night and the umpteenth time that summer. My daughter told them I saw them and though they denied it, the ringing stopped.

It was replaced by spying. Less noisy, I guess.

I was telling my friend, Liz, about having to buy or make drapes to keep the neighbor from looking in and she suggested the best thing! “Just make a sign that says ‘I know you are looking at us’ and put it on your window. ”

It may be that the girls are bored and have nothing better to do than to spy into our house or ring our doorbell. I, however, have my theory. I believe they have been hired by John Ashcroft.

It all makes sense now.

“If you mind your own business, you won't be minding mine.”
~Hank Williams