LOL. Perhaps the parents are helping to pay and the family feels like they should have a bigger say? Not that I agree with it, but maybe that's it.

I find that there are read-only (or write-only) bloggers and those that comment. The best way to get commentors is to comment on their blogs too. Also, responding back when they do comment is a good idea, especially the first time they comment (perhaps not EVERY time). Nothing is more deflating to me than to take the time to comment to a new blog I've discovered only to be "ignored" by the blog owner. Yes, they may not be ignoring me, but it feels that way. I like comments too and I like the feeling of community it brings. Community is a big part of why I blog. So, I don't tend re-visit bloggers that don't comment.

It boggles the mind with all the accusations of vigilante-ism that Zimmerman exhibited that someone would think it okay to do this. I surely hope that both Barr and Lee are brought before the judge on this one. Didn't their mama's ever teach them that "two wrongs don't make a right." ??!!??

how many do you have?

my husband and I have considered investing in income property. Are there any good books or websites to educate ourselves?

Well, I'm sorry it didn't work out in the end. :grouphug:

Any news from those of you who had showings in recent days?? I need some happy news.

very sad. I didn't know that he played the theme song to the Beverly Hillbillies until listening to yesterday's obit on NPR. May he rest in peace.

I picked weekly, but in reality that hasn't been happening lately. I would say that the basic maintenence would be the pick up and vacuum/sweep. The other stuff can go another week if need be. I'm not a neat-freak or am I a germaphobe, so your answer may vary. My family helps me with "clean-up day" which is really only about 1.5 hours if we all do it together on Saturday morning. i never use bleach. I do try to keep the kitchen cleaner than other areas because I'm in there so much. But the floor hasn't been getting mopped as often as it needs to be lately.

I agree with what everyone else has said. My husband was against it too until he met with the midwife. My husband likes statistics and data and midwives are usually very up to date on the pro-cons of hospital/homebirths.

I tried finding one too. Impossible.

yes...this. :grouphug:

:iagree:

:grouphug: She is still young. Don't feel like you can't change it and get her going on phonics and writing. You're right, everyone has their own pace so don't stress if she's not getting it as quickly as her age-mates.

If family (we have young adult children) or a job wasn't an issue I'd move to either the Pacific NW or the mountains of TN or NC

oohh, I love those types of blogs. I'm terrible at picking names, but please let us know when you get it going.

you have to keep the heater running to some extent. It's not like a water heater in the basement that can heat up water in 30 mins to an hour. It's more like the heater for your house that keeps the temp at a certain level. Depending on the size it probably takes hours and hours to get the temp up.

yup! I can't really say how much it effected our electric bill because we had an all electric house and the air-con is expensive too! I think the chemicals and all the problems with our pool added up way faster. We also didn't have a heater on the pool. Those can be expensive. There is a reason why I called our pool "the money pit". I hate to be a party-pooper too but one of the main reasons we moved this year was to get away from the pool. do you have to get an in-ground pool? I know several people who have above ground pool and they never seemed like they were nearly the headache an inground pool was for me.

I just noticed the name of your street: LOVE IT! :D But watch out for those Barrow Wights. ;)

what a beautiful house and lawn! I hope it all comes together and your old house sells. Congratulations!!!!!! And thanks for the support on firing our realtor. Talked with dh and he said we have complete grounds to do so but is it worth it?? I said I thought so. I called her and did the deed. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought. She of course, see's things differently, but she bowed out graciously. Now, I'm back to hunting for a realtor. We've got an appt. tomorrow with one and we had already interviewed another lady back in Jan. - we may just go with her. She's one of those very well known, does our area, has lots of minions working for her. She won't be the friendly, touchy-feely type but I know she'll be effective - and she knows our specific area and the type of people who buy here. My husband also wants to get a referral from his niece. She may know someone in our area.

I totally know how exhausting it is and we only did about 1/2 the work ourselves. I hope it goes very quickly for you. What is the market like where you live?

:hurray: and praying too!

I think we're going to fire our realtor. At least *I* am ready to do so. My husband wants to hold off. But, I've slept on it and I still feel the same way this morning. She's really not been helpful and in retrospect she wasn't really all the helpful in helping us to find the house we bought. But, I'm tired and emotional too. My husband usually has a more level business head. The thing I'm worried about is if she drags this out it could really put off getting the house on the MLS. It may not be worth it to do that...but I'm worried how well she'll represent us once it IS on the market. So I feel a bit stuck. Anyway, sorry for the ramble. Just trying to process on little sleep.

My husband's niece is a realtor in another county and we had a good talk with her about "how ready does a house have to be before putting it on the market?" She basically said that the market is hot for the DC area and get it on ASAP. She said it's not worth it to wait another week just to get some furniture in for staging. If we want to do that later we can...but she stressed get it on the market first! She's sold (put offers really) 11 houses in the last 2 weeks! Gosh - I hope they all come to my area and look too! LOL So I put a call in to our realtor yesterday saying that I wanted the photographer to come out and get the pictures and I wanted the house listed by the end of the week.

LOL. yes.