If you’ve been following our real estate saga, and if you read Ted’s blog as well as mine, you know that we had to make the very difficult decision to fire our real estate agent this last weekend.  She is a wonderful person, and worked very hard for us, so to get to that point SUCKED.  But her boss was a complete asshole, and since he would be getting some of our money from the commission, we bailed. Also, though, our agent was our neighbor, and brand new to real estate.  We like her a lot, and wanted to give her the chance to sell our place.  A few years…

Summer isn’t officially over until September 21st, and around here, the warm weather lasts well into October, sometimes November… Late summer, August, September, into October…that’s one of the best times for yummy summer food around here.  The tomatoes are at their best, the grapes are sweet and juicy (note to self…get tiny natural thomsom seedless next time you’re at the farmer’s market…they’re smaller than the newer varieties, but sweeter…), you can still get strawberries and corn and so many lovely things, local and natural and delicious.  You can make homemade tomato sauce and have a yummy pasta for dinner.  People are trying to get rid of their zucchini, so it’s…

Has anyone else heard of MBT brand shoes  This weekend, while dropping Maya off at a ‘High School Musical 2’ sleepover extravaganza, I started chatting with M’s BFF’s mom BFF’s mom had these huge looking, yet still kinda cute, shoes on her feet. She has told me in the past of her back problems.  She goes to the chiropractor, takes muscle relaxants, does stretching and yoga…nothing helps.  It’s gotten so bad that a few weeks ago, she went to a movie with her husband and daughter, and they had to leave because she was in so much pain.  This is no way for a 34 year old to live her life, let me…

Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that it is better to own your home than to rent it. I’m here to debunk that wisdom. Owning SUCKS. Here’s why. When we rented, if we wanted to move, we moved. End of story. When we rented, if two of the burners had gone out on our stove, the landlord would have bought a new stove. For us, we had to wait until we could afford a new stove, and suffer with the old one for awhile. When we rented, if we wanted to move, we moved. Did I mention that one before? Sorry. It’s at the top of my mind right now. Owning…

For those of you bloggy friends who also read Cherry’s blog, and know that she went in for surgery today, please know that she came out OK. I’ll go see her tomorrow. I won’t be posting on it, because I feel like it’s her story to tell, not mine, and kind of personal…but since she put it out there that she was going under the knife, I thought I would put it out there that she is out of surgery and it went well.  🙂

Late last night, I let Genevieve go out front to use the bathroom one more time before bed…and saw something dash off to the left, which she promptly went and chased.  I thought it was a cat, expected to hear a hiss or at least its claws climbing the fence quickly.  Instead, I heard nothing.  I went outside, and peeked around the corner, and I saw something very much like this picture…a little dead critter, is what it looked like!  I’ve never seen a possum in real life before, at least not that I remember, so I wasn’t exactly sure WHAT it was…and I wondered how in the heck our…

(click to enlarge…) …by an evil spider bite…some dirty nasty mean spider bug had the nerve to bite up poor Ted, and his leg got swollen, sore, and infected. So we cut short our time in San Francisco, went to the doctor, took it easy, and we’re leaving a day late for Tahoe…but still going, which is what’s important to us. Now it’s time to relax by that beautiful lake… 🙂 Catch you on the flipside!

Way back when we decided to attempt selling our place and moving up to a slightly bigger place, we thought it would happen quickly. Put our place on the market in early May, move in June, go on a well deserved vacation in July. That was the idea, anyway, based on the last two townhouses in our complex, and how long it took them to sell.  However, the market in our specific micro climate has changed drastically, and selling has become a bit of a nightmare. And yet…we still need a vacation. So, here we are, with family visits, school registration, work, etc., all limiting our options for when we…

Fold A Fitted Sheet With Perfectly Squared Corners I’m out of town for a few days, on a short business trip. Since I have nothing really to say myself, being out of town and all, I’ll tell you that Gina mentioned on her blog the other day that she can’t fold a fitted sheet to save her life. In the comments, chichimama posted the link to this video. If there are any (probably not) readers to my blog who don’t already read Gina’s blog, AND if you give a rat’s ass about how to properly fold a fitted sheet, watch and learn. I couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty…

This is the story that I wrote for Top Blog Mag. I waited a week, and then posted it here, though it shows the same date…Top Blog Mag wants us to lead readers to THAT blog, so I didn’t post here sooner…but it’s a funny story, and I selfishly wanted it to be on my blog. 🙂 I’ll put it in ‘block format’, to show that it was published somewhere else first… Back in 1984, I worked as a waitress at a Mr. Steak restaurant in Stockton, California. To say that the workplace was different then than it is now would be an understatement…or perhaps it was working at a…

I realized this last night, when Ted and I were talking about what means good service to us…and I said that I miss having my change counted to me. You know, your purchase cost $12.35, and the cashier counts out your change, “that was $12.35, here’s 45, 50, $13.00, $14.00, $15.00, and $5.00 makes twenty.” Gosh, those were the days.  I’d settle for someone telling me that the computerized cash register said my change was $7.65, and counting that to me, rather than just saying, “Here’s your change” and dumping it in my hand.  Also, when you had time to look at your receipt and what was on it before you put…