The Economist Sums Up Financial Crisis and this is not at all suitable for viewing with children present but it’s funny as hell

 

 

I told you it was funny!  Incredibly sad but true.  I’ve linked the original article below ( and just to be clear this is not the actual cover of the magazine):

The Economist Sums Up Financial Crisis: “Oh Fuck!”

Wait, what? It’s my anniversary today?

You know it’s bad when you are the WIFE and you forget your anniversary!  Not that I forgot it entirely, you see.  I just forgot this morning.  In our usual mad rush to get breakfast in the gremlin’s tummies, get them clothed, shoed, hair/teeth brushed, we both completely forgot to say Happy Anniversary to each other… and not even a small kiss goodbye as the husband rushed out the door.  That’s bad, huh?

It’s our 13th wedding anniversary.  I don’t have a thing about the number 13 so its just another year to me.  What shocks me, is that it has gone by faster than I ever could have imagined.

Here is where I try to explain away my forgetting of the anniversary:

1. It’s a Tuesday, for Pete’s sake
2. It’s been 13 years
3. I’m thinking about the upcoming 4th of July weekend – Parade, BBQ, fireworks and that’s just on Fri., Sat we are going to a BBQ at my mom’s and I’m supposed to walk 14 miles, oh yeah & 10 miles on Sun.  
4. I have two gremlins that I have to deal with - e.g. MOM she’s bugging me, tell her to get her feet out of my face!  She pushed me.
5. We are going to Las Vegas in two weeks to celebrate our anniversary – WHOOOOHOOOOO!
6. I have work I’m supposed to be doing – yawn
7. I’ve been trying to finish a couple blog posts that are dragging on – well actually I think I have ADD which has been keeping me for getting anything done
8. There’s a giant nail in the front tire of my brand new set of tires – DAMN IT
9. My two dogs need to be groomed so badly that my miniature schnauzer looks like a muppet
10. I’m almost done with the sixth book in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich
11. I need to walk 4 miles today
12. Have customers I need to see today
13. Don’t know what all I’m making for dinner tonight

So there, as it turns out, 13 reasons why I forgot.

But on a positive note, I got a nice bouqet of flowers delivered today from the husband!  Well, technically it’s my Christmas present, a year’s worth of flowers delivered monthly, but hey it also happens to be my anniversary so I’ll just say it’s for my anniversary and be done with it.

Enough for now,

Ciao 

We’re moving, again (part 5)

Well, well, well, here we are in OCTOBER!!  October 3rd to be exact.  It has been months since we put our house on the market.  Sadly, not a single offer to date.  I guess it is to be expected.  What with the mortgage industry in the shambles, people forclosing on their homes so frequently now it’s like going through tissue in allergy season.  Plus, there are more houses on the market than people able to qualify for them.  Not to mention the fact that we are in a higher end home; therefore less people looking in that price range.

It is definitely not an ideal time to be attempting to sell one’s house.  We have already reduced the price of the house by $100k.  We really don’t want to reduce it again.  If we have to drop the price again we will be running into a situation where we may not have enough money left over to buy another home!  WTF?! For almost the entire time the husband & I have been together we have owned the home we lived in.  We never rented an apt or condo or anything else.  We have always owned.

So, now it is almost Halloween and Thanksgiving and then Christmas.  I love decorating for each of those times and I don’t know whether I should or not.  On the one hand, we should be able to decorate and enjoy the season but on the other hand I don’t want the house to look cluttered or crappy when prospective buyers come tour the house.  Then I think, well, we are still living here, so F**K them.  We are real people with young children who deserve to have the of fun of putting up pumpkins or scary skeletons or spooky ghosts.  But then I think I want the house to look immaculate and not distract buyers with all that stuff.  AAAAAHHHH!! What to do… what to do?!

On a brighter note, we have had three different people tour the house within the last week.  That is more in one week than in the last month!  I’m not wanting to get my hopes up but am still hopeful that someone is interested in buying the house.  Soon.

Enough for now,

Ciao

A remembrance

And a tribute to those that lost their friends, family, and/or loved ones, on this 6th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. 

We bow our heads and remember.

 

Fire

In some cases fire is a good thing.  Like when you are really, really, really cold or even when your only just really cold.  And, also, when you want to snuggle up with your honey.  It’s good when you need to cook some food.  It’s great to have when you want to take a hot shower.  But there are times when it’s not a good thing.  Such as when you burn yourself roasting marshmellows.  Or when there is a fire burning its way toward your home or school.  Like this…

photo taken from our dining room window. 

This summer, like many summers before, there have been fires.  It certainly isn’t an unusual occurrence.  Different things can start fires, in the case of this fire, they still haven’t determined what started it. 

I always feel terrible for the people that are affected (or is it effected? I can never remember); those that lose their homes, mementos, and sometimes family members or pets.  We have always been incredibly lucky.  Misfortunes have passed us by.  For this I am truly grateful.  I pray that this is another one of those occasions, where fate is on our side. 

Now, from the photo it is difficult to tell how far or near the fire is to us.  It is actually somewhat far.  Plus, there is a lake in between.  Therefore, the likelyhood of this fire reaching us is slim.  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible, just that it’s unlikely.  God willing. 

~NEW DAY~
Ok, it is now the next day.  Got too late for me to stay up & finish the post last night.  Here is the update: They say they have the fire only 10% contained.  There is lots of wind continuing to blow the fire in all directions and the fire itself creates wind, making it even more difficult to fight.  Its already burned 1,000s of acres.  Who knows how many more it will burn. 

As I was driving to pickup Honey bunny from school, I passed about a half dozen fire trucks loaded with tired, soot covered fire fighters.  Those guys need to be thanked!  They risk their lives to put out fires.  THANK YOU FIREFIGHTERS EVERWHERE!!! 

I’ll keep you posted on the situation.

Enough for now,

Ciao

   

We’re moving, again. (part 3)

It has officially been 6 weeks since we put our house on the market.  And I’m *sad* to say that we have not had any offers to-date.  Many people have driven by & taken flyers, come to the multitude of open house, and scheduled appts. to view the house with their realtors but alas, not one single offer.  This is starting to get depressing.  I know that I’m probably expecting too much to think that our house should have sold by now, but I can’t seem to help myself.  We’ve always sold our previous homes so quickly, generally within the first 30 days of it being on the market.  If I’m more realistic, then I’ll look at what’s truly happening with the housing market.  But then it will really, really depress me because there ain’t shit happening with the market (and just so you know, I don’t care that ‘ain’t’ isn’t proper English).

I’m doing my best to stay positive.  It will sell when the time is right.  When the right person finds the house.  I need to be patient, I know.  At times it’s difficult.  Especially when things have been extremely slow for our business.  It’s fairly fightening.  I wander, like a lost child, all over the spectrum of emotions and thoughts.  From hour to hour, occasionally, starting at ‘everything will work out fine’ and ending with ‘we are going to lose everything that we’ve worked our whole lives for’.  Then I contemplate the latter scenario… what would it really mean to lose everything?  What if it lead us down another path?  The path for which we were truly destined?  What if we are meant to be free of these things that tie us down, and in a way, keep us prisoner.  When you have so many “things” that have to be paid for, you aren’t free.  You must always work to pay for the house, cars, cleaners, gardeners, PG & E, telephone, water, garbage, and so on and so on ad nauseam!

We are so fortunate to have family close by us, so it isn’t as if we would have to live on the streets.  As some are forced to do.  No, we would ultimately be just fine.  And I generally operate until the philosophy that everything has a way of working out the way it’s meant to be.  Call me a Pollyanna if you want, but I think I do like the world with rose colored glasses.

Besides, what if everything that we are currently experiencing is shaping us?  Forming us?  Molding us?  Because isn’t that one of the purposes of life?  Learning and growing by the myriad of life experiences.  And it’s not just happening for myself or the husband but our children too.  We tend to forget that they are influenced by these events because we see them as so young ~they aren’t actually involved.  But I’m beginning to realize how wrong I am in that judgement.  Even our 2yr old asks, ”is my crib comin to da new house?” or “is da doggies comin to da new house?”  She understands enough to pose these questions.  She comprehends that we will be leaving this house and moving to another and just wants to make sure that her favorite things will be coming with us.  It really is quite adorable, in a slightly heartbreaking way.  I wish that we didn’t have to make the move, for the girls sake.  That’s when I start thinking about the future again… what’s around the corner?  More challenges to be faced with our business?  Random other things that could pop-up completely out of nowhere?  What if the next house fits our life more perfectly than this house?

Even if things turn around completely for our business and we have tremendous growth, my thought on this house is that it’s time to cut our loses.  But when it boils right down to the bottom, it’s completely out of my control WHEN or even IF the house sells.  Maybe I’ll just sing the Bob Marley song, ’Everything will be all right’, in my head ~of course.  Or maybe I will just walk around all day singing it out loud, that will be my new theme song.  And I will make people wonder if I’ve finally lost all my marbles.  But then again, they might just start singing with me!  One can only hope….

In the mean time, we are having another series of open houses, next weekend & the following weekend so wish us luck on finding a buyer!

Enough for now,

Ciao

We’re moving, again.

Now, this might be expected if we were in the military, but we are not.  As a child, my family moved almost every year until I was in the 4th grade.  This had a big impact on me.  Being forced to leave friends & schools then make new friends at new schools was not the easiest thing to do.  I did not want to ever move again once we got settled into that house.  Well, I can firmly say that that did not happened.  What I’m attempting to convey, very poorly, is that I continued to move.  We did stay in the same house for many years (7 yrs – ooh, I mean really, some people stay in the same house for their whole lives!) but then we moved again.  I stayed at this house until I moved out with the husband when we bought our first house together!  Granted it was a “townhouse” but it was a really good size for a newly married couple.  We lived in that house for 3yrs.  We even got a cute little puppy that started to grow into a big puppy.

We bought our second house but had to *wait* for the construction to be completed.  This house was larger and a “single family” home.  But while waiting for the house to be built, we had to move in with the in-laws!  Then, after 6 months we (finally!) got to move in to our new home.  We lived in this house for 2 yrs.  We loved the location.  It was extremely convenient to a couple freeways and the city.  Around the 2nd year mark, we found out we were going to have a baby and decided that we wanted to move to a house that was a little bigger with a larger backyard and better schools (basically the sub-suburbs because we were already in a suburb of the city).  So we bought a new house again, this one was not built yet either, had to move BACK in with the in-laws, luckily for only 2 1/2 months this time.  We moved into our newest home about a week and a half before Christmas.  Nice Christmas present!

Our daughter was born about 2 months later.  We did better here than at any other house.  It was bigger still as compared to the previous homes.  We even built a pool in the back yard!  We lived there for 6 1/2 yrs!!  That was great for us.  And when we bought it we *really*truly*believed that we would stay there until the kids were grown and gone.  HA!  It didn’t stop the urge, need, desire, insanity that over took us and “forced” us into selling the house and buying another one.

I’m beginning to wonder if a pattern is emerging here based on my childhood experiences….

This time we really moved up and I mean that figuratively & literally.  This house was located in the same town but on the side of a hill looking down into the valley.  THE VIEW!! It was truly spectacular.  We had 5 acres (space- blessed- space ~for the first time, all the other homes we lived in were constructed within about 8ft of the neighboring house, part of the problem with homes in many California towns), we had bedrooms for everyone, bathrooms for everyone, a dream garage for the husband (btw, the garage was 1,094 sq. this was about the same size as our townhouse!), plus an incredible formal living & dining room.  We’ve lived in this house for (almost) 1 yr.  But it was not meant to be… we are so very sad to have to leave.  We’ve been wonderfully lucky to have had the little time we had here.  The parties!  Good times, good times.

It’s just what happens when you are in business for yourself and the economy takes a big down turn.  I get to go through yet another exercise in packing and disposing of all the miscellaneous junk we’ve all accumulated in the last year.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly we collect things.  I don’t know why I am surprised, we are a whole family of collectors… see Things I find in pockets.

So, we are moving again.  We’ll be dramatically downsizing which is probably a good thing all around.  Less mortgage, less maintenance, less insurance, less bills for upkeep, and definitely less property tax!  This should mean less stress in general for the future.  We shall see….  FYI, we are going to do our best to keep the kids in the same school so at least they won’t have that to endure that torture too…

Enough for now,
Ciao