The place is an icon! You should have seen everyone there yesterday, ordering up as many burgers as they could swallow, as it's gonna be a looooonnnnnnnggggg winter....

Booka, your social life makes me dizzy.

And jealous.

What did I do Sunday? After church, we went out to eat....caribean. Then, we went home and I got my stuff together to go to the pumpkin patch at church. I took my knitting (sweater for some friends' baby), my reading (The Bullfighter Checked Her Makeup by Susan Orlean), my boombox and CDs, a folding chair, and my hula hoop. I played in the pumpkin patch for 3.5 hours. Then I went to the grocery store. Then, I went to some friends house for our scheduled get-together.

Now, I will admit that it was not a great fashion moment. But that happens, sometimes. So, here I was - in the middle of this lawn full of pumpkins in front of this big gorgeous Greek Revival styled church, listening to the Chris Casello Trio, and playing with her hula hoop.....nothing fancy......pumping, booty blitz, wild west, swish, warrior, along with some lifts. Pretty basic stuff....lots of fun....in front of all this traffic.

Anything to sell those pumpkins.

booka,

may i have 1/10 of your social life? each week is a chapter

I will be jungle trekking this weekend.
Next, I will be going on a 3-day rafting trip.

Then when I come back I may consider dating the person I met online... he's cute and intelligent, charming, but I think he is not completely healed from his last relationship.

Cinderella,

I in turn am jealous of your intake of culture and for missing the scene at the pumpkin patch. I want to hang with you!

Dutch

I got an offer on the house@!!!!!!!!!

Okay, help me you guys. The offer came in low with way too tight dates. I countered, moving the dates back. She agreed to the dates but came back below again. I'm at roughly 95% of the asking price now and it's my turn. I can accept it or take one more shot with the potential of making a mere $2000 more.

Not only that, I found out the woman is just going/gone through a divorce and is still living in the same house as her X (wants to get out immediately, hence the quick closing date). Her X is a control freak. He didn't allow her to have anything - no bank account, no credit cards, no bills in her name - nothing. Basically, she is off the grid. So she has no credit rating AT ALL. She is working with a bank to get a mortgage, but there is a chance she's at her outer limit already and the extra $2K will be too much. Also, given my situation I'm feeling a little soft now.

I don't know anything else - i.e. whether there was infidelity or what the reason for divorce is. The control freak thing does hit a few heart strings - I have a friend who's X was the same way if not worse. She was a SAHM for 20 years. If she needed gas in the car he gave her $20 - she had no access to the bank herself. She came home one day to find her stuff on the lawn and the OW living in her house with the locks changed (her name wasn't on the mortgage). Of course legally, she still owned half the house but try to deal with that on a Friday night with $10 in your pocket and a 1/4 tank of gas and nothing else.

Anyway, I shouldn't let these things sway me. I have a place to go whether it is now or 6 months from now. The Canadian market, while not the mess the American market is, is still unstable. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush and all that. My tenant is agreeable to the closing date (that was my reason for changing the dates). And it would be such a luxury to be able to set a dirty dish on the counter. It's only been a week but I can't take this obsessive-compuslive neat-freak lifestyle much longer@!!!!!!

The real estate guy is calling me at noon. I need to make a decision then. HELP!!!!!!!

Actually, those are just the weekends and due to the limitation of this medium I cannot fully encompass for you everything that goes on.

Sometimes I have relatively quiet weeknights, I have no TV service and no computer at home, I am a Netflix subscriber and a great lifetime lover of film, so I tend to watch a lot of movies and if there's something good at the theater (rare) I go after work. I am currently alternating between some recent additions to my DVD collection and a couple of BBC series that I'm watching on Netflix, "Ballykissangel" and "Monarch of the Glen".

Last night I had my Board of Alderman meeting and being an elected official tends to keep me busy at times. We scheduled an upcoming work session to talk about our annexation strategy, a class to get certified with FEMA, and the Municipal League BBQ is next Tuesday and I always enjoy those meetings and hobnobbing with people from the other municipalities. I might pop-in to the tavern upon occasion to catch-up socially. As the days are shortening, the opportunity to work of the yard is decreasing and that's something I do often and enjoy doing. I'm still looking for the right volunteer opportunity and feel at this point that I could schedule something for every weeknight that would get me out of the house.

I feel that a lot of what I would term people who are successful at being single tend to fill up their schedules with many activities. I know that I have to tremendous urge to give and I'm not expending it in a relationship, so I have to channel it elsewhere and I suspect that this is a common trait. There's at least one caveat to being successful at being single, and that is you don't really allow time in your schedule to date should you meet someone interesting enough to date, which for someone of high-standards is an interesting challenge in itself.

I will say this, I'm not hoarding any of my single life, you're all welcome to join me and share!

There's always wiggle room in who pays the closing costs, etc., so you might negotiate that she pay the majority of the costs of the actual transaction and then you could accept her offer knowing that things would probably even-out for you. I'd be extremely worried about her getting credit under her circumstances. If she can, based upon my other advice, I would accept the offer.

The closing cost rules are pretty hard and fast here. The seller pays the real estate agents (both of them), the buy pays the bulk of the legal fees.

It's typical to have a condition for finances and home inspection and there is a deadline associated with that as well. It was one of the dates we changed - to Saturday so that the deal will be final one way or another before the open house on Sunday. If her financing falls through, or if she doesn't like the home inspection report, the offer is withdrawn and the house stays on the market. Originally she had a date for next week - so it is a possiblity she may not be able to secure her funding by Saturday.

I've heard various stories - including a couple of them where they didn't accept the first offer, only to have the house stay on the market for months and eventually sell for the same price or less to somebody else. Again, I have a place to go without requiring a new mortgage, so there's no bridging going on here and I'm in no hurry to get out, other than the annoyance of having to live in a sterile environment (supreme challenge during leaf season I might add) and the fact that the market is quite unstable right now and my house value could just as easily drop before another offer comes in.

Update: I accepted the offer. Now she has until Sat to get a home inspection and confirm financing. If both pass, it's a done deal. If not, I'm back to the drawing board.

It occurred to me that I steal have to clean the bloody house and rake leaves Saturday because by the time I find out, it will be too late. Crap.

Well, I hope everything goes well for you and it goes easy.


I had to take Roxy to the vet yesterday because somehow she injured her cere (bird nose). The vet nurse was just absolutely taken by her and Roxy played and cuddled until the vet came to examine her.

She HATED the vet and tried every trick she knew to get a chunk of him. He has pet parrots, so her attempts were futile and she finally relented and let him see about her. She never bacame his friend, but you could see her planning her next move.

He got through with her and let her have her chance at him. She chased his yummie fingers all over the counter form one end to the other as he teased her. She was cackling and laughing as she tried to get him.

He truly loves animals his demeanor was one of concern and not apathy, he told me that my bird is one of the most exceptional cockatoos he's ever seen. She can tell you what she wants and knows the right phrases to communicate it. He said he could tell I loved my feathered companion as she is such a happy and healthy bird.

The nurse could just reach down and grab her while she was trying to get him and she would instnatly be gentle, still laughing and give her the kissy sound.

Anyways, he said her injury will heal just fine with no ill effects and it looks as if she was too busy celebrating being a cockatoo to notice anyways. For a cockatoo, life is a celebration and I've learned alot from her in the past 15 years.

Good luck Tabby1. The thought occurred to me as I enter the second fall since I've lived in my house, I have leaves on my grass for the first time. Now granted there's about 10 small ash-leaves, but this is the first time. Their from Jim & Pat's, my next door neighbor's ash tree. I have a crab-apple and it's small leaves blow far and away. I will not get an ash tree for the simple fact that no ash tree equals no food supply for the emerald ash-borer. Their not in our area yet, but I'm sure they'll eventually arrive.

It looks like this is the weekend to bring in all of my tropical plants.

I'm on my new flex-time schedule at work, which means I get tomorrow off and after that every other Friday (payday). Mary, who I've been emailing and texting for months, is off tomorrow as well and we are planning a luncheon meeting.

Jill, my gorgeous 20-something hairdresser, called me yesterday and asked if it was okay to set me up with one of her clients. I said of course and the client, Toni, emailed me last night and we've had a few other rounds and it looks like we'll be meeting up Saturday. I am particularly pleased and thankful to have a referral from Jill, I know for a fact that she wants to see me married again! Luckily, I have more patients then Jill.

Other than that, it will be a long weekend having Friday off and it's always possible that Mary and/or Toni will want to so something more, so we'll see. There's also a flea market I'd like to have a look at on Sunday. It seems that we've officially moved into our fall weather so any outdoor activity will be subject to the capricious weather and temperatures might not make it into the 60's this weekend. On a trivial note, gas is right around $2.70 here at the moment.

I hope that everyone has a fine weekend and you'll have my full-report Monday.

Dutch

I could never get any of those pages to load this week.

I've got a home inspection appointment scheduled from tomorrow from 2-5. My real estate guy said usually they secure financing first, then schedule the inspection (ie why bother paying for an inspection if you can't buy the home anyway). So hopefully that means she got a mortgage. Now I just have to sit tight and home my house passes.

The worst thing about this is I really need the whole day Saturday to rake leaves and clean the house in case I have to do the open house Sunday. So I guess I'm getting up at the crack of dawn for that (groan). Also, tomorrow is Breeders Cup day and I sort of was hoping I'd be able to catch races in my rest breaks. Maybe I can find a sports bar somewhere and watch them there. Of course, that will probably result in me drinking all afternoon and if they find something that the woman wants to haggle on, I'll be in a "brilliant" state to negotiate. Crap. That means I get to stew and fret all Saturday. Lucky me.

Sunday? I'm afraid to think about that. I'm either having an open house or not and I won't know until Saturday night. If I AM having an open house, it means once again getting up at dawn, scrambling around to clean again - perhaps even running over the newly fallen leaves with the lawnmower, then capturing my cats and shipping them off to the kennel for the day. I haven't made any alternative plans if I'm not doing the above.

Everyone cross their fingers!

I am going to be the pretty, pretty popcorn princess prancing 'round the party tomorrow evening. I volunteered to do man the popcorn machine at a birthday party tomorrow evening.

My children are gone tonight (to their dad's)

Gotta get ready for Fall Fest at church Sunday night. I was going to make a mermaid costume and decorate my car like a yellow submarine but it ain't gonna happen in this lifetime (this year). So, I will set out my inflatable pumpkin and ghost (they are only 3-4' tall). Get out my PVC skeleton. Fill my plastic bag pumpkin-man.

May go by fabric store and get some sheer material to make a sort of dress thing from and wear that over black pants and black turtleneck with some fairy wings. Think that would be ok?

Tonight, a Halloween party at a neighbor's that I will be attending with the BF. I gave him a wide opening this morning when he asked me "what's your costume gonna be?" I answered with "I'm going to be a witch tonight" - to which he said with no hesitation whatsoever "OK, so what's your costume gonna be?????"......to which I said "you will be sleeping alone tonight".

Tomorrow night, some girlfriends and I are going to do a local pub crawl - very spontaneous. We will walk down the main road in our town and spend 1 hour in each of the bars......there are about 5 that we want to visit - all girls, no men....should be very fun!

On Sunday, I'm predicting a hangover and a date with some good junk food!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Laura

I happen to know that Sunny D is an excellent hangover remedy. It must be something in the preservatives!

Thanks for the tip, Tabby - and good luck with the inspection/mortgage!

While I haven't tried it recently, I can vouch for the chocolate milk hangover cure. The secret is you must CHUG the chocolate milk, a pint is sufficient.

Laura

I gotta work tomorrow. All overtime hours, but Tab's now out of paid time off, so I have to put in 8 overtime hours to make up for a week of her pay.

At least I got some good news today. The lighting unit for exposing the printing screens went bad today to the tune of ten grand and they were about to buy a whole new unit.

I have one in my printshop back down south and they are shipping it overnight to me here as we didn't use it any more there.

My company is going to buy it from me at the going used price and are paying the shipping. They were going to pay me to fly my plane down to get it, but the weather here is way to bad for that.

I will be looking at gigantic TV's tonight.

GF and I are going to the local watering hole to listen to a band tonight!!! Taking that roll of quarters with me!!!!

Have a friends 40th b-day Saturday night.

Not sure if I will help Kevin with the PeeWee bowlers or not. I enjoy doing that, the kids are a blast, either he wants to hang out afterwards and bowl a few games or he jumps to leave as the GF doesn't like him spending time with me!!!!!! So maybe I will have some fun with that this weekend!!!!!

Sunday will be SS, church and then bowling for me, we are having a halloween party so need to come up with a costume, have the food already planned for the potluck!!!

They are looking at moving my surgery up as my gall bladder is giving me fits!! Will keep you posted!!!!!

Dawn

I'm new here...a few days. I've been separated for 6 months and in the process of divorce for 3. Tonight will be my first neighborhood social function where people may know I'm in a divorce and it will be a bit awkward...lots of people coming to me to confirm the rumor, some already know and many have no clue.

I don't want to go through the ugly details with people...struggling with what to say. I guess I'll just stick with "it just wasn't working." That never seems to satisfy people who would invoke our daughter as a reason to stay together. I don't want to tell them of the infidelity and alchohol...etc. I'll just suck it up and nod.

BTW: I'm still planning on having a good time...I'm pretty comfortable with my new life with the only exception being my daughter (10yo). This will be my first night leaving her with a baby sitter since the separation (while she's in my care every other week).

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Saturday will be a long run through a beautiful park. Sunday...who knows...I like it like that.