Howdie everyone. To my defense I am a very inquisitive person. I am now and have always been the one asking How Why When ect...I am not one to simply kick the tires and call it a day. No way...I am the one taking the car to the drag strip to test it LOL! Even as a child I was the one taking things apart to find out how they work and some may call me nosey...I am ok with that. I ask the questions no one wants to ask and I notice things other people don't. Having said that I knew I had a bad gut feeling about Ilya's client. I will not go into details about them but lets just say I know enough to know that any transaction with these people will not be easy. So my realtor gave us the facts and covered every possible scenario and in the end Ed said our best option was to go with our plan of countering with $81,000. It showed that we were willing to be flexable but on the same token it shows that were also need to walk away with the funds to buy our next home. He reminded us of our homes true value as well as how much we need to move on. We simpy cannot go as low as $75. So we made the counter offer and asked for a response by Friday. BUT...... WE also got another offer!!!! No it wasn't either of the 2 who claimed they were going to write offers. Nope it was the young couple who came thru Monday evening!! They were approved for $80,000 and offered $80,000!! They have been out and about looking for some time now so they are ready to settle when they came upon our home. So Frank and I are going to see what Ilya's reaction will be. We do not want to cut ties with him because you just never know. But we are most likely going to just accept the second offer since it will give us the extra funds to buy the fence (it always comes down to the fence with me LOL-I guess having lived in a row home for over 20 years I really want my own defined space LOL!!) Now Ed knows this second couples realtor really well and said he feels the 2 of them will be able to make this work out for both them and us as well. Sadly Ed told us since this whole transaction will be with FHA it is not likely any settlement will happen quickly. It may take up to 45 days so I wont be in my new house for July 4th. The good news is Frank and I have vacations scheduled for the last week of July and the first week of August!! We pick those weeks every year. So there ya have it. 2 offers is so much better than one!! Cheers! Susie

Education is only part of the experience of high school. I have great high school memories because I had a great group of friends. My sister had a very unhappy high school experience because she didn't fit in. Same school, 1 year apart. This may already have been voiced above, but a few additional things to consider, which I have seen happen to other people, are the lifestyle issues and the donation issues. Specifically, will your child feel left out if they cannot afford to do the things their classmates do? I can remember being the only one of my friends in (public) high school who didn't get to go to Europe senior year (in my case it was my mother worrying rather than money, either way, I was left out). I've seen the activities and things friends' kids want. Will your child feel left out if they can't go skiing in the Alps over Christmas break? Will there be an issue if he has a beater car rather than a BMW? Another issue which I was a little surprised by was the "donation" issue. A good friend of mine has her only child in a $30k per year high school. They can easily afford it. However, the school also expects a sizable donation every year, and it keeps going up (he is in his third year). Think thousands - extra. They also do expensive things to raise money for the school, like auctions. Regarding treating kids "the same". It is very difficult. My parents didn't pay (or even help pay) for my law school because my mother didn't think they should do something for me that they were not going to do for my sister. But they weren't going to do the same for her because she wasn't going to go - she dropped out of college. I didn't argue with them about it at the time. In fact, it wasn't until after I graduated that my father even knew they didn't help. He assumed they had. My mother handled the money. So now all the money they saved my father is spending on his chi-chi girlfriend (my mother passed away). I have to admit, it irks me now. But it wouldn't have bothered me if my parents had used the money together. My in laws took the "equal" thing to a ridiculous extreme. DH was the "perfect" child. He was the oldest, and was a great student, athlete, and was very handsome (voted "best body" in high school, which we have a good giggle over). His parents wouldn't even give him praise unless they could give the same praise to his 2 younger (and less stellar) siblings. One story he mentions is when he came home with all As in all AP classes. His mother said something like, "well, Sally and Billy tried very hard to". My MIL was an early example of the dangers of praising trying as much as succeeding. His siblings learned they would get as much credit for failing as DH would get for succeeding. No one lived up to their potential as a result. I guess my point is this, you can't treat kids equally, and you can't be perfectly fair. Every kid is different.

ok, I think I have my setting locked down appropriately. Now can someone help me with the profile pic? That's actually something that I would use with a picture of my old house. But I can't get more than a narrow horizontal strip of the house to show and the corner arrows do nothing to change the size. What am I missing?? I probably won't use a a picture of me but I've always wanted a reference of what house goes with what person - just a front shot. It's the most appropriate thing IMO for a decorating board.

Wow-thanks for a great thread writersblock. I bookmarked it. My iris and peonies are 20-40 years old. I brought some from my first house. My friend is digging in a garden at the town hall. Maybe she can put a few there. I don't know if our buyers will garden. They are weekenders from the city and it's a lot of work or money to pay someone to do it. Here's the FL garden. It looks much worse now because the house was empty for 2 months. Lots of weeding to do.