I dug the pond with a bulldozer almost 30 years ago. The water level goes down in the summer to the point it's almost dry. When I took that picture there was a lot of pollen floating on the pond. The link below will take you to a slideshow of pictures I took this last fall. You can click on the above pictures and see more pictures of my garden or click on My Page Thanks for the compliment. Mike Here is a link that might be useful: Fall foliage tour

I had my house on for two months of summer. We paid $5,000 to a stager who was AWFUL and basically made the house look worse, and while we had a good bit of foot traffic through the house we had no second showing (well, maybe one, but just so the spouse could see for the first time). First it was really over priced, I should have trusted my gut because I knew it was over priced but me agent has so much experience I just went with it. Even after 2 price drops we didn't get a sale, and by the second price drop it was well priced even in this market. We ended up taking it off and getting rid of the stagers stuff and putting our stuff back in. We also did some upgrading to the kitchen, and some of our own staging as far as replacing some things and upgrading some furniture. We actually had decided not to put it on again until the Spring but since it is all ready at this point we are going to go with an open house this weekend and see what the feedback is. I'm not sure what to expect from a Fall listing, it does NOT seem like a great time, but I think after maybe 2-3 weeks on the market I will get some feedback and take it off again if it hasn't sold and wait until Spring. Spring will be much better, and I feel pretty good about my chances. To make a long story short, we are out at least $5,000 by having it on those two months, and countless hours of crazy cleaning and me being too stressed out with the kids, but in the end I learned from the experience in a way that will really help me sell it and I think it was all worth it. I also became much, much better at keeping my house organized and free of clutter, something I really like! The best advice I have, and it is painfully obvious and simple, is that you want to be the absolute best on the market in your price. If something is better than you at that price then fix something, update something, or lower your price. You need to be the best in the market at your price so if one person is looking they will choose you.

I don't know where these figures come on the amount allocated to furnishing a home. In my experience, if you are buying your first home, you are going to be strapped for cash - at least for the first year or so. Most people I know made do with donations; thrift store acquisitions, odds and ends accumulated along the way and disposable furniture from places like IKEA - or they made do without. If one is moving to a second or third home, surely one has acquired furniture along the way and doesn't immediately discard it. Again, in my experience, most people with middle class incomes make do with already existing furniture and augment as needed. While it's nice to get new stuff, most people I know bought furniture gradually.

Dogs don’t just pee “anyway”. That is nothing more than the excuse of a lazy owner. Dogs pee when they signal that they need to go and are ignored or when they are physically unable to hold it. I hope they aren’t just drawing the conclusion that it’s because she’s old as well. There are lots of reasons as to why a female dog might be incontinent, like a bladder infection or a problem stemming from when she was spayed. Heck, our dog had a problem with incontinence an it ended up being because of the cr*ppy prescription food the Vet wanted her on. It started shortly after we started feeding it to her for some tummy problems and it stopped immediately when I chose to stop feeding it to her. These owners need to step up to the plate and take care of the old girl the way she deserves to be cared for. Scenarios like this always baffle me. I mean, why have an animal if you don’t value it’s companionship and/or enjoy taking care of it? Nicole, I hope you don’t step back and let the owners care for their dog. She obviously needs a compassionate advocate who can speak for her and gently encourage the owners to do better.