Morning.. Joke for the day (ps my mother sent me this) ROSES & HANGING BASKETS A teenage granddaughter comes downstairs for her date with this see-through blouse on and no bra. Her grandmother just pitched a fit, telling her not to dare go out like that! The teenager tells her 'Loosen up Grams. These are modern times. You gotta let your rose buds show!' and out she goes. The next day the teenager comes down stairs, and the grandmother is sitting there with no top on. The teenager wants to die. She explains to her grandmother that she has friends coming over and that it is just not appropriate.... The grandmother says, 'Loosen up, Sweetie. If you can show off your rose buds, then I can display my hanging baskets. Happy Gardening.

My DD went to Columbia University in NYC and the campus is compact enough that her dorm was only a few minutes from her class rooms. She was in the habit of only allowing 5 to 10 minutes of walking time to go back and forth. I can't tell you how many times she'd call from her cell phone complaining that another TV show or movie was shooting on campus or nearby and the streets were blocked off and that she was going to be late for class. Law and Order was a frequent sight on campus. My DH and I would be watching an episode and all of a sudden we'd realized what part of campus was on the screen. Julia Stiles was in one of her Literature classes and Uma Thurman's brother was in another. Their father is a professor of Buddhist studies there. Those are the ones I remember. They shot several scenes of SpiderMan and Ghostbusters on campus and something with the Olsen twins. I remember she called and said they were so tiny they resembled 6 year olds. The luncheonette (Tom's Restaurant) that the Seinfield characters ate at frequently was on campus - they didn't film there but shot the exterior scenes. She nearly knocked Dustin Hoffman over when she was a freshman. She was returning to her dorm room carrying her laundry basket when he came out of her room and they bumped into each other in the doorway. His daughter's room was 2 doors away and he had walked into DD's by mistake. She frequently saw famous people around town but that's normal in NY. When I visted her I saw Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, Regis Philbin, Erica Slezak, Kelly Ripa and some other soap actors who I'd recognize from the show but didn't know their real names. I passed Hayley Miles on the sidewalk and and gushed like an idiot telling her how I loved her films when I was a kid - Pollyanna, Moon-spinners, Tiger Bay. I'm only 90 minutes away so I've been up to see The View several times, Regis and Kelly, Rachel Ray, Conan. It's a fun day trip. A commercial for Toro lawn mowers was shot at my neighbor's house years ago but no one has ever seen it.

My list of inventions that have impacted our lives: 1. Matches - This was a very useful item in its day. It was used to start a fire in stoves and camps. Before electricity, matches were used every day to light lamps and gas appliances. Other inventions followed such as the cigarette lighter, but these inventions were inspired by the match. 2. Radio - One early use for radio was to send morse code. Ships at sea adopted this invention as soon as there were working models available. The invention was improved and there followed AM (amplitude modulation) that could impress voice and music on radio emissions. FM (frequency modulation) followed to meet the desire to evade static that plagued AM. TV was an outgrowth of radio. The picture content was encoded as AM and the sound was FM. The development of RADAR followed and alongside radar was radio telescopes. A whole new industry to manufacture vacuum tubes sprang up that was needed to build electronic circuitry. The heyday of this industry was short lived between the years 1920 through 1960. Vacuum tubes were being replaces with transitors by 1960. 3. Transistors - see radio above. The appearance of the transistor was followed by micro-circuits grown on a silicon wafer, and there came the microprocessor and computers of all kinds. 4. Telegraph - The early days of railways were hazardous because there was no time standard. Time was kept by the conductor's watch and hopefully, neighboring conductors kept their watches synchronized with each other. It was too expensive and waste of material to build a double set of tracks over the long hauls. Railways had a great need to run their trains both diections over the same track and they had an even greater need to keep trains from colliding with each other. The answer was the telegraph. Depot clocks could be synchronized using the telegraph and then the conductors could adjust their watches to match the station's clocks. Railroads were an early user of the telegraph and that is why you see telegraph poles along side tracks in early photographs. Once a telegraph line was established, it could send messages as a side business. 5. Telephone - The telephone was an outgrowth from telegraphy and had far reaching useage. 6. Steam engines - The US industral revolution was kicked off with the availability of steam engines. Steam power was used to drive everything from boats to machines. The steam boat, for the first time, permitted travel upstream on major rivers. Before that, all shipping on a river was floated downstream and upstream goods had to go overland. The steam engine was followed by the internal combustion (IC) engine. IC engines for early farm use were modified steam engines. (Look at an early IC tractor engine and you will see its design rooted in a steam engine.) 7. IC engines - The steam engine was an unweidly affair and not well suited for small fields. Boiler explosions were a hazard. The IC engine was developed alongside steam power and soon took over. Before the IC engine and automobiles, large cities like New York had a big problem with its daily load of manure and urine from draft animals. Their streets were fillled with it. 8. Antibiotics and formal methods of drug development. 9. Immuzation against diseases.

I'm a retired appraiser, but not in Texas. Although, I have lived in and owned property in Texas. My parents moved out to Texas in retirement to live near my brother who was in the Air Force. My brother retired and built an adjacent home on the property my parents had acquired. My parents passed, the home went to my brother and he has moved elsewhere in Texas to be near his grandkids. My DB has already moved. The property is on the currently on the market. It is located in between two Podunk towns near an Air Force base. It is a much nicer property than the average house in the area. They are getting the same song and dance as IlovetoCook from their realtor(s). "It's priced right, we just need to wait for the right buyer." If I had a dollar for every realtor who said that, I'd be rich. They are dealing with ridiculously inept agents, too. I wouldn't tolerate it. Luckily, I didn't get an interest in the house, so it really isn't my problem. I'm watching the train wreck from afar. My brother needs to lower the price. IlovetoCook, You need to finish that bath or tear out the addition. One or the other. Those are your choices. Your only option if you leave it as it is now is to sell to a cash investor. They will low ball you. It's a starter home. Your market is a starter home market or an investor market. The house must be able to pass a VA or FHA inspection. That's the goal. Don't entertain the idea of trying to rent it out. Long distance landlord is an impossible situation. You don't have that kind of expertise. I wouldn't consider selling to buy in this circumstance. Any buyer that can't qualify for FHA isn't worth the risk. They will abandon the property in bad condition. You need to sell. Because you have a loan on the property, you can't finance the sale. The last option is to walk away. If you don't have any equity and don't care about your credit, you can hand the keys to the lender. A short sale is a possibility, too. But, I would try to sell it first even if you have to write a check to make it happen. Give up on trying to make money. That's probably not going to happen. Your realtor should have a handyman that is capable of completing the bath. Get her to ask around. Agents do this sort of service all of the time. There is someone capable of doing the remaining work. Understand you will need to make a couple of trips back to get this done. Make your agent provide you with the MLS listings of all of the closed properties within the County that are either a 2/1, 3/1, 2/2 or 3/2 that have closed in the last 2 years. Throw out the new construction, if there is new construction in the area. Given the small population, the large area and expanded timeframe are necessary. This will give you some idea of your situation. The report will include some very important information such as days on market, average list price and average sales price. Once you have these numbers, you will be able to make an informed decision. If your agent balks at providing you with this information, go to her broker and get it from them. You do have options. Most of them are bad. Get the MLS sales asap.