Hello, well leonard has been gone for almost 11 months and I cant even imagine dating someone else. I have also not taken off my ring and I even get angry when people talk to me like hes not here anymore. But I am very sentimental and I feel like I am only 30 and was only 29 and will be a single girl until I meet him in heaven , But on the other hand I know of two ladies who are very close to me who have both tried to move on after they lost their husbands and they are different situations. My friend judy waited about 3 years and was reluctant to date again but larry kept on pushing and finally she gave in. he was a friend of her husbands and has taken very good care of her. My sister in law is another story she started talking to guys shortly after her husband passed but in her situation she did it for the wrong reasons. She did it because she was lonley and didnt like to be alone. And 3 years later you still see her put her rings back on and has never taken pictures down , she talkes about him alot to this day also, so I guess what im trying to say is he is always going to love her and she is always going to be part of his life and trying to make him forget about her or rush him to is not going to work if he still talkes about her that much and has not taken off his ring then he is not ready to move on. Im sorry if this is not good news for you but you can remain friends and maybe in the future when he is ready you will be there for him. I hope this helps you. Tracy

@DLM: Here's my How Much Land Is Enough parable- When we were first married we lived on a "small" property of about three acres, in an outer, semi-rural suburb of a modest-sized upstate NY city. It was largely open ground so we had neighbors we could see from our house. For fun (as we had no money nor plans to move) we used to play the game of how much acreage would be "enough". We started out at 10 acres which works out to roughly a lot about 645 feet on a side. Walking the perimeter just once would be (almost) a half-mile hike! Who would ever want more? Well, of course 10 acres eventually became 25 and then 50 and each time the number seemed so large as to be unimmaginably more than sufficient. We finally started looking seriously at up to 50-acre properties, but in the end bought one much larger, although that was not our primary goal. I remember that once during the time we were under contract and waiting anxiously to see if we could manage to stretch our finances enough to close the deal, I said to my DH, at least now we'll have enough land so we never have to lust after more land, ever again. Well, hardly had I finished getting familiar with the new farm (which, in fairness, did take a lot of daily walking) when one evening I said to my DH, "Once we get some more money saved, perhaps we should consider making an offer on that "little" 75-acre woodlot the XX's are thinking of selling." He thought I had lost my mind. Although our house is smack in the middle of our farm, so we technically have no neighbors to speak of, and hence near-total privacy, I can still occasionally hear them. And I can hear traffic on the interstate highway at night - and it's more than 25 miles away. Moral of the story: there is no such thing as "enough" land for total privacy, you'll always want more! Your comment about why you're curious about acreage was very helpful for me. I had always (incorrectly) interpreted the question to mean something that felt like (to me) "who do you think you are claiming ownership to so much of such a scarce, sought-after, resource?" Since I value land so highly (actual legal possession of it, less so) it plays right into my insecurities to think that I have the audacity - and the extremely good fortune - to own such a large chunk of it. Your explanation had the salutary result of reminding me, it's not all about me and my issues. I will from now on try to approach that question from your point of view in the future. It will make my response to it more authentic and thoughtful. Thank you! L.

I think you've gotten some good advice regarding the photos. Yours are much better than your agent's, and you could touch them up just a bit to reduce the glare (very fast & easy to fix in Picasa, which you can download for free). Your MLS photos are what are going to bring most buyers to see your house. Get your agent to showcase your house! (I hope there are exterior photos as well, or else it looks like you're hiding something) Surprisingly nobody has mentioned price here. I hate to say this, but it is a good possibility that your house is priced incorrectly for the market. If barely any houses in your neighborhood are selling, it might just be that the market is just dead and you'll have to seriously underprice the house if you really need to get it sold. (Case in point: my neighborhood, two houses similar to mine have sold in the past 6 months; 4 in the past 12 months. That's dead. Everybody else expired or withdrew. Most of the sold houses were estates, where the heirs just kept dropping the price until it sold, because they have no equity to lose, therefore dropping everyone else's property values even further.) I don't know where you are located, but I'm assuming that you don't live where houses sell seasonally (i.e. mountain homes don't sell during the winter much). If your market is moving, and your house isn't showing, then something is wrong. Check your MLS listing to ensure everything is correct - #BR, #BA, #garage, etc. - because it seems like your current agent isn't a stickler for details (flier address wrong? yikes!) and perhaps your MLS doesn't auto-fill from public records, or public records are wrong. Have your agent do another CMA for you and compare to the current listing price. Hopefully he/she will pay more attention to details when choosing comps. Around here (Florida), practically everyone is dropping their listing prices monthly to keep up with the dropping values. It's awful. (My most recent appraiser subtracted 5% per month from each sale over the past year to arrive at "current value".) Think about the type of search a buyer will do. What I mean is, dropping a listing price from $325K to $310K isn't going to pick up on any new searches, even with a shocking $15K reduction. You'll have to drop to $299K to get the buyers who are searching in the "$250-300K" range. Hope this makes sense. I'm only putting this out there for consideration - I hope you won't have to do anything this drastic. But these are the type of things that your agent should be thinking about. Your agent is a professional. You should be able to express your concerns and get good answers. It takes more than "marketing" to sell a home. A good agent doesn't just send out postcards and place ads and sit back and wait for buyers to come to the door. You can do that yourself. You are paying good money for expertise, and if you're not getting it, talk to your agent's broker (boss), and if you're still not happy, you can break your agreement for lack of performance. A professional will not take it personally. Some customers are not a good match. Move on. Disclaimer: I am a Realtor.

Sealing against water intrusion is done on many (somewhat redundant) levels: tile and grout, mud, backer board, plastic sheeting, and so on. The cement board not only seals but is structural as well, and it's failed. "seal with a joint membrane" can mean pretty much anything. There are three ways cement board can crack. My suspicion is that the piecework tile guy did it and was fully aware of it and expected to just cover it over with mud and tile later. The reason I don't think this was what happened is even a hack would still be aware of things enough to smear on some mud, with or without cement board tape, to cover it. Secondly, it could be from being stressed by being bent under heavy fastening to a shabby understructure (assuming warped wood?). The third is via the stuff it's fastened to moving. These later two can happen after the installer has packed up and left. None are acceptable as a tile base on an overhead or a vertical shower wall. They all smack of middle finger workmanship. It would take a very few minutes for the worker to come back and rework that spot at this stage, and a huge number of minutes to do it later when you contact the builders to remind them of the concerns about excessive movement and shabby installation that you pointed out in the registered letter you sent them today. Make sure the repair guy doesn't just fill in the crack.