Thank you all for your comments. (I was able to see them today on my blackberry while working on the house but couldn't take the time to figure out how to post.) We have decided to put out the For Sale sign this weekend and advertise an Open House for next weekend. Hopefully, any interested buyers will come back. It was stressing us out too much to try and have it ready for viewing tomorrow. (For example, it needs cleaning, we don't have light fixtures, the doors need knobs...) We focussed on the exterior today and got everything looking nice. We are going to advertise a private sale for a couple of weeks just because there's not much for sale in our neighbourhood which is a "desirable" part of town. We'll see if anything happens quickly, if not, we have a realtor waiting in the wings. Thanks again for your assistance. Wish us luck!

Oh my gosh, I was a kid when that song came out and I so remember it, lol. I am somewhat ready--planning to carve some pumkins Saturday during the Iowa/Michigan State game (Go Hawkeyes, you'll help out my Badgers with a win). I have all my candy in the trunk of my car so I don't eat it up, I probably won't pull it out til the last minute. I'm not so big on candy, but once I start.....

I don't dress up for Halloween, but we do get over 70 kids come to the door. I always make treat bags as I dislike kids who try to grab handfuls of candy or complain about what I have. I hand them a bag and comment on their costume. I usually decorate the day of Halloween. Both my daughters still like to go to parties and dress up. They are 26 and 28. Honestly though, since my kids are grown and I really don't know the new young families, I can't say I enjoy distributing the candy. I enjoyed knowing the kids who came to the door. My friends and I would call each other with the "sighting" reports of seeing each others kids.

It doesn’t matter if I were half a mile from a grocery store large enough to do ALL my shopping. (I was almost exactly a mile away as a kid, actually)—I can’t carry a week’s worth of food for eight people. Not even in a cart. That’s 6 gallons of milk alone. And shopping daily? Please, shoot me. I don’t have that time! There is no place in the country where I could be within walking distance of good music lessons, extracurriculars, AND my full grocery needs—and a community college and a university for the kids, since I homeschool and don’t care about K-12. (My kids partly do public transportation for college now until they can drive, but that still involves a lot of me rescuing them from late buses. But we keep being told how GREAT the system is. HAHAHA!!!) Being in the suburbs saves me so much time. My urban friends spend as much (or more) time commuting as my husband does—because they get a better job across town, get promoted to a new site, etc., and though the mileage is less, the traffic or the public transportation is so much slower. Then there’s the kids’ extracurriculars, and the fact that they have to be driven or escorted on public transportation to play with friends. I went with a kid on a play date yesterday only because the family was new to the neighborhood. In the city, mosy people with our incomes MUST have a fulltime nanny/housekeeper with even 2 kids to make everything work. Those with lower incomes move or someone quits or goes part time to stay in the city. One of my friends is a single mom of one kid, and even though she’s well off (5% income for her alone) and she splits custody, with her high-authority job and her daughter’s competitive skating, she’s running on 5 hours of sleep a night—and living in a ONE bedroom condo, with her sleeping in the divided living room. Ugh. If I didn’t absolutely HATE living with the noises of other households, and love gardening, and love the woods...lol...I would really enjoy city living as a single person or a couple. As a mom with kids plus in-laws and parents who often visit, I would have had a massive breakdown already! I think we’re just that different—the Icelandic poppy and the tropical fuchsia! We have a funny mix in our neighborhood. Many families. A lot of pro-socialist treehuggers who want to commune with nature. A lot of antiestablishment libertarians who hate HOAs. A nudist couple (with a great fence—very nice people, very glad of fence). Many, many small business owners. Car collectors—at least 3 of those. Immigrants with construction skills who get a house that’s never been upgraded and pack three families and grandma in it and remodel it top to bottom and enclose the garage and build a new one (2 different families like this went from obvious employees to obvious contractors within 5 years). Retirees who like the idea of acreage but the convenience of the suburbs and are willing to settle for an enormous veggie or flower garden. Hardcore woodworkers. Military officers who have saved up a lot and are getting out with good job offers. Lots of reasons to be out here! :)