Tally Ho We Househunt

We have been out of the housing market for 7 months. Seven months of no mortgage, no yard care, no ownership. It's been lovely! However, we have all our worldly goods in storage and it is getting costly so we have ventured into the world of the crashing and burning housing market--as buyers. What one reads in the paper about the housing crisis and what encounters in The Real World are two different things.


Here in SeniorLand the supply of properties coming on the market is guaranteed--people get sick and people die. Most of the time the decision to sell one's house is not optional. Now the owners here who sell on their own volition are savvy--this is not their first rodeo. Unfortunately, too many of them still think their properties are worth about $200,000 more than today's market will bear. This is difficult--especially in a market that is predicted to fall 15% more before this time next year.



Nevertheless, the gathering of housing INTEL has begun. The average househunter will look at 15 properties before buying. These buyers must be hasty folk indeed! I have been haunting realtor.com and Zillow.comfor 6 months now. These are my 2 main tools. I also rely on the real estate section of the local left-wing rag--online, of course. I would never pay for that socialist cageliner to come in our home! Armed with that info, we hit the Open Houses every Sunday afternoon. The 15 house mark was passed a week ago.



House #1 was very tempting. It was move-in ready and had the views and high ceilings we both want. But when we actually measured it out, it was several square feet short of an acceptable dwelling.

But House #2 quickly came on the radar--and we fell for it hard! It was the perfect floor plan, fantastic views, private and nestled in the woods--I mean WE COULD SEE US LIVING THERE!


On our second walk through, however, we discovered some flaws--can we say toilet overflowed, baby??



How about finding the paperwork for a
"Submersible Sewage Ejector Pump"
that was installed just last year??? Is that a big enough hint??





Wood rot so bad that the front stair railing came off in our hands? It had rusted off the steps! And there's no need to mention the dead rat across the threshold of the opening to the basement.

Aloha former dreamhouse.

House #3 seemed ideal. It had the views, the floor plan, the "feeling" we were looking for. An extra bonus was that the sellers had dropped the price by a good chunk just yesterday. But before we could get our offer written up and submitted, someone else got their offer in and the sellers accepted it!

We are batting 0 for 3 and that's just over one week-end. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, would burying the St. Joseph statue help us find a house? It sure worked great for selling.

Our Congress At Work

Rep. Anthony Tony Wiener, D-NY, has introduced a bill into Congress to allow up to ONE THOUSAND alien supermodels to enter the United States on special visas. They would be allowed to stay for ten years as long as they work for respectable events. ( Do supermodels have careers that last TEN YEARS????) Is any politician qualified to even define what 'respectable' is?

(The cap for foreign graduates of US universities with technical degrees in 2006 was just 20,000 visas!)

H.R. 4080

6/5/2008--Reported to House amended.
Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to replace the current nonimmigrant (H-1B) visa category for fashion models with a new (P-4) visa category.

Defines such category as a fashion model who is of distinguished merit and ability and who is seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform fashion modeling services that involve events or productions which have a distinguished reputation or that are performed for an organization or establishment that has a distinguished reputation for, or a record of, utilizing prominent modeling talent.

Provides that such entrants may not: (1) exceed 1,000 in any fiscal year, not including accompanying spouses or children; and (2) stay in the United States for more than 10 years (initial five-year period with one five-year extension).

All of this is just to lead you into the real topic for this post which is the winner of the MISS HEADSCARF 2008 contest recently sponsored by Danish public television.

The Iraqi supermodel Falah was the winner of this controversial contest. Not only was the idea of making a headscarf into a fashion contest offensive to otherwise broadminded moslems, but the color of the winning headscarf was deemed a "shocking blue." I would think that the scandal alone of this modeling competition would eliminate Miss Headscarf 2008 from obtaining one of the coveted 1000 visas. It hardly sounds 'distinguished.'

But the fashion world will be glad to notice that atheletic garb for moslem women is now available online. A website advertising modest BURQUINIS (aka bathing suits) and other sports apparel is now available. Will these supermodels also be competing for the coveted 1000 visas?

http://www.ahiida.com/index.php?a=results&subcat=65http://www.ahiida.com/index.php?a=results&subcat=65

By the way, the original level for caps on technical visas was 195,000!

Rain Rain Go Away

One learns the most amazing things by listening to late-night radio! Last night on Coast To CoastAMhttp://www.coasttocoastam.com/




I heard Will Thomas discussing the perils of chemtrails. Apparently the Chinese have PROMISED that there will be no rain during the Olympics. They are so sure of this that none of their outdoor stadia are covered--all open air. Thomas thinks the Chinese are pretty far advanced in their weather manipulation and can do some form of cloud-seeding and guarantee that all the visitors will have perfect weather.

This struck me as odd until I was reading Drudgehttp://www.coasttocoastam.com/
this morning. Lo and behold! Some poor Russian's house was hit with a 55 pound sack of CEMENT!



MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday.

"A pack of cement used in creating ... good weather in the capital region ... failed to pulverize completely at high altitude and fell on the roof of a house, making a hole about 80-100 cm (2.5-3 ft)," police in Naro-Fominsk told agency RIA-Novosti.

Ahead of major public holidays the Russian Air Force often dispatches up to 12 cargo planes carrying loads of silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and cement powder to seed clouds above Moscow and empty the skies of moisture.

The homeowner was not injured, but refused an offer of 50,000 roubles ($2,100) from the air force, saying she would sue for damages and compensation for moral suffering.



The question of "moral suffering" aside, has anyone checked to see if any large sacks of cement have been spilled over the skies of Iowa????

Grandma's House

Grandma's House.....is there a better image-provoker than that phrase? A Google image search brought up 204,000 images of Grandma's House in just .04 seconds. I remember an antique dealer telling me that he made his living by selling people memories of Grandma's House. And he was right! After all, wasn't he just collecting $200.00 from me for a set of McCoy nesting bowls that were exactly like the ones Grandma had in her house?


















We are once again taking up the search for a house. In nearly 39 years of marriage this will be our 14th move and the 6th house we will buy. But it is so different this time. For the first time this house will not be a stepping stone to another phase in our lives. This house most likely is the Last House. This will be the growing old house, the end of the road house, the retirement house. It won't be house that will grow children, tolerate teenagers or become oddly silent when the kids move out.














This house won't be a fixer-upper, do-it-yourselfer, stretch the budget house. It won't be a house where the re-sale value is always in the back of any changes or improvements.This house will be for slowing down, scaling back and being smaller. This house won't have mountain bikes, work-out equipment, craft projects, workplace wardrobes and yard machines. This house will be more about how soothing are the views from the bedroom window rather than how many toys can we pile into the garage.



















SeniorLand is a different ambience than Suburbia. I wish so many people didn't walk around wearing scowls and wanting to be hall monitors. I wish there more children. I'm glad there are not teenagers with too much car, too much allowance and too much time. I wish I weren't reminded several times a day that this is the winding down time of life, not the making future plans phase.
Every house we've looked at here has a sad story. SeniorLand is the place of sad stories. You come in as a couple and end up as a surviving spouse. All the houses we've looked at are on the market because someone got too frail to keep up a house even here. They move in with children, closer to children or into the senior living apartments. I'm impressed with the bravery of seniors who gamely transition to the next (declining) step of life with the spirits undampened.
























So I bring different expectations about what this next house will be--and what it won't be. It will be a Grandma's House because now I'm the Grandma. I won't be as interested in the kitchen as I will be in room for wide-screen TVs, computers and gardens. I hope it's a place where someday a grandchild will smile at remembering his own Grandma's House. And that's not a sad story at all!

Cyberschlepping

You, too, can be a shaman! Throw off the anvil of that old Dead White Men's religion that has kept your soul fettered! Send in your money, change your name and BE SOMEBODY!! Better yet, BE SOMEBODY and get other people to pay you money to be like you are! This is capitalism at its finest.

It is understandable that the field of Shaman is becoming a little over-crowded. But Mr. Endredy has carved out a special niche that is sure to appeal since it combines your basic shamanism with Green Thinking--just the thing for these post AlGore days. Mr. Endredy will initiate you into the sacred mysteries of ECOSHAMANISM! Instead of Little Green Men we now have Little Green Shamans to show us into the light.

Beyond 2012: A Shaman's call to Personal Change and the Transformation of Global Consciousness by James Endredy can explain all these things to you. For the regular listeners to Coast To Coast the doom-year 2012 needs no explanation.

http://www.jamesendredy.com/Book

Description From James Endredy, the author of Ecoshamanism A Shaman's Message of Hope—and Call to Action War, epidemics, catastrophic geological disasters . . . . We are living out the prophecies of a planet in peril as we count down the days until 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar.

According to Endredy, "every human being can be a shrine of love, an altar of hope" during this time of shifting global consciousness and radical change. In this one-of-a-kind guide, Endredy consults the "First Shamans," Fire Spirit Tataiwari (Grandfather Fire) and Earth Spirit Nakawé (Grandmother Growth) for wisdom and guidance.

Learn how your positive actions—reciprocity, compassion, love, and respect for the essences and energies that sustain life on our world—can help save the planet.

Awaken your "luminous" True Self by entering non-ordinary states of consciousness Plant the seeds of transformation in global human consciousness.

Amplify positive energy by building altars and making offerings.

Use a sacred calendar to gain a new understanding of the nature of time and our role as co-creators

After a series of life tragedies and mystical experiences as a teenager James Endredy changed direction from his Catholic upbringing and embarked on a life-long spiritual journey to encounter the mysteries of life and death and why we are all here.

For over twenty-five years he has learned shamanic practices from all over the globe, while also studying with kawiteros, lamas, siddhas, roadmen, and leaders in the modern fields of ecopsychology, bioregionalism, and sustainable living.

All of this leads one to making spiritual quests to hone the shaman powers. Look no further than Sedona, AZ.

http://www.redrockhikingtours.com/mystic.htm

Rahelio promises

I have set up this web page for those who might be awakening in consciousness or who are on a spiritual quest, that they might experience a powerfully transformative encounter with the mystical presence of a sacred land. Many people are being inspired to make pilgrimages to places of power; of these, Sedona, Arizona has become of great importance. As a spiritual guide, my focus is to facilitate an energetic empowerment connecting one to the Earth Mother's healing energy and to one's Higher Self. This can include a shamanic / meditative journey into the sacred space of one's dreamtime. The use of ceremonial drum, rattle, chants and flute are used to shift one into heightened states of inspired consciousness. In this way we can connect to the power of a "sacred land" and gather the energy for healing and inner peace. I have included some information from one of my tour flyers, so read on if you are interested in this type of a transformational encounter ... ~Rahelio.

I think "Rahelio" spent too much time as a youth watching old re-runs of KUNG FU.