Hi all,

Before I get into personals, I just want to say that my heart is sad today over the passing of Aretha Franklin. Yeah, if you read the news, you saw it coming. She had pancreatic cancer.

I miss her already. I am of the generation that came of age with her great songs, and with her endless participation in the fight for civil rights. And did you know she was the mom of 4 sons, who in many interviews she says are her greatest loves and accomplishments?

Name the song she sang, and I can tell you where I was in my life. Every note squeezed my heart, or actually made me a good dancer, LOL, or described to me as I look back, that old saying "those were the days my friend."

I know everyone says with good intentions, "rest in peace." But I just can't see that for Aretha. My hopes are that her spirit rocks the heavens!


Lori---I too hate bats. In college I lived in an apartment in an old home on the lake where the attic was infested with bats. Those suckers can flatten themselves out and slide thru the thinnest of allowances, including it turns out, the trap door to the attic of our 2nd floor apartment.

I do believe I can match Nic's bat horror story. So one night at this apartment, after taking a relaxing bubble bath, I grabbed my terry cloth old faithful robe when I got out of the tub. As I extended one of my arms into the sleeve, something felt wrong. Furry beyond terrycloth. Took it off and looked down the sleeve and yep, there was a bat all curled up in a ball, and asleep in the crook of the elbow. OMG, I freaked out! And that was only one of many bat stories at that place, there were others dang near as bad. Ahhhhhh, college days on the cheap. Sometimes they're cranked up in one's memory to much better than they were.

Nic---I think your dress is gorgeous. Kind of surprised me because while so elegant and simple, it is also very feminine. I know you're no girly girl, but this dress is so pretty, and I think you will look gorgeous in it with your coloring. What are you going to do about hair? Are you going to wear it down per usual, or get a bit adventuresome?

Man, this thing is rolling up fast. I can't wait to see the pix and hear the stories.

BTW, TOTALLY agree w/your analysis of Berg vs. Tyler. You hit it on the nose. I too love both.

Trigger---hahahahahaha---you vs. the raccoon. Hey, I'd bet on you any old day! Your description of the meeting cracked me up. Well, at least you can't say this vacay was boring! Have loved hearing about it all.

Jaz---Ha, Love Nic's nick name for your date. Mr. Fromage. Perfect. We are awaiting details, girl!

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SIGH. We got the latest house kerfuffle straightened out and arrived at what we think is a good compromise, and more importantly, doable. We have both been stretched beyond our breaking point on money, time and work, only we do not have the luxury to break.

So we just keep going, as we initially did on this issue. Long story short, all of a sudden the realtor said if you really want the wow factor here, you'll redo your wood floors.

The bid we got was pretty reasonable. But the labor involved was intensive, with us moving everything out of all the main rooms of the house, and then back in, AND being unable to live in our house for a WEEK, just a short time before we put it on the market. Oh, and did I mention the POD that all the furniture would have to be moved into and then out of?

Well, we came to our senses and said NO. LOL, I think of our floors as "rustic." But have to admit the living room and dining room are a problem, because we have long had big and lovely area rugs down in both rooms, and you can SO see the demarkation of the walking paths. So in the end, we will do the floors in just those two rooms instead of the more ambitious plan to do our long hallway and 2 other rooms, all at once. This was giving hubby nightmares. I have become numb to it all, and just say "sure" to everything. Thank God his "what's reasonable for us feelers were way up!"

Still, not going to be any walk in the park to empty even those two rooms into the rest of our house. But it IS doable, and price has gone way down from our original thoughts. And, we can live here thruout, if not entirely comfortably.

Boy howdy, the very idea of being in someone else's home for a week when we still have much to do here, was just wrongo.

So, yeah, when buyers walk in, they are going to really love what they see. LOL, THEN, they can get a load of what they will need to do in the ongoing upkeep of this charming, unique, elegant and brilliantly located house, in terms of floors and other things.

Good that we've gotten the bids and know exactly how much it can be done for. Gals, this is what they tell you when you try to leave one thing up to the new buyer to improve. They say "Well, that buyer's going to come in and say it's going to cost 10,000 to do those floors, so we want that off the price.

Well, we know now, it isn't going to cost any such thing. If we get in a struggle with a sincere buyer, we'll give them a credit on what we were going to do, based on the bids we got. And it ain't no $10,000.

I think back to when we bought this house, and how many thing weren't right for us. Much of it was cosmetic, but also, the kitchen was outdated by 30 years at least behind the times, and the bathroom was even worse. Also, did I mention the. house was sided in mint green aluminum with a matching mint green fence.

We painted the fence white fast, and had many neighbors cheering us as we did. Took longer to change the color of the house, but a huge hail storm came to our rescue with our household insurance, and we were able to re-side it in a nice crisp beige.

I guess what I'm sayin' is, people watch too much HGTV. We didn't buy a perfect house, and we're not selling a perfect house. But man oh man, we have made huge improvements.

Also, just have to say, I am VERY SICK OF MEN telling me what to do about this house. Hubby's male friends have been helpful and great in some ways, but IMO, it's the woman who really makes the decision of whether to buy or not, most of the time. Also, love our realtor to bits, no second thoughts. But he's a guy too. And his idea of staging and mine are quite different. Will leave this for another post if I have the strength for it.

Oh man, this process is so brutal, and we haven't even begun to deal w/buyers yet.

Had a good LC day. Dang though, this mojo up and down sucks. Like doing your first day on plan over and over again. Or maybe your first 3 or 4 days on plan.

I had gone so far beyond that in these least 5 years. And then, I met the mountain that humbled me, which was a combination of much in this last year.

SIGH. I still try to have good LC days, and I DO. It's just that I was used to it as a lifestyle, and that has been a struggle lately.

But, this too shall pass. We WILL meet our challenges and get out of this house. Then we'll have a new place where we can't find anything and it will take a while to settle in.

We'll see when I hit the LC thing hard again. Tried to just a week or so ago, really thought I had the mojo and I was on my way again.

But no. I have come to understand that for right now, the universe has a job for us, which is to deal with the ENDLESS work of getting out of here. It is physical, and emotional and it goes on from sun up to sunset.

No time to cook---even hubby the cook doesn't want to cook. He's exhausted. And I certainly don't want to do even the simplest things to whip up something LC. Although I still do, but y'know, it's a couple days on, and then off because of circumstance.

That might sound like an excuse, and maybe it is for those stronger than me. But my dance card is so freaking full I'm dizzy, and I'm not going to blame myself one iota if I can't keep up with LC the way I did for, count 'em, 5 freaking years.

I also HATE the result of letting go a bit, even if I feel I can't keep up right now. Yuck. Midriff is all puffed out. HATE IT.

Will find my way back again to a steady LC regiment. It is the most satisfied and happy I've ever felt with food, that excludes most carbs.