The book and its cover

On our recent little weekend camping trip we passed this appetizing sign.

For low-resolution screens and/or dial-up readers like me, it reads: Ye Old Green Coffee Shoppe Salmon.

Yum. Yum. YU-UM.

I made my husband turn around not only for the photo but for samples.

And that's when I remembered about judging a... what? cafe... by a ... what? thoroughly moldy name.

The girls and I waited in the car while my husband ("as you wish") wound his way between the apparently hundreds of customers. He returned with THE BEST thick-but-not-bitter coffee and AN EVEN BETTER flaky-but-certainly-not-low-fat croissant. So that'll teach me.

ANYWHAT.

Today, and by that I really mean yesterday since it's now about 2:30 in the morning, was kind of a rough day. It was the kind of day that makes me want to go back to the beach.

I used to work in real estate. (Did I mention?) I also used to have a funny (snarky?) little saying that I'd either get out or grow the requisite blackened heart of a Realtor. (Yes. They insist on the capitalization. Stupid but trademarked.) So anyway a couple of months ago we decided, for reasons of expanding family and choked market and hallelujah in general, that it was a good time to let my license go inactive.

Maybe even before the last corner of my heart was all scummy.

I jest. Sort of.

The past two and a half years of my real estate career I have worked in a wonderful office with some folks I just admire with every bit of me. (I would not lump them in with the vast majority of housing sales personnel. You may know a good Realtor. Hang on to her. And if you lose her number, maybe she left the profession for a reason. Call me. We'll have coffee.)

In the years before that personally delightful but financially devastating association (The market. The market.) I may or may not have lease optioned my soul to the (real estate version of the) devil and predictably paid dearly to get out of that there contract. I try (believe it or not) to speak mostly positively so I don't have a lot more to add about that office.

Let's just say I had to see some of those less-than-favorite brokers the other day and I have spent too much energy on them anyway. It pushes my (aforementioned real estate averse) Pollyanna to her sunnyside limits. It makes me less than likable to myownself. It points out that judging the book by its cover goes two ways.

And then? My agony over the sale of my beloved mare Seven? Fell through. The woman who bought (but didn't yet pay for) the horse abandoned her at the boarding barn. Leaving us with a six-month board bill, a horse who hasn't had farrier care in far too long, and a new wrinkle in the supposedly permanent press that I'm making of my life.

It points out that the common denominator in my bad experiences is, um, usually me and my judgment.

ANYWHAT.

Late in the night I left my comfy bedcovers and pillow behind to eat a bowl of cereal. Because I'm pregnant and obsessive, that's why.

As I was sitting at the computer, eating cereal and reading blogs (thanks, y'all) and sorta acting like a teenager with the sleep deprivation and the coffee shop yearnings, I could have sworn the dog started serenading me. Singing!

My dog is sensitive like that. He would've made a great therapy animal.

OR. He actually had Barney in his mouth. One of those infernal (probably invented by a Realtor -- they all have side jobs) battery-powered singing Barneys.

At least Barney and the dog love me. And I love them. And we're a happy family.

(Is the Barney song stuck in your head? If not, your kids are probably older and you're past the trauma. And I'm jealous.)

I'm not over it

I still have an overwhelming sense of peace and gratitude (despite the Great Coffee Incident of 2009) that I brought home with me from the Sylvia Beach Hotel.


That's the best possible form of getaway, for me. The kind that comes back with me a newborn fluffy bird which spreads its wings in relief and warmth and recognition of home.

While I was gone I received a real estate call on the dread batphone, a referral from my favorite independent bookstore owners. The Bookmine in Cottage Grove doesn't have a web site, but it does have a small organic plant nursery and several comfy couches. It doesn't have seven levels covering one city block, but it does have a corner filled with vintage Little People for my little people to play with while I read. It doesn't have air conditioning or flourescent lights or many other modern conveniences... but it does "have" Gail and Birdie, sisters I've known my entire life who have run the bookstore nearly as long as I've been alive.

So when Gail sends me someone who wants to talk about moving to our area, I consider it an introduction to a possible friend. Even on vacation, I'll take that call.

I met a writer and her writer partner on that call. I learned about their dreams and hopes for a second home on small acreage with a big garden and room for a big table on which the two of them write but not enough room for a lot of visitors.

That part made me laugh.

Anyway I just want to say that even though I'm still working real estate I found my rose-colored glasses again. Certainly the financing woes and the sheer incompetence of many in the field and the agonies of buyers and sellers at huge financial turning points ... surely those things will rear their ugly heads. But just as surely I am a person at peace. I brought it home with me and I don't plan to let this particular bird fly too far.

Let's Talk Real Estate

For most of a decade I've been a licensed Realtor. I became a Realtor when mommy mush claimed my bookworm brain and lured me away from my writing and editing career. I thought selling land would be flexible, time-wise, and I thought it would be a new kind of challenge for my socially shy self.



And I've been a pretty good Realtor, despite the fact that the NAR's insistence on capitalizing the word drives the editor in me a bit bonkers. By "good" I mean principled and successful, usually in that order. I ranked among the top-producing brokers in the state for years and yet never gave in to the all-pervasive dark side of the profession. (You know, the side where Realtors rank below used car salesmen and attorneys in the latest barroom joke.) I managed to be successful because I worked my butt off. Is it any wonder that a marked decrease in real estate work over the past two years coincides with an increase in the size of my derriere? Nah. There couldn't be any corrolation there.



The past nine years in the world of real estate have been unprecedented in history for growth and sales. Most North Americans built their wealth and retirements around their home ownership. Home equity equals peace of mind. Home ownership equals prosperity. These were the mantras of the late 90s and the first half of this century to date.


If you didn't buy a home, why the heck not? This was the incredulous question of most Realtors and lenders in my circle of stellar acquaintances. What's not to love about one hundred percent financing? Incredibly low introductory rates? In fact it seemed the only hurdle to buying a home for any person with the hint of a job was the fact that they might have to make more than one offer and learn to "compete" with multiple buyers.



Our parents and grandparents purchased real estate when they had twenty percent or more saved for a down payment. They divided family properties and built homes next to one another, sharing the work of the land and the payment (if any).



They waited. They saved. They lived at home a little longer and started a little smaller. Most paid off their mortgages in 15 years. "Buying up" was not in the vernacular. Their house payments were generally twenty-five percent of their gross income.



Today's mortgages have many folks in payments that exceed fifty percent of their gross income.



Wait. Let's think about that for a moment. If it's half of your gross at the time of application and approval, it's significantly more than half of your "take-home," or net. And if your job is currently on the chopping block, or on the cutting room floor, that half of your former take-home is likely to be a lot more than your unemployment benefits will pay.

We Oregonians are several months behind the mortgage crisis. In my limited understanding I think it has something to do with how much an area's values had gone skyrocketing up. Anyhow we didn't experience triple-digit property value increases, but we did have our little run at it. So our property values are flattened more than plummeting. And the majority of homeowners who are in trouble here are facing that trouble not because they overborrowed, necessarily, but because they are now out of work or underemployed due to the crushing economic crisis that hit Oregon as hard or harder than some of our neighboring states.

.

Over the past few weeks I've been working with a half-dozen former clients who are all in different stages of wanting to sell and/or wanting to buy in order to take advantage of the prices that seem reasonable to them. Loans are still available (or are available again after a short hiatus) for those with down payments and good credit. Property for sale is plentiful. Sellers are motivated.

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It's that "take advantage" part I'm having a hard time with. Oh, and some other nebulous concepts I'm sure to be miscommunicating here.

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I truly believe that the American Dream (intentionally causing that proper noun) is married to home ownership. I've read all the news reports blaming unscrupulous lenders (no, really?!) and greedy investors and even all the news reports dissecting homeowners' levels of culpability in the mess.

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Today's news was that President Obama has proposed a financial bailout for homeowners. I believe it's monetarily less than one-tenth of the financial market bailouts. I'm no policy genius, but I'm taking a couple of calls a day from former clients who are in huge trouble. I was giving them the 1-800 numbers for assistance, but have had many reports that help is difficult to find and mortgage giants' promises are hard to secure even with a government "hope" advocate on your side. The tangle of investors is spaghetti -- everyone wants a bite -- with no hope of a sauce-covered Disney kiss at the end.

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I'm one formerly successful Realtor who likes to sit in the corner and read. I'm just a one-time editor who has a handful of real estate clients in trouble due to job loss and rate adjustments and a relatively minor amount of lost equity. I have no answers. I hope the government does -- but even as I type that it seems incongruous, unfair, to expect the help to come from Washington, D.C.

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I just want to stay home and plant peas. In my mortgaged piece of dirt.

When Pigs Fly

I showed some real estate today. Actually quite a lot of real estate. Country property, of the hike-the-pasture and climb-the-farmhouse-stair variety.

There are issues here.

The market, for one.

My foolish "never" statements of late last year, for another.

Let's not say anything for a moment.

***

But did you notice that cookie is broken at the hip?

***

Day Off

My husband took this photo for me. To give me a day off. I said, "I've committed to blogging every day this month."

He said, "Give me credit and you can use one of my awesome pictures."

Okay, he didn't say anything like that.

I just stole the picture and decided y'all might like to see it today. (Is stealing a photo from your husband really stealing? Or is it like endorsing the back of his paycheck in order to put it in the bank? You know, they should do a power of attorney along with the marriage vows. Just a thought.)

Speaking of everyone else working so I don't have to... my good friend from Katie's Calamities has been sprucing things up around here for me. Isn't she great?

Spelling Bee Complex Conquered

There are some real estate bargains in our neck of the woods. I was stalking that ranch you see pictured above just this afternoon. It is for sale, but it's probably not one of the great deals vultures -- I mean investors -- are snatching up. I figured, if I had to ask, I couldn't afford it. At least it's confirmed I'm no vulture.

After torturing the girls by stopping at every autumnal photo op between chess class and home, I had to pull out the camera bag one more time as we pulled in to the big stables to feed Seven:

Seven is at the rear of that race to the barn. Willy is the grey in the lead. The pony is valiantly pounding hooves in second place.

Funny. I would have bet on Seven.

When I was growing up, I competed in a lot of spelling bees. You know in spelling bees there are a lot of wins in a row before, for most kids, a devastating loss. That's how it goes. You win time after time, in the classroom and then the district. The county and then state. Maybe you make it to regionals. But if you pull in second at regionals, and you're a funny little child from the boondocks....

If you're a funny little child with two brown braids and big green eyes and your best friend is a horse, second at regionals feels like humiliation and death. You think to yourself as you put on a brave face that Teri W. from District 4J (I STILL REMEMBER) must have been clued in to the 'onomatopoeia' finale. You think to yourself as you pose with the second-place trophy that her mother had cocoa with the committee. You don't really have a conspiracy theory (because you're 10) but you could spell it.

I'm trying to say: It's all relative. Or maybe I'm trying to say, for the past day or two, I've felt 10 years old. I've felt as though everyone else had the answers. I was memorizing the Spellex cover to cover even though the final word probably wasn't in it.

When you're in your late 30s, you should know by now that you win some and you lose some. Life's not a ladder, it's a meandering path. That occurred to me as I watched the fastest horse loping in to the barn in third place.

Yeah, I'm slow that way.

(There's Dewey to take your mind off my point about what winners we all are. Dewey's named after the "Dewdrop Inn," a long-shuttered stage stop a half mile from us. And he's never last for dinner.)

Worry Dolls And Seven-Bean-Barley Soup

image from Wikipedia

I have a new (tongue-firmly-in-cheek -- I think) project.



I want to ask everyone I know to spend a couple of hours making worry dolls to ship to Wall Street. It won't take you a moment. Worry dolls are cheap if you must buy them, but I think the love and cursing you put into each one as you wrap the tiny threads around toothpicks trying to approximate a listening ear friend that fits in a pocket or under a pillow ... well, I think a handmade one will be better. And it will be good practice for your spending hiatus.

All Wall Street traders, especially the brokers, need something to help deal with their worries these days.

For the rest of us, there's Seven-Bean-Barley Soup. Are you a soup fan? I am. Although I was raised vegetarian for most of my childhood, I married a dyed-in-the-steak meat-and-potatoes man. He once accused me, early in our marriage, of sneaking tofu and mushrooms into the spaghetti sauce on the sly. Who me? Sneaky?

Anywhat, after 16 years of blissful marriage to me, the EGE is now a big soup fan too. Yay Soup! Go Soup! It's comfort food and usually budget-friendly to boot. As our weather cools and the financial news is scarier and scarier, a hot bowl of soup is just what the Suite family needs.

You should know that I rarely, barely ever, use a recipe. This drives my engineer husband berserk. And recently I was for no reason emailing my pesto "recipe" to Barb, one of my favorite writers (go ahead and click; I don't know how to make it open in a new window, but she's worth clicking away for). When I sent her the "recipe" I just sorta threw the letters and words up on the screen in the same manner that I tend to throw veggies at a pot. Of course I forgot to include the garlic. Sheesh. It mighta mattered more except she wasn't even wanting a recipe, she just asked if I ever made it. What's wrong with me?

After all that buried caveat and digression, I will venture to give a loose recipe for Seven-Bean-Barley Soup. You cannot mess it up.

Seven-Bean-Barley Soup

1/4 Cup each dry beans: split pea, lentil, black-eyed pea, black bean, red bean, pinto bean, surprise me (hah! I call it "seven-bean" but I don't know what the seventh might be)

1/4 Cup dry barley

One Walla Walla onion

One quart stewed tomatoes (if you can your own, as I do, put your kitchen shears in the jar and snip them up so they're about half-inch or smaller pieces)

Two to four carrots, diced

Two to four celery stalks, diced

Chicken stock or bullion cubes

Garlic

Salt & pepper, dried Italian spices


Soak the beans overnight in a bowl with water just to cover. Drain and rinse before you use them.

Brown the onions, garlic carrots and celery in olive oil in your deepest heavy pot. I use a cast iron Dutch Oven. Wish I had an enameled one that big.

Add the soaked and rinsed beans and the dry barley. Cover the whole thing with chicken stock (DON'T add tomatoes yet) until you have a couple of inches liquid over the beans. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for approximately two to three hours.

After all the beans are soft, add the tomatoes and seasoning, then simmer for another half hour or so.

If you want to make this in the slow cooker, bring it to a boil first, then simmer in the crock pot on low all day. Add the tomatoes when you get home from work. If you put acidic foods in with cooking beans, they will not soften. It will be a bummer.

I think this recipe costs about $2 to make and serves 12 to 20 people. I serve it with homemade cornbread and real butter. Of course.

Start Hoarding Now

Maybe you have a head start.



Maybe your cupboards are alphabetized and then further arranged by expiration date, oldest in front. Maybe your kids' shoes are purchased for the next five sizes (to last approximately five months?). And maybe, just maybe, you saw this financial crisis coming and didn't go on vacation over the summer, choosing wisely to put the money allocated for that spree instead into a margarine tub in the deep freeze.

One time my grandma had a jar full of Susan B. Anthony dollars buried in the garden. When her handyman tilled it up, he unknowingly shattered the jar and spread her money all throughout the garden's 18-inch-deep furrows. My grandma, the consummate Frugal Frederique, dug until well after dark seeking her coins. Later, many summers later, we started pulling carrots and beets with dollars in them.

And then another time I had purchased a 1930s overstuffed club chair for $10 and hauled it home to my college digs. My roommate Margaret and I decided that the fabric was scratchy and she knew a little about upholstery. There was a funny patch on the back of the chair so she also weighed in to say that it was common for people to hide money in their upholstery. (Why did I believe her? She was a history major.) Anyway we tore the offending fabric off and stapled on 10 yards of awful peach-and-green polished cotton from the dollar bin at the upholstery store. There was no money hidden in there. Then, when we were throwing the original fabric away, our antique dealer neighbor commented to say that it was mohair and reportedly was worth close to $100 a yard.

When my grandfather died, it fell to my mother to clean out his closets. Like many of his generation, the "Great Generation," he had a compulsion to save everything. Not only did he never throw anything out, but it was all squirreled away in tidy compartments. And he had multiples of most everything. The shoes he wore everyday were as worn as you can imagine, very "down at the heel." There were four pairs exactly like them in his closet, new in their boxes, just as they had been for maybe seven years. He washed sheets every Saturday, waiting until they line dried to make the bed again. There were 10 sets of sheets in their packages in the linen cupboard. I think this is the definition of hoarding, and I understand it is common among people who have lived with very little and are afraid to be without.

Maybe you're saving your dollars and maybe your menus are planned for three months of pantry meals. Maybe you're appreciating the value of your old things and resisting the pull of the Pottery Barn. Or, maybe, like the media say most Americans are, you're living paycheck to paycheck.

Maybe you're somewhere in between.

I have a stocked pantry. I shop about once a month for "big" groceries, stopping otherwise only for milk and bread and produce that the garden doesn't provide. I don't literally advocate hoarding, since that has a connotation of having more than one needs (and keeping it at the expense of others who aren't able to then procure it). But I am thinking a lot about the Great Generation and what they went through, how they managed. How it shaped them and their friendships. They must have relied quite a bit on one another. That part sounds good.

Keeping It Real

I think my neighbors are moving. They had their house on the market for a year and a half, and then it wasn't on the market, and it didn't sell, and now they're loading boxes.

Yesterday in church a family we know announced that they have taken their son out of school and are thinking of moving to Mexico because their house is in foreclosure, they are both out of work, and this is an opportunity to make a new start.

My house in town will be vacant in a few days. Hard times visited on our tenants, a family with six children, and they are moving. It's not just trashed. It's flop-house trashed.

I keep thinking that the market is not that bad in our area. That the economy is "not that bad" around here.

How bad is "not that bad" before it's just, you know, bad?

I want to focus on today's applesauce and cheese making extravaganza, but I am weighed down by sadness at the change of tide.

It can't be pushed back. I am completely powerless to help any of these situations; this is a "Be still and know that I am God" kind of a time. Every fiber of me is straining to find something to do, to fix it for my friends and neighbors and for myself. But I don't have $700 million, and money's not going to fix it anyway.

Maybe a little more canning. Or a drive through the countryside taking pictures as the leaves turn. The tide will still be going out and the economy will do what it will, but my worrying is not adding anything to the discussion.

Whatever Works

This weekend the girls and I have been up to our elbows in food preservation.

It feels a little farmy. Also a little WPA. The country is reportedly pulling out its dusty old Mason jars in time of economic hardship, returning to our grandparents' proven ideals of frugality and thrift.

Reportedly. When I went to get lids for my canning jars in the neighboring small town, I was told they were "out." The nice clerk informed me that "broke people like to 'put up' food." So I guess the financial disaster that's been all over the front page moved pretty quickly to the pocketbooks of my fellow canning afficionados and a bunch of newbies. People in financial difficulty like to can their own food, and the store didn't predict this, so they under-ordered lids and jars and such.

I didn't know about this chain of events. I thought broke people liked to window shop:

And then stop for a cup of coffee, black, no sugar, and to then watch the people go by:

(Ignore the shopping bag there. It's not frugal to actually buy something in the cute shops.)

Canning and freezing our produce, the last time I checked my bank account, is not cheap. I'm sure all the garden prep and organic seedlings and freaking deer prevention cost much more than a dozen trips to Trader Joe's. So if we're not doing this to save money, why did I get all sticky and end the day with a pail full of pear peelings? Well, part of the reason we like to preserve food is because we know what went in it.

I love dried pears more than cheesecake. And that's saying a lot. But the dried fruit at the supermarket is coated in high fructose corn syrup before it's dried. Say what? And the canned stewed tomatoes at the store have more sodium than a cup of insanity-producing saltwater. (I don't know that last thing for a fact, it just sounded funny in my head. I might be a little loopy from the hum of the dehydrator coupled with the steam from the canner.)

Here is what I know: So far today we have canned and sliced and dried 30 pounds of pears, seasoned and stewed and frozen 18 quarts of tomatoes, and grated and bagged and frozen enough zucchini for a dozen loaves of zucchini bread.

Then we had pizza for dinner. Because I like to keep 'em guessing, that's why.

Tomorrow the boxes upon boxes of apples will become applesauce and canned apple pie filling. Did you know that if you pre-cook and can your apple pie filling, the filling will actually fill the pie crust? (Instead of shrinking and leaving the crust high and dry.) I did not know that until this year. After the apples, I'm attacking plum preserves and pepper jelly. Have you ever had pepper jelly? A little of summer's heat in the middle of the winter, that's what I like to call it.

Then, after the jellies and preserves... it's chevre time.

That's right. This week we are making goat cheese with fresh milk from my neighbor's Nubian goats. Oh, yum. This is a completely new farm (and homeschool) endeavor, and we are so excited! Traditional "chevre," which just means "goat," is also known as "farmer's cheese." It's spreadable like cream cheese and has a tangy flavor like plain yogurt. If you do it right. We'll see how it goes. Some of the cheese websites we have been reading are written by Ph.D.s.

Biology doctorates, the internet, and cheese. It's a beautiful thing. They know what they're doing, so we don't have to. In this way the cheese is separated from the whey. No, I mean the curds. Or, I mean, the cheese process is different from the fruits and vegetables. I clearly don't know what I mean. But I do know what goes into the cheese: my neighbor's goat milk, some natural cultures, and some rennet. (I don't know what rennet is, but I know it's not as hard to spell as some of the stuff on the cheese I buy at the store.)

The girls and I recently went to the movie theater and saw the American Girl movie about "Kit" and the Great Depression. The story rambles over concepts of equality and features some really cute costumes, and just happens to include a little history. Incidentally Sarah was riveted to the Presidential debate on television last night. The EGE was still at work, and the other girls were otherwise occupied, but Sarah and I were similarly focused on the candidates' opinions and positions.

She wants to know whether we are facing something like Kit and her (fictional) family did in the Great Depression. No, Sarah, we're not. We're not losing our home, and Daddy's not losing his job. We're not taking in boarders. But like a lot of mainstream (if I heard "Main Street versus Wall Street" one more time in that debate, I think I'd have puked) families, we have felt the personal effects of the economy. I don't know what the definition of a financial depression or recession is, but I know that a disproportionate number of our neighbors have lost their jobs in nearby high-tech fields and banks and the real estate industry.

We don't preserve food because we are "broke." We preserve food because something about our society is "broken." I believe we have lost touch with where our food (clothing, automobile, laptop computer, ideology) comes from. It may seem trivial, but to me it's fundamental, to know and appreciate what we're doing.

Our next-door neighbors in town had a little girl Madeleine's age who did not recognize a tomato on the vine. For my part, I personally have no concept of what it takes to put a technology product on the market or the what it takes to keep the economy humming. And most Americans, I believe, feel completely out of touch with what the lending crisis (and accompanying real estate and market crises) means to them. But whether we understand it or not, it will likely affect us and our children's generation profoundly.

Seven hundred billion dollars. It takes a long time to type. This is what makes me preserve food, really. I know I can take the occasional shopping trip. I know I can afford my latte when I want one. I know I don't know hardship. And I know I don't know what this bailout, or the lack of one, will mean to me. I don't pretend to have an opinion, because it boggles me. Fruit doesn't.

So I submit, to the Bi-Mart clerk who said, "broke people like to 'put up' food," that it's not about the pantry. It's about doing something tangible to take care of ourselves and our families. We return to the familiar and the comforting like a robin in a windstorm. I'm just nesting.

I'm just folding my farm-fresh eggs into batter, lining my jars up on the shelves, because this is completely within my control. I can understand the economy of a garden and the provision for my family. I can't understand what's happened to the families who are losing their homes or to the bank employees who are carrying boxes of personal belongings down flights of stairs, to go home to be unable to pay their own mortgages.

I'm just nesting.

Main Street or Wall Street.

National Blog Posting Month April #2

Hey, 30 letters in 30 days. A snap. I am writing letters I should've written.

December 20, 2005

Dear Sir:
Please accept this resignation in the sincere manner it is intended. As much as I have enjoyed working as an independent broker at your family-run company the last four years, it is past time for me to go. In my experience, staying longer than I know I should will not serve either of us well. I have learned much from you and I appreciate your willingness to share from decades of experience.

I also recognize that you have made huge efforts to accomodate me and my quirky desire for mentorship. I appreciate the yearly goal-setting lunches. I appreciate even more the times when you were truly too busy for me but took time to hear about my deal anyway. I know once I had your attention it was your full attention, and you attacked the challenges as though they were your own.

You often asked if there was anything you could do to help me be more successful. My answer was consistent: please help me figure out a way to be with my family more. It wasn't fair of me, of course, to bring it up so repeatedly. So I can't blame you for never having an answer to that particular request. Along these lines, I ask your indulgence one last time. I am leaving, and I hope to do so gracefully. I am really leaving, and I need you and your family business to realize that I am at last recognizing that what you have done is put your family first. You did answer the question by example, and so I hope you can respect my decision as a choice you might have made.

Sincerely,
Finally Found Courage

Stop snowing already

Snowing again. It's really coming down, as they say, and it's really annoying. Yesterday we pretended it was warm and went down to the general store for ice cream. KL and the gang joined us from south of here ... you should really check out my friend KL's farm girl blog at katiescalamities.blogspot.com ...

To hedge our bets, we had French Dip sandwiches (hey, Lorena had prime rib left over) and the kids had chicken noodle soup before the ice cream. Yum and yummier. Then we drove the one-tenth-mile to my house and the kids played outside. The boys kept losing their shoes. The girls made an elaborate tent and convinced us that Nicole should stay over. The dog dug in my flowerbeds and now we can't find him (just kidding).

There are no photos of our pocket of springtime, however, because I can't find any of the memory cards from my camera, because, like the genius I am, I put them in a pocket to make prints at Wal-Mart. The good news is that I DID make the prints at Wal-Mart. They were sort of important since the subject matter was Ryan's grandma's surprise fiesta for her 80th birthday.

So this morning it's snowing and Madeleine, Sarah and Nicole are sleeping off the nonsleep-over. Grace is watching Clifford and Laura is napping on the couch, wrapped up in a shirt Ryan pulled out of the dryer with a huge hole in the back. If we cannot stop the dog from loving on the laundry that way he may really go missing. Of course the girls don't think it's funny when I threaten the disappearance of Jake. I must stop. And I will.

On the agenda today: a trip to town to see "Enchanted" at the $1 theater, to take Laura to her two-month well-baby checkup, to talk to the doctor about anxiety, and to most importantly PAY my BOARD OF REALTORS dues. Holy Toledo. I am the problem child of real estate. Of course the market's been booming so ... the reason it's three days before the heavy duty consequences (three months after the initial due date) and I still haven't paid has *nothing* to do with a lack of finances to do so. Nor with an underlying ambivalence about remaining licensed.

the millionaire next door

In the middle of nowhere, in an unincorporated town consisting of a deli, general store, Church of Christ, grange hall and elementary school, in the absolute boondocks of hobby farmville, we have evidently struck gold.

Or maybe fools' gold.

When I was a little girl, my dad owned a tree planting business. This took us out of Oregon several summers in a row, to the great sky country of Montana. While Dad and the crews reforested, Mom took my brother and me on day trips to ghost towns and butterfly hatchings, canyons and rivers and amazing natural features. But the thing that I remember best is the fool's gold. We brought huge chunks of it back to our rented cabin and were so excited to show it to my dad, who of course turned it into a history and geology lesson.

Anyway, here in Oregon, in our 1887 church-turned-farmhouse, we live smack next door to a quaint B&B resplendent in cedar ciding, custom cabinetry, and deep front and rear covered porches. It's a small bed and breakfast, with just two guest rooms, but very charming and wine-country-chic.

Today it went on the market for $650,000. I received a couple of calls from fellow Realtors wondering what could make the tiny collection of buildings on two acres worth nearly twice their own personal estimates. I was stumped. In fact I told both real estate agents that it must be one of the mini-wineries on the hill just down our road. 3000-plus square feet each, with private vineyards covering acres of hillsides. This made much more sense. But then this afternoon, while sewing new curtains for the den, I received a third call, this time from a friend's husband who works on the county road crew.

"I'm out pulling signs from the right-of-way," he said.

"Do I have something in the county truck?" I replied. Signs cost money and I'd rather mine didn't linger in the county boneyard for the crime of misplacement. No, he just wanted me to know about the Re/MAX sign next door and the fact that my dog was digging up the grange's side yard.

After hauling the dog home with an unidentified bone, and incidentally herding our free-range chickens off of the B&B front porch (I have NEVER seen them leave our property before), I confirmed the Realtor rumors for my own self.

I hope it sells for a quarter million more than it appraised one year ago. But I hope we don't get any neighbors who want the rest of us to start living like the millionaire next door.