Forget about that! I just spent four days fighting the pain of what I didn’t know was a kidney stone. Ouch! The last time I went to the hospital in that much pain I came home with a 10lb son!

The emergency room was no different than I remembered it, fast tracked into a room for a five hr wait to see a doctor and get on some pain IV….I nearly fainted in the meantime, but at least I finally has some respite and I had a CAT scan that told me it was not an alien inside me eating my guts, because that is what it felt like!

OK, this has nothing to do with real estate.But you’ve got to admit, sometimes romance involves a great deal of pain before it passes through your life.

And please, especially if you live in Florida, drink 3 quarts (yes QUARTS!) of water a day to try and avoid these little monsters. I can tell you, you will never appreciate a lack of pain as much as you do after the darn thing has passed out of your body! Water, now….I mean it!

Two years after all the proposed help to the struggling housing market, all I see is more of the same and a continual slide in a downward direction. There have been no guidelines imposed to help cleanup the short sale, pre-foreclosure situation. There are many more people who have in the past year depleted their savings and 401K’s trying to hold onto their homes, only to be walking away from them bankrupt in the end.

There is no common sense at the top. The government sees everything as a way for them to impose themselves into the fray and act as though they have answers. All they have done is give modifications to the very people who could ill afford their homes in the first place, who put nothing down to begin with. Now they are defaulting on those modifications, or at least 90% seem to be.

The sad thing is they refused to give modifications to the people who put money into their loans originally, but perhaps have 750 plus credit scores, and not enough “hardship” but  instead of granting them a point or two lower on a mortgage that was going to remain upside down for possibly years, they determined to squeeze them dry and tell them they couldn’t possibly do a thing to help them. After a year or two of watching everyone else get the help by stopping the payments to their mortgage companies, they feel as though the good are unrewarded for their sacrifice while the ones who broke their agreements are given a pass.

This is the most outrageous part of this whole mess. We are not helping those who could hold on to their homes and help save the neighborhoods, instead making them look stupid for playing by the rules they signed up for. These are the people who should have gotten some help, and I am so tired of not seeing any come their way. As a country, we are now rewarding the illegal, the liar, and the corrupt while slapping the face of the honest and true. I am glad I have already raised my children, because the values that will succeed in today’s world are not those I would ever have been able to teach them. I just hope they will live to see those values return to prominence in their lifetimes and those of their children, because a nation like ours cannot survive by adhering to the new and very ugly rules in play.

I happened to be stopped at a busy highway exit ramp today and watched a man with a sign asking for money. He had just finished a bag of chips and carelessly tossed it on the grassy area where he was standing while he begged for contributions. It wasn’t the fact that he was asking for help that bothered me, but the fact that tomorrow the city would be paying someone with a long pole to come and retrieve the garbage he had left while he was asking for help.

It occurred to me that he was creating work that was also going to cost the very same people he was asking for assistance. And truly it would be work that he was capable of doing. It was an interesting cycle of thought.  We are creating the messes that we are having to pay to clean up. I wonder that people receiving their support from the hard work of others often care very little about taking care of that with which they have been entrusted.

Spending someone else’s hard-earned money on my own needs includes a heavy duty guilt that I am not sure everyone shares. It has sometimes not been the case, but often carries a weight that I can’t wait to be free of and get back to providing for my own needs. We may all have times when we have to depend on the good graces of others, but I cannot imagine it as a lifestyle.

I think that is why we do tend to help out some people rather than others. We all have our own lens through which we see someone’s difficulties as being some what their own fault. If we have never walked in those shoes we see it one way, perhaps. If we have, we have even higher standards we expect them to live up to. I often wonder if one were to track the contributions to a person on the side of the road asking for money, how many different stories one would find as to why people stopped to offer money.

Well, most of the time. Actually, while all houses have occasional problems, it is a pretty wonderful thing to know you can offer someone a safe shelter for their family. And when problems arise, if they are doing their part in keeping the contract, it is really very easy to address any problems that arise with the building.

I have met some of the most considerate people by being their landlord. From the moment they were lead to me or my property, we usually both sensed this was not a chance meeting. We both felt a connection to the other. And it really never changed after that.

There are still male former tenants who call me on Mother’s Day, former tenants who call to check out the possibility of buying their own home one day, some who call just to check in and see how I am doing and some I call for the very same reason. We have shared a home. Not by living in it together, but by caring for it together. It would be an ideal model for parenting after a marriage has come apart and one no longer lives in the home. It is still a place where you worked, fixed things up, had hopes and dreams for the future. You have shared a “space” on this earth and there is a certain sacredness to that. If you remember that, even the bad memories (of a previous tenant who had to be evicted and still owes you back rent and damages for the house)can fade in the light of having a tenant who cares for the house as a home, as you do. That is a special relationship.

Everything starts with a plan. When you decide to get married and you want to throw a great party, you start about a year in advance to make a plan. When you want to start a new business, you make a plan, way before you go to anyone to try and borrow money for it.

So, when you want to go in a new direction in your life, shouldn’t you also start with a plan? The plan has to have elements that excite and propel you forward, a bit of a carrot hanging ahead of you. Without that, the plan will lack the drawing power to get you to work even harder to achieve it. You must be able to see, taste and smell the finish line. Great athletes visualize winning a long time before they reach their goal. They even envision the tough challenges that will occur and how they will overcome them.

I was speaking with a dear friend tonight and she was embracing the thought of a life plan for the different stages a woman goes through. Men do as well,I am sure, but differently and I can only speak as a woman. The children are raised and in their own life stream. Time to decide where I want to go from here.

I have said I am planning a big birthday celebration for a milestone next year. I want to incorporate singing some songs that have meaning to me, and have already begun gathering favorite songs and trying them out in the privacy of my car! I guess next will be the venue and how much I will need to start saving toward that. I am also beginning to let good friends know to save the date so they can come celebrate my life with me.

The food will come later…for some that might come first. It all has to do with our own priorities, and that is the fun of making a plan. It begins to show you what your priorities are, what motivates and drives you and comes easily for you. Also which things take more time and effort but are important as well.

Having people around me with boundless positive energy is my main focus for this year. Finding mentors and people to share deep thoughts with, to spur one another to greater heights within ourselves….that seems to be my main focus. Gathering those people together, as in a wonderful harvest I have been feeding and nurturing and watering for years. It is time to bring in the harvest and have an amazing feast together! Doesn’t that sound like a great plan?

I am so excited about having a new look! My son says I need a new picture, and I am thinking of adding some color to a washed out, mostly black wardrobe. Having bought a bright color to start repainting the living room, this seems to be the direction I go when I am cheering myself up.

Some people go get their hair and nails done but I seem to paint something. That was always the cheapest way for me to totally change my surroundings. As a former faux finisher, I realized how many women also saw that as the best quick fix. There are lessons online, in fact, I may just add a link to the lessons I used to teach locally. That would be kind of fun. I will ask my son how to go about that!

Nowadays, they even let you get tester sizes of paint for a couple dollars at most the big stores. I have painted whole pieces of furniture with those alone,,,it doesn’t get cheaper than that! So if you are feeling under the weather, spiritually or emotionally, think of a color that makes you smile and go buy a sample. If nothing else, paint it on a big poster board and move it around the room in different lights and times of day. You will feel much more confident when you purchase the gallon if you have lived with it for awhile and still love it. Not the time to be safe…try something you believe will give your heart zing! It’s just paint, and it can always be painted over. Try it. I give you permission to think outside the paint can!

I have been very absent and am just turning a corner where I see the sun and all  the colors I have so missed in the last months! I am ready to toss my black wardrobe in favor of turquoise, yellow, orange and red, colors that make me smile when I wear them. I bought a gallon(not even a sample first!) of an apricot toned gold to paint the living of the house I am in, and that is a huge celebratory moment for a woman who always paints her home no matter if it is a rental, a purchase or a lengthy stay at a good friend’s! I just have to have light and color around me….they are vitamins for my soul!

My son just gave me this incredible new page and I love it! It’s kind of gypsy/artist/crazy/movement…..It’s me!!

And I am ready to get back to the art of lifting our spirits with a few bits of wisdom culled from my adventures as a Realtor in the market of life! You can tell by my effusive use of exclamation points that I am back in the game. I was going to remove the last entry, which is kind of haunting and not uplifting, but it occurs to me that there may be another out there who has hit bottom and needs to know that there is light up ahead. I always told people I am the kind of person who deals with depression like I did swimming. When I got in over my head and feared drowning, I would raise my arms so I got to the bottom of the pool as fast as possible, because only then could I bend my knees and push off to get back to the air and light and oxygen!

I’m breathing again, thank you Lord. And it feels good!

If you wonder where I have been for the last three weeks or more, it’s because my negative mind has been winning the battle. It is like slipping into a dark chasm and having to climb out, feeling your way along, your fingers bleeding and sore as you try to grab hold of the rocks for support and proceed to some faint flicker of light up ahead.
The loss of a house to foreclosure has precipitated an entire chain of events I could never have foreseen, nor could anyone who has shared this rocky path with me. Our government’s failure to put their finger in the dike and stop the floodgates from overflowing, sweeping so many homeowners along with the rising tide, has been abysmal and as sure as if they had pointed a gun and pulled the trigger. None of the many stop gap measures they gave lip-service to had the backbone of true allegiance behind them, and were just a distraction to appease those who had no one close in the fray. Like those of us who had no son, no relative in Vietnam, it remained was a war we just read about and we formed our opinions from the stories we were told. If you had a relative in this losing battle, you could always pretend it was their own fault for taking the loan they couldn’t afford in the first place, but if you had an ounce of compassion, you could see that it wasn’t anything like you were being told by the news media.
Unfortunately, it is no where near over, and the down-slide continues throughout the land. The middle class we grew up with is disappearing off the face of our landscape, perhaps for good. The hopelessness that accompanies it is felt as deeply as the loss of a child in a war that should have never been fought, with an enemy whom we still cannot name because we fear it is an inside job. The scars are ugly and they will be evident for a long time to come.
Like a rape by a trusted family member, your common sense mind just keeps telling you that someone should have seen it coming, could somehow have intervened, before your life was changed forever. Your mind has a hard time grasping that it is your own fault and that those who could have prevented it looked the other way as they took care of their own needs, fueled by their own selfish greed.
We have raped the American Dream and most people who feel victimized may never have had money to give a Bernie Madoff, but they can certainly recognize a ponzi scheme after they have been in one.

There are people like me who say that all the time. It has occurred to me that perhaps everyone doesn’t say that. There are people who seem to know how to structure their days, taking care of their needs, doing habitual things that keep body and soul in preservation mode.

Then there are others. People who jump at a ringing phone, eager to see if they have an answer for the caller. Is there a need I can meet, can I make your life easier? Do you need me to drop what I am doing to help you in some way?

Having come to realize that I have just passed through the last eight years of my single life by meeting the needs of a four legged friend, basically one bowl of dog food at a time, I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am one of those people. If we have a day where no one calls, we can’t figure out what to do with ourselves. So when we say ‘Call if you need me’….we absolutely mean it! And we will always answer the call.

Yesterday was the day I had to put my 14 yr old Lab, Jet, to sleep. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Partly because there would be no one else to share the blame with me, it was up to me alone. He just looked at me with trusting eyes until his very last breath, knowing I would never do anything but my very best for him.

I realized that any other decision was more for me than for him. To keep him going would have required many more pills for the pain. There is no pill for the pain of losing him. Just silence.
To walk into my house after fourteen years and not have him meet meet me with total joy. To sleep, not being occasionally aware of his breathing, licking or sighing, as he slept on the floor beside me or rearranged his beautiful four- legged body for more comfort, those are the silences I am aware of now.

It was a relationship where I realized we were like the pair in “Pretty Woman”….I saved him from the shelter, and he saved me right back forever after.

In the quiet now I realize how often I talked with him, shared my concerns, told him I loved him, where I was going and when I would return. Even when I didn’t keep my word, he never held a grudge, always forgave me, greeted every new day as a true blessing and time to start fresh, as though there was never a bad thing that had ever happened in his life. I believe it is no coincidence that ‘dog’ is God spelled backwards. They really model a good and fruitful life, lived everyday the very best we can, no looking back.

I hope I remember all he taught me with his unconditional and constant love and faith in me. He was a wonderful partner.

I sometimes wonder how my ramblings have any relationship any more to real estate, but I am reminded how many people buy a home to have a fenced in yard for a beloved dog. One of their highest concerns and the first money they spend has to do with providing for one, or finally having room to adopt one. Animals are very much intermingled in our lives. Unfortunately, all the people losing their homes means many more wonderful pets are abandoned in the process of moving backward into apartments. I can only pray that more people will open their homes and hearts to these creatures caught in the crossfire.They certainly will forgive their owners, but how much better if they were rescued before they suffered unduly. We can all help a shelter in some way, as they face unimaginable stress right now.