Grateful and Greatly Full

As I sit here stuffed from our Thanksgiving dinner, there are so many things I am grateful for this year. I am grateful for my wonderful clients in real estate and dressage training that I have had the opportunity to serve. I am grateful for the health and love of my family. I am grateful for the opportunity to help with the wonderful children that the Medical Advocacy team helps. I am grateful for my wonderful horses and puppies. I am grateful for the strong friendships that I have maintained over the years.

One of my good friends is on my mind today. She has been close to me and I have depended on her for the last 15 years or so. We are very different in many ways, but so very much the same in many others. She took over ownership of my old FEI horse when he was 14. I had owned him for 9 years and often commented that if it came down to choosing between my husband and my beloved horse, the husband would have to go! I had grown to a point in my riding and training that I felt this horse had been pushed as far as he was able to go. My dear friend had suffered two severe accidents with her current horse and needed my equine friend to take her riding up to the next level. My friend owned him for the last 9 years of his life. She rode him to the FEI levels and we both learned so much from him. He was not the prettiest horse, or the most talented. He had a huge heart and an unmatched work ethic. He was truly a case where the total package far, far exceeded the sum of his parts. This dear horse passed on this year. He was buried on the hillside that he loved. I am so grateful to have a friend that took such wonderful care of my old partner to the end. I am so grateful that I had a chance to ride such a wonderful animal.

Road Trip....

A few months ago my little sis (mother of 13, foster mom of 1 and cofounder of the Medical Advocacy Team) asked if I would escort her current foster baby (codename Stinky Minky) to Yakima for her final surgery. I thought, wow, an all expense paid trip to YAKIMA! and said sure. Now the time has arrived and I will be spending the remainder of the week at the hospital in Yakima with a very unhappy 10 month old baby. I will most definitely be stir crazy. I am NOT used to sitting still or being in one place all day. 4 days in Yakima, in one tiny room will be CRAZY. Wish me luck. And keep Minky in your thoughts.

And then My Vote Was not Counted

So much for feeling passionate about the election and voting. I dutifully filled out my ballot weeks ago and sent it off to be counted. I sat watching the election coverage all day and tore myself away only to walk out to get today's mail. Guess What? Their was an official letter stating that my ballot is being challenged due to a questionable signature. SAY WHAT? Now my vote will be counted, with more verification, long after the race is called. What a let down!!!!!

Seattle Market Tops List of Rebounds!

By Dorothy Pomerantz, Forbes.com
Nov 3rd, 2008
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If you're a homeowner seeing property values plummet, look to the commercial real estate market for solace. It might tell you which areas will recover fastest--and which will likely remain weak.
The Urban Land Institute recently asked 700 real estate professionals to name the best (and worst) places to invest in commercial real estate in the coming year. Those surveyed included private developers, Realtors and Real Estate Investment Trust executives. Their answers also apply to the residential market, since the single-family-home sector typically follows the economy. As wages go up and there are more jobs, more people can buy homes, pushing prices up.
The best cities in which to invest are those that are considered gateways to international investment, have vital downtowns where people can forgo cars, and don't have a glut of condos or office space.
In Depth: Best and Worst Places for Real Estate Investors
These traits landed Seattle the No. 1 spot on the list. No city scored above a 6.15 on a scale of one to nine (one being an abysmal place to invest and nine being excellent).
Seattle is "a diversified market, has a good base of business and is becoming a 24-hour city," says Stephen Blank, senior resident fellow, finance, of the Urban Land Institute. "It's going to be in a good position to come back."
Although the city is suffering from the loss of Washington Mutual and the downsizing of Starbucks, Boeing and Microsoft are still relatively strong. Apartment vacancies are low and there aren't too many new buildings going up, meaning the market won't be oversupplied. The same is true in the retail space.
San Francisco comes in second with a 6.12. The City by the Bay learned from the tech crash of 2001 not to overbuild. There is a reasonable supply of office and apartment space, which should limit vacancies. San Francisco's port is also expected to help the city during the downturn as Americans continue to rely on Asian imports.
Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles round out the top five.
Of course, there's no guarantee that an improved commercial market will lead to an improved home market. However, investors have a better chance of seeing home prices rise in fundamentally strong markets like Seattle than in struggling cities like Detroit.
It landed at the bottom of the list, scoring a 2.24. Detroit has been reliant on the car industry, which is rapidly shrinking. Other businesses are unlikely to fill the void in the next few years, which means the city will be hit hard by further economic struggles.
New Orleans also lands near the bottom with a score of 3.33. The city has been losing businesses to Houston, Dallas and Atlanta since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
The other cities at the bottom of the list-- Columbus, Ohio, Milwaukee, Wis., and Cleveland--suffer from dying industries and lack of tourist appeal.
Recent attempts to turn downtown Milwaukee into a thriving 24-hour city haven't been enough to protect it from the coming downturn. Increasingly picky investors are expected to favor higher-quality port cities over Midwest towns.
And while Columbus has the potential to become a major shipping hub for goods traveling cross-country, that revitalization may have to wait for a stronger economy and a government focused on improving the nation's roads.
For now, prospects are dim.
In Depth: Best and Worst Places for Real Estate Investors

Funny and True......

So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, "Throw the bums out!" They've been running Washington like a well-oiled machine to the point of inviting lobbyists into the back rooms to write the legislation, and now they are anti-establishment reformers dedicated to delivering us from themselves. And Mayor Giuliani is an advocate for small-town America. Bravo.They are coming out for Small Efficient Government the very week that the feds are taking over Fannie and Freddie, those old cash cows, and in the course of a weekend 20 or 50 (or pick a number) billion go floating out the Treasury door. Hello? Do you see us out here? We are not fruit flies, we are voters, we can read and write, we didn't just fall off the coal truck.It is a bold move on the Republicans' part -- forget about the past, it's only history, so write a new narrative and be who you want to be -- and if they succeed, I think I might declare myself a 24-year-old virgin named Lance and see what that might lead to. Paste a new face on my Facebook page, maybe become the Dauphin Louie the Thirty-Second, the rightful heir to the Throne of France, put on silk tights and pantaloons and a plumed hat and go on the sawdust circuit and sell souvenir hankies imprinted with the royal fleur-de-lis. They will cure neuralgia and gout and restore marital vigor.Mr. McCain has decided to run as a former POW and a maverick, a maverick's maverick, rather than Mr. Bush's best friend, and that's understandable, but how can he not address the $3 trillion that got burned up in Iraq so far? It's real money, it could've paid for a lot of windmills, a high-speed rail line in Ohio, some serious R&D. The Chinese, who have avoided foreign wars for 50 years, are taking enormous leaps forward, investing in their economy, and we are falling behind. We're wasting our chances. The Republican culture of corruption in Washington hasn't helped.And a former mayor of a town of 7,000 who hired a lobbyist to get $26 million in federal earmarks is now running against the old-boy network in Washington who gave her that money to build the teen rec center and other good things so she could keep taxes low in Wasilla. Stunning. And if you question her qualifications to be the leader of the free world, you are an elitist. This is a beautiful maneuver. I wish I had thought of it back in school when I was forced to subject myself to a final exam in higher algebra. I could have told Miss Mortenson, "I am a Christian and when you gave me a D, you only showed your contempt for the Lord and for the godly hardworking people from whom I have sprung, you elitist battle ax you."In school, you couldn't get away with that garbage because the taxpayers know that if we don't uphold scholastic standards, we will wind up driving on badly designed bridges and go in for a tonsillectomy and come out missing our left lung, so we flunk the losers lest they gain power and hurt us, but in politics we bring forth phonies and love them to death.I must say, it was fun having the Republicans in St. Paul and to see it all up close and firsthand. Security was, as one might expect, thin-lipped and gimlet-eyed, but once you got through it, you found the folks you went to high school with -- farm kids, jocks, the townies who ran the student council, the cheerleaders, some of the bullies -- and they are as cohesive now as they were back then, dedicated to school spirit, intolerant of outsiders, able to jump up and down and holler for something they don't actually believe. But oh Lord, what they brought forth this year. When you check the actuarial tables on a 72-year-old guy who's had three bouts with cancer, you guess you may be looking at the first woman president, a hustling Evangelical with ethics issues and a chip on her shoulder who, not counting Canada, has set foot outside the country once -- a trip to Germany, Iraq and Kuwait in 2007 to visit Alaskans in the armed service. And who listed a refueling stop in Ireland as a fourth country visited. She's like the Current Occupant but with big hair. If you want inexperience, there were better choices.(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)© 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Please VOTE!

This election is stacking up to be one of the most important elections of my lifetime and yours. Our economy is in recession. Our children are being denied the same quality of education that we recieved. For one of the first times in the history of our country, we are less well off than our parents, and our children may be less well off than we are..... Please check out this website www.ourhaitianjourney.blogspot.com for a wonderful post that outlines some critical issues in the election that are close to my heart.

I have a wide range of friends from across this country. There is so much fear out there regarding accepting that it is time for a change. I want everyone in our country to use their voice and vote. Educate yourself on all of the issues. Don't give in to fear. Vote your heart, but regardless of how you vote please, vote. Hopefully the votes will actually be counted this time!