Daisy Mae tales in now in business

http://daisymaetales.blogspot.com/

New photos and her little doggie tales...
Check it out.

Here's looking at happiness

They are looking at the pond. My husband is showing them the little technique to keep it running and the fish happy and healthy. They are the new gardeners! We have kept in touch and they love the place! Our former home is their happy home. The garden is in good hands!

For those of you who came across this blog and want to know more on how to help sell your property thru blogging, please scroll down to the beginning. I started this blog in March. The beginning, like in any story is the best place to start. I learned a great deal about blogging, my garden and my life thru this process. It's not easy. It is not for everyone. You need a great camera. I have a Sony Digital Camera Mavica, 5.0 mega pixels. The camera is great on close-ups. You also need copy and copy comes from your heart. How do you feel about your place. Can and do you want to share that?

Take this simple test. Go find your egg timer. Set it for three minutes. Start talking about your house, in an honest, inviting way. Do you find what you are saying interesting? Can you talk for three minutes on this subject? Write a paragraph about your porch, your garden, the stove....whatever. Does it sound like prose or does it sound like an MLS listing? Do you really want to do this?

Real estate blogging is the opposite of real estate staging. We had a stager come in. She was good. She helped me make our bathrooms look bigger and I took about 80% of her advice and employed it in the staging of the house. I also spent around $400 total in the updating the look of the house.

Back to my point, blogging is the opposite of staging. Staging takes your personal relationship to the house out of the buyer's mind. It lightens, opens and simplifies the space, so they can see themselves in it; their stuff, their style.
Blogging shares your passion. Hopefully, it is so contagious that the first lookers are hooked.
They want the place to go on...to create their mark......to enjoy all your hard work.....

Begin reading this blog at the beginning. Yes, it's over 150 entries. I will be closing this blog down and moving on to my other two. My Daisy Mae has developed a following and will have her own blog. Red Oak Hollow will be my next gardening and country living blog. I plan to work on it later today, during the heat of the day. It might be near 100 today. I want to get some bulbs planted. I need to work before the heat hits.

Yellow Rose left an imprint on my soul

I miss the roses the most. Absolutely! As I walk our rural roads, I admire gardens from afar. I have said hello to a few folks and ask to see their gardens, at another time. My walks are my much needed exercise. As of yet, I have not spotted a rose garden. It is the deer? Is it the rain?
Is it a different feel for the earth?
I have no roses here. I plan to..... Next spring!

My Blog Got Press! Today's L.A. Times

http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-re-blogs24jul24,0,5278830.story?coll=la-class-realestate-news

On bloggers' turf
Real estate enthusiasts and buyers are turning to Web logs, eager to gain an edge. By Jeff BertolucciSpecial to The TimesJuly 24, 2005

When Mesha Provo and her husband decided last March to sell their 1,350-square-foot home in El Sobrante, a Bay Area suburb, she saw green in her garden. A self-styled "fanatical gardener," she recognized the potential draw of her labors — and she hoped to find a buyer who would appreciate her garden's beauty. So in addition to hiring an agent to list the property, Provo started an Internet Web log — blog for short — and told her real estate agent to include the Web address on her home's Multiple Listing Service information. Each day, she wrote about and posted photos of her daisies, jasmine and roses to entice prospects. "I had this idea that I would first tease them with pictures of the garden," said Provo, 52, who is the national sales manager for Ballentine Vineyards in Napa Valley. Later, she added shots of the home's interior and exterior. Her clever marketing appeared to work. The house sold for $612,000 — $43,000 more than the original asking price — to another gardener who read her blog. Provo's story may be unusual, but it shows that Internet blogs have the potential to be effective consumer tools for home buyers and sellers. They also appeal to real estate junkies who watch and follow market trends. A blog such as Provo's (gardenforsalehomeincluded.blogspot.com) is an online journal, a chronicle of personal opinions, reader comments and Web links to related topics. It's one person's take on life or on a particular topic — uncensored, edgy and updated frequently.

Some readers base their buying decisions on the information they read on real estate blogs. Brandon Farley, 36, of San Diego, is a devotee of the Housing Bubble 2 at thehousingbubble2.blogspot.com. "There's a lot of information out there — journalism and advertising — that's very pro about buying homes and investing," said Farley, a transportation planner who's waiting for prices to drop before buying. "I don't think there's been a lot — until maybe this blog — to provide a counterargument."
The Housing Bubble 2, a popular blog, is a labor of love maintained by 41-year-old Ben Jones, a writer and investor based in Sedona, Ariz. Jones, who's never worked in the real estate industry, posts commentary and links to real estate articles several times a day. Daily readership is in the "thousands," Jones estimates, and he's gotten as many as 20,000 hits (site visits) per day. It's not uncommon to find 200 or more daily comments from readers seeking a slant they believe isn't offered by their local news media. Why does he do it?"It's a chronicle of who's saying what and when," said Jones, who started the blog last December. He believes the U.S. is in the midst of a housing price "mania," and he personally blames the Federal Reserve, which "left interest rates too low for too long."

Indeed, distrust of the mainstream media runs deep with bloggers. Mickey Cheng, 42, a computer programmer in Thousand Oaks and a regular reader of the Housing Bubble 2, maintains his own site at housebubble.com. "Newspapers are so heavily influenced by the real estate industry that they don't give you the correct view of the situation," he said. Cheng, a renter, is waiting for home prices to fall back to Earth before buying again. In February, Cheng sold his 1,400-square-foot home for $560,000; he bought the house in 1993 for $215,000. He currently leases a two-story home with a three-car garage for $2,400 a month. "The rent is a great deal," said Cheng, who estimates that buying a comparable home in his neighborhood would cost $4,500 a month with a 30-year mortgage. "Renting is half the cost of buying."

Ironically, many real estate blogs post links to housing-bubble stories written by mainstream newspapers and magazines. Cheng, for instance, posts a daily list of bubble-related story links on his site. Recent links directed readers to pessimistic stories on home prices from the New York Times and the Sacramento Bee. Bloggers often find that, like any new hobby, it is fun for a while. But it can quickly turn into a grind. Only the most dedicated — Jones, for instance — update their sites daily. "Once I got into it, I made a decision to post something every Monday through Friday, at least one kind of article," said Tim Iacone, an Oxnard-based software engineer who runs the Mess That Greenspan Made (themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com). Though his blog isn't as popular as Housing Bubble 2, Iacone isn't preaching to an empty hall. He estimates the site gets about 700 hits a day.

Real estate agents have taken up blogging too. From a home buyer's or seller's perspective, these sites can provide insights into an agent's personality, interests and ethics — important considerations when choosing someone to market your home. Jon Strum, an agent with Boardwalk Realty in Marina del Rey, sees his blog, LA real estate (larealestate.typepad.com) as a "mix of commentary, some entertaining real estate stories and good information that people may not be thinking about." Strum, who started blogging in May, hopes his blog will attract clients, although it hasn't yet.

Many bloggers agree that a good site should entertain as well as inform, a fact not lost on Hanan Levin, a real estate agent and co-owner of the Champion Co. in Riverside. Levin opines on the housing market on his blog (growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain), but his readers prefer the daily links to offbeat, quirky sites. He said he gets a lot of e-mail from people who say they spend two hours at work every day reading his blog. Levin, who specializes in commercial properties, isn't convinced that blogs are worthwhile consumer tools — at least not yet. "Even though I have a lot of unusual information about real estate," he said, "I doubt it's really useful to my clients." Like talk radio shows, real estate blogs may simply be giving readers what they want to hear. "It's a case of confirmation bias," said San Diego real estate attorney Christian Spring, 30, a daily reader of the Housing Bubble 2. "Readers are looking for support for their beliefs," he said, and they get that support from a blog.*

How to set up your own blogBlogs are easy and inexpensive to create, and numerous blog sites host pages on just about any topic.
These sites include LiveJournal, http://www.livejournal.com/ ; TypePad, http://www.typepad.com/ ; and Google's Blogger, http://www.blogger.com/ . LiveJournal charges $5 for two months of blogging, TypePad charges $4.95 a month, and Blogger is free.
Jeff Bertolucci can be reached at jbert@aol.com.

L.A. Times Real Estate Section soon.....

Garden for sale home included.blogspot.com may make next Sunday's Los Angeles Times Real Estate Section. I was interviewed by phone by Jeff Bertolucci for an article on real estate blogs.
He found this blog from Grow-a-Brain, which mentioned it on their website.

www.latimes.com

It may be published this Sunday, July 24th or the last Sunday of the month July 31st.
I am sure it will be fun to check out. My blog worked wonders in finding the right buyer and many of you who found this blog would like to pursue the same thing.
Hopefully, the times article will be packed with ideas.

I feel flattered that my ramblings and photo's have gained a little noticed in the legit press.
I need to get my next two blogs started:
http://redoakhollow.blogspot.com
Gardening from the ground up and adjusting to country living in the South.

http://daisymaetales.blogspot.com
Stories and photo's from the mind and voice of Miss Daisy May, Tennessee Terrier.

Sewanee Writers' Conference

I am not just living in the sticks.

I have found a place , that is both rural and cultural. I live near academia. The University of the South is at sleeve's length away. I have spent two evenings this past week and plan to do the same this evening, attending the readings of professional writers at the Sewanee Writer's Conference. Just 10 minutes from my porch, I can sit in a hall and enjoy the works of some fairly famous writers, reading from their own.

Tuesday, I heard from John Casey, Wednesday from Margot Livesey and Alice McDermott.
Tonight is is fiction from Randall Kenan. It's free. It's local. It's cultural and I am not sitting in front of the TV.

Best of all, I am not a writer. I have absolutely no ego involved in attending the lectures and readings of this conference. I am an absolute observer. I arrive early and easedrop. It's pretty easy to do, because the talk becomes open and loud as it fills the room. It quiets down as the speaker is introduced and ends with a lengthy applause when they are done. I've just been enriched and it was for free.

I get in my car drive and drive home, remembering some of the turn of phrases and the deeper meaning of it all.

It rains here

It might sound odd that I would notice the rain, but I just came out of living in the desert called California. It never rains in the summer in California. It did this year this past June and the state goes into a tizzy.

It rains here. We are getting the leftover's of Dennis. It's nice rain. Warm summer rain. Muddle puddles. Mud puddles everywhere.

The electric went out as I sat working in our garage. I am trying to set up my office. This building, the garage with two offices, stands but it is not finished.
Do contactors actually finish their work? There is a roof, doors and walls. No drywall. I thought I would have my walls painted by now and my furniture rearranged a few times. But no problem, because there is no furniture. I made phone calls by candlelight, this morning till the lights came back on.

Our stuff is still in transit. I call and speak so sweetly to Josh, the moving van driver. He promise to be here on Saturday. I know the reckless delay is not his fault, but he is the only one I can speak to. The owner of this company won't take my calls. He is out making more money, misleading more people. I chose this company because the owner did the estimate and said he was always available during our move. Now, he won't take my calls, passes me on to his bulldog wife, who demands more money and passes me on to the scheduler who continues to lie and has few answers....
Once we receive our goods and overpay their increased ransom payment, I am going to gleefully write the Better Business Bureau, Michael Finny on your side, (local TV consumer reporter), the Home and Garden Network Garden Message Board, the CUP and anything and everything else I can think of to report my consumer dissatisfaction for this dishonest moving company. I am so ready to rant.....

Calmly, I listen to the rain and like it. The hills are green, the ponds are full and there are the most interesting mushroom growing everywhere.

Fragrant Memory

I miss my roses. This is Fragrant Memory, a hybrid tea rose. As Pink as pink can be. It was the only rose that I was able to grow from a clipping. I have tried many times, and just once it worked. I remembered I used root tone. There are two of these bushed in his garden, one in a wine barrel and the other against the fence in a raised bed.

Yes, the dirt did come. Around 5 yards, it's quite the pile. We tarped it because we are getting hit with the rains from Dennis. It is suppose to rain all week.

The best garden buy ever, was at our swap meet; 10 cent seeds, from 2005 season.
We bought 114 packets, of sunflowers, vegetables, herbs and annuals. A shoe box full of seeds. I am in my glory. I sorted them last night. Some I will be able to plant this month and next, some in September and the rest next spring. My mind is whirling on when and where.

I did plant some seeds last summer here at Red Oak Hollow and a few are coming back, a few cosmos and red amaranth. The bush hogging eats wildflower. I need to establish flower beds. I hope to start working on it this coming week end.

The good news is that the moving van left California on Sunday. I may see our stuff on Thursday. I miss all the stuff, the recharge cord to my camera, my work control book, the large bird cage. All the stuff I thought I could easily live 10 days without. I was right, but it's now pushing 20 days and I wait for it to appear.

The neighborhood

Our closest neighbor is some ways away. The walk does me good.

I am trying to start new habits. You never break old habits. You just replace them and the old habits vanish. I am starting distance walking and hopefully late night munching will disappear. If I keep farmer's hours, early to bed and early to rise, I won't have the time for late night snacks.

I have walked before, very successfully. That was 40 lbs ago. It does work and I have a perfect place to walk. Just beyond the few houses here, is the State Forest. I walked to the forest,today . I walked to Lake road to the little lake and thru the woods and it tracked back to the road. Daisy Mae loves it and then she sleeps the rest of the day. I am just clocking time now, later I will do distance. Yesterday was 55 minutes, today was 70 minutes. Getting a little lost can really eat up the time. I walk without music. I am still marking my surroundings, with sight and sound.

Just 5 years ago, I walked the Alaska Mid - Night Sun Marathon. It was my only marathon. One is enough.

Miss Daisy Mae comes in 2nd for smallest dog

Daisy Mae wins 2nd Place

Sewanee conducts a Mutt Show as part of their Fourth of July celebration.
Daisy Mae was entered in two competitions; Best Dressed and Smallest dog.

She wore a cute pink and white gigham dress with a pink visor, perfect for a summer day.
The crowd loved her and she made a great first impression. When we changed outfits for the parade viewing later that afternoon, (to an equally darling pink and green polka dot shirt), people mentioned her cute dress from the dog show.

She didn't place for best dress; there were some creative outfits more befitting of the red ,white and blue. The smallest dog competition should have been a wrap. Three puppies place fourth ,third and first.

Daisy Mae was the only adult dog in the winner's circle. Next year, the puppies will be dogs and Daisy Mae will be the same size. She did received a nice trophy for her efforts at being small.

Flowers to go....

How does a garden travel?

My California garden was not packed and shipped. The best I did was collect seeds and packaged them in simple white envelopes. Our belongings still haven't left California. They may get shipped next week. I am beside myself, because I picked the lousy moving company.

I won't lament. There is nothing I can do, till I receive our goods.

I do want to plant a few seeds. Now, it looks like I will have to wait till September. The August heat will not be good for seedlings, if I was so lucky to get seedlings.

Of course, I had to buy a few plants. At the swap meet, I purchased two yellow Butterfly bushes, "Honeycomb" Buddelia davidil. I haven't seen yellow ones before. They can grow to 6 feet. I transferred them to one gallon pots. We ordered 5 yards of dirt, that may be delivered on Saturday. I have already changed my expectations of things, should does not always work, may seems more promising.

I will be neck high in dirt, depending on where and how we make the dirt pile. The dirt will keep me happy till my seeds arrive.

Purple in bloom at our new home

It's been nine days since we arrived. I haven't done anything or so it seems.
It's been great. It's been years since I haven't done anything. I highly recommended it.
I have walked the property, taken walks down the road, been to town, been to two Wal-Marts, been to the Piggly Wiggly, stopped by the Saturday's Farmer's market and went to Sunday dinner at our new friend's brother house. I am RELAXED.

It's like camping, but now it's my life. I go back to work on Tuesday. We are still waiting for our belongings to arrive. They may leave Califoninia on Tuesday. On the 14th day, they may make the moving van. For 14 days, our stuff in moving limbo. After we recieve our stuff, with an added $800 surcharge, I will share this company's name with a big do not trust sign. But more of that later, I still believe our stuff will arrive. I still believe....