Stacey-Ann's Blog

This is a mini-rant.  I have buyers who have looked at several homes and are close to making a final decision.  A house came on the market last week that is in their price range and in a neighborhood they like and they want to take a look at it before making a final choice.

I called the listing agent on Saturday and left a message explaining that I wanted to show the home on Sunday afternoon.  I called again on Sunday morning and left the same message.  My call was never returned.

The buyer and I postponed the showing until this evening.  I called the listing agent this morning and left another message.  I then called her office and I was told that she was the only person who scheduled appointments and no-one else had the combo so I should try her on her cell.  I even told the person that I had already left 3 messages and she said "Well I don't know what else to tell you."  I called listing agent again, still no response.

The buyer wasn't feeling well this evening so she said we would try one more day but if we don't get a response then they will put an offer on one of the other homes. 

I don't get it!  Does she not want to sell the listing?  Should I really need to chase an agent to show their listing?

Recently my husband opened a mailing from one of his credit card companies letting him know that his interest rate was being raised from 10% to approximately 30%.  Of course he was furious and instantly called the company.  He was informed that there was nothing that could be done about the change.  The woman even commented that since he didn't carry a balance she didn't know why it mattered to him.  For him, it was the principle.  My husband has had this card for 14 years. He pays his bills on time and does not carry a balance.  However, he uses his card for EVERYTHING so this bank makes good money from his merchant fees.  When he told the customer service agent that he would not accept this interest rate change she informed him that she would record that and that his card would automatically close when it expired.  No attempts were made to work out a compromise.

It's amazing to thing that a company that has received billions of dollars in tax payer bailouts could make these unilateral decisions without care for how it impacts consumers.

Everyday on the news I hear stories of people who have their minimum payments triple over-night.  One couple had their payment go from $300 to $990 another from $90 to $300.  

It is important to ensure that you understand the agreement that you have with your credit card companies.  Too many of us don't read or understand the fine print and then get caught when these changes are implemented.  

Many companies are making these sudden changes now because congress has enacted rules about these practices that take effect early 2010, so the companies are trying to get these done prior to these planned regulations.  Now is the time to be especially vigilant about reading the correspondence we receive from our credit card companies and don't be afraid to fight these changes.  

I agonized over whether to get the Swine flu vaccines for my kids. Eventually I decided to err on the side of caution. My 7 year old daughter was able to get the flu mist vaccine at school.  However, my 4 year old has not had any access to the vaccine.  He cannot receive the mist because he is prone to wheezing and there have been no shots available at the doctor offices.

This morning he woke complaining that his stomach hurt, then his head, and eventually he said that everything hurt.  By the time we got to the doctor he had a fever of 103 and he has pretty much slept the day away.  Now, the dreaded throwing up has started.

The doctor prescribed Tamiflu but the pharmacy told me the earliest I could get it was tomorrow.  They showed no sympathy for the fact that this was a child.  I called around and a different pharmacy said they could fill the prescription within an hour.  I called pharmacy #1 to ask them to fax it over and suddenly they can have it done in an hour too (figures!).  I am hoping that the medicine will help lessen the duration of the illness.

He got very mad when his sister said he had swine flue.  He said "I do not!  I have H1N1."

So, I am sitting here watching my baby like a hawk.  This promises to be a stressful night (weekend?).

I have been working with a buyer who is purchasing a home in Maryland for $69,000.  In Maryland it is pretty rare to see single family homes under $100,000.  This home is a foreclosure that is in move-in condition and only needs a bit of work to be gorgeous.  My buyer plans to fix it up and use it as a rental property.

The transaction has hit quite a few hurdles with the seller not being able to turn the water on for the home inspection and then having errors on the deed.  We were originally supposed to close on October 14.

We finally closed today!  The buyer brought me a wonderful basket of home-made fruit jam and jellies. 

I called her this evening to tell her how much I appreciated the basket.  She said "I know you are not making a lot of money on this deal but you treated me as though I was a million dollar buyer".

She just made my night.  Sometimes this job can be exhausting, but its all worth it when you have a happy client in the end and they are appreciative of the work you put in to get them there.

Hillwood Museum & Gardens is located in NW Washington, DC.  Hillwood Museum is the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Hillwood showcases Mrs Post's stunning collection of art, French & Russian porcelain, Faberge eggs, jewelry, and much more.

Hillwood Museum also features breath-taking gardens including a Japanese water garden, a rose garden, and a putting green.

If you are in the Washington, DC area be sure to add a visit to Hillwood Museum & Gardens to your itinerary.

Check out more photos of Hillwood Museum & Gardens

The DC Sniper, John Muhammad, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Virginia tomorrow.  

I still remember the terror that gripped the area when this rampage was ongoing.  I had returned from my grandfather's funeral in Jamaica on the day the shootings began.  I lived less than 3 miles from one site and frequented many of the other sites targeted that day.  In the weeks that followed I remember feeling like a hostage in my home.  I was on maternity leave with my 3 month old daughter.  My husband didn't want us going for walks, or to the grocery store, not even to the mailbox.  The randomness of the attacks made them all the more terrifying.

I remember my feeling of relief when they were apprehended.  I immediately packed up the baby and headed out the door.  A sense of normalcy was restored to my world.

As the weeks followed I became disturbed as I learned more about the snipers.  John Muhammad appeared to me to be a deeply psychologically disturbed individual and his accomplice, Lee Malvo, was just a child.

Despite those 3 weeks of terror and the many lives they destroyed, I feel no joy in knowing that he is about to be executed.  It's hard for me to feel joy in the loss of any life - regardless of their acts.

I do hope that for the friends and families of the victims this provides some sense of relief and allows them the closure that they need to begin to heal.

I usually steer clear of political discussions but some days I do feel compelled to weigh in.

This morning as I was driving in to work I was listening to an interview with Republican Dick Armey and I began to feel very insulted.  He is opposed to a government run healthcare.  He discussed how ridiculous it was to mandate that health care be offered to people with pre-existing conditions.  His quote was "why should the government force a health plan to cover someone with liver disease because they drink or someone who got diabetes because they eat like a pig?"  I couldn't believe the insinuation that health concerns are always the fault of the individual.  What about the childhood diabetic? What about people like me?  What did I do to deserve my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis?

As one of those people with a pre-existing condition, continuous health care coverage is very important to me.  There was a time where I did not have employer sponsored health care and neither did my husband.  We paid $1700 per month for our family's health care.  When I did finally get employer sponsored care our premiums went down to $550 per month.  However, that new plan was refusing to pay for my routine MRI.  They also refused to allow me to go to the lab that I usually go to and where all my records were.  Instead, I had to go somewhere new where the radiologist's comments indicated that he could not comment on the progression of the MS because he did not have any comparison scans.  Had I been allowed to go to my regular radiologist my 5 previous scans would have been on file for comparison.

I was in a position where I could pay the exorbitant premiums at the time.  There are many families that are not so lucky.  Had I been forced to let my insurance lapse, future health care plans could have refused to cover anything related to my MS.  This has potentially devastating financial consequences.

I find the current health care reform debate very angering.  The debate is focusing on political control and grandstanding and not on the American people who truly NEED a reform of the current system.  I personally get very angry when I hear members of congress discuss not wanting government run healthcare.  All members of congress have access to cheap, excellent, well-run, government health-care.  Why should they be so quick to prevent the rest of us from have access to the same quality of health-care that they enjoy?

In this great country, children should not be dying because they can't afford to go to the dentist and poor people should not be dying on the floor of the hospital because they are uninsured. 

The time for reform is now!

We bought our new front loading washing machine about 2 years ago.  In the past year I have begun to notice a musty odor coming from the machine.  I have a strong sense of smell so I am always smelling things that nobody else is smelling so I ignored it.  Eventually I begun to notice that the towels in the house also had a musty smell.  I thought that maybe they were not fully dry and then when I folded them damp it was creating that smell.  We would run the dryer cycle 2 sometimes 3 times and nothing seemed to make the towels smell fresh.  Now you can smell the musty smell just by walking into the laundry room.

Imagine my horror when I saw on the news yesterday that these front-loaders appear to have a problem with mold.  The woman doing the story was experiencing the same problems we have and she found that there is mold under the rubber around the door of the machine and behind the soap dispenser.

Sure enough, when we checked ours there was mold in all the places she had indicated.  How gross is this!  I am washing the mold INTO my clothes.

The woman indicated that she wipes the machine down after every wash with bleach and then leaves the door open until it is completely dry.  What is the point of a washing machine that requires more cleaning maintenance than the clothes I am trying to wash?

We did all the recommendations and it still smells.

I have been reading more about it today and this is an extremely common problem.  

Other suggestions to remove the smell include:

• Dismantle the entire washer and clean the drum regularly
• Cleaning the machine with special cleaners sold at home improvement stores
• Run the washer empty with bleach
• Use only HE detergents
• Use only powder detergents and no liquid fabric softeners
• Run the washer with boiling water and vinegar

Today is my 35th birthday.  WOW!

Somehow for me 35 just sounds so much older than 30 (my younger husband gently reminded me that it IS older than 30).  I have never been one of those people who feared getting older because my mom always said that we only had two choices - get older or die.  This is definitely the better option for me.

For some reason though, 35 seems so grown up to me.  It feels like I have crossed into a new demographic and a new phase of development.  The things that you value in your twenties are not necessarily as important now.  The value now is on quality time with family and friends.  Now that my career(s) are a bit more established that doesn't stress me out anymore.  Now it's about managing it all (career, kids, marriage) well.

I think the reality of being grown up hit me when the doctor gave me an order for my first mammogram.  YIKES!!!!!

I learned that I share my birthday with Julia Roberts & Bill Gates (just the birthday none of the money).  More interestingly, I share my birthday with the other 2 professors who teach psychology with me.  There are 4 professors in the department, the three women have their birthday today and the one man had his birthday yesterday.  Strange huh!

So I'm off to enjoy my birthday - despite the rain!