Parents of the HS Class of 2009 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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<p>Having a party tonight, so just breezing in to say hi, and to wonder – eternally – at the loss of RSVPs, even within an age group that should know better. Luckily it is more in the nature of an open house, and there’s never a shortage of food. </p>

<p>I decided to leave most of the Christmas decorations up until tomorrow or Sunday. Tree recycling pickup is Tuesday, so that’s the limit unless I want to wait two weeks. </p>

<p>Told D she --really-- needs to look at selling the furniture she has at school to someone who’ll be there next year; hopefully someone who’ll be living in her apartment. I just can’t see moving IKEA stuff from there to here and then to wherever she lands. </p>

<p>The lenses D managed to finally order at the optometrist December 30th came in and are being cut today. She flies out at 1 tomorrow, works until 5 today, and is due home for our party at 6 since some friends of hers are coming. Cutting it close to the edge? I’d go nuts. </p>

<p>Bad me: I set out the cookies (from the package) and ate a handful of the ones I really like. Hah. Next week I’ll repent.</p>

<p>Bad me #2: Went to the grocery store to pick up something I’d forgotten for the party, got into line, got checked out and found that I’d left my wallet in the car. Checker voided the sale when the next guy showed up in his line. I came back in only to find that THAT guy had left his wallet in his car. The checker then said that this made the 3rd person in a row at his checkstand this morning who’d forgotten to bring their wallet into the store and for whom he had to void orders. I don’t think he should invest in a lottery ticket today. Me either.</p>

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<p>Well I’m game if a secret FB society can be secret. Agreed that the ShawKids, who never look and think it is pretty funny, might be surprised at what gets expressed here. But, they have positive results – ShawD wouldn’t be where she is in school without DTE – and our daughters have now met. And, they know I’ve gotten great advice from folks on this site.</p>

<p>ShawSon has only 2 more schools left to apply to as part of his Plan B, but the startup is looking good. They have a meeting today with an internet startup CEO who sold is company for $300 MM and then joined or started a significant VC firm and now mentors companies to, in a sense, apply to have him as a mentor. A very serious player. They would have to move to San Francisco/Silicon Valley in May if he accepts.</p>

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<p>arabrab – we’re having a couple of dozen folks over on Sunday evening; remarkable number of RSVPs; only waiting on 5 invited folks to chime in. Not bad – considering they are all 20 or 30 somethings!</p>

<p>We took the Christmas things down; hated to see them go, but there is no good time to do it. We always leave all our window candles up to Epiphany, however (January 6). </p>

<p>Cookies are deadly. But my daughter informs me that when you bite them in half the calories fall out …</p>

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<p>Okay, time to leave work and … I guess… start taking down the decorations. Younger D advised me that H has been working on it this afternoon. Friday night is normally my night to collapse in front of Say Yes to the Dress.</p>

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<p>so many posts to catch up on. many situations resolved on these pages already. Glad the heat is back Shaw.
I for one would love a secret FB group as I have something to vent after a family get together, that I cant vent here. namely a job suggestion by my older brother for D1 . Oh yes just got back form Florida, went to see arry Potter. D’s were in heaven. D1 went on every roller coaster mostly by herself although I did join her on a couple.</p>

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<p>So much to catch up on!
Shaw–liked your #29196 post.
D tells me to stay off facebook as it would make me too anxious. Offered access to hers as many I would be interested in are connected to her. That said I would be interested in a secret one.
DT–I too wonder what,esp. S, would think about some of the things I have said here.
Volunteered today at the hospice center and 7 of the 9 were 55-62.
Going to see Lincoln tomorrow and finally watching Downton Abbey through Amazon Prime.</p>

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<p>Good morning!
I am personally using epiphany as my excuse to avoid taking dow the decorations :wink: gotta drive mcson and gf back to school today anyway, so no time.</p>

<p>CQ, link rot is a problem for those wanting portfolio material. Can your d possibly find the archived links now and take screen shots? Maybe using Waybackmachine? Also, if she uses Evernote, I suspect she can get the content together without the link remaining live.</p>

<p>PRJ, the green squares are a beta test by cc to both encourage engagement and to tip off newbies about a poster’s alleged experience. Personally, I think it’s ill-considered. For example, lots of folks with numerous green squares can be consistently wrong or misinformed about things a young poster needs to know. The only real way to sort the poppy seeds from the dirt is to READ all the posts and arrive at a basis for further research, considering the contradictions, experience and possible world views of the posters. The
green squares just pander to the 30-second, sloppy , sensational approach to information gathering by an algorithmic approach to qualify content/source and is kind of the last thing on the planet we need to be feeding to our supposed critical thinkers :wink: Humans write algorithms and they’re fallible :wink: As a society, we presently seem to forget this! </p>

<p>The folks who are thwarting the green squares are probably so-doing as a pushback, because many cc’ers are clever bears who vastly resent oversimplification and vacant artifice. I am hopeful cc will figure this out and abandon the pilot. Truth is a self-righting principal often arrived at through open discussion, not the accumulation of squares. The value of cc is the discussion-as-a-whole, not individual contribution. Rewarding individual contribution is to my mind contrary to the spirit of the process and ndermines the collective value.</p>

<p>At any rate, that’s my version of what’s up with the green squares ;)</p>

<p>Moda, you are correct that real estate stats are based on last adjusted price so not entirely meaningful…what it means when you have a high percentage of ask can include the possibility that the agent is good at talking a person down o market value :wink: So also ask how many days on market (average) for listings in your price range, and above all, talk to people who’ve used them.</p>

<p>About te virtual tour comment – not quite that cut and dried. VTs don’t really represent a house as aesthetically well, however, as super pro photos do, but there should be no mystery about what’s in your house. That’s because online today is the equivalent of a first showing in many cases. In your range, you’d also likely appeal to folks relocating to the area.
So when you’re choosing an agent, take a look at the photos and quality thereof of their existing listings, etc. See if you like their personal websites – you’d be surprised how many ar unprofessional and don’t rank well in search engines. Google “real estate in xxxcity” and see which ones that look professionally appealing come up in the first couple of pages – that will give you a clue about the kind of volume they do in part, or how much care they take in digital marketing. Go to active rain and see if they blog much and if the content resonates with you.</p>

<p>If youre having a tough time deciding or clicking with one, let me know. One of my clients is a top agent in our city (actually, in our state). I am meeting with her next Friday about a new brokerage. If you’d like to pm me your city and rough range, I could see if she has a couple of names of people she knows who are good producers in that category. She has had national involvement with her firm, so there’s a chance she may actually know someone.</p>

<p>At any rate, those are just a few things to look at, in addition to your gut ad referrals ;)</p>

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<p>Good morning, everyone. Need to take down the last of my decorations (window wreaths) before heading in to work. Not thrilled about the latter but its quarter end close and not unexpected.</p>

<p>Agree about the green squares,kmc. I find no correlation between number of squares and quality of posts. Hoping they discontinue it.</p>

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<p>KMC, I love your post. I might have to give you green squares because of it. :smiley: </p>

<p>Tomorrow is declutter the house day here. We don’t have a lot of decor up this year but it still needs to be put away. </p>

<p>I know you all will remember Lambchop and Mr. Bill. Target has dog toys shaped liked these characters, so of course I had to buy them. Spent last night watching Say Yes to the Dress and listening to repeated shrieks of “ohnoooooooo”. Couldn’t tell at times if it was H, who watched the show with us, or sabadog and the toy. I think it was H when they were bringing out the $24k wedding dresses.</p>

<p>DTE, we need a report on your trip! The good part of your trip!</p>

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<p>Missypie, are you the one creating the Facebook group? I am so excited to meet many more of “us”. Can’t wait to discuss our get-together. Something for me to plan for and think about during these long, dark winter months.</p>

<p>Moda, our eye surgeries are 5 days apart. Let’s git-er-done, girl!</p>

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<p>The TV in our house is used exclusively for sports while S2 is home. Even our Friday night appetizer/cocktail hour became a boring (to me) sports discussion between S2 and H. There is another huge game on tonight. Yawn.</p>

<p>The concept of limiting on-line information to encourage more in-person visits has been hotly debated in the retirment industry, with communities advised not to reveal pricing on the Internet on the grounds that it would be too complicated (i.e. people rejecting on price) without a sales person explaining it. I personally avoid in-person interactions until I have thoroughly vetted everything over the Internet, so this strategy would lead me to avoid seeing any property with information “holes.” However, if my behavior is guided by introvert-extrovert tendancies, perhaps others react differently. I seem to remember reading that there are more extroverts in the world.</p>

<p>In picking a realtor, I would probably interview the top three to five sellers in our neighborhood and pick the one where our personalities best meshed. For me, that means they would be willing to share with me their data and rationale behind their pricing strategy and those strategies would have to be data-driven, rather than based on their gut or experience.</p>

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<p>kmc, I appreciate hearing your realtor search suggestions. We found our last realtor the way TA describes above, but it’s obviously been awhile, since online searches weren’t even a consideration only some ten plus odd years ago when we last needed an agent. I have often thought about downsizing once our youngest is out of the nest, even though all of the kiddos protest loudly at the slightest hint that we might do so!</p>

<p>We had a happy discovery, last night, when we took S1 out for dinner at our favorite tiny sushi restaurant. The place was packed, so we moved on to a larger restaurant a few miles away. It had wonderful food! Udon, a variety of rolls, gyoza; all so delicious! This was S1’s requested dinner for one of his last nights home before he travels for his interview and then back to school for the final semester. </p>

<p>Up early this AM for a walk with H, to push S2 out the door for karate, and in time to strip the house exterior of Christmas lights. Only 11 more months until we dig them back out, and likely curse at the knots they seem to knit, all by themselves, while sitting in a box all through the year!</p>

<p>TA, I wish I could say that S1 thought of a safety grad school and backup plan all on his own. He definitely had parental urging (pushing?!) Before D graduated last year, we thought for sure that she’d go straight to grad school. But no, she had a true hissy fit about that, claiming that she would get a job. The pickings were slim, but she did get what she wanted–an excellent employer in her field, opportunity to continue on in fantastic grad school…But what if she hadn’t had the job offer? She even refused to take the GRE, insisting that she wanted to work–an intentional sabotage, of a sort. I, frankly, don’t get it. I too would have wanted a grad school backup plan. We didn’t push, and everything has worked out well enough, but what if???</p>

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<p>I actually put a post on FB asking friends in town for recommendations. Oddly, the realtor that listed and sold the house behind us (who came through when we were packing up D to go to school AND had strongly suggested we update our master bath) has not returned my call. Yikes. But then, a realtor we met at an open house in our target area (of where I’d like to relocate if in town), is out of town and another recommended to me is out as well. </p>

<p>I have asked about days to sale and anything less than 50 seems most promising. At this point however I am asking the basic questions and we’ll see better when they give their presentations. I am very clear to also tell them I am having several people came through and I obviously want the best price in the shortest amount of time, and a punch list of things remaining to do and what NOT doing it might do to our bottom line (and since i am completely over the DIY for the most part, hoping they have the rolodex to have what we agree to have done at a reasonable price thru their coordination. Honestly, I don’t care when they come and truth is, where else do I have to go when I’ll be in prize fighter mode? And I need a cleaning service that will clean this place with a toothbrush. :slight_smile: The good news is there is not a whole lot on the market in the area. In fact, there is a big glut and better still, many of those in our price in the area have a lot of oak. And here’s a little factoid… those buying at this bracket decidedly hate oak as it reminds them of their parent’s houses. I have no oak whatsoever, except for the floor which I had stained darker when we refinished them last spring. Who knows… the comps aren’t awesome.</p>

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<p>We sold MIL’s house this past fall. I believe that one of the reasons the house sold quickly was that there was NO clutter and closets were emptied. (Easy to do when you aren’t living in the house, but pre-moving out a LOT of stuff – even if it is to a storage unit) makes a huge difference. The house next to hers sat on the market for 18 months stuffed to the gills with fifty years of belongings (including broken TV’s and ancient computers) that made all the rooms seem crowded and small.</p>

<p>The other comment from looking at a lot of on-the-market houses in her area before we listed hers: Get rid of any drapes that are fussy if you possibly can, and your cute collection of butterfly/fairy/Star Trek plates on the family room wall. Our agent said to take down the drapes on all the sliding glass doors leading to the patio – it gave the rooms a whole different and better feel.</p>

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<p>kmc…you are exactly right regarding push back on the green square situation! I am trying to be a nice subversive person. :wink: Kind of like civil disobedience to pervert the original intent. The squares are just silliness in my opinion.</p>

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<p>I keep trying to give you greenies, NM, but they won’t let me! I wanted to encourage you on the health/wellness thread. Have you maxed out?</p>

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<p>Definitely not maxed out. What kind of message do you get? You can only give so many a day and then you can’t keep giving to the same person until you share the love with others. I keep giving here…gave missy a shiny green and got shaw to 3 squares! I like being naughty. :wink: And now I am going back to being undercover. :)</p>

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<p>I must “spread the reputation around”…but I have been. That’s what I don’t get. Oh well. Silliness abounds.</p>

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<p>I enjoy reading through posts from other parents. We took our son back to school for his last semester and returned home to begin putting Christmas decorations away. I am enjoying reading through what others are doing. And I’m eager to hear what other kids are doing to prepare for life after graduation. </p>

<p>I haven’t posted in a long time, but thought it was time. So many new year plans – eat healthier, exercise more, and attempt to organize the household routines. Sort of have to tackle these because I have a physical coming up in June and our dear cleaning lady retired! </p>

<p>So, I’ve come out of lurking to say hello to all of you! I hope to chime in now and then.</p>

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<p>Welcome Mycroft! We are glad to hear from you! :)</p>

<p>Getting ready for the big border battle game here. Cooking lots of food and serving many drinks. Tree will have to wait until tomorrow!</p>