How to Make Your Vacuum Cleaner Work Better, Longer

This is not a sexy post, and I actually couldn’t get an AI image of my Shark Rocket Deluxe Pro vacuum, because it’s too old, I guess. It’s still performing well because I change the filters often. There are three of them. Yep, I said 3. On a stick vacuum with a CORD. And I will use it until it dies a natural death. This image is of a much NEWER vacuum cleaner, but I don’t need a new one.

How is that possible? That I have an old vacuum that can still compete with the expensive big-dog brands, you ask? Maintenance.

In the age of penny pinching, it pays to take care of the appliances you use nearly every day, because they are not cheap to replace. I got my first Shark from the retail store where I worked part time. Someone brought it in and got a refund because it wouldn’t suck. LOL. From the looks of it, nobody EVER got near that thing to do maintenance and they MIGHT have used it to vacuum an unpaved driveway. It looked rough. But I got it for something like 20 bucks, took it home, cleaned it up, washed the filters, let them dry for a day, and vacuumed my living room. I figured it had not gotten any love, and I hoped that with a little bit of love, it might work. It did. For years, until I just wore it out. And I bought another one just like it. A stick vacuum touted for being able to clean up pet hair. Perfect.

There are two filters right under the great big word “SHARK” on top, where you stare while you vacuum. There’s a mysterious lever just above that word, that would cause most people to say, “Hm, wonder what that’s for?” Well if you lift the lever, you see A filter. One. But if you lift it out, there’s ANOTHER one under it. Both are washable with water, and after a 24 hour drying time (air), they are good to go! OR, you can buy them on…you guessed it…AMAZON. Thing is, when you get the pack of 6 filter sets, there are THREE filters in each set, one very small and very thin. Wow, the mystery deepens. Wonder where that goes?

Well, it’s trapezoid shaped, so there’s one clue.

Just under the handle, opposite side of the big “SHARK” word, there’s a trapezoid shaped grill! Well imagine that to be a hint. Now, it’s not easy to figure out how to open that vent cover…which is what it is…but if you look at the bottom of the cord where it attaches to the unit, there’s a little slide lever. Push that down a bit and voila! You’re in! You can lift the dirty old filter and pop in the new one. Easy peasy.

All vacuums have a simple motor and it’ll almost work forever if you keep the filters clean. If you don’t, you overwork the simple little motor and then you discard a perfectly good vacuum cleaner, who did nothing wrong. It’s on you. So. Give your little vacuum motor some love and save several hundred bucks while you’re at it.

If you have a NEWER stick vacuum, of COURSE your filters will be different, but for goodness sake, Google it. Take care of your vacuum and don’t go running to the store griping. If I’m in the store, I’m going to pop open the filter compartment right there in front of you, and look at you over my glasses with that, “Are you kidding me?” expression. Everybody there will know what the deal is, just saying.

Oh, and…no way I vacuum every couple of days. Just a confession. I hate vacuuming. I did a small calculation of how many, many times I’ve vacuumed in my life and it’s NO WONDER I hate it now.

A Great Meal for One, in Minutes

Would you like to make a delicious one-person meal in just a few minutes, one that will become a favorite? Try this one. I saw a version of it on YouTube and thought I’d try. I was sick of spaghetti in tomato sauce and definitely didn’t want that AGAIN. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make egg pasta, but it was easy, and turned out perfect. Let me tell you how I made this simple dish:

First, I made a nest using all purpose flour, about a cup, and into the nest, I broke a single egg. I used one large one. I broke the yolk with a fork and gently stirred the flour into the egg until I could handle the mixture by hand. I made a dough ball out of the flour and egg (yes, that’s all) and made sure I had enough flour sprinkled on the surface to be able to roll out the dough. I didn’t overwork the dough and didn’t roll it out too thin…

Meanwhile I put a small pot of water on to boil. Pinch of salt, a dash of EVOO.

After rolling out the dough, I ended up with a fairly large circle of dough, which I wiped with a sprinkle of flour, then folded one edge over about an inch and a quarter. I continued folding that size until I had a flattened dough ‘tube’. Then I made slices across it, about a quarter of an inch wide. I sprinkled flour on the work surface and unfolded the sliced pieces on top of the sprinkled flour and lightly mixed the flour into the pasta. This just keeps it from sticking together. How about that? My first homemade pasta!

I put a small pan onto the stove top and added in olive oil. I think it ends up being a bit less than a quarter cup, but don’t stress. You just need enough to sauté for now. Once the oil was heated, I added diced onions and garlic and sautéd them together. I love onions and garlic, so I was generous with the amounts, but you do you. You can add more EVOO if you need it (I did). Once the onions and garlic were done, I added parsley and mixed it in for just a minute and turned off the heat.

Meanwhile…I dropped the pasta into the boiling water and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes. Doesn’t take long. Then I drained it and added the pasta right into the sautéed onions, garlic and parsley. I tossed it with tongs, then added about a teaspoon of chicken stock. Not chicken broth. Chicken STOCK. It’s like a paste. Got it at the grocery store. I stirred that in using tongs and plated the meal. I added light salt and pepper.

Last step, I sprinkled a generous amount of parmesan cheese on top. Now here’s the thing. We don’t cook only in sequence. I time the cooking of the pasta with sautéing, mainly so I don’t overcook the pasta. And of course there was some onion dicing and garlic chopping in there. You get the idea. When I make this dish, the sautéed vegetables are done when the pasta is done. Not rocket science to make that timing work.

The BEST things about this dish for me are 1) there’s no meat in it (saves money and you don’t need meat in this dish); 2) it’s customizable (you can add whatever you want to add); 3) it’s quick and easy; 4) it’s a one person sized dish (no waste, no leftovers); and 4) IT IS DELICIOUS (Thanks YouTube).

I’m sure some of you are much better cooks than I am, but this dish just made sense to me and I was so excited to discover that I can make egg pasta! Doesn’t take much to excite me, clearly.

Try it and let me know what you think. Oh, and I’m not a vegetarian, by the way. By the way, real Italians cringe when they see meat and pasta served together. Just found THAT out too.

What Do YOU Think About AI? Doesn’t Matter.

Well first of all, by the time I WRITE this, AI, or rather AGI (artificial GENERAL intelligence), will have advanced beyond where it is now. Now. Now! I’m watching a documentary FULL of big brains who cannot adequately describe AI. Kind of like DEI hires. They giggle. OK not all of them. But I have questions.

Still, everything they have ever written, said, painted, photographed, said at home when they thought nobody was listening…all of that is within AI now. Uh oh. Listen, one of them says nu-ke-ler, instead of pronouncing nuclear correctly. I choose them to be eliminated first. Followed by the ones who pronounce realtor as real-i-tor. Ugh.

So, if AI is going to replace humans for just about every job, which jobs WON’T be replaced? Digging big holes you say? No. AI will build a thousand diggers who can work round the clock, won’t take breaks, won’t UNIONIZE, won’t need a paycheck. Next! Hairdressers you say? Oh silly human. A robot will analyze your head, your age, your attitude and the type of cellular construction of your hair, and if it doesn’t just shave it off, it will style it better than you have ever known. For free. Next? Military? Already done. Next! Cooking. That’s easy. Robot chefs. Plumbing? Robot. Electrician? Robot. Teacher? Robot. LOL. There go the indoctrination centers.

So it’s not all bad, is what I’m saying.

Who’s gonna do the math? Stop it.

You see, here’s what I think, on a cursory level of course, because right now I’m laughing at this documentary. I think natural selection is gonna come ROARING back. Why? Because if there are billions of people with no JOBS and a general stupidity kindly handed to us by the current ‘education’ systems, most of those people won’t be able to survive (I will, by the way). Humans will devolve to true animal behavior. It’ll get ugly, real ugly, real fast. The only GOOD thing is that the idiots won’t be in charge anymore. Any man with a manicure will drop first, I predict. Only the strong will survive. Suddenly real men will be popular again! Yay! Until the robots decide we have zero use. After all, we consume food, we need shelter and clothing and there’s nothing we can do that they cannot. Well except maybe love, which is chemical, I’m convinced. Parasitic, definitely…that’s another story.

So, many big brains, or imposters, are jabbering about what may or may not happen, and they don’t know. They don’t! Nobody does. What I do know is this: give humans any good thing and they will corrupt it and use it for destruction of humans. Prove me wrong. Look at what happened with drones. I rest my case.

Here’s one for you: AI will be able to manipulate people to do whatever it wants them to do. How about the ones who want to destroy AI? Hmmm. I predict they won’t make it much longer. Look around you right now. There are TRIBES of people who only want to burn down cities! And that’s WITHOUT AI. So we know people can be manipulated. This one is a no-brainer. But who will make the decisions? I mean, the computers will be in charge. THAT’S what I meant when I wrote about having the right to survive. It could be decided by AI.

There’s a gloom and doom prediction that AI will assign every human a “right to exist” number. If you are a troublemaker who never had a JOB, buh bye. I’m old, so I’m invisible. But AI will be able to see me, so I’ll be out. If you are weak, sickly, a crybaby, a psychopath, antisocial in any way, bye. You gotta be useful for the short term, until humanity has zero use. Can you see why it is pointless to worry about this stuff?

Here’s a good one: with AI, cancer can be cured. Any cancer. Easily. The PROBLEM is (I’m paraphrasing from the documentary here), creating the solution will also uncover biological entities to be used in war. Oh that’ll never happen.

But…

Should we have kids? Oh boy. No. People are gushing about how it feels to reproduce, as though it’s not simply a biological urge. Oh stop it. I know it is the best thing any of us will ever do, but it’s still biology. So in the words of someone I can barely tolerate:

“Ain’t none of us gettin’ out alive anyway.”

By the way, this AI documentary has become ‘an end of the world movie’. I’m sorry, I think this is hilarious.

I say we destroy all battery stations. Yeah, the robots can replace their own batteries right now, but they can’t if there aren’t any available. There you go. Problem solved.

We Have a YouTube Weather Guy Who Lives in NC

I’ve had the strangest dreams lately, in part because the world has gone crazy and in part because I keep YouTube playing all night and who knows what gets spoken into my brain. Most of the time I wake up with Emily Baker (retired attorney extraordinaire) reviewing one of the court cases I follow, which are about big, bad crimes with lots of terrible details. No telling what Emily is going over. She’s amazing. So much so that I listen to many of her hour plus videos and live streams, and it’s very hard for me to be still that long. Open YouTube and search Emily Baker and listen in. You’ll love her. And then there’s my personality thrown into that mix and some pretty strange dreams wake me up in the middle of the night.

Here’s my last night’s dream: I was in a bombed out, burned and charred building with no floor left and no roof, but I and a group of my friends were searching for cocktail attire to ‘go out’. I know. I found a red dress that fit, one friend found a black one and one found a cream colored silk one. The TRICK was finding shoes. We all found a pair, but not all at once and not located together. It was like an Easter egg hunt for shoes. Oh, and all clothes were clean, go figure. I woke up just when I had found remnants of a wedding gown, heavy silk, beaded and sequined all over (now that had to be a deep seated illustration of something), torn into 10 inch wide strips… because for some reason I needed a casual scarf to go with my dress. I woke up while my girlfriends were wrinkling their noses about using that piece of wedding dress for ANYTHING. Now this dream tells me a lot, but mostly the resilience of my psyche. Okay, everything is destroyed, but hey, let’s get dressed and to out! It’s gonna be OKAY! If you know me, you know I’d help OTHERS find a dress but you’d have to drag me to a cocktail party. But moving through disasters is something I’ve learned to do well in my life, so…there you go.

I watched a documentary about ravens tonight AND we finally got some much needed rain. I went out on the front porch to move my flower pots into a rainy spot and that was the moment for a huge crack of thunder and of course the leading lightning. Didn’t take me long to move the pots, for sure. So I’m looking forward to some interesting dreams tonight.

I’m grateful for the rain, but we’re going to need a lot more to get us out of this drought. We have rules for watering, and I am also conserving all I can, but my plants are SUF-FER-ING. I dreamed I had to dig out my hydrangeas. Yeah, I did dream that. It’s because 1) they are not blooming; and 2) they are sunburned and dehydrated. Now, understand, this bothers me a lot because I actually care about my plants. I bought some shade cloth to try to give them some relief and it works. Gerbera Daisies are looking much better, as are the hydrangeas. But I wasn’t planning on hiding my flowers under shade cloth all summer, since, you know, I grow them to stare at them.

Anyway guys, we’ve had some discussions about conserving water, and we’ve also talked about light bills. So I DISCOVERED that if I only use the big appliances after 9 pm, my electric bill is a LOT lower. I set the dishwasher on a time delay, so it starts after 9, and I just put in a load of laundry after 9 and/or start the clothes dryer at that time too. This works for me; might not work for you, but I thought I’d share.

Back to the point of this blog post: we have a young, enthusiastic, smart weather guy out of Charlotte that you need to listen to. He’s on YouTube at GM Weather. His name is Gerald Mengel, and wow it’s so good to have someone focus on us for a change. He used to be on a Charlotte news station, but quit to go to YouTube exclusively, and if you follow him, you’ll see why.

My friend says I curse her, because she watches YouTube all the time now. So do I.

I hope you are able to stay cool and have pleasant dreams. I’m very tired of all of the yelling and screaming and burning of buildings and blowing up of the same, that we are experiencing these days. We could go a long way if people would pick up some manners along the way, and learn how to cope with life when it doesn’t go exactly the way we want it to. Coping skills should be taught at first grade and onwards. Better yet, why not start at home. You know, like we USED to. Remember we are told to walk THROUGH the valley, not TO it.

Stay safe and well everyone. (links below to the youtube channels)

Emily D. Baker YouTube Channel (True crime)

 GMWeather YouTube Channel (Weather)

Too Hot for Plants

Don’t laugh. I have little umbrellas in my flower garden. I do! Poor plants are baking. I go out in the morning and set the parasols for the morning sun direction, and then again in the early afternoon. At the rate the temperatures are going, I don’t know if the poor plants can survive Summer.

I can’t plant many shading plants because I live in a townhouse. My only tree is in a pot, and my Loropetalums are pruned to tree shapes. I do what I can with nature. But I broke down and ordered some shade cloth yesterday. Next I have to figure out a way to put it out that will still allow me to see my garden and also water it, until we are not allowed to do that, due to drought.

I have discovered that most plants called out to be ‘full sun’ tolerant, aren’t. Except sedum. And my climbing roses are pretty happy in actual full sun. But the others are taking a beating. The parasols do help, and you can get them on Amazon. They have different size components, to adjust height, and they have a three prong ‘foot’ to hold them in the ground or pot. Oh, and they’re cute.

What are you doing to protect your plants? I know some people build a structure over plants but I can’t do that: townhouse, HOA. But share your secrets! And stay as cool as you can.

Kouri Richins and Why She Will Never Go Away

These days everybody has to do the disclaimers. So here goes: I am not a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, not a comedian, not a brain surgeon, not an astronaut, not a pipe welder blah blah blah. What I AM is a person with a high IQ who studies human beings, the train wreck of all time. Yes, even worse than Great White Sharks. I know the human heart is wretched. I have the Bible to back me up on that. Jeremiah said “human nature is flawed, deceitful, and prone to rationalizing self-interest or destructive behavior“. He didn’t say it exactly like that. I don’t think they even said “rationalizing” in his day, so of course, it is a TRANSLATION. He also said “the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. [1, 2]”

I have been curious in the way one looks at a train wreck, about humanity. If you haven’t noticed, we are changing and not in a good way…of COURSE. I’m going to talk about that in this opinion piece, and you can agree or disagree. I don’t care. I’ve lived long enough to be able to say that right out loud. One more disclaimer: I have a mirror. I am not perfect; in fact, just the opposite. But I am normal. I’m actually what they call ‘stoic’. And I am an introvert. So all the time, people think I don’t have feelings, only because I don’t wail and hop around when I get upset. I flip into quiet problem solving. Sometimes they feel sorry for me because I spend so much time alone. I LIKE BEING ALONE. I like me, I’m comfortable being me, I don’t want to chatter and chatter and chatter, I like to do projects, like to cook. Stuff like that. That’s how I roll. Most people are clumpers. They need to be around other people, in the thick of chaos, and wow, that’s not me. I digress, as usual.

So, Kouri. Kouri is the personification of a personality type that is becoming prevalent in America. When I was younger, I noticed it in nearly everyone in the Middle East, but hardly ever here. Over THERE, they were so unable to control their emotions, that every time something good happened, grown ass men jumped up and down and fired weapons into the air. Of course the men did it; women were under blankets. Then when something BAD happened, grown ass men jumped up and down and fired guns into the air. THEY HOPPED! IN UNISON!! Absolutely NO control of the big emotions. I remember saying, “Man, I hope that brain wiring never comes to America.” And then came the internet. Now I’m sure there were other hopping men, but back THEN we only saw the middle eastern ones. So there’s that. In any case, I believe that particular brain wiring is not contagious, it’s genetics. Except for the low IQ mules on the cart path, who do nothing but follow, all the way to the cliff.

Humans are followers, generally. Innovators and leaders are definitely the minority in the best of times. Being a leader requires the ability to think logically, to plan, a desire to plan, to want to do and be better. All of that. You can’t be lazy if you are a leader. THAT’S the main reason most people are not leaders: the lazy factor.

Back to Kouri: The Kouri types go into the hopper labeled like this: Psychopath, malignant narcissist, evil. It gets separated out from there. Any person who is 1) devoid of feelings for other human beings; 2) monstrously ambitious; 3) willing to step on drowning people to get to the top; 4) unable to accept that they are responsible for their own behavior; 5) diabolically able to act out long term plans to destroy others; 6) completely comfortable with deception and theft; 7) exceptional charmers and manipulators; 8) always disobedient; 9) fiscally and logistically (relationship) irresponsible; 10) they enjoy hurting people, EVEN if their target doesn’t know they were harmed by the perpetrator, belongs in the hopper. This happened to me. I have experienced this type.

One morning, this ‘person who shall remain unnamed’, ONCE AGAIN blamed me for something only he could have done. Frustrated, I said, “If I had that kind of power, you’d be singing soprano.” He didn’t get it, but I, on the other hand, thought I was HILARIOUS. Ultimately, he tried to destroy my life, and nearly succeeded. Why? Because I saw behind his mask and I stopped being his bank. They are BAD people. Once you are in their crosshairs, you are in true danger. It takes a lot to wrench that focus from you onto something else. Their preference is to not stop until you are destroyed. You get in the crosshairs by 1) seeing behind their mask; and 2) no longer being their best toolbox tool. Once they can no longer use you, you are in danger. And once they know YOU know, you are in danger. I made plans to leave, which I ultimately did (in the nick of time I believe), but it took a while. By the time I got out, everything I worked for my entire life was gone. Imagine.

Tree huggers aways want to say that oh they can be rehabilitated, oh they can get ‘counseling’ and be fine. Well, no. No they cannot. When they sit down with a ‘counselor’, their charm and manipulation kicks in. It’s a challenge to them. Then the lies start. God help you if they decide to blame you. They will make up ALL kinds of crap to destroy your reputation, make their counselor think YOU were the bad guy, you MADE him do it. I know. I’ve been through this. There IS no fixing them. They need to be removed from society. Prison is the only place for Kouri.

You may know that Kouri was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. You may have heard Kouri say that she’s never going to stop, that she WILL go home, that she is NOT going away. What did I just tell you? She just told all thinking people exactly whom she is. THEY. NEVER. STOP. This is why I am fairly sure that yes, her sons were in danger of the same fate as their father, who died at Kouri’s hands by poison. Watch for her to harass her dead husband’s family for decades. Watch for it.

By the way, poison is one of the cruelest ways to die, and think about that. Eric knew what was behind her mask, and was locking away his wealth from her, planning a divorce. Those two things guaranteed his demise if he did not leave. And he stayed for his sons. It took too long for him to prepare his escape, and Kouri killed him. But he saved his sons’ lives, in my opinion. What a tragic situation, with one psychopath in the center: Kouri Richins.

Politicans Grinning While Being Hit With Rotten Tomatoes

Oh my gosh, I’m watching Karen Bass at a ‘rally’ of about 30 people, half of which are media. She walked over in the midst of boos and shouts calling her a failure, and her rictus grin only got wider. She grinned and grinned, not able to start her speech due to the heckling from the crowd. She grinned, she found someone over on her right to shake her hand, she linked her hands in front of her precious and grinned and grinned. That particular body language is called ‘protecting the precious’ by one body language expert, by the way. It’s a tell.

The main heckler was AMAZING, a truth teller. He actually ran her away from her own ten person rally. Karen failed miserably in a ‘debate’, and quit. She ran from this ‘rally’. This is her modus operandi now. If it gets bad, run. Problem is, it gets bad before she even gets started. Everywhere she goes, she is just verbally attacked. In my opinion, she was always unqualified to be a mayor, but after the big fire with no water to fight it, she kept going with failure after failure. Money is a strong incentive. Now rather than helping the homeless, she wants dentures for meth heads. HUGE eye roll.

But through this all, you see her grinning so hard that her neck muscles are getting buff. You KNOW she wants to throw down on her dissenters, but she grins and grins and grins. Wouldn’t you love it if just one time, one of the lying, cheating politicians would FLY off the stage and wail on the detractors? Wouldn’t you just pay to see that? Hahaha.

I’m in the middle of writing another blog post and had to stop to do this one. All I can do is laugh in abject fear at today’s politicians. And this site is calling this post ‘fantasy’. ANOTHER EYE ROLL. It’s on TELEVISION.

Oh, Cottage Garden!

A cottage garden is not for everyone, and definitely not for the faint of heart. When you hear true cottage gardeners speak about our gardens (who am I kidding, we gush) it is not unusual for us to say that every time we dig a hole to put in a new plant, we dig up a bulb. That, dear reader, is true. And when we dig up that bulb, most of the time we have no idea what it is until next blooming season when there’s a missing favorite. But. That gives us an excuse to go to the nursery!

My sister’s flower garden is organized by color. She buys flowers for the peach bed, the red bed, the purple bed, etc etc. And she knows all of the names, whereas I say, “You know, the purple spikey thing.” If a particular flower doesn’t match, she doesn’t buy it. I’m heartbroken for the little rejected plants. I want them all. And I do know plant names; I just can’t remember them all because I don’t want to. That’s okay because I love them and I …don’t tell…talk to them. And don’t tell her, but I feel her garden is a bit stifled…unlike my cacophony. Hahaha.

She calls my garden a clown garden. Hahaha. I love it. By the way, REAL gardeners stay out there among the plants and weeds and insects as long as we can, and if we are not digging, we are often in our garden gloves, holding our garden tools, just standing, looking at our garden. We can’t help ourselves, and if you look closely, you’ll see us smiling.

I complain because I don’t have a big yard, and right now, I have nearly all plantable space…planted. But I go out with the squinty eyes, plotting how to make less grass, more flower beds. My yard is fenced, and that’s good, because it’s a bit like the person who lives here has no self control. MAYBE she doesn’t. A while back after watching hours of gardening YouTube videos, I decided to raise up the beauty. Go vertical! I bought an arbor, some trellises and plant stands of varying heights. So now, envision:

There are 4 anchor bushes, a Loropetalum (now 8 feet tall, pruned as a tree), a Japanese style conifer which only gets 5 feet tall (can’t recall the name), one Jazz Hands Chinese Fringe Flower, one Florida Sunshine (smells like licorice if you stroke the leaves). Those are the anchors. And then two climbing roses (one pink, one coral), an arbor hosting Chinese Honeysuckle. This honeysuckle has to be minded, because it can get a bit enthusiastic. Those are the main vertical show-offs. I am the boss of my garden and I expect my plants to stay where they are, not try to jump the fence. Sis thinks I’m ruthless. I think I’m a boss. And my honeysuckle behaves. Once, the English Ivey did not. Enough said about that. Point is, I guess you can say I made the most of the space I have.

I have hydrangeas (two pink, one red, one white), one columnar gardenia, two peonies (one pink, one red), one Fatsia Japonica in a pot, one rose (peach), five hellebores, two heucheras, four gerbera daisies, pink calla lilies, Phaseon Canna in a pot, one Lamium (love that plant), two sedum plants (you can NOT harm those plants), many geraniums that I winter over each year, a collection of ferns in pots that live on the porch over winter, Daisy Mae daisies, Asiatic lilies, pink Deutzia, several pink cone flowers (I’ve decided I like them the best) a host of irises (some specialty), many geraniums of course, marigolds and marigolds, vinca of pink and red, purple petunia, one Mandivilla, miniature and regular Hosta plants, white and red Amaryllis, tall Phlox, and over a hundred bulbs and annuals.

My plant stands are various heights, so I have potted plants tucked in here and there at various heights for visual interest, and one chair pushed in among the ferns on my patio, so I can sit down while I drink in coffee and the beauty of my oasis. I’ve come to the point of not needing to buy many annuals, other than to put splashes of color while I wait for the ‘usuals’ to bloom. My tiny yard is my joyful place, an oasis of nature. I like for my garden to look like nature celebrating, even though it’s under my tight guidance.

I started gardening as a teen, mostly vegetables, but I’ve always had flower beds and in one home, people would stop by the roadside and ask how in the world I got grass to grow in THAT soil. The secret was trucking in good soil and water, water, water. Flower gardening has always been my happy place. In fact now, I have a sign post with a street sign, ordered from Amazon of course, that says, “Happy Pl.”

I’m watching a gardener on TV as I type this, and he said, “I just put these in wherever I can find a spot.” That made me love him, and inspired me to write this message to you. Ah, Cottage Gardeners.

I have a shirt that says, “Professional Pot Mover” because if my potted plants aren’t happy, I hear their complaints and move them to a better spot. Over the years I have learned what works where during what season. It happens organically. If you want to destress, I’ll tell you, gardening is the way. And you can’t make a bad one. You just can’t.

I Hate This Trend

You’re not selling this house. You’re not! You’ve just made your living room look like it’s the size of a postage stamp.

Guys, please, I beg you, THINK. When you want to sell your home, you must think about the buyer. You have to get into the mindset of ‘the masses’. Most people do not want a giant sectional sofa taking up all of the real estate! It short circuits the buyer’s mental process of buying. And here’s a little known fact for you: Most people cannot ‘envision’ the space without your stuff in it. They see the sectional sofa as hogging the space and blocking the aesthetic. And they are correct, by the way and more importantly, that huge trendy sectional has just hijacked their imagination.

And it’s not a judgement of your decorating taste. If you like it, do it. You do you. I’d actually love to plop down on that sofa in the picture. Would I buy that house? No. The room’s too small (I’m chuckling). BUT when you want to sell that space, you have got to back your taste into the space behind marketing. I’ve studied marketing; I can even recommend colors. But I don’t do that. I love it when my buyers get to see a lovely space that looks like a HOME. Yes, even with pictures. The days of ‘minimalism’ are fading fast, but maximalism is already blasé. The happy medium and the quicker sale aesthetic, is somewhere in between. Speaking of colors in marketing…if your living room is vibrant orange with purple trim, I’m gonna recommend a change.

Now, do I think you have to sterilize your space? NO! The home should still look like a home. But you have to remember, you are selling space. Big, wide open space. Even people who want more delineated spaces want those individual spaces to look big. And when they stop walking and start to place their OWN furniture in their mind, that’s a GREAT thing. But they never get there if their senses are overwhelmed by MASSIVE furniture crammed into a small space. So here’s what I advise my sellers.

You are moving. This will soon not be your home. Start thinking like a buyer, and ‘rearrange’. Take a deep breath and let go of the emotion (I know that’s hard). Think about your sales price now. Maybe get a small storage unit and put some items in there. TRUST ME. I cannot tell you how many times my buyers turn around and leave when they think the spaces are too small. And there’s this: So many people put the back of a sofa right across the room where the fireplace is the focal point.

The fireplace wall is the ‘money wall’ for your home. DON’T BLOCK IT. Switch the furniture placement to open that view while you are marketing your home. People say, “Wow!” when they see the sweeping vista (okay that’s a bit hyperbolic) from the kitchen island to the fireplace. If you have the floor plan where there’s a dining table between the kitchen island and the living room, don’t put tall decor on the table. Make the VIEW un-interrupted all the way to the ‘money wall’, because they WILL stand behind that island to view the den or living room with the fireplace. They will. It’s okay to put decor on the table (I would), but don’t let it grab the attention of the buyer who is trying to decide if this space will work. Think: SQUIRREL! So…what about that buyer’s decision process:

Buyers enter your home and their creative brain takes over. They immediately start thinking how they would live in that space, and they think about how they would put THEIR stuff in it. The home should have a comfortable temperature, it should SMELL good (don’t put the fragrance things in the outlets; it makes buyers think you’re hiding something). Open the blinds and push back the dark curtains (better yet take them out). Let the sunshine in. Sunshine is a wonderful psychological marketing tool and it’s FREE. Don’t have gigantic decor on spindly tables (danger) and take the pet snake terrarium to a friend’s house (don’t laugh; I’ve had that happen). Think like the masses.

Now about that sectional: Here’s my editorial. Sectionals are a smart marketing tool for furniture makers. They get to make a sectional cheaper than regular sofas and make you think they’re worth more money. So they create the “everybody’s doing it!” idea and of course people fall for it and they pay more money. In marketing, that’s called affiliation. And it has worked. And it’s the bane of my existence unless I’m showing a huge home to my buyers because chances are, the dreaded sectional will be in the living room.

ZILLOW SUES COMPASS AND MIDWEST REAL ESTATE DATA (MRED)

You know by now that I have opinions. Well these are mine, and you’ve heard me talk about this before. Well yesterday’s news made me very happy. Just know that these are MY OPINIONS, put forth to hopefully get you interested in digging into this situation, because it could cost you thousands you didn’t even know you were losing. Buckle up.

Remember that post I did, talking about the looming juggernaut that could harm our market significantly? The harm I anticipated was just me, analyzing the situation like I always do. I was sick in the pit of my stomach, thinking about what this was going to do to our market here. Apparently I wasn’t the ONLY one feeling sick. Hence the lawsuit filed yesterday by Zillow. I know, many of you have dollar signs in the crosshairs as I speak; but this is not how I view the market.

I view the market as a population of folks who need to either sell or buy real estate, and most of the time, it is their largest investment. I am always honored to be chosen to help, regardless of the price point. I am a data person, and I actually serve my clients, free of greed. THEREFORE, I love to help them make the best transaction they can. This means I want the real estate market to be open, accessible to all, and positioned to allow good competition. From this comes this saying: The house is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. But the idea is that there are a LOT of somebodies out there, not just a group inside a fence that not everyone can access. I want YOU to have whole access. Because competition helps you!

  1. I drive a small crossover SUV that is 13 years old, in the shop way too often. I do NOT drive a 100K automobile that I expect YOU to pay for. I live in a small townhouse that’s 23 years old. In other words, I’m not ever asking you to support ‘my lifestyle’. Yes, real estate is how I make a living (pay my bills), but that’s life, NOT lifestyle. If I come to do a listing appointment, look out the window. Look at my little car. You’ll know I’m not greedy. Don’t fall for the “I’m worth it” mantra. I’m worth it too; but I also make my own way, not riding on your back. Don’t mistake that for me being mediocre. I’m not. I’m a Senior specialist, a strategic pricing specialist, a negotiating specialist, I worked for a builder so I know what to look for to find red flags, and I was a scientist in my other life, so I’m very detail oriented. I’m also a compassionate servant, so I take care of my clients. That’s very different from greed, very. So yeah, NOT mediocre. And today, I can work with my clients in the way that helps them best. That’s your first data point.
  2. Our market is healthy, though slower for ‘resales’ because builders are throwing money at buyers to get them to buy their product. Tens of THOUSANDS. And they have their own mortgage company and title company…money they get back when you choose them. I get it! It’s hard to turn down that kind of incentive money when it definitely reduces the downstroke pain, and you get a new house. I get it. But it makes it harder for people trying to sell their existing home. Just know that existing home sellers have always competed with builders, so that’s nothing new; it’s just that builders have more money than God now and they can tilt the entire market towards themselves. Still, in a fair market there are thousands of people who prefer an older home! You should be able to see ALL of them, not just the ones the juggernaut wants you to see.
  3. In a hot market, buyers often bring ABOVE list price in order to win the home. I’ve been through the insane market times when the only way that made sense was if you planned to own that home for a very long time. That still applies. You always want equity growth to be a steep upward curve if you are going to offer above list price. I can explain all of that to you. In my market, at this minute, you should plan to offer at or above list; that’s just how it is right now, this minute, in this market. How do I know that? Well for NOW I have access to all of the data…until the juggernaut shuts it down.
  4. If you want to buy OR sell, the open, unfettered market is your friend. It’s honest, it’s visible, it gives you all of the data you need to make a good choice. Sellers pretty much know they can often garner multiple offers in a free market, and buyers can search thousands and THOUSANDS of available homes to find the one that works for them and that they feel good about trying to buy. No roadblocks, no boundaries, nothing hidden. That’s about to change if this lawsuit fails. And the one who gets hurt is you, consumer. The 800 pound gorilla is going to laugh all the way to the bank.
  5. If you are directed to call a ‘LISTING AGENT’ when you search for a home, know that you are TALKNG TO THE AGENT WHO WORKS FOR THE SELLLLLER, not you. That means everything you tell her or him, that person is obligated to blab it to the seller. CALL A BUYER AGENT for goodness sake. That’s me, a lot of the time. A buyer agent works for YOU, unless you decide to allow for dual agency, which I NEVER advise. Firm, yes; agent NO.

Now back to the ‘juggernaut’ currently under a class action lawsuit. This paradigm is designed to block out a huge block of potential buyers, if you are selling, OR a huge block of listings, if you are a buyer. In other words, my latest data calculation and info I have researched, shows that if you don’t follow the juggernaut rules, you miss out on maybe 30% (right now) of the available homes or buyers out there, whether listing or buying. As the juggernaut moves forward, the percentage of ‘freely available’ homes you can see online will shrink. If you are not with the juggernaut, your home doesn’t show up on the AVMs…that’s the search places you go to, to find homes, or to compare prices of other ones on the market. It’s a takeover in the name of greed…in my old car old house opinion. In NC we have a thriving real estate market, with unfettered boundaries (for the most part) for you to go online and look and search to your heart’s content and to feel pretty sure you’re getting reasonably good data. Nearly all of my buyers pick the homes they want to see online, all by themselves. And by the time we go to view it and evaluate it, they have a pretty good idea of the whole picture. If this juggernaut takes root, those days are over. Anyone not joining in what I perceive to be harmful to buyers and sellers, will eventually be out. Out means you get what they say you get. Remember when you used to be able to pick your colors when you bought a new home? Now what happens? You get what the builder says you get. That’s how it works folks. It becomes less and less about you and more and more about what is easier and more PROFITABLE for the juggernaut. Here’s what was posted about the lawsuit, you can look it up and see how you view things:

“Zillow today took a big step in standing up for a free and honest housing market. MRED and Compass conspired to cut off Zillow’s access to Chicago-area listing date, not because we violated any legitimate rule, but because we’re committed to giving every buyer in the market the widest possible audience, and every agent in the market a fair shot at competing. When we didn’t back down on our commitment, they announced a national alliance designed to extend the pressure everywhere.”

And it continues on. This article came from LinkedIn.

Imagine you want to buy a car and the dealer says, here’s the price. And you wonder…because today’s buyers are pretty doggone smart…how do you come up with that price. And the dealer says, “I’m not gonna tell ya.” And you think, “I’m gonna check out other dealerships”, and you get there, and there’s that SAME GUY. You need data, not someone telling you that you get what I SAY you get. Like that. You need everything you can get to help you make good choices and you DESERVE it. That’s what we have right now. But not for long.

Please pay attention to what’s going on with this lawsuit filed by ZILLOW. We all know Zillow. I use Zillow nearly every day and I love it. But going forward, it’ll be a cobbled tool. You need to know that and hope Zillow wins. If a Compass agent comes to a listing appointment talking about exclusive (that word) listings, know that your listing will be inside a fence that MANY buyers will not be able to see. That cuts down free market competition, and that could mean tens of thousands of dollars lost to you. And the real estate transaction is supposed to be about YOU.

I will not be joining the juggernaut. I despise greed for greed’s sake, I don’t like hostile takeovers, and I don’t like the message that if I’m not one of them YET, I will be. Not MIGHT BE, but WILL BE. Oh boy that doesn’t work with me. That’s not how I roll. I could not live with myself if I couldn’t serve my clients to the very best of my ability. It is an honor to help someone choose a home, or sell one so they can continue on their journey. People matter to me; I LOVE helping them along their journey. It’s NOT about the money for me, and I hope Zillow wins.