I AM NOT INTERESTED IN PAYING YOU TO INCREASE TRAFFIC TO MY WEBSITE!!!

It is frustrating that so many of you are using my website to “prospect” me. 

Please stop making comments on my posts that just tell me what  you can do to increase the traffic to my site,

Please stop stop making comments just so you can advertise your own websites,

and

Please stop calling me to tell me how you can increase the traffic to my website.

So, let’s see how many of you are actually reading my blog… you always tell me you are …

Not knowing how to get started, lack of time, lack of money are all reasons we put off getting these things done. But I think the most common reason is simply procratination. Isn’t it in our nature to just put things off, knowing, or hoping that tomorrow will be a better day. However, it never is. Life continues to pile things onto our schedules, inundate us with menial tasks which cause us stress and make us want nothing more than to vege out on the couch in front of the TV if and when we do finally find a minute.

Of those that have sold a home, how many of you put “the list” off the whole time you have lived in your home, then when the time came to sell, hurried to get them checked off?

I raise my hand… I am guilty too.

We decide to put our homes up for sale then race to finish all those things we could have done sooner and actually have enjoyed them while we lived in that home.

We have a fantastic deck at our house. I often joke about how we bought that deck …and it just happened to come with a house too. However, it faces the West and has, through the years, to our disappointment, been nearly unusable because of the heat in the summer months. We talked about different solutions when we stumbled upon the idea of Pergola. We decided that was the right option for us but never got around to it for the same reasons mentioned above.

This Spring, we decided it was time. We did it. We invested in the Pergola and have since wondered why we didn’t do that sooner. We have used our deck more this summer than all the other years combined. While the Pergola may not have added a monetary value to our home in the event we need to sell, I know it will make my home more appealing than the competition. It is like we have added a new room, a fantastic room.

So, my point today is, don’t procrastinate those little things you’ve always wanted to do to your home. Get them done while you can enjoy them. You know they need to get done, you know you will race to get them done if you need to sell so why not invest in yourself while at the same time making your home investment better. Life is too short to put off enjoying the little things.

p.s. I am sitting on my deck, enjoying the view of the valley and the lake as I write this.  Are you jealous?

I am grateful for good health. I am lucky that my challenges the last year were temporary and resolved but I have a new outlook on how important it is to take care of ourselves, eat right, exercise, etc.

I am grateful for my family and friends. I lost my father this summer. It has been a sad and reflective time since I lost my mother long ago. As I grow older, these bonds get more and more special to me. My siblings have grown closer since his passing and have an even greater place in my heart. My husband and children seem to be the essence of my existance. I do not know how I would survive without them.

I am facing the prospect of becoming a grandmother and get more and more excited as the time goes by… also worried as I think of my own baby facing the challenges of motherhood. Physically, getting older stinks! Yet, life gets sweeter as time goes by and I learn valuable life lessons that I was too young and ignorant to appreciate in my youth.  I do not look forward to watching my body get more and more wrinkles  with each passing day, but I have learned that there are still many opportunities ahead for laughter, learning, and LOVE.

**It stated that Utah leads the nation in prescription pain medication abuse.

**70% of those who get caught or admit to abusing prescription pain medications say they get them
from friends or   relatives—usually without their knowledge.

**In 2007, unintentional prescription pain medication overdoses were the #1 cause of injury deaths in Utah.
That is more than motor vehicle crashes.

The article suggests that we all go though our medicine cabinets and throw out any medications that are expired or no longer needed.  The City of Orem has installed a Drug Drop Off Box at the Orem Police Dept at 83 E. Center St. to provide us with a safe place to dispose of these drugs.

I see a connection on this problem with Real Estate in that when your home is for sale, you have people that you do not know coming through your home.  I think most agents do a good job of staying with those clients and keeping an eye on them while showing homes, however, I have been in situations where the buyers acted a little…weird.

I was once with buyers in a very nice home and I was lucky to have an agent friend along with me.  The potential buyer brought friends with him and eventually, they all kept trying to split up and wander around the house. I don’t think they counted on me bringing another agent because between the two of us, we did a great job of not letting them out of our sight.   I commented to my agent friend afterward that I had the feeling they were intentionally trying to split up to get out of our sight so they could do something.  He said, “I know! Me too!”

I have heard of people posing as buyers to find opportunities to search medicine cabinets for prescription pain medications. People that are abusing these drugs get desperate and creative to find them.

I think Orem City’s suggestion to get rid of the unnecessary drugs that may still be in our medicine cabinets is a good one.

Insist your agent use this keybox!

Utah County has changed their Lockbox system recently and even though I’ve written on this subject already, I want to write again to stress the importance of this issue.

Utah County Association of REALTORS® (UCAR) has switched from using Risco to Supra boxes. These boxes are what we agents use to store the key to the home so that other agents can bring their buyers by our listings for showings when the buyers are not home.

This makes it more convenient to get more showings on a home, increasing the likelihood of the home sellling.
(A home will not sell if buyers can’t see it.)

I noticed a trend when we switched our system last time. Many homes that I took buyers to for showings did not have the UCAR approved boxes. Too many agents were choosing to use a cheaper “contractors” box that can be easily purchased at home improvement stores. These boxes can be opened by using a 4 digit number code. Agents that want to show these homes must call and get the code from the agent or sometimes these agents publish the code on the internet so we can get access. Once the code is learned, the home can be entered as often as desired and the listing agent may not know how many times the home has been showed by the same buyer’s agent.

Also, there have been documented cases around the country where the wrong people get access, somehow, to these “contractor” box codes and homes are being robbed and even gutted in some cases. Often, an agent has mulitple listings and uses the same code on all of them. Once one home is violated, several more usually follow.

The new approved Supra boxes store the key securely, can only be accessed by REALTORS® who own a computerized code key, keep a record of who uses the key to gain access to the home, and electronically informs the agent that his/her listing has been entered.

If your agent is not using the approved Supra boxes, you are not getting the necessary information about the number of showings on your home, and your valuables and your home are at risk! You should insist that your agent get a Supra box and use it for your home.  

If you are considering hiring an agent to sell your home, ask him/her if he/she uses the Supra keyboxes.

If they do not, that should be reason enough to consider using a different agent to list your home.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession :

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish.  And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.  I don ‘ t feel threatened.  I don ‘ t feel discriminated against. That ‘ s what they are:  Christmas trees.

It doesn ‘ t bother me a bit when people say, ‘ Merry Christmas ‘ to me.  I don ‘ t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.  In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn ‘ t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu   If people want a crèche, it ‘ s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don ‘ t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don ‘ t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can ‘ t find it in the Constitution and I don ‘ t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren ‘ t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?  I guess that ‘ s a sign that I ‘ m getting old, too..   But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke;  it ‘ s not funny, it ‘ s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham ‘ s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘ How could God let something like this happen? ‘ (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.  She said, ‘ I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we ‘ ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.  And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.  How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone? ‘ 

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O ‘ Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn ‘ t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school.  The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn ‘ t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock ‘ s son committed suicide).  We said an expert should know what he ‘ s talking about.  And we said OK.

Now we ‘ re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don ‘ t know right from wrong, and why it doesn ‘ t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal to do with ‘ WE REAP WHAT WE SOW. ‘ 

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world ‘ s going to hell.  Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send ‘ jokes ‘ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you ‘ re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.  If not then just discard it… no one will know you did.  But, if you discard this thought process, don ‘ t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.  
My Best Regards,  Honestly and respectfully,
Ben Stein

I never considered myself a “Techie” person. In fact, I’ve always said I am computer illiterate but after doing the Tech Fair three years running, I realize how techie illiterate so many other people are, and amazingly, I am sometimes the one that seems to have the answers.

Ok, I’m not going to be too full of myself. There will always be people like Rod Fife, Harry
Rodas, and many others on these committees with me that are just so…well, far more advanced than I am or ever will be. Thank goodness!

I just had a conversation today with a member of my church and offered myself to help the seemingly many other women in my church that seem to really struggle with the most basic aspects of technology. I surprise myself to find, me of all people, feeling confident enough to offer to teach a few classes on the basics. I don’t know what will come of my offer but I felt strongly that it is important for us to know some of these things to enhance our lives.

Three years ago, it would have never happened. It feels good to know that this old dog can still learn a few new tricks…, then be willing to teach them to others.  It’s never too late to learn.

Business Week Magazine did an article on Utah’s new health reform plan. They quoted my husband, Dave Jackson in the article as he has played a vital role in writing and implementing the plan.

Here is the article

     Outside England ’s Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot
     for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its
     parking fees were managed by a very pleasant
     attendant. The fees were �1 ticket for cars ($1.40),
     �5 tickets for busses (about $7).
     Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing
     a day of work, he just didn’t show up; so the Zoo
     Management called the City Council and asked them
     to send another parking agent.
     The Council did some research and replied that the
     parking lot was the Zoo’s own responsibility.
     The Zoo advised the Council that the attendant was
     a City employee.
     The City Council responded that the lot attendant
     had never been on the City payroll.
     Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain
     (or some such scenario), is a man who apparently had a
     ticket machine installed completely on his own; and then
     simply showed up every day, commencing
     to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about
     $560 per day — for 25 years.
     Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over
     $7 million dollars!

     ….

     And no one even knows his name.