Winter2006
 Our News Letter

WELCOME

Well, let's see it's been one of those years.

Jonathan is still a real estate agent but, due to the slowdown and rising interest rates many houses have gone down some in value and not nearly as many are selling. Many of those that are for sale are asking what they want for their houses and refusing the lower offers.

Many Realtors and mortgage brokers are taking on extra jobs. During his job hunt he met several of them and they all exchanged cards to help one another which is great! Jonathan took a job, until the market picks up, at Citizens Bank as a customer service rep in the evenings and has already advanced to training with online banking. There are 5 levels and he is already at level 2, he is the only one from his group ready for level 2, there is one more banking level I believe, then supervisor levels.  So he is keeping his options open, but, hoping the market will pick back up enough that it will be irrelevant.

He hates the long days that having two jobs creates, but doesn't mind the job at Citizens itself, he enjoys helping people. He often comes home feeling bad for people who have fallen into the fraud on the internet through email scams. A famous one is an email supposedly from PayPal wanting your info. Folks, should always go directly to the PayPal site, never through email.

Anyway he works nights there, so that his days are free for Realtor stuff, and he has Sunday off and totally dedicated to realty for open houses and such.

I have a eBay store and am writing e-books to sell as well. I enjoy it a lot.

And I take care of any realty mailings for Jonathan, and the house of course.

Jonathan is hoping still to get his brokers license, So he can work for himself eventually and hire a couple people, but, all that is when the housing market gets better.

We have been on ediets since march. Jonathan has lost around 80 pounds and I've lost around 50 pounds. I've fluctuated some since the winter has started, I had a lot of loss when we were swimming this summer.

We are feeling much healthier, eating right makes a big difference and it's pretty easy.

We use a lot of wheat products, Wonder even has a whole wheat bread that tastes like white. We use wheat pastas, and I actually like it better.

We use "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" or "Country Crock" and we try and get really good olive oil.

There is even a low fat Bisquik and low fat Eggo waffles, and we love Skinny Cow and Healthy Choice ice cream, I really love the chocolate ice cream sticks. Healthy Choice makes frozen meals we sometimes eat for lunch, or Jonathan might bring them to work to Citizens. And I make a lot of fresh fruit deserts, and I don't mind the Splenda sugar, it's not bad in baking, and on labels we look for low fat, low sodium, and we keep a rough count on calories and carbs. Shopping can be a much longer process now, but, it's worth it.

The couple of times we have had McDonald's we have felt awful, like almost sick awful. So, that is what I mean about feeling healthier, almost a clean feeling.

OK, OK, enough about the diet, I just get excited sharing how easy it actually is and how good we feel.

Let's see, the pets are all good. Sandy still acts like a bit of a puppy even though he is 2 now and is full, grown he steals socks and chases the kitties and bugs Tipper, but, is a whole lot of fun. And he still loves chasing lights, if he goes out at night he won't come in until you twirl the flash light  around the yard, no matter how long you wait he just sits and looks at the door from the yard.  Very amusing, but, also annoying.

Tipper had almost gotten down to the weight she should be, but the last several weeks gained some back. She gets even more lazy during the cold months. She has gotten very grey around the mouth and we get sad when we see it, thinking about her age. She still has some years left, she is probably at the halfway mark being 7 and half. Misty is still a little troublemaker, but, she also has mellowed a bit with age. She and Elsa will both be 10 this year, Misty still teases Sandy into chasing her so that we will yell at him, not realizing she's doing it on purpose. Once we realize then we chase her too, LOL! Elsa, well she is still the queen and runs the whole house.

They are all basically doing well.

I still have a lot of house projects. I still want to set up the basement as a couple rooms, walls are already there, just need to do floors and ceiling and make a place for all of the storage. We have gone through a lot and have thrown away about 20 empty boxes this year after selling stuff we don't need or never opened online. We have a new rule, if it isn't used in a year it goes in a yard sale or online to sell. Most of the books are finally on shelves, we have about 14 bookcases. Jonathan would love to have a proper library and would love to have a used book store someday. He just loves books.

We have a lot of our parents' glassware in a cabinet in the dining room. We made a cabinet out of the closet, Jonathan put up shelves and decorative doors to make it look like a built in china cabinet.

I also want some nice double doors for the bedroom and new closet doors .

I am letting the garden grow in and putting a fountain and sitting area out there. We did bucket gardens last year and the plants did much better where we could keep a close eye on them in buckets near the house. We had a lot of tomatoes, small ones, but a lot of them.

Highlights & fun

Well, not much really going on since summer. Busy trying to get new realty clients and keeping up with past clients.

And Jonathan's new job keeps him busy at night.

I still choose not to drive. I am hoping to dig out my bike this coming summer and hopefully by next fall will be using it a lot again, we got a Walmart Supercenter that just went in, about a mile down the road. Can do groceries or regular shopping, it is big though pretty hard on the feet.

I don't like the highway and still have some crying episodes, which sometimes makes it not worth a trip on it unless necessary. So we always have to make extra time to take backways. NH drivers can be impatient and speed at times, but, RI drivers are maniacs, they don't use their directional and zoom from lane to lane, and on the highway it becomes too much.

My first year here we were nearly clobbered by a box truck, so anything bigger than a car near us terrifies me on the highway. I make Jonathan stay away from all big vehicles

Jonathan bought me a dvd player to watch in back seat when we have to take the highway, which has helped a lot because it keeps me from watching the traffic.

Cool fun stuff

Jonathan went to the real estate expo in Boston and saw Donald Trump, over 50 thousand people showed for Trump and Jonathan was about a fifth of the way from trump, so he could see pretty good, he was a couple rows back from the VIPS.  He also took a lot of good classes over the two days that gave him some great ideas.

We also met Steve from the Ghost Hunters show that is on Sci Fi, he was in Nashua doing a signing at a local store there when we visited Aunt Sis and stopped by for an autograph.

We also went to King Richards Faire, I finally got to see the joust this year. It was a lot of fun, I mostly enjoy being in the wooded area in the fall, it is really nice, you can see some photos on the photo page off the main page you came in on.

We also went sailing with Jeff, Laura, Margaret and Jeff's dad, Peter on Peter's new boat. It was a really nice afternoon out on the Bay, I loved it!

Also, this spring our niece Tabitha will be staying with us for a week, so we are planning some fun activities for then.

OK, well, time to end this. We still do some of the same old things we love movies, Playstation games, Lisa loves going graphic arts stuff on the computer in Paint Shop Pro and is in some groups online dealing with creating with Paint Shop. She also has found a love for digital scrapbooking. We love taking photos and videos and also now playing around with Pod Casting radio. And now with our age I suppose we just like to have time together to relax in front of the TV, and with free time is so much shorter now we try to savor all of it.

Well, I guess that's it. Enjoy the Holidays everyone,
 hugs from Lisa And Jonathan