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Our home is pretty close to perfect to me. We have some incredible neighbors that have become our forever friends. As far as the house structure itself, I find myself telling my husband we need to hire a company to clean the air ducts and dryer vent every Spring. You know in his mind he's saying, yep I'll put that on my list. I’m an Air Conditioner or Heat girl. Our thermostat is never in the off mode. I like air moving at all times in the house. But what I don’t like is the thought of all that dust, cat hair, and dirt that falls into the floor ducts. I know it’s there, I might not see all of it way down through the basement, but we are breathing that air, every second. This week the weather has been in the mid 60 degree mark. I turned the Air Conditioner on in my car for the first time since October time frame. It smelled awful. I had to open all the car windows for a few minutes to get the smell out. I know exactly what that smell is, it's bacteria in the AC lines, beca...

20 years ago my husband and I purchased a brand new house, built in a brand new neighborhood. We have two girls, young adults now with their own homes. In the years we lived in this brand new home we made improvements, repairs, painted walls, and dealt with water damage from heavy rains and winds. We experienced hurricanes, hot days, and snowy days that nature took a toll on the roof, siding, gutters, and chimney.  When I look at a house, I look at the roof, there is so much real estate atop a house. If the roof is stained, missing shingles, faded, or looks ugly, to me that's a big sign to replace the roof.  Most everyone in our neighborhood of 50 houses has replaced their roof. I envy those nice clean, fluffy roofs. By fluffy I mean the shingles look kind of 3 D, and I suppose there is a word for that type of shingle.    We are the hold out neighbor, holding out until our house went on the market to see what the buyer would want done with the roof. Personally I'd h...

Magic Pier  Daniel P. Grote $15.99 us iuniverse Fiction In the Fall of 2013 Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. The shore towns of New Jersey were damaged, washed away, and are still recovering. Just take a drive down those South Jersey shore towns and you'll see. In this book,  Magic Pier , Drake Garrison is a real estate attorney but is torn about doing his work at the law firm and helping to re-build the pier in Seaside Heights where he worked as a young boy.  His wife is due with their first child, politicians are playing games as to who gets relief funds to rebuild the shore, and Drake is trying to manage it all.  Meeting with Washington D.C. and local politicians to channel funds to SeaSide Heights he finds himself the keynote speaker at a few events. People feel his passion for the pier.  Perhaps Drake feels the passion a bit too much when he leaves the court room just before a trial to go to the pier and help move the Tilt A whirl. The partners at his la...