A very happy day due to a supreme court ruling.

We tried public school, two times in fact. The first time I did not tell them about Spencer's special "issues". The second time I was very up front with the school.
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The day before school actually started we had a"meet your teacher" event. This was at Howard Elementary. Spencer's teacher was brand new and oh so young. She wore a cross necklace, so I had hoped there was some hope. The reality was she was NOT ready to deal with 30 or so wiggly kids and she actually quit half way through the year. Now, the other 4th grade teacher was a man, I can't remember his name, and wouldn't post it here anyway.
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I was told he would be teaching the higher level of 4th grade math, so I went to talk to him about Spencer. The conversation went a little like this:
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Me: "Hi, I hear you will have my son in your math class"
Him: "Maybe, they have to be tested and placed first"
Me: "Well, you teach the higher level math then?"
Him: "Yes"
Me: "Well, then you will have Spencer."
Him: "We will see about that"
Me: "Well, then you will have Spencer and I wanted to give you some information"
Him: "Ok, what?"
Me: "Well, though Spencer is in the 4th grade he is way above grade level and easily gets bored. So it will be necessary to possibly provide alternate work for him so he does not disrupt class and can reach his full potential"
Him: "He will do the work with the other kids, I don't have time for special requests"
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So that was neat. They do special requests for kids who don't speak English as their first language, they do special requests for all sorts of kids, but just not Spencer I guess.
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Spencer was sent to the office nearly every day. He was even suspended. They treated me like I was some terrible mother and wouldn't give me any respect at all. We even gave them authorization to speak with Spencer's therapist. They wouldn't call and get the records.
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Spencer has one of the forms of Autism. He can't handle lots of little people moving around, he can't handle noise on both sides of his head, and he has a VERY strong sense of right and wrong and will not tolerate other kids not behaving. His sense of just is very advanced as well. When the other kids were acting out and he was punished in the group for it, he couldn't handle it.
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So they wouldn't verify he had a diagnosis, they wouldn't give him special help, and they kept writing him pink slips or whatever they are called, so we left.
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We couldn't affor the private school tuition, but I had to make it happen. The last day he attended Howard, he got in the backseat of the car, all curled up in a ball. He started sobbing and said things like "They hate me", "I don't want to live if I have to go here", and just a influx of other terribly negative things he was feeling about himself.
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Spencer's therapist had been working for years to get him to walk away from a situation instead of blowing up. One day at Howard, Spencer couldn't take another kid who kept hitting him. So he went to the office. He was suspended for it. The therapist was livid. We worked so hard to get to that moment, and they punished him for it.
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Well in Forest Grove the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of families being reimbursed for private school tuition when the public school is not able to meet the child's needs.
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I have wished for this for SO LONG!!!
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So I called the 4J office yesterday. I was directed to Larry Sullivan's office. An assistand answered the phone, she was annoyed the second I told her why I was calling.
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Her: "Have you retained legal counsel?"
Me: "No, should I?"
Her: "Do you plan on hiring counsel?"
Me: "No, I was hoping we would not have to go there, but if we do, then I certainly can"
Her:" Well, we might have to send this to our counsel"
Me: "Are you saying I have to sue the district to get the reimbursment?"
Her: (getting more aggitatied) "I am saying you are asking me a questions about a ruling that just came down yesterday and I don't know"
Me: "Well, then why don't you just say you don't know instead of asking me about lawyers and then get the question to a person who does know?"
Her: "I am just saying you might want to contact a lawyer"
Me: "Well, why don't we just figure out how to solve this without them and save all of us a lot of money"
Her: "This ruling could put a huge crunch on the school district"
Me: (getting more than mad) "Well, that is NOT my problem, tuition has put a huge crunch in my budget for years now. Now, IF the school had done their job well enough I would not be here right now asking for reimbursment, we gave your school and your district a chance and you blew it. And if you think just becasue you brought up the "lawyer" word you have intimidated me you better just think again"
Her: "Well, I will need to get your name, phone number, and the amount you are requesting and send it to somebody"
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And that is as far as I have gotten. It makes no sense to me that the Supreme Court would make this ruling and then each and every family wishing to make claim would have to file a suit in a court of law. Talk about wasting even more budget money.

So I need $97,000.......anyone have a Paypal balance?

For those of you who have been following my drama with the neighbors to the east, we have another chapter. For those of you who have not, here is a summary.

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The house we live in was recently sitting on a full acre. The people from whom we purchased the house had sold of the back half acre to the neighbor behind us. The purchaser did so because they wanted to make sure nobody else put houses back there, they valued the privacy.
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3 months after we closed, surveyors were out there marking off 8 lots. Gee, so much for wanting to make sure no houses were back there.
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The neighbors had promised us verbally a first right of refusal, in very loose terms. Well, they didn't say anything to us and instead started looking to make a subdivision, ruining my life and property value.
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We offered them $75,000 for it two years ago. At that point they had only $50,000 in it, their original purchase price.
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Today as I left our driveway I noticed a Remax sign next door. I was not able to tell if the neighbor's house was for sale, or if it was the people behind us. The sign is in a really dumb spot.
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So we looked it up and it is the half acre behind us. It is listed at $99,000. I have so many questions, the first being why didn't they just yell over the fence "Hey, we are ready to sell....still wanna buy?". Not only would it have been faster but they could have saved the Realtor fees. Hello???
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So I learned some things I probably should not share on a blog, but suffice to say they would have been much better off taking our original offer 2 years ago.
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Jim and I wrote a full price offer and have faxed it to the listing agent. Have not heard anything back yet. We have to sell 2 of our rentals and still won't have enough cash to close the deal, as we can't get a bare land loan right now, so we have to actually come up with $99,000 in cash.
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So please send your available Paypal balance to taranagelhout@comcast.net. We will invite you over to walk on the grass of our newly acquired land as a thank you...............
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Oh, and if you are wondering why we only need $97,000 when it is listed at $99,000 it is because there is a real estate brokerage fee of a whopping $2,000 I will get paid to broker my own deal. 2% down!!!!

I would like to thank Saxon Mortgage for a 500 calorie burn

I was so enraged after disconnecting from Saxon Mortgage today. For nearly two months I have been faxing required documents to their short sale department in order to get a house sold. Well, every time I called they needed something else. Why oh why did they not ask for all of it at once? Then, it takes 7-10 days for them to process each document and upload it to their system. I wish I knew what it really meant.
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Last week I was talking with a representative who took 19 minutes to find my authorization to speak with them. Today it was 90 seconds. Makes you wonder. The dear kind brain dead employee last week told me I should call back "one week" before the auction to see if they have all the papers needed. Well two things here: 1. If it takes 7-10 days to upload said docs, then how will calling one week before the auction be a good idea? 2. The day I was speaking to her was SIX DAYS before the scheduled auction date!
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So today I finally got somebody with a few neurons working. Nice guy really. It seems they bank doesn't feel the offer was good enough. They wanted $172,000. The offer was $135,000. They sent another Realtor out to do a BPO (Broker Price Opinion). They did a drive by. A drive by!!! HELLO!!!!!! The house looks perfect outside, but it is totally trashed inside. Not only that but if you don't go in the backyard, you can't see the destroyed defective LP siding!!!! Then, they have the nerve to tell me since the auction is in one day, there is simply not enough time to postpone everything to get a new BPO. Why didn't they do a full interior to begin with? The just of it is that they are going to get one nightmare of a house and they are under the impression it is worth more.
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What is amazing is the twit who did the BPO. A house TWO DOORS DOWN just sold for $157,000 and it was a heck of a lot nicer than this one.
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So out of my complete and total frustration I went on a nice 45 minute jog/walk. So thank you Saxon for a nice workout!

New listing on Carthage in Santa Clara

Fabulous 2,750 square foot house, totally remodeled with a kitchen to DIE FOR!! It is only $399,000.

Even Alphabet Wiseo

So I was showing a house the other day. On the side of the fridge were all these neat circular magnets with spices inside. I looked at the back of each can and saw they were from World Market. I really wanted them. But what I wanted more was for the cans to be alphabetized.
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Which led me to ponder if whole cloves would be filed under W or C. Then I realized about 3 weeks later it would be under C and really you would not need to include the consistency of it on the label, it would be obvious by sight.
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So yesterday I fulfilled my lifelong dream and went to IKEA. It was AMAZING!!!
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Now I too have little magnet cans on the side of my fridge with spices inside. I love my label machine!!!

What about teaching respect?

Walking through a parking lot the other day I noticed people stickers on the back of a car. As we all know I am a fan of people stickers, I still am missing all mine.
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So this person not only has a bad word printed on their car, they think it is funny to call themselves names, including their children and their animal.
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I find it to be a sad reality of the lack of respect parents are teaching their children.

Sometimes I even amaze myself

So everyone remembers how cool the baby room was. Well, the baby is gone and hard as it is, we need to repurpose the room. Repurpose is my word of the week. Well anyway, female 14 year old in there now. I had all this stuff already, so nothing had to be bought. It is pretty bare, but hopefully she will personalize it and have some fun with it. I think I will "trick out" the ceiling fan like I did in Bora's room. The red bedding has to go, but I only buy new bedding on really good deals so I will be keeping my eyes open.

Things that make me happy

So I found these neat-o Tupperware spice containers. They are entirely too expensive, but I really really needed them. So, here we have 2 photos. One is how my spice cabinet looks now, and one of my new four containers. Hopefully soon my whole cabinet will look like this! Tonight I was showing a house and they had all these neat round tins on the side of the fridge. The lids were see through and each had a label indicating what was inside the tin. They were magnetic on the bottom so they stuck to the fridge. My client and I REALLY REALLY wanted to alphabetize them for the lady, but...........we resisted. I should have taken a picture of that!

See you later, not a good bye

The little pumpkin is back with her biological father. She came for a little visit this morning, to say good bye and get the rest of her clothes and toys. It was hard, but good. She didn't really want anything to do with Jim or I, but rather just the cats. She chased Sweet Pea endlessly and that was about it. Her father invited us over for her birthday, so we will get to see her again, but my oh my we miss her so much already!!!

Olive Garden Here we Come!

Indeed, the OG certificates finally came. Last year Smith Cline Beecham had this amazing offer. Buy 1 Polident and you would get $2.50 in Olive Garden gift certificates, but 2 and et $5. Well....Safeway and Fred Meyer had some amazing deals and between the two I bought enough Polident to get 150 $5 gift certificates to the Olive Garden.



Right now I am waiting for Jimbee to get home from hanging a sign in Portland so we can go to dinner, Zach is entertainin the baby for me!

594 Oakdale

And another new one! I was on a green kick!

6029 SE Taylor Ct........

Well finally I got my first Portland listing (FSBO).

2 new signs for 2 new listings

My Poor Sweet Pea

She got a big boo boo on her tail. Spencer slammed it in the door. It was so scary, I was just miserable. We thought it was going to be amputated, but the vet saved it! Hooray for Dr. Tom. Not sure what we would do without him.


The vet put 5 or 6 stitches in her tail, wrapped it twice, and gave us a flexible collar. Well, she managed to get around that collar and take off all her bandages. So we had to get this rigid one. She is so miserable.

My Unique For Sale Signs

So I do this a lot of my listings. I also make one of these for each of my for sale by owner properties. How many times have you driven by a house which was for sale and wondered what it looked like inside? Well, list with me and your potential buyers won't wonder that! Here are some examples of my signs.

Two Words: FREE SOD

How can you pass it up? Well, I can't! After a four day home show, I was exhausted, out of a voice and ready to load up and go home. When I was almost ready to be done loading, I was told they were going to give away all the sod in the main room display. Well, did I know where it would go? Not for sure, but I know there is a half acre of land that needs some lovin where I live and who wouldn't want some free sod.

So I got on the floor and started rolling some grass (that could be taken oh so wrong!). Jim called to see if I needed help about half way through and I told him to come on down. So he got there and just stared at me, I guess the mud all over my front side was not what he had expected to see. After he started at me I got "Uh, what happened?". I told him very clearly "free sod". Yet he was still perplexed. "Okay, but why?" Well, what a sill question I told him the very easy and honest answer "Because it was free.". Again with the questions "Where are you going to put it?". Silly Jim. I am not going to put it anywhere, the real question is "Jim, where are YOU going to put it?". Hey, I hunted it, killed it and brought it home. Do I have to install it too?

Never in my life have I had the luxury of sod..........I just had to have it. If only they came out with a weight loss like sod. Just roll it out and it is done. Presto, thin thighs.

So here is a photo of me and my sod!

Why does so much happen at once??

Yesterday was pretty crazy. I was running around a lot, and I had already taken two new listings this week. A new listing always causes a ripple in my schedule for a little while.

I was at Winco, doing some speed shopping when my phone rang, it was another listing....HOORAY~

After that I flew off to the Praslin house to show it............got home to make dinner, lifted the faucet handle and it flew across the counter. This interesting metal breaking sound happened too.

I also had 200+ sour cream containers to make and they were due this morning.

So when Jim got home, off we went to Jerry's. Found out the faucet was under warranty and they happened to have the needed part. So cool that was!! Free fix.

After dinner Jim, Bora, and Zach helped me make the sour cream containers. We ended up with 206 of them done!!!! Hooray for that! Here is a photo of them.

I got Tawni this neat little dress at a new resale shop on 21st & Main in Springfield. It is in the shopping complex with Cedar, Sage, & Roses. I love that store. I highly suggest you go there. But don't bring your husband cuz he will just be a downer!

The Twins Turned ONE

Jim's brother has identical twin girls. Today was the party for their first birthday. I took over 150 photos, here are a few of my favorites......oddly enough, most photos were of Tawni!

The best toys are free

Today I received a large amount of Tomboy Tools. Well Tawni likes to play in the packaging paper and boxes, so I just threw them all over the kitchen floor for her.

What I did not expect was Spencer's reaction. He called it "box and paper time". At first he just wanted to play with the boxes. Then he took the paper and turned himself into a ghost. Being a ghost made him think about being a mummy. So the next thing I knew he had a roll of toilet paper and wanted to wrap himself up in it. Since I paid virtually nothing for the TP (coupons) I couldn't say no and he was so cute. So I wrapped him up. THEN he wanted to go across the street and show Maddie.

I Married Harry Potter

I stole this photo from Jim's Facebook account. He so totally looks like Harry Potter.....