Year: 2016

- Tom Brezsny

Home Inspection…Duck and Cover

December 22, 2016Another Home Inspection this week. Another reminder just how risky daily life is. Begs the question: Will any of us even survive the night in the unprotective-custody of our not-so-safe-houses? They used to say most accidents occured up to five miles away from home. But after reading this 60page tome of a Home Inspection Report, I don’t see how anyone makes it out the front door in one piece – let alone down the driveway. Nothing like a Home Inspection Report to make you feel...

- Tom Brezsny

Having The Talk

December 22, 2016Part 2: The Market is a Changin' The conversation in real estate is changing.  Six months ago it would have been unfathomable to even think about having to have “the talk” with a Seller who’s home was still on the market after three or four weeks.   You know, the one about why their house isn’t selling.  Or God Forbid, the even harder one that comes after that. The one about it being time to consider a price reduction. That  just didn’t happen six months ago....

- Tom Brezsny

Shifts Happen

December 15, 2016Part 1: The Market is a Changin' I was talking with a colleague the other day.  She reminded me just how difficult it is for anyone (professional or otherwise) to develop and maintain an accurate perspective about what’s really happening in the real estate market and where values are at. The market is way too big of a beast. And it moves way too fast. It is constantly getting invented and reinvented each day by too many different people making too many different life-altering decisions....

- Terry Brezsny Ballantyne

Tangled

November 30, 2016I have managed my mother’s care for 18 months. I say managed because I no longer give her a shower, or make daily meals.  I am the umbrella under which the caregivers do the daily work. I manage their moods and needs and keep them propped up.  They are present and have feelings and voices.  I can please them, assist them, relate to them. And they, with some super human skill I do not possess, take care of my failing mom and her dementia impaired...

- Terry Brezsny Ballantyne

Why Is Moving So Damn Hard?

October 8, 2016Moving is so bloody hard isn't it? It is so daunting, such an overwhelming task, that many stay in unhappy conditions rather than move all that stuff.  But here is the secret, the heart of it,  as  ee Cummings would say, ‘here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;" Everyone hates moving.  And after 20 years helping people move, I know for certain...

- Terry Brezsny Ballantyne

Another Day, Another Reality

May 10, 2016  11,000 people turn 65 a day.   1 in 3 seniors dies with dementia. The duality of emotions dealing with these seniors and the disease that ravages them are heartbreaking. Picture someone you love, and then imagine a time when you wanted to bean them. Right? It appears to me that the very people we love the most often confound and frustrate us. It’s probably because we care. We have a stake in the future with them. But what about the parent that has a...

- Terry Brezsny Ballantyne

Where do I fit?

April 6, 2016Remember back in junior high when, if you were NOT one of the golden children, the perennially popular, confident, well dressed kids, the whole idea of lunch and who to sit with and where to hang out had all this social import.   The pecking order was there, established by the small tribes who identified their circle by where they sat.  Under the trees, on the fence, near the gym steps, out on the grass by the back fence, each group claimed different values, but you had your group. We...

- Terry Brezsny Ballantyne

Trump, Zika and Kidney Infections

March 24, 2016  How can we plan for our old age when we don’t believe in it? The world has gone mad we tell ourselves. We blew our March Madness bracket already, The Donald is scaring us, refugees are certainly coming to our shores next, Zika is frightening, the seas are rising, How can you start seriously saving money for your old age? You might be dead from a dirty bomb by then. So it’s easy to put off saving for the impossibly distant future when you...

- Terry Brezsny Ballantyne

What is aging?

February 27, 2016When I observe our most elder people in the community, it is easy to assume they are sort of little shells of  a life  lived long ago. I see them shuffle or amble slowly at the market, sometimes shaky limbs reaching for the milk, or a hesitant hand pick over a bin of tomatoes.  They seem hollow, as if getting to the market and home is about all they can manage. I often wonder what keeps them going?  Looking from the outside it seems impossible...