Summer!

Can’t Wait…

Sunflower Smiling!

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Spring!

It’s time to plant a garden.

Spring Rhodie at Otter Crest

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Still Some Great Bargains Available!

I’m notified each day by other Realtors on the coast about new listings, new prices, and changes in situations for listed properties. One such notification came by yesterday about an oceanfront cabin for $299,000! I’m tempted by this one – it’s bank-owned and appears to be a killer deal. If you’re interested, call me at 541-669-0123 and I’ll dig it out for you. I was selling oceanfront lots for $500,000 just a couple of years ago.

Posted via email from Seascapes Realty posterous

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Quick Trip to Beach to Show/Write up another Vacation Home

Sunday was fun!  Came to the coast to sell a couple of clients I’ve know for 5 years a “dream home” to use and enjoy, and eventually retire to.  They were so excited.  We found the perfect place, and made a great offer.  They’ve been wanting to do this for years and today it finally came together.  Gorgeous sunshine, and a place with sweeping ocean views.  They are going to love it here in their new little community of Miroco, near Depoe Bay, Or.  Next step;  get the offer accepted, and apply for the loan.

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Lyn’s Saturday Painting Class-my first in 30 yrs

Depoe Bay –Instead of chasing around showing property today on this gorgeous, sunny, bright spring day at the ocean, I decided to take a breather and attend a painting class from Lyn Lasneski at Lasneski Sudios in Depoe Bay.    She has an Open Studio class nearly every Saturday and welcomes “drop-ins,” particularly beginners, like me.  She even had supplies available for me to use as part of the class, which was great since I wasn’t equipped.

I’m quite excited about what I learned.  I’ve not painted since grade school, and never painted with oil.  Yet, in spite of my lack of knowledge and skill, have managed to put together the beginnings of a really nice ocean scene at night.  Lyn is an excellent teacher.  Instead of encouraging me to “go it on my own” and see what turns out, Lyn is guiding me every step of the way with instruction on technique with the brush, but more importantly instruction in”how to see.”  The colors I think I see simply aren’t the colors in the painting, and I’m really learning to look closely and see color– shades and values I would never have realized without her skillful guidance at every turn.  It’s turning out pretty good and I’ll share it with you all once it’s done.  I can’t wait!

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Grandma meets Twitter, Oh My!

After the technology fair, I returned to the office to “tweet” a few (that’s Twitter Speak for those of you who are clueless) and realized I might be in over my head.  This started as an experiment to see if Twitter.com would provide an avenue to reach more people with my message about Oregon Coast Real Estate.  Not sure it has, but I’m “twittering” a couple times or  more a day and kind of like this.  And, my phone is ringing more with customers, and getting more email leads, so who knows?  Maybe this has helped.  Hope so.  

Twitter is part of the new trend, called “social” networking, but there’s a lot of business going on at Twitter, too.   Today I realized that I’m out of touch with the lingo of the younger generation and chuckled at a term used, “tweet cred” only to find out that I still didn’t understand the meaning after someone enlightened me.  I ended the “tweet” with, “maybe I should ask my kids” which I will.  It’s bad enough to feel out of it with my grown kids when they start in with the latest lingo, but now I’m on the outside even with a broader audience at large?  Oh my.  Well, maybe if nothing else, Twitter will bring me up to speed in many ways.

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RMLS Technology & Real Estate Fair in Portland

Just got back from the RMLS technology fair in Portland this afternoon and had a lot of fun talking with the various vendors about their new technology products.  Especially enjoyed talking with the guys over at Homequest (my favorite MLS search for customers- www.PortlandRealEstate-Homes.com) and a new product (to me) called “JOT”.  With Jot you can call in voice memos to a phone number and they transcribe your voice to text and send it back to you email.  This can really be handy if you have a huge load of customers and a busy week.

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Idealism for a Better America Lights My Day, Today

The real estate boom of the last few years consumed so much of my time, engaging me in offers on top of offers for real estate, buyers fearful of “missing out.” Too often, simple greed drove prices to a ridiculous level–at a ridiculous pace.

Today is a new day, and thankfully a new time. Today, thanks to CNN, I could awaken after the Inauguration started, and yet not miss a thing. So many themes in the President’s speech ring true for me today: I’m the granddaughter of poor immigrants; I succeeded for years in bringing average Americans into government to serve voluntarily; I struggled as a young person with the realities of an ugly war; I personally saw Bobby Kennedy speak in my neighborhood (St. Johns, Portland, OR) about the injustices and inequalities we must correct; and understood first hand as a young single mother the struggle of minorities in this country-whether racial, gender, religious or sexual orientation-to be heard and respected.

Our new President has left me so hopeful that I am placing his speech here for you to hear. It’s been a long time since I really listened intently to the words of a new President, but today I did. As a baby boomer myself, I remember the hope and idealism of our young generation–we demanded nothing less than a better world, refusing to accept the mistakes of our parents. I’ve not felt such inspiration and hope since those days of my youth, and it’s the youth of today who can take a lot of the credit. As Americans we can all be proud, and hopeful.

For 10 years I served in government, in an Executive Branch agency under Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton. It was an exciting time for me. I travelled to Washington D.C. many times on assignment, and was even able to bring my pre-teen children with me a couple times. I remember seeing the White House, and even sitting in on a session of Congress, watching our great Senator from Oregon speak, Sen. Mark Hatfield. If you’ve never been to Washington, do go. Every American should go. It left a huge impression on me, and I hope my children, too. They’re certainly politically engaged in this country today, so I think so.

President Barack Obama – “As the world grows smaller, our common humanity will reveal itself”

Today, I feel that we as Americans have again taken charge of our country, and can really be proud of the journey we are about to take. The leadership of this extraordinary President, simply inspires. For the first time in a long time, I really believe that we will see our “common humanity” reveal itself.

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Building a Website (Wordpress) Takes Time..

Totally surprised at how much time it’s taking me to build this site. It’s a lot more complicated that it looked when I started. Many decisions to be made, and re-made. But, it’s fun to learn something new! And, by the way I discovered something sooooo cooool last night that I want you all to go striaght to their website and download their product (it’s free). It’s a fabulous plugin to your browser that will make the photos on my website (and others) look absolutely gorgeous! I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out how to incorporate the code to make their browser work on all my photos on my site. Success! The company is called Cool Iris, and boy is this an understatement. I’d call it Really, Really Cool Iris! Anyway go here.

 This is one new browser add on that everyone should have. Once you’ve added it to your browser you can try it out. Go to YouTube and search any category. It’s amazing how many photos you can see, quickly, and enjoy. And the clarity, color, and vivid presentation of photos is really amazing. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make the photos I shoot for my website look as good as I can, and the technical, behind the scenes work needed to do this is really awful. No simple standards to enjoy. Cool Iris solved a ton of problems for me, and even if you don’t download their plugin, you should see good photos. They have a “lite” version that downloads automatically if you don’t have their plugin. But get the plugin…you won’t regret it. It really makes the Internet a lot more fun!

A software engineer, friend of mine-Steve, was visiting this week from Palo Alto and I even sent him the link to see if he could go to work for them. He’s a top notch programmer/engineer and this company seems to be doing something quite leading edge–just up his alley. Hope they snatch him up. They’d both be happy with the results. Look for this icon to launch Cool Iris: [piclens-icon]

In the meantime, happy viewing.

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Fun & Food For New Year’s

Hope you all had a great New Year’s eve. My family gathered this year to celebrate Christmas and New Years on the same night, exchanging secret santa gifts and cooking up a storm. Rather than spend a ton of money we agreed on one gift from secret Santa, excluding the kids of course, and limit of $30. It turned out fun, creative, and was especially great to see that my kids & grandchildren from the Bay Area made the trip up to Portland so we could all be together. My new son-in-law is a fabulous cook, so he started cooking late in the afternoon and we ate and drank all night. Some of the menu included: pumpkin soup with smoked paprika & pepper mouse; fillo with moroccan chicken; lemon grass barbequed pork; deep fried sauerkraut balls (a tradition in his family); barbequed salmon; and I made lemon meringue and apple pies. Recipes to follow as soon as I get them from Andy. He’s a fabulous commercial designer as well, check the links for his site. The whole thing was a lot of fun.

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