This has been one of those very good weeks that you get every now and again.  First I'd like to start with the fact that Thursday, 11/19/09 is my friend Robyn Stephanou's 51st Birthday.  Robyn single handedly got me through my 50th with a sound mind by bombarding me with notes, cards, comments on my facebook wall, notes to my mailman on the envelope of birthday cards and finally the huge sign she placed at the corner of my street, alerting the world that I am 50.  Well, today, I'd like to say that I am thankful for this lovely woman and that I am also thankful that she is one year older than me!  Well, almost one year!  xxoo to my wonderful and funny friend Robyn who makes me laugh by simply answering her phone.  Seriously.

The second great thing that happened this week was that I talked out something with someone who means a lot to me.  Something has been bothering me for a while.  As outgoing as I am, I can be a major avoider of anything that looks like conflict, so this was huge for me.  It put my mind at rest and I am happy we talked.

Next, I've been doing the Brian Buffini end of the year Blitz with a small group at our office and our broker Mike took all of the participants out to breakfast on Monday morning to start the week.  I know I've said it before, but I am extremely thankful to be working for a company owned by such great people.  Truly above the crowd, as the RE/MAX slogan says!

As a result of doing the End of Year Blitz, I was entitled to a free group coaching call.  I participated today and got a free PDF version of the book Think and Grow Rich.  I started reading it and it is wonderful.  Everywhere I turn God is trying to tell me that by controlling my thoughts, I can direct my life.  I highly recommend you go out today and buy this book.

The sun has been shining all week and it's been wonderful!  I bagged some leaves and did some fall cleanup, my loving little JJ by my side.  I am thankful for the sunshine and so thankful that I put my foot down and treated myself and Max to this dog.  He is a joy.  Simply the best gift I ever got for myself and my family.

Max, my 13 year old and I are great friends and I can't even begin to tell you how thankful I am that this handsome and well rounded boy likes to sit and talk with me.  He is truly a blessing and I will be eternally thankful to have him in my life.

Last but not least is my college boy.  This is so funny that I have to share it.  Mike called me today just to say hi which is a rare enough occurrence that I am indeed thankful for that.  I had posted a picture of him and his cousins on my facebook from when they were very little and I was much younger and pregnant with Max. 

Mike is on the bottom left and he was saying how much he wanted to be little again.  He said, and I swear it's true, that he was tired of "real life", it was just too much work!  Hahahahaha!  This is the child who is living in an apartment off campus, all expenses paid with a 15 meal a week meal plan and a car that he only pays the insurance on, and this comes from a savings account that I started when he was little!  When he comes home both my husband and I slip him money and we always fill his gas tank.  We send him back with a trunk full of food and goodies.  He just spent the weekend at Penn State, visiting friends and going to the football game!  He's tired of real life!  Well, this just tickles my funny bone!  I said "sweetie, you aren't living real life, you are in the middle of having the time of your life"!  He thinks college is a lot of work and believe me, I'm sure it is.  But I didn't have the opportunity and I am extremely thankful that I can provide him the chance to attend.  But that is just too funny!  Real life! Ha!

Thursdays is my Meals on Wheels delivery day and I am thankful to have the kind of job that allows me the freedom to do this kind of work.  It is extremely rewarding.

So today, 11/19/09, I am thankful for so many things, but mainly for life in general.  I am thankful for all of the children in the above picture, including Max, who is growing in my belly!  The children are Mike, my lovely nephews Charles and Alex, my gorgeous niece Elena and my almost nephew Matthew.  And for you if you managed to stick with me till the end!

Carpe Diem!

I just got an email from a client that bought an investment property from me a while ago.  It's a multi-family property and he is tired of the hassle, the phone calls, the broken appliances.  His email was sweet.  The subject line was "A Quick Question".  He started the email with "perhaps a long answer"!  He wanted to know how much I thought his property was worth, how long he could anticipate it taking to sell, how the market was for investment properties, etc. 

The punch line was this: Please don't spend much time on this, just top of the head type stuff.

When I responded, it was with humor.  I said that I don't do top of the head stuff very often because there isn't anything up there!  I was just kidding and he knows me well enough to know that. 

Real Estate can be a tricky business and properly pricing properties is an art, not a science.  There is no magic crystal ball and there are so many variables that "top of the head stuff", unless it's a cookie cutter neighborhood where all homes are alike and there were 6 recent sales in the last three months, is really just a guessing game.

I don't like to guess when my clients put their trust in me.

But I will do a complete market analysis and sit down with you and discuss all the pros and cons.  I will let you know how long things are taking to move and I will do my very best for you if you list your property.

No "top of the head stuff" in this market.  Just good old fashioned hard work.

It's a beautifully sunny day in West Chester today and I took a few hours out of the day to bag leaves.  There was a time when I wouldn't have considered working in my garden in the middle of a work week for fear that a client or a potential neighbor-turned client would think that I wasn't a busy Realtor! 

I now realize that most people understand that real estate agents work when everyone else is home.  Sure, I work lots during the work day, processing sales, doing paperwork, attending home inspections, prospecting for new clients, emailing current buyers homes for them to preview, marketing my listings and countless other jobs.  But the face to face buyer/seller time is usually done in the evening and on weekends, when most people are enjoying their families or friends. 

Yesterday, the first sunny day in I don't remember when, I worked almost all day.  I had an open house and then I showed homes to a buyer.  I am working again this evening at 7:30 PM, showing a prospective buyer my listing in East Goshen.  And I worked this morning after attending a business breakfast.  So, if you saw me in my front yard today, bagging leaves, know that I had my cell phone with me.  My desk phone forwards to my cell phone so I rarely miss a call.  I won't answer a call if I am with a client, or on another line, but if I do miss your call, I will promptly call you back.  If you don't get a return phone call from me, something is seriously wrong.  It could be that I couldn't hear your telephone number clearly.  If you call my desk line, 484-356-2965, it will forward to my cell but the caller ID will say the office number, so I am unable to capture the telephone number.  If you call directly to my cell phone, 610-299-6237, I can capture that number and if I can't hear your number clearly, I can still call you back.

Realtors do not keep regular office hours.  Good Realtors are available whenever you need us.

Looking for a good Realtor?    Call my cell phone! 

This is my son Max when he was a little guy and loved to play in the leaves!

I don't know if there is a place on the Internet I can go to that will back up my guess that this has been the wettest year I can remember. 

I feel like it rained 3 or 4 days a week all year.  We had the soggiest spring that I can remember and the wettest, most rained out summer if you exclude a few weeks, which thank goodness, coincided with my FFV (the family vacation).  I commented to someone at a local plant store that I only saw one dreaded Japanese Beetle this year.  His theory was that with all of the rain we had, the grubs (yucky little garden pests) that transform themselves into Japanese Beetles (horrifying little garden pests), pretty much all drowned in the muck that was the spring and early summer.  There you go, the silver lining!  My roses are usually decimated in mid July by Japanese Beatles and they thrived this year. 

But enough already.  It is raining again in West Chester, and it rained yesterday, and it rained the day before yesterday.  Enough already!  If one more person tells me it's a good thing this isn't snow, I am going to scream.  I'd rather have snow that this wet dreary day. 

So rain, rain, go away.  Come again another day.  Max has a soccer game to play!

The alarm went off, as it usually does at 6:27 this morning.  I have only recently started letting my little dog JJ sleep in my bed with me.  I roll over to quiet the music and JJ stretches, does a jaw cracking yawn and then licks my face.  Not being a morning person used to mean never having to smile that early, but I can't help it.  No matter what the day will bring, I know that it won't be all bad if the day started with a doggie kiss. 

Dog, woman and cranky cat saunter into the hall and dog and woman stumble down the hall so JJ can hop on Max's bed and give his face a little lick as well.  Cat wouldn't lick one of our faces if it was covered in ocean whitefish and tuna!  Morning has broken at the Mangigian home!  Max awakens very much like I do but while he stumbles into the shower, the Mangigian parade continues down the stairs with me holding the rail as dog and cat vie to see who can reach bottom first.  The old saying that they fight like cats and dogs only applies here if the saying means that the cat rules and dog hides behind his owner!

Lest you all think I am a sunny dispositioned Polly-Anna, the week was off to a very bad start on Monday.  I found out on Friday that my health insurance is increasing, if I don't make any changes to my current deductibles by $436 PER MONTH!!  I knew I had to make some changes to my deductibles but I wanted to stay with my current plan which is Personal Choice.  Jack has insurance (that would be my husband) through Keystone at his work, but I am not ready to go to an HMO.  On Sunday, Jack asked me if I wanted him to have his insurance guy call me and give me prices on an HMO.  I said no, don't have him call me.  I don't want an HMO. 

8:00 AM the phone rings at my house.  Hello, is this Susan?  Jack asked me to call you to discuss our HMO's.  If this wasn't something that happened all the time around here, maybe I wouldn't have been quite so mad.  But when I say no, I mean no.  If I wanted to talk to someone about an HMO, I would pick up the phone.   I did learn that the reason for the huge increase this year was because I had turned 50!  As added insult to injury, the week was off to a rocky start.

But as is my nature, okay I can sometimes be a sunny dispostioned Polly-Anna, I got to work, and after bitching and complaining to anyone who would listen and a few who have heard it all before, I started to feel a little better.  I went to lunch with Liz Facenda, who always makes me laugh and life got back to normal. Until yesterday when I went to buy pants and realized that my scale isn't broken, I have put on too much weight.  Ugh.

Such is life.  I will have to start watching what I eat again, so that I can fit into the clothes I have.  And stepping up the cardio workouts, which I have been letting go in favor of weight lifting which hasn't done much for the spare tire I'm starting to grow around my middle.   

Yesterday, I went on line, adjusted my deductibles to a point where I'm not really all that comfortable, but got the payment down to only $165 more a month than I was paying last year, making my health insurance for my boys and me only slightly less than my mortgage payment. 

I looked out the window yesterday morning and there were 50 balloons on my neighbor's lawn!  I laughed and knew right away that her older son had driven over during the night and put them there.  I laughed even more when she called me and thanked me for doing it!  I am thankful today, for Nora, my next door neighbor, who turned 50 not long after me.  She's a great friend and we are going to breakfast today to celebrate her birthday. I'm guessing the diet starts next week because I am also going to lunch later today, after delivering meals on wheels and to dinner tomorrow night with some friends! 

I guess my point is this.  There will always be things to bitch about. Life can be a bowl of cherries and sometimes you are going to break a molar on the pits.  It just is.

So today, I am thankful for Nora.  We'll have a ton of laughs at breakfast.  I am thankful for all of my friends, who can always tell from my facial expression when I am having a bad day and who never seem to tire of listening to me until I feel better.  I am thankful as always for JJ and even more so now, for my morning kisses.  I am thankful for my health club because I have friends there who made me feel better last night when I was bitching and complaining over there about my weight gain!  You can do it, they said.  Yes, I can.  I just didn't want to have to!  But, I'll be thankful that at a time when some families don't have enough to eat, I managed to eat enough food and drink enough wine to have something to whine about.  I am thankful that my college boy bestowed the honor of commenting on my facebook last night.  That's always nice.  Oh, and I am thankful if you managed to stick with this all the way to the bottom!  I thank you!

Go out and find something to be thankful for today. 

Carpe Diem!

•          Have you ever dreamed of starting your own business?
•          Have you ever considered working for yourself?
•          Are you envisioning yourself in a new career?
•          Would you like to network with like-minded people?

•       Get advice and professional information from a panel of local Entrepreneurs
•       Visit informational Workshops and Exhibits
•       Learn how to take your business to the next level
•       Learn how to take your idea from thought to reality

 
*Chester County Women's Commission was created by the Commissioners of Chester County on December 13, 1993 to identify and advance the diverse needs and interests of the women of Chester County.

I just listed a terrific townhouse in Brandywine @ Thornbury.  It's a great 3 bedroom home with a finished, walk-out basement, a one car attached garage, an enlarged deck overlooking open space and it's move-in condition!  Here are the details:

So much to Offer!

137 Stirrup Circle, West Chester, PA 19382 View Map

Charming, comfortable and cozy townhouse in popular Brandywine @ Thornbury. Entry foyer with hardwood flooring, living room with fireplace, dining room, eat-in kitchen with sliders to over-sized deck overlooking woods, finished walk-out basement, attached garage, spacious bedrooms which include the master bedroom suite with private bath and walk-in closet! Sellers are even including the washer, dryer and refrigerator! Great home for a great price!

Details

Asking Price:

329,900

MLS:

5619560

Bedrooms:

3

Bathrooms:

2 1/2

Subdivision:

Brandywine @ Thornbury

Contact Info

Susan C. Mangigian
Realtor

Main 610-719-1700
Cell 610-299-6237
Dir 484-356-2965
Email | Website

---

Carl E. Williams
Home Loan Officer-Acct Exec
Chase New
120 Gibraltar Road
Horsham, PA 19044
610-325-1500
Email

All information is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

Over the course of the past few weeks, a very large dog has been roaming our neighborhood.  He looks like a greyhound and he is huge.  He is also not neutered, which is obvious because, as I mentioned, the dog is huge! 

I have been bitten by big dogs before, so at first, I was a little leery of this one.

Yesterday, JJ was going crazy.  He wanted to go outside and play.

I called the police yesterday, just to report that this lovely animal has been running the neighborhood and eventually, and very sadly, would be hit by a car if his owners didn't start behaving more responsibly.  The officer that came by wasn't able to catch the dog but later that day, he was back on my deck, salivating on the sliding glass door (that would be the big dog and not the policeman) and JJ wanted outside .

After making sure that Major would play nicely, I ran and got my camera.  Looking at my cute little fluffernutter staring into the eyes of this huge dog almost made me drop the camera!  I was able to get close enough to the dog to get his name and telephone number.  His owner was at work and apparently he has someone who is supposed to let Major out on a dog lead rather than just let him out.  He lives on a busy street near our neighborhood and I suggested to him that it would be a damn shame if this sweet dog was hit by a car because he was let out to roam the area. Hopefully he will be more careful in the future.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone played nicely, regardless of our differences?  Wouldn't it be nice if our skin colors and our size and shapes were not a factor in how we treat each other?  There are a lot of things we can learn from animals.  This lesson is huge.

Today, 11/5/09, I am thankful as always for JJ.  I am thankful that the Phillies made it to the World Series 2 years in a row!  I am thankful they didn't lose in the first 4 games and, in my opinion, gave us an exciting season.  I am thankful the sun is shining, my children are safe and well and that life is good. 

Carpe Diem!

West Chester Borough is a college town and a wonderful place to visit.  Thursday night was the annual Halloween Parade.  Words just can't do this town justice as a place for families and friends to gather to celebrate life. I'll let the pictures do the talking!

The marching bands from all 3 high schools and West Chester University were in attendance!!

Various color guards and cheerleaders...

Adults and children alike were in costume... Santa even made an appearance, although he looked a bit peaked.

State Senator Dinniman along with his dog and Representative (my all time favorite) McIlvaine Smith were also in attendance!

My son Max and his friends enjoyed it immensely!

I always enjoy going to events in West Chester borough.  If you have never been there, it's worth the trip!