Category: Just me being me

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Are you a huge dork like me who woke up wondering what the deal is with Labor Day?

Well, if not I can drop some knowledge on you that Labor Day was formed to celebrate various labor associations’ contributions to the US economy. According to my googling, we’re supposed to be recognizing today with a “day of rest” and mark the end of the summer season with a last minute trip or outdoor event. There was something about a parade too.

So with the end of summer, here are just a few things that I’m looking forward to this fall:

• The return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks. My first sip makes me feel like my favorite season is finally here.

• My birthday. I know I’m not 12, but I still feel like a princess on my birthday. I think this year I’m going to start subtracting one from my age though, so in a few years I’ll be 30 again…

• Our house finally selling. At least I hope so! We had two showings on Saturday and apparently both of them are interested in our house. We’re expecting a contract today and possibly one tomorrow as well. Once we find out more, I’ll do a full blog post with all the details.

• A job change. Unfortunately this is not entirely by my choice (long, long story that I will share when everything is finalized), but I feel like this is the universe’s way of kicking me in the butt to go after my dreams.

• Fire. I love bonfires, whether they are at my parent’s house or on camping trips. Once the weather cools down, my sweetie and I will need to plan a camping trip so I can get my smores on!

• Fall festivals. I’ve never been to the Seafood Festival in Annapolis before, but I’m looking forward to going this year to see one of my favorite live bands, Cowboy Mouth. I’m also hoping to make a return trip to the Apple Butter Festival and the Shenandoah Valley Hot Air Balloon & Wine Festival.

Hmm….maybe I should go downstairs to curl up with a book and enjoy my day of rest. It looks like I’m going to be really busy the next few months!

Change.

Everybody does it, but not everyone likes it.

When it comes to your business, it is smart to change with the times. Whether this is by updating your marketing materials, redecorating your reception area or thinking about whether those hot pants really work on your employee uniform.

The downside of changing something about your business is that there is always the fear of alienating customers who like things the way they are.

This morning I came across a perfect example of change. One of my favorite blogs, Young House Love,  just unveiled a new look for their website. They’ve had the same look since the spring of 2008 and decided that it was time to do some design and function updates.

Was there anything wrong with their previous design? Not at all.

Is the new design fantastic? Absolutely!

But you know what is even more fantastic? The fact that they did a blog post detailing why they made the changes and exactly what was done. For those people who instantly distrust any modifications, this is a great chance for the Young House Lovers to explain WHY they made the changes.

Typically I’m not a huge fan of change for change sake, but when it goes hand in hand with a really good reason (like to be more reflective of their design choices in their current house project), I think it’s a great idea!

Check out www.younghouselove.com to see their new website design (they show the old one too if you’re a first time visitor) and how they handled the announcement.

*Please tell me you get my stupid pun of 2 Cents and the blog subject of Change. Corny, right? Yup, that’s just the way I like it!

Sometimes things are frustrating and just don’t go your way. That’s life.

However, you have to admit that it’s a pain in the butt to want something so bad and not get it.

Typically I’m not a huge whiney-head and I totally understand that just because I want something, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone else who wants it more (and probably deserves it more). So, I can pretty much look on the bright side and get over things pretty quickly.

This house thing, though, is driving me crazy.

I want so badly to sell our house. The market sucks though so we have to just sit and wait until someone comes along and decides to buy it.

We originally put our house on the market Memorial Day weekend of 2010 and then took it back off Labor Day weekend. We used the time that the house was not listed to do a bunch of updates and relisted it this past spring. Over the past 5 months, we’ve had a lot of showings but still no contracts. We’ve even reduced the price a couple times, only to have our neighbors do the same thing.

At this point, I’ve divorced myself from the house and I hate it with a white hot passion.

Hopefully now that the kids are back in school (at least the ones that have electricity) we’ll get some more showings and that elusive beast of a contract. Until then, it will continue to drive me crazy that there is nothing at all I can do about it.

Something I can control though is planning our annual wedding anniversary trip.* We’ve previously gone to Jamaica (honeymoon), Deep Creek Lake (year 1) and Universal Studios in Orlando (year 2). We were considering St. Martin for this year’s trip, but extenuating circumstances have forced us to change our trip plans so something much less expensive.

We decided that we’d like to do a bed & breakfast, since we had a nice time previously staying at B&B’s in Deep Creek and Harpers Ferry.

We’re thinking of maybe somewhere in New York, so that we can enjoy hiking during the day and even take a day trip into the city. We’re also tossing around the idea of somewhere on Skyline Drive, which is beautiful to hike in the Fall.

If you have any suggestions of a wonderful B&B anywhere within a 6ish hour circumference of Baltimore, let me know in the blog comments or on my Facebook page!

*Travelling is my weakness and I like to always have a trip planned to look forward to at all times.