Comment moderation, word verification, and blog post labels

WELCOME to Mary Ann and William of  IN THE WIND Adventures of...  Mary Ann and William!  Thank you for following Me and My Dog.  We are hoping to "hit the road" in a year, but that time frame might be changing to a date sooner.  Meanwhile, I am plugging along, taking the steps I need to take to lease my condo, sell my stuff, buy the RV and get started on our Adventures!

Jeana at Four Windows with a view asked about the purpose of moderating comments.  The discussion in her comment section went into word verification use as well.  I don't use them, but after reading Jeana's comment section, I feel newly enlightened.  It seems bloggers use either or both for different reasons that all make sense, and that was interesting.

I don't use my cell phone for comments, I'd rather check Blogger, and I haven't, until lately, had any problems with spam.  The spam I'm getting, about 30 a day, are all caught by Blogger.  Of course, I have to delete them, but that only takes seconds.

I usually go into my Dashboard and read comments from there so I won't miss any. I don't have them e-mailed to me like some bloggers do.

One thing I have noticed, though.  Last week I wasn't as busy as usual at work, and read blog posts and made comments on my work computer.  When I do this at home on my laptop which is fast, I never have any problems leaving comments, typing in the word verification, and hitting the submit button.  It's gone, and I move on. I've never lost a comment.

What I've discovered using my work desktop (I have an OLD one in my office) is that because it's pretty slow, and I move too fast for it, I hit the "back" button or the "X" on the blog tab, and when it's too late, I realize there was a window saying I typed the word wrong or I'll see the word verification too late, and the comment page is gone.  Twice I went back and re-typed a short comment, but I also lost a couple of longer ones that I didn't want to re-type. 

I can imagine this happening a lot when you are in areas with poor signals, etc.  (Another reason to LOVE this laptop while I'm still living in my condo!)  I'm going to have to learn to be sure my comment has been accepted before hitting any keys to move on to another blog.

I've been blogging now since last August, and I keep learning new things about this program.  One is how useful using "labels" is. 

I just started is the Label option. It didn't seem useful when I first started blogging, but there have been a few things lately I wanted to check on that I had posted about, and it took a little while to find them.  If I had used labels, it would have been a snap.

I decided that since I had the time last week, I was going to add labels to my past posts.  There are more than 100 of them, so I decided I'd better do it now rather than later.  I made good progress.  That's one of the reasons I'm putting recipes, favorite photos, etc., on the blog.  I'll always know where to find them.

This is the best filing cabinet I can think of to use when RVing full-time.  As long as my computer is working, and/or backed up I will always be able to find information that I've posted such as RV repair info, camping sites, people I meet, favorite restaurants, whatever.  This might not be the purpose of a blog, but it is sure a nice side-effect.  I'll bet a lot of full-timers use labels to find things in past blogs.  A real space saver!

Katie and I had a quiet Saturday. Just a bit of shopping.  Tomorrow I am going to San Diego State University to see Kennedy, my oldest grand daughter, and her team compete in their cheer competition.  This is the only one close to home, and I wanted to be sure I saw at least one this year. Then she and I are coming back to my house to bake her birthday cake, she's 8 tomorrow, hang out for a while, and go out to dinner at Home Town Buffet.  That's where I took Gavin, her brother, for dinner on his birthday, and she asked if I would take her there on her birthday, too.  So tomorrow will be a busy day. 

Nothing photo worthy today.  Next time.

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a great Saturday evening, everyone!  : )

Electromate® 400 and fridge photo

I saw this on Regis and Kelly one morning - it sounded like a good thing to have in an RV. Does anyone have one, or have an opinion?  I saw it advertised on Amazon.com for $107.  

It's a power supply, jump starts vehicles, inflates balls and tires, built-in LED light that never needs replacing, and recharges with a household extension cord.    Would this be useful in your RV? Or do you have something like this for emergencies that works well?  I saw some on Amazon.com that also charge cell phones.

 

Electromate® 400 AC/DC Portable Power Station/Jump-Starter /Compressor - MODEL # VEC026BD

I'm joining the ranks of the fridge photo people.  Here's mine:

Don't hate me!  I just cleaned it out and scrubbed the inside over the weekend, which I NEVER do, and threw away all the old stuff, so it will never look like this again.  It's usually pretty full and not so organized.  LOL.  Seemed like a good time to take my fridge photo!

I had a hard time finding this refrigerator.  There is a broom closet on the left and a cupboard (top and bottom) with tile counters on the right, so I had a specific width to work with.  All the side-by-sides I found were too wide to fit, but I finally found this one. It's narrow, but it works.   

From Me and My Dog, Katie (who is happily chewing on her rawhide toy right now), have a great Tuesday, everyone! : ) 

Sweet spaghetti sauce recipe, finally, and a paddling Pelican

A big WELCOME to our new Follower, Michael!  Thank you for following Me and My Dog.  We are anxiously waiting until we can sell (or probably lease) the condo and everything in it, and drive away in our future RV. Not now, but in the next year. Michael has four blogs on Blogger, so I'll let my readers click on your photo and see what you're up to.

Thank you for all your comments and support after my last post about meeting with my Realtor.  It's just so hard to wait, you know?  But... I have to be realistic, and now I have some numbers so I know where I stand.  I'll keep plodding along for now, and see what's up later in the year.

A while ago I mentioned making a sweet spaghetti sauce that I loved.  It was thick and sweet, just the way I like my spaghetti sauce.  One of my readers asked for the recipe, and here it is finally:

If you click on the picture you can print it out and/or just read it more clearly.  I did make a few changes:

1.  I prefer meatless sauce, so I didn't add the ground beef (meatballs would have been great, though)

2.  I increased the sugar to 2T

3.  I used real onions that I minced

4.  I added a little wine to taste - I always have some cheap white wine in the fridge to cook with

The comments for this recipe on-line were almost all thumbs up, but most had added or substituted things according to what they had in their kitchens.  So this is a very easy recipe to work with depending on what's handy.

Here's a video of a pelican Linda and Howard (RVDreams.com) shot on their paddle trip down the Chassahowitzka River in their Sea Eagle 370 Kayak.  If you right click on the video, one option is "share" so that's what I'm doing - sharing their video.  Hope it's okay with Linda and Howard.  I loved this cute little guy with his feet padding for all he's worth.  He looks like a wind-up toy until his wings start moving.

Thanks Linda and Howard. I loved the Manatees on your blog, too, but this little Pelican is just too cute!

That's it for today.  Have a wonderful evening, everyone, from Me and My Dog!  : )

Realtor results

I met with my Realtor, Doug, on Friday.  He inspires a lot of confidence and I AM confident that he really knows what he is talking about.

I'm including a lot of photos and some info here to document our meeting and my condo so if this seems like too much info, just scroll through fast.  I want to have this information and the photos where I can pull them up in the future.

We went through my condo room by room, he had a few comments, luckily very few.  The caulking between the brick wall in my bedroom and the ceiling needs re-caulking and he said a "color" would be better in the room, something soft, but not white.

 Master bedroom

I agree with Doug about the white walls - they are kind of stark looking (I've never noticed before) so I will paint them a warmer color. Only three walls. The brick wall I'll re-paint white. He said the color on the walls around the windows will make the white window frames and blinds valances "pop."  His son is available for $15 an hour to do the work if I want. 

Living room, dining room and front door/entrance area

Living room

 

Dining room

Galley kitchen

Back yard to the left

Back yard to the right

 Guest bathroom

Master bath dressing room

 Master bath

And that's it.  I love this place, it's the perfect size for me, great location near lots of shopping, restaurants, freeways. It's very manageable for a single person as far as keeping it up and taking care of the back yard/patio area. I'd love to keep it, and that's what's going to happen for now.  

Doug had a list of comps in the area, and it was obvious that I can't sell right now.  I put down 20 percent cash, and that's gone, and if I sold for it's value today, I'd have to come up with, probably, around $30K to pay off my mortgage.  That's not counting the approximately $14,000 in Realtor fees and other costs/fees to sell.  Obviously not going to happen.  These numbers are strictly based on the cost per square foot from the comps, and don’t take into account the location, condition, upgrades, view, etc., which bring the price up.

He said he feels we are right at the bottom in pricing right now, and in the next two to three years prices will slowly increase.  Five years from now we should be back to where I can sell and walk away with some cash.  That means if I want to retire I will need to lease it.  There really is no other option right now.  So at least I have that question answered - lease, not sell.

The good news is he feels I can get more than my mortgage payment in rent each month.  I'd be upside down a little because of my homeowner's association dues, but that's okay.  My monthly housing expenses when full-timing will be less than my current housing expenses, so I'd end up on the positive side.

Doug and his wife are also property managers, and he told me exactly how they work, how they prepare the property, find tenants, etc.  I was sitting there thinking, I could do this NOW.  Find my RV, move/sell everything, rent a small storage unit for whatever I want to keep, find an RV park to live in while I'm working, keep my car for now for transportation - I'd be living the full-time life in a few months!  I started getting really excited about doing this NOW.  One negative is that they charge ten percent, payable during the first month.  It would cost me almost $2,000 for the first year. 

Yesterday I found a storage facility nearby, and it looked good.  I went to the Camping World in town and looked a couple of Class Cs in my price range, and last night did a bunch of research on the Internet looking for RV's and RV parks in San Diego.  

I Skyped my daughter and talked to her about it.  Kristy is very positive about my plans, but I got the "devil's advocate" from her regarding the property manager, and whether this is a good time to do this.  I appreciated her thoughts, and her honesty.  It's easy for me to get too involved with the positive aspects and not see the rest when I get excited about something.  She had some good points.  I also talked to my son, Tom.  He had the same concerns Kristy did.  He felt that if I was going to be in the area, I didn't need a property manager.  Tom has property in Northern California, and he manages it from San Diego.  He said with Craig's List it's so easy to find tenants.  We belong to the apartment association through work, and I have already downloaded all the rental/lease forms that I would ever need.  Once the property is leased, there shouldn't be a lot of work, and he is right here to help out if needed. 

This morning when I got up I walked through the rooms and looked around.  I'm so comfortable here.  I've loved it since the first day, and every day for the last six years.  This is really tough.  I know most of you full-timers have gone through the same thing I'm going through now, so you know how I'm feeling.  Also a lot of you future full-timers.  You are probably going through exactly the same thing right now.  Or have, or will.

It probably  is too soon. I don't know what to do, and when I don't know what to do, I've found it's better to make the decision to "do nothing."  So, that's my decision for now.  I'm going to let things percolate for a few months, and then see how I feel.  With my Social Security starting this month, I'll be in a better financial situation every month I can wait.

When the time is right, it will be easier to make these decisions, but at least I have more information now.  I know what the condo is worth, what I can lease it for, I've done research on storage units close by and RV parks in the area, and I've looked at a couple more Class Cs.

I'll keep you posted.  I expect I'll go through this exercise a few more times before Katie and I are set free.

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone! :)

Blog ads, Realtor appointment tomorrow

Some of my readers made good points regarding having ads on my blog, and I'm taking it to heart.  You are right, I think, and for now I'm abandoning the idea of having ads on my posts to generate income. I don't really mind them on other people's blogs.  I just ignore them unless they catch my eye and I'm interested in the content, then I'll click on them.  I dont' mind generating a little income for you guys!  : )

One of my future plans is to add a second tab to the blog.  The address of this blog site is dewelldesigns.blogspot.com.  The Dewell Designs part is the name of my company.  I've used that name on and off for a few years when making cards, digital scrapbook pages, etc., and it will be the name of my company if I decide to have an Internet site for resumes, word processing, editing, etc. I had a business for 15 years, and supported myself quite well from my home part of the time, and from an off-site office about half the time.  I love working on the computer, have good skills in the word processing area, love the English language, and edit other people's work and websites.  I'm really looking forward to doing that again if it works out, and I can work from anywhere my RV home is parked.

So, if I do add that tab, I may put ads there, since it will be about a business.  It won't be the business website, but will be an overview with the link to my website. 

I can just picture myself sitting at the kitchen table with Katie by my side, in the middle of a beautiful forest (or maybe by the ocean) creating resumes and documents for my customers.  That's usually how I picture my future full-timing life.  Either that, or cooking in my little kitchen.  ONE MORE YEAR!

By the way, I have a Realtor coming tomorrow at 2:00 to take a look at my condo and see what it might be worth now, or in the coming months.  If the number is too low, I also want to know what he could lease it for.  I want him to see the bedroom before the leak is repaired and all the painting, etc., is done and it's back to normal so he won't have any questions about what he's selling or leasing and that the repairs were done correctly.

This Realtor sold the condo across the lawn from me.  The original owner, who was in her 90's, was moved to a care home, and it had no updates since it was built in the 60's.  The front was overgrown somewhat with bushes.  The Realtor, Doug, trimmed the bushes, removed some, and planted flowers.  When he was done, and he did the work himself and paid for it himself, the place looked 100 percent better from the outside. It sold quickly. 

The current owner has an out-of-town job and leased it a year ago. The tenant moved out after a year and it is now leased to the nice young couple I've mentioned before.  So, I'm thinking if I did want to purchase my RV sooner than planned, I could lease the condo and move into an RV park locally pretty inexpensively, and keep working and get used to the full-timing life.  IF the numbers work.

I'm excited about my appointment with Doug tomorrow - I'll let you know what happens.  Keep your fingers crossed!

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a wonderful Thursday, everyone!  : )