Y’All Are the Best

Fellow bloggers are that and more. 

THANKS to all who read a recent post and then checked out a new blog created exclusively to market our Maple St home informally called The Frog & PenguINN. (Update: that blog has since been removed as our home was sold, eventually.)

We value your feedback so I updated the blog to address your comments. Several suggested adding interior shots, which were already there, but perhaps overlooked as interior views were accessed at the top of the page. The Welcome Home intro was reworked to note the top tabs.

While there won’t be new posts added to the Maple St blog, existing information will be reworked and photos will be changed, especially when front and rear gardens are in full bloom.

GREAT news on the real estate front this week . . .

No, our home didn’t sell, but 2 other houses listed for sale in the neighborhood are “under contract.” Both include an in-ground pool and outbuildings. One is a Victorian, similar in age to ours; the other is a 1960s? ranch. Our advantage is having more land than either of these properties without a pool. Both homes were listed at the same price and significantly higher than our asking price, which excited our realtor, who said “if both sell close to full asking price then we will have 2 good comps for the appraiser when we get an offer on yours.”

So, we’re going to take the advice of fellow blogger Christer . . “I cross my fingers and hold my thumbs for good luck !”

Spring is making a comeback. St Joseph may be awakening from a long winter nap soon (we can only hope).

25520 Maple St

That’s the name of a new blog devoted to selling The Frog & PenguINN although it doesn’t use that name, as that’s just what Grenville and I have named and refer to our classic Victorian home.

As most of you already know, we are selling our home to relocate closer to family and grandchildren. But, despite burying a statue of St Joseph in the front yard and being listed on many realty sites, showings have been far and few between. We’ve seen some folks stop and pick up a listing sheet this week,  so maybe something will happen soon (we hope).

The new blog  is titled after our street address and can be found at www.25520maplest.blogspot.com. Below is the blog header that was created in Picasa after reading some many online tutorials. Lots of folks also use PicMonkey for collage creation; I tried it too and it’s fun and free (if don’t get the Royale package).

This was my first time creating a blog from scratch and entirely in Blogger as Grenville previously set up The Frog and PenguINN template. I was always apprehensive about playing with templates and not sure why after “experimenting” in Blogger the past week. There were LOTS of issues and some LOTS of frustration, but searching on-line for solutions was a great help. Knowing others had similar issues and reading about their solutions was a learning experience. I even managed to manipulate the HTML coding when Blogger would not “play nice” with inserted photos. (More on that in another post.)

Microsoft’s Live Writer is is the software I use to prepare my Frog & PenguINN blog posts, including this one because it’s an off-line editor. BUT, it’s not available on the Mac platform and I wanted to be able to edit or add to the blog from my Windows and MacBook computers; also Grenville uses a MacBook exclusively. And while working on the 25520 Maple St blog, the settings were to keep it “private” and not available to search engines; apparently doing so prevented Live Writer from “finding” it. These settings were chosen so I could freely before going going “live.”

Unlike this blog, the 25520 Maple St blog does not allow comments. This is because we wanted it to describe the house and its “selling” points vs. getting feedback on pages. Aside from updating or making revisions, we are not planning to add new posts.  There is a link on the sidebar directing anyone interested in the home to contact our realtor. We thought about including an email address, but then would have to refer anyone interested, so why bother.

BUT, we could use YOUR collective help be letting us know what you think of the 25520 Maple St blog layout, information presented, etc. You can either include them on THIS post OR send us a separate email at our address posted on our profiles page.

Please be as honest as possible since this new blog is my first solo one everything is a learning experience, including feedback — THANKS everyone.