Austin TX Real Estate - Hill Country Austin Lakeway Homes for Sale: May 2007

For many years, the start of the school year would creep sooner and sooner into the beginning of August.  When I first moved to Richardson back in 1984, I thought it was weird that school started in August right before Labor Day, but it was ok because we would go to school for a couple of days, because school never started on a Monday or Tuesday, and then we would have a long weekend to adjust to our new teacher and new classmates, and then we would come back in September.

Those days have long past.  As I got into Junior High and High School, school would start towards the end of August and not that last week.  Then it would go into mid-August.  As school was starting earlier and earlier, we still never had a "Fall Break" in October that the kids have today, though we did have one Monday in October for Fair Day.  The only good thing that came out of starting earlier was that semester exams were before the Winter Holiday.  Before that, we would get a couple of weeks off for Winter Break and then we would have to come back to school for review in all our classes and then exams were the next week.  Then, the next semester started the next week and we got out of school after Memorial Day.

However, and that's a HUGE However, Texas passed a new law that takes effect this year and NO school can start classes before the fourth Monday in August.  For many districts in my area, that means 3 extra weeks of Summer!!  3 entire weeks added to the Summer Break.  Isn't that wonderful?

From a Real Estate view, I see that as having more time for buyers to find the house they really want if changing school districts.  Instead of sales hitting a high in July, I think sales will hit a high in August.

For the students, what this means is no more Fall Break in October for most of the districts, and they'll probably go back to just a Monday Fair Day.  Also, each district is going to be different as to when they do their exams.  I can't wait to see how Richardson and Plano set their schedules.  Classes will also start going into the beginning of June because they'll need the extra time that they were getting at the beginning of the year.

What does everyone think of this new school schedule?  Is this going to work better for your Summer vacations?  Is it messing with plans you had?  Is it going to cost you more because you'll have to spend more money to keep your kids in Summer programs longer?

Since BabyHarris will still have 5 more years before starting school, I'm curious on how this will effect others so I can start planning, as I'm a control freak!

Well, I've been Meme'd several times over the past few months, and I've never really had the time to respond.  I got memed again today by Stephanie Edwards-Musa, so here I am with a few moments to respond while I wait for an out of state seller to respond to an offer we received on a listing.

So, you want five things about myself that you might not know...

1. I am a VERY competitive person.  (What?!?!  You knew that?  What gave me away?)

2. I love sports, but I prefer playing rather than watching.  I used to play soccer, softball, and sand volleyball.  I gave all that up when I met my now husband over four years ago as he got me into Wakeboarding.  I couldn't risk getting injured playing other sports because then I wouldn't be able to wakeboard.  I had never water skied before, so anything having to do with keeping balance on a board on the water was all new to me.

3. I played Clarinet from 6^th grade all through high school.  I was first chair most of the time.  I received a music scholarship for college, but after one day of summer band, I decided I wanted to see what life was like outside Band, so I dropped my scholarship and signed up for debt with financial aid.

4. I have a brother, Erick, who is 20 months older than me.  He and his wife, Kathy, live in the DC area.

5. I blogged about this last week, but maybe not everyone read it, but I'm PREGNANT!!  I am in my 14^th week, and I'm very excited!!  This will be my mom's first grandchild and my in-law's second.

I'm sure there are lots more things about me that you would like to know as I can talk up a storm, but I hope you learned something new about me with the above things I chose.

I will now meme:

Craig Bartels,  Sam Chapman, and Kip and Tamara Barnard

The new "Dallas" Cowboy's stadium in "Arlington" isn't even built yet, and we have already won the bid for the 2011 SuperBowl XLV!!  How does that happen?  I guess the pictures of what the stadium is supposed to look like blew them away enough to not care that it's not built yet.

I also wonder if the Cowboys will continue to be call the DALLAS Cowboys since the new stadium is in Arlington.  Granted, the current stadium is in Irving, which isn't Dallas, however, it is in Dallas County.  Arlington is not in Dallas County, it is in Tarrant County.  Will the start calling them the Texas Cowboys, or the North Texas Cowboys... We already have a stadium called the "Rangers Stadium in Arlington" which is a new name from the first which was "The Ballpark in Arlington".  Who comes up with these stupid names?  At least they're descriptive and tell you where the Ballpark is located.

North Texas has never hosted a Superbowl, though Houston has hosted it twice, in 1974 and in 2004.  HERE is the rest of the story about the bid for the Superbowl.

Here are some before and after pictures of my new listing in Mesquite, TX.  With Five kids, it took a couple of extra days to get everything ready, but I'm so glad we waited until today to list it so that extra time was used.

Look what a little decluttering can do.  We removed all personal items, and opened up a lot of wall space to show the room sizes better.  And even cleaning off the fridge can make a huge difference!!

All this can be yours for ONLY $159,900!!  Are you packed yet??!!

Great house and versatile floorplan. 4 bedrooms plus a study and two and a half baths.  2 Dining areas. 1 or 2 Living areas, depending on how you do the floorplan.  The Current Formal Dining can be 2nd Living area & the Study can be the Formal Dining, right off the Kitchen. The 4th bedroom is downstairs and would make a great hobby or workout room. Many updates including: frieze carpet, pergo floors, interior decor paint, front door, some windows, Kitchen cabinets & appliances, light fixtures, master bath, sprinklers, gutters, & new cable wiring. The backyard is great with an oversized aggregate patio. The house features Mature Trees & Fabulous Landscaping. All this for ONLY $159,900!!!

CLICK HERE for the Visual Tour!!

Are You Packed Yet??  Come make this House your HOME!!

Please don't hesitate to email or call me if I can help you with any real estate needs or answer any questions for you.  Remember, I work all of North Dallas County and Collin County including Richardson, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Garland, Rowlett, McKinney, etc... my car will take us anywhere you need to go!! 

Some very interesting statistics have been released by NAR. 

What do you think about this information?  I would definitely say I'm soaring WAY above the average for the typical sales agent.  I'm also considerably above the number for agents who have been in the business 6-15 years.  I used to be in the 5% bracket for age, but now I'm part of the group making up 6%.  I'm also working my fair share around or over that 60 hours a week mark.  I can't believe it's only half of agents communicating via email for most of their business. 

Any of these numbers shock or surprise you?

When I was in school, every two years we had to take a standardized test in order to pass that grade.  For me, the tests were very easy and I always scored well over the 95% range for the state, but that's just me.  I remember my first day of seventh grade.  First period was English with Ms. Gorman who was about 4'6, 75 pounds, and as soon as we all sat down, she starts preaching about the TAAS test in February.  We were like, it's August, why are you talking about February?

Everything she taught was about the big test we would have to take.  That became a pattern throughout Junior and High School.  All the teachers would teach according to how we would take this standardized test because we had to pass in order to pass the grade. 

Once Senior year came, the test was much more important because it also meant if you were going to graduate High School at all and walk the stage with your classmates.  That was the TAAS test, Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.

About five years ago, a new test was introduced that was supposed to be harder to help weed people out easier and make sure standards for graduation were high enough to prepare students for college better.  This new test is called the TAKS test, Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.  The first year, almost half the students across the state failed this exam.  However, they put a stipulation in that they would ease the new test into the school systems so it wasn't seniors taking it that first year, so they continued to take the TAAS for graduation exit.

Anyway, after the first couple of years, they decided major changes needed to be made because too many people were failing.  Records amount of people failing standardized exams, so sad...  What is going on now is Texas is thinking about passing something that completely gets rid of these standardized exit exams all together.  So many people have found it unfair to make students pass every section in order to graduate, even though they are given FIVE opportunities to pass, yes, FIVE!!  So sad...

The new method they want to give is 12 different exams over core subjects, and for all the exams, the average needs to be 70.  That means you can get an 80 on one section and a 60 on another, and still average a 70 and actually graduate.  Personally, I think this is very sad that our public schools aren't able to teach our students what it takes to pass all subjects.  How are they going to survive college?  I graduated High School with Advanced Honors, and I barely passed my Freshman year in College because I didn't think High School prepared me for college whatsoever.  If students don't even have to pass each section, they're going to be flunking out of college right and left in record numbers.  However, I guess more high school seniors will graduate instead of having to do summer school or repeating the year altogether.

Donna not happy with the state's decision to get rid of the standardized exams...

There is some new legislature that has been introduced for this session.  They are wanting to increase the amount for a Texas Marriage License to $60 from $30.  However, if you can show you had pre-marital counseling, you only have to pay the $30 fee.

What?  Is this supposed to deter people from getting married on a whim?  It's only $60!!!  If you want to prevent people from getting married so you can help alter the divorce rate, charge a couple hundred dollars or something that will actually put a dent in people's pockets and make them think about what they're doing.

Also, there are some religions that already require pre-marital counseling before marriage and that doesn't seem to help.  How does the state of Texas think this is a good idea and that it will work.  They must be really bored!!

Well, I would like to apologize for my disappearance over the past few weeks. I've had a lot going on, and I ran into a snag. The snag being exhaustion!!

I knew people would get tired while pregnant, but I never thought it would effect me the way it did. I'm a very active person, and I was left on a couch barely moving for almost 2 weeks. It took every bit of energy I had just to do the work I was doing. Every couple of hours, I would have to sit and rest for a few minutes and close my eyes. I was never able to actually take naps, but just closing the eyes helped a lot.

The picture above was from this morning (5/14/2007) at 11 weeks 5 days. We told the family yesterday for Mother's Day, and I'm now telling the world!!

Bottom-line, I've got some energy back, and I'll definitely commit to making the effort to keeping my blog more up to date!!

We're looking at an end of November date, 11/26-11/29. My bet is eating some awesome lemon meringue pie at Thanksgiving and rushing off to the hospital!!

Everyone, Meet Baby Harris!!

As I've said before, anyone is welcome to join the 24 Group if you're a fan. 

WOW!  What a surprise ending!  I was sitting there watching thinking this episode might be a drag as well, until the last 20 minutes or so.  Then it was, hmmm... what's going on.  I actually guessed it, but we'll get to that in a minute.

So, they had threatened Lisa Miller with treason and the only way to save herself was to call Bishop and ask to come back over.  She was supposed to get there and leave the room to give him time to download her PDA so he could call the Russians about the fake transcripts that they captured Chen, so the Russians would call off the strike, but Bishop wouldn't let her clean up in the bathroom.  Instead, she had another "chore" to fulfill for him.

Milo thinks Nadia likes Doyle.  Chloe whines to Morris that she can't believe he broke up with her.  Marilyn tells Jack she'll always be there for him... how many love stories in this thing??

Doyle goes to the warehouse to find Chen, but all they find are a bunch of empty weapon boxes.  Nadia has Chloe doing a reverse feed of the images to see where they can spot Chen's cars.  They find them, and they're about 6 blocks from CTU.

Chen's men penetrate CTU through the sewer.  They gather everyone together and ask who the director of CTU is.  Nadia is a courage and doesn't stand up.  She finally decides to start to stand, very very very slowly, and then Milo steps forward saying he is the director.  Bye Bye Milo with one shot to the head!  I guess Nadia can like Ricky if she wants to now.

With Chen's men running around killing everyone, Jack was also running around, single-handedly killing most of Chen's men.  The men find Josh and Marilyn and it turns out, they were looking for Josh all along!!  What??  Jack runs in and kills those men and they run and try to escape through the ventilation system.  Only Josh got through the fan before Jack and Marilyn were stopped.  They got on the PA system and told Josh that if he didn't present himself, they would kill his mother.  Of course, he comes crawling out of the tunnel...

The news is reported to Chen who then reports to, none other than, and this is what I guessed... Jack's father!!!  Yes, Jack's father was the person contacted to fix the component for the nukes.  Apparently, he would only do it if they rescued Josh from CTU.  Jack was also the one who gave Chen's men all the security information in order to break through CTU's security and phone lines and everything.

I told you it was a surprise ending with excitement for the last 20 minutes.  I assumed the final would be a 2 hour season finale, but apparently not.  The previews looked decent with Bishop looking all beat up and then attacking Lisa...

I don't recall any good quotes.  However, I liked the scene where Lisa is looking all nervous and says she doesn't think she could go to Bishop and pretend everything's ok, and Daniels said it shouldn't be a problem since she had been lying to him all this time.

i got this emailed to me, so there is no announced author on it, but it's very funny:

Recently, a large corporation hired several cannibals to increase their diversity.

"You are all part of our team now," said the Human Resources rep during the welcoming briefing. "You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don't eat any employees."

The cannibals promised they would not.  Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard and I'm satisfied with your work. We have noticed a marked increase in the whole company's performance. 
However, one of our secretaries has disappeared.  Do any of you know what happened to her?"  The cannibals all shook their heads, "No"

After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?"  A hand rose hesitantly. "You fool!" the leader continued. "For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one noticed anything.  But NOOOooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something."

Ok, I hope you've checked your mail!  Tax Assessments for 2007 have gone out.  You have until May 31, 2007 to dispute your values.  I have already received several emails from people asking about their values.

Also, if you do go to the Appraisal Review Board and you don't like their answer, you can file binding arbitration at the state's website.  I am a certified arbitrator for property values for the state of Texas, and I'm looking forward to helping more people get the right value for their properties.

Please don't hesitate to email or call me if I can help you with any real estate needs or answer any questions for you.  Remember, I work all of North Dallas County and Collin County including Richardson, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Garland, Rowlett, McKinney, etc... my car will take us anywhere you need to go!! 

For years, Richardson has been known as The Telecom Corridor.  As you might have guessed, this is because so many telecom companies made their home in Richardson.  Not just anywhere in Richardson, but right off Highway 75, Central Expressway which is the main north/south highway from Downtown Dallas through Richardson, through Plano and Allen, and going even further north an hour into Oklahoma.  Since most people drove through this area often, it's considered a corridor, hence, the Telecom Corridor name sprung.

Since the Telecom bust a few years ago, Richardson has become a little sleepy with several empty businesses.  We still have SBC/AT&T, Samsung, Nortel and Ericcson, however, many others left long ago.  Over the past couple of years, Richardson has tried to rid the term "Telecom" in order to attract new companies.

Countrywide moved into a huge space a couple of years ago.  Fossil, mostly known for their watches, also moved into this area, though they still keep their old office a little further away in Richardsonas well (the owner of Fossil lives less than a mile from me!!).

Richardson has now welcomed several new High-Tech companies into the community such as, Tango Networks, Huawei Technologies, Hanson Robotics, Enfora, Sirific Wireless, InnerWireless, Carrius Technologies, and many others... as you can see, though some telecom is moving back into the area, Richardson will  no longer hold the stigma of being only telecom. 

All this relocation is welcomed as we need a boost in property appreciation and higher demand!!  Please don't hesitate to email or call me if I can help you with any real estate needs or answer any questions for you.  Remember, I work all of North Dallas County and Collin County including Richardson, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Garland, Rowlett, McKinney, etc... my car will take us anywhere you need to go!! 

The Richardson Wildflower music festival is here, May 18-20.  This year they have some HUGE acts.  Bo Diddley will be performing on May 18.  Tracy Byrd will perform on May 19.  And Jo Dee Messina will close everything out on Sunday, May 20.

The Wildflower Festival always has a lot of neat things to do.  There are several music stages, craft booths, lots of food and much more.

Something new is allowing people to buy a 3-day pass in advance for only $20.  Otherwise, regular tickets are $15 per day and kids 5-12 are $3.

Richardson residents, you can get your tickets for ONLY $5, up to six!!!

I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'm very bummed out that I'm missing it with all the top name artists this year compared to other years.