theparkerfamily.org

Month: March 2011

  • out: walter pierce, national zoo

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    out: walter pierce, national zoo

  • out: lamont park

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    walking back from the park today, sparklet started doing something i didn’t understand.

    (i know, i know.)

    after throwing a complete hissy fit that i was actually making her walk, she’d walk for a couple steps with her arms over her head, then she’d stop and put her palms on her shoes, and then she put her hands over her ears.

    then she’d stop and squat to her knees, and then put her arms over her head, and the put her hands on her ears. rinse, repeat.

    and then she straightened out the order — head, shoulders, knees and toes.

    ahhhhh.

    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    out: lamont park

  • found: the diaper wipes (again)

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  • hippies

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    why, yes — that is a bicycle painted blaze yellow and hung from a tree. oh, and a three-wolf-moon-worthy mural painted on a garage door.

    i [heart] mount pleasant.

  • or, maybe not

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    well, that didn’t work so much.

    shortly after the post about us putting down an offer on a place on the 1800 block of Monroe NW, we got word from our real estate agent that a grand total of two people saw our place over the weekend.

    the market has judged our sale price, and found it wanting.

    they love our particular unit, they just hate our building. and the high condo fees. and the dated common areas. but mostly the high condo fees. which, of course, are the two things we technically can’t control.

    fortunately, i’m on the board of our association and there have been a LOT of conversations about dropping our fees this year. and the dingy common areas are up for renovation this year, too. so, hopefully i just have to nudge those conversations along a bit.

    it turns out that we are actually an old school condo board in that we have pretty consistently high monthly fees, but not a single special assessment in memory (because we always have money in the bank). unfortunately, every other association on the planet has swapped to a different model, dropping their fees dramatically and just expecting that big expenses will mean big(ish) special assessments.

    i know which one i’d prefer — but i guess that’s why i’m trying to move into a house.

    it also turns out that our building isn’t pre-approved for FHA loans, which means that people can’t buy into the building with federally backed loans that require as little as 3.5% down payment. instead, our buyers right now need to get traditional bank loans, which require 10 to 20% down.

    so it looks like i’ve got a couple “special” projects on my hands for the next month.

    regardless, we backed out of making an offer on the Monroe place — and plan on doing what we can with the condo fees, common areas and the fha pre-approval process in (hopefully) the next month. that’d mean we (again) can go gangbusters with the selling and the buying in the first week of April.

    for those of us playing along at home, we’ve now looked at a more than dozen properties, and have “tried” putting an offer down on a five of them:

    … but haven’t actually bit the bullet on any.

    i guess the good news is that places keep coming on the market. now, if we can get that one extra-special one off the market, we’ll be all set.

  • maybe

    it looks like we’re actually going to put an offer on something. this weekend we found another property on the 1800 block of monroe street nw in mount pleasant, and it looks perfect.

    there is plenty of space, a potential rental unit downstairs, and all the little things that make a DC property great (molding, layout, finishing) are still there.

    there are some quirks — one bathroom on the top floor, not a ton of closet space, and no parking — but we could easily see ourselves spending the next couple of decades of our lives there.

    the seller isn’t even entertaining offers until Tuesday night, so we’re in no great rush — just pulling together all the details and hoping it doesn’t get into a bidding war.

    i’m guessing we won’t hear anything until Thursday at the earliest.

  • out: picnic in dupont

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  • out: walter pierce park

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    photo of the week // seventeen months
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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    out: walter pierce park

  • Top 5 (Intangible) Tools for Nonprofit Marketers

    turns out that a piece i wrote on non-profit marketing was featured on the NTEN blog.

    i’m pretty sure that makes me famous, though certainly not controversial as it garnered only one (1!) measly comment — next time i’ll light myself on fire.

    Read it on NTEN.org:
    Top 5 (Intangible) Tools for Nonprofit Marketers

  • video: cheese slide

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3CPRD86wfI