My husband and I bought our Fridgidaire refrigerator second-hand from a friend when we got married 25 years ago.  We purchased it for $25.00 and a case of beer (hey, we were only 22 and alcohol talked!)  It was clean, white, paid-for, and it was ours.  Religiously, once a month, I would defrost it, wipe it out, empty the drip pan, and somewhat systematically re-stack all the food back into it (I gave up trying to put the food back in alphabetical order because my husband just couldn't get that ice CREAM comes before ice CUBES -- oh well, at least I tried.). 

Three years and 36 defrostings later, we took it with us when we bought our first house.  Since our kitchen was red and white, it matched quite nicely.  The adage "new house, new baby" really hit home and my once monthly defrostings became a little more sporadic.  It really didn't matter though, because no matter how iced up the refrigerator became, it still worked just fine. 

Four years later when we built our new home, our faithful Fridgidaire was still humming along, albeit not as nice of a tune, but nevertheless, humming, so we had it painted off-white and it proudly took up residence in our new kitchen.  I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but for some reason, defrosting the freezer slowly but surely began it's descent down my priority list.  I began to bait my husband with little blurbs about how he was so strong and how I'm sure he could chisel away at the built-up ice so much easier than I could.  He fell for my flattery for just a short time and before I knew it, we were flipping coins to see who had to defrost the freezer.  The coin-flipping gave way to arm wrestling.  The arm wrestling gave way to avoidance ("I'm not opening the freezer, you open the freezer").  The avoidance gave way to denial (We really don't need to freeze food, it's much healthier for you if its fresh, anyway).  And finally, the denial gave way to the heavy artillery.  What once had entailed simply turning off the freezer and placing a pot of boiling water in it had turned into all out war.  No more chipping away at the ice with a butter knife as deftly as a master ice carver.  No more turning the blow dryer on high and aiming it at the ice until it had no choice but to surrender.  No this was war and war called for the big guns:  the acetylene torch!  And boy, could that baby melt ice.  It was then that I knew we had a problem.  My God, we would have killed it!

And so it was with a heavy heart that I shopped for my new frost-free refigerator.  It's not easy to say good-bye to something that has served you so faithfully for a quarter of a century . . . I can only wonder what I'll ever find to fill my time.

 

The other day, I -- I mean a friend-- was watching tv when a commercial for haircolor came on (not that my friend was particularly interested in haircolor since she doesn't use it or even need it).  The spokesperson for the haircolor was Sarah Jessica Parker.  I, er, my friend noticed that Sarah was wearing very plain clothing and her make-up was extremely understated.  I began to think about that for a minute and assimilated that really great marketing strategy to really great staging. Really great marketing never does anything to overshadow the product that's actually being sold, whether it be haircolor or a house.  How much attention would people pay to Sarah's gorgeous haircolor if all they were noticing was her beautiful face or knock-out clothing?  And the same holds true for staging.  My goal as a home stager -- aka home marketer-- in the Lehigh Valley is NOT to have someone remark "My, what a beautiful home this is", but rather to have them say "I want to live in this beautiful home".  That's when I know I have truly hit the mark.  Oh, by the way, does anyone know what haircolor Sarah is wearing in the commercial? My friend wants to know.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be working, but I just couldn't resist.  Last week when I saw Sarah Cooper's bad photography blog, I couldn't help but think about our first investment property.  Couple that with my new found love for realestateshows.com, and yup, I just had to make another show (the photos may be a bit wonky as they were taken in 2000 before I had a digital camera):http://www.realestateshows.com/157228
Although the property was really small, if you happened to live in Pen Argyl, PA (located about halfway between the Lehigh Valley and the Pocono Mountains) before the big real estate boom, this was definitely a familiar site.

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Translation:  Yesterday, I made my first official show with realestateshows.com.  I'm not the most cyber-savvy person in the Lehigh Valley, so I was feeling a bit nervous about the whole thing . . . nevertheless, I uploaded my photos, added the music, changed the camera movement, and hit "submit" all the while praying like heck to the computer gods . . . and then it happened:  the whole darn thing actually worked!

So, thank you, thank you, thank you realestateshows for making me look like I knew what I was doing. 

And for anyone that's considering using them, I know you'll be glad you did!  Here's the link to my show:  

www.realestateshows.com/156129

Tammy Kemp - First Impressions