Workforce Solutions Alamo conducted a study, reported in the San Antonio Business Journal recently, showing the need for more skilled people to fill jobs in 33 categories. Five of these growing occupations are considered "green."

Here is the link to the article.

(I noticed that one of the jobs is that of loan officer.)

San Antonio was fifth on the list of cities experiencing a net gain in population as more people move to the metro area in search of jobs. This data is from the US Census for 2007-2008, and showed a 1.9% increase in population.

More jobs mean more prospective tenants in search of high-quality rental homes (see photo) and more home buyers relocating to San Antonio or moving up to a larger home. There is a direct correlation between good employment prospects and a healthy housing market.

It has been a very busy month for me, and I have neglected my AR blog while making the proverbial hay. Now I'm going to play catch-up and just offer a stream of consciousness post for my loyal readers. You'll be rewarded with a photo at the end.

I am not going to be Twittering. I don't even make time to blog as often as I should, much less tell people what I'm doing every few minutes. If Congress people do it and TIME has an article about it, I think it's on the way out. Plus, I need a new phone with a better keyboard and better access to webmail. It's not like I have huge thumbs like Uma Thurman, but I'm much better typing than thumbing.

I need a new phone, even though my Sprint plan won't give me a discount until December. I'm thinking about a Blackberry, but when I stopped by RadioShack to play with them, there were a couple of others I thought were easier to use: the HTC, Rumor, and Rave. Also, the Palm Treo was intriguiging. I'm a long-time Palm Pilot user, but from what I've read on discussion boards, the Windows software is more robust for PDAs than Palm's. I was all excited about the Palm Pre until I saw several comments about how fragile it seemed to be, especially the QWERTY keyboard. I am hard on phones, so that won't work for me.

All the QWERTY keyboards were too small to actually be useful for major typing extravaganzas anyway. I may research add-on keyboards and see if I can find a portable one that attaches or Bluetooths to a phone.

I could get a wireless card and take my laptop with me, but then I'd have to find someplace to park in the shade or go to Starbucks and fire up the laptop and wait for it to load, etc. Starbucks are too noisy. It has been over 100 degrees the past few days in San Antonio, so sitting in a car for longer than 3 minutes is not viable.

It has been really really hot and dry recently. Two days last week were record breakers. We're anticipating moving to the next stage of watering restrictions any day now. Our grass is turning crispy, and I typed up a list of the plants we are going to try to save and those we'll have to let go. We'll try to save the trees, of course, and the expensive shrubs and hard-to-find flowers if we can. The grass and blue-flowering sage will have to fend for itself. We don't have to worry about the plumbago plants--they just keep on blooming and haven't wilted yet. We don't have to worry about the purple heart, either.

What I am worried about are the bees. We have hardly seen any bees this year, and last year our garden was full of them. We have the same flowering plants they loved so much last year, but I've only seen a few on the purple heart and the sage. They should be all over the lemon thyme. When I have some time, whenever that is, I will have to see if there is a local beekeeper who would like to locate a hive in our back yard.

In fact, it has been pretty quiet in our back yard, especially at night. We haven't seen or heard any marauding raccoons this year, for which I'm grateful. We have more birds than usual, though. It's probably because of the compost heap. The cardinals and mockingbirds wait for us to dump kitchen scraps on the compost heap and then pick through it. My husband told me that watermelon rinds completely disappear the day after they're deposited there. We also have lots of cute house finches and wren-type birds this year. They bounce around on the deck sometimes, and one of them has the loudest voice for such a small bird that I've ever heard. I thought he was a cardinal at first until I spotted him on the corner of the deck blasting out his triumphant call.

And the hummingbirds are mobbing the feeders. We now have at least five regular visitors, possibly six. I am having to refill the feeders every other day. The house finches get on them, too, and I have to shoo them away and point them toward the bowl of water I put out for their use. I went out this morning at 6:30 to refill one feeder, and stood on the deck for a few minutes among the hummingbirds in their feeding frenzy. It is so fun to watch a hummingbird hovering in front of you just a few feet away, checking you out.

A mantis meditates on the lemon mint

Well, I have finished my coffee and need to get to work. I have a busy day ahead of me, removing signs and lockboxes from two just-sold listings (hurrah!), inspecting a home I need to lease, and meeting up with a first-time home buyer to go look at houses. I am making hay while the sun shines.

It seems like months ago (well, it was - March) since I went on the "free" cruise my husband won in an online contest. I finally got back to some of the photos I took, and found this one of Waimanalo Beach Park on the windward side of Oahu.

Waimanalo is not my favorite beach; Lanikai is, but it's close to Bellows AFB. I have fond memories of boogie-boarding there in my awkward way. There's no way I'd ever be able to learn to surf--I can't even water-ski--but boogie-boarding is close enough for me. We didn't have time in our one day on Oahu to get in the water, since we had plans to visit with family and friends, but I had time to stop and take this photo.

Of course, we also made time to have a couple of the deservedly famous mai-tais at Buzz's Steakhouse. Important tip: ask for the extra pineapple juice when you order the drinks. That way, you won't have to try to ask from down on the floor after you've fallen off your barstool.

San Antonio is still considered a buyer's market, with the median price for a resale home during the first quarter of 2009 at $146,300. This is down 1.5% compared to a year ago, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors.

Lower mortgage interest rates and this year's beefed-up tax credit for first-time buyers seem to have spurred buyers into action this spring. The 8 months' worth of housing inventory needs to be reduced to 6 months in order to get back to a balanced market, in which the negotiation advantage is split more evenly between buyers and sellers. This assumes no new homes would be built, or at least they would be absorbed quickly and not swell the housing inventory even further.

And in fact, new home starts numbered 1,400 for the first quarter of this year, down by 40 percent from the first quarter of 2008.

A beautiful, totally remodeled home for sale in Northwood—buy it!

According to another index, using sales price information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,  San Antonio ranked 28th for the best year-over-year price appreciation, at 1.68%. It may not take long to get to a balanced market after all.

The sellers are being transferred out of state, so this one-story home is ready for new owners!

The sellers have taken great care of it in the 3.5 years they have lived there. They updated the bathrooms and the kitchen, and added a lovely patio accessible from the sunroom. The landscaping, green grass, and trees are beautiful, and Woods of Shavano is a great place to live, as I've said before!

I have been so busy that even the cats have had to pick up the slack around the house. Because they seem to be incapable of running a vacuum cleaner, they have been not-shedding instead. This has been a big help.

They are also forcing themselves to lie around and sleep most of the day, thus lowering their calorie needs and cutting down on their consumption of expensive catfood. I have been crazy-busy, but haven't had a closing yet, so the catfood has to last them until the end of the month.

Herewith a gratuitous cat picture of helpful Miles.

I still miss living in Woods of Shavano! We moved away a couple of years ago so my husband could be closer to his job in San Marcos. It's a wonderful neighborhood, convenient to everything but easy to get to. This is another terrific remodeling job, updating a home that already had good bones to start with. The huge back yard is full of mature, shady oak trees--perfect for summer get-togethers. Click the Details tab on the Real Estate Shows window for more information.

This well-maintained home is located in the small gated section of Churchill Estates. (In case you're wondering, the streets are named after races and racehorses.) Just click the Details tab on the Real Estate Show window for more information.  

Ever since I got back from my cruise to Hawaii, I have been busybusybusy. That is my excuse for taking so long to post more photos from my trip. But first, the news flash: the hummingbird moths are back! They have been visiting the lantana blossoms in the evening, making it tough for me to get a sharp photo of them in low-light conditions. I did my best:

Now, here's the cool thing. A couple of days after I took these pictures, I got an e-mail from Sandra, who lives on the southern coast of South Africa. She was visited by a hummingbird moth in her garden one evening, and found one on her veranda the next morning. Apparently, it was attracted to the "love palm" blooming in front of her house.

Hummingbird moths are also known as hawk moths, but I think the first name is more descriptive of the way they hover over the flowers as they sip nectar. Thanks, Sandra!

Wandering around the McBryde Gardens, now part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, was so peaceful. I enjoyed the breeze and the shade from the tall trees. In a section devoted to palms I came upon these lovely palms growing in the shade of a much larger tree.

Many of the trees in the garden are homes to orchids--stay tuned for more photos!