Due to the state of the real estate market here in Tampa, lots of residents are choosing to stay put in their current homes. Quite often, this means updating your current space to make it work for your future needs. If you can’t move to get a bigger house, you may need to add on. If your outdated kitchen or bathroom isn’t working for you, it’s time to remodel. Had we stayed in our last home, I would have definitely been after Jim to replace our kitchen cabinets and counter tops, and upgrade the bathroom. Doing projects around the house to make it more livable for you right now will also add to the overall resale value when the market does bounce back. You may choose to build a deck now to give your family a great outdoor living space, but you’ll find that in a few years, when you go to sell, that deck = money in the bank for you.

Trouble is, a lot of people who want to do these DIY (Do It Yourself) projects don’t know where, or how to begin. Heck, when my husband put down laminate floors in our last home, he didn’t know how to get started either, so we had to get instruction from the store where we bought the materials. It’s MUCH easier to go online and get advice for free at DoItYourself.com, which has over 100 active forums on how to complete home improvement projects on your own. They even have DVD’s that can provide you with step by step instruction, which means your project can go off without a hitch. Knowledge is power, and in this case, it’s also money in your pocket!

All of USF is pumped up about the big football game this weekend, but there are some students over at USF in mourning. A 19 year old USF student, Rachel Futterman, passed away earlier this week from bacterial meningitis. The illness is rate, but can be fatal. It’s not easily transmitted, but is more common among schools and college campusus. Friends and students who were in contact with Rachel are being treated as a precaution.

If one good thing came of her death, it’s that many students at USF are now being vaccinated against the disease. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to make people aware of bacterial meningitis, but hopefully this news will prevent other deaths.

In the 11 years my husband and I have been married, we’ve moved a total of 5 times. Our most recent moves were definitely the most stressful. In 2005, we sold our home, and moved into a rental home while our new home was being built. Knowing that we’d only been in our rental home for a few months, we left a lot of our things packed and stored in the garage, which made things interesting. I’d go looking for a certain cake pan, or a book I wanted, and then realize they were piled under 15 boxes in the garage. We didn’t use professional movers, but I sure wish we had checked into it, or at least gotten some free professional advice, like what you’ll find on HomeBulletin.net. They’ve got a neat moving checklist I could have used, and advice on how to pack your things correctly too. I’m guessing that my technique of shoving clothes randomly into trash bags isn’t among the tips they share. The site also gives you the ability to get free quotes from movers.

My son and I had the opportunity to attend a Tampa Bay Lightning game this week, and we had amazing seats, just 6 rows behind the Lightning bench. I blogged about our night out on Simple Kind Of Life, complete with pictures and a video of our experience. Sadly, my favorite Lightning player, Brad Richards, wasn’t playing. He did an interview during one of the intermissions though, so I did get to see him on the big screen. And another favorite of ours, Dan Boyle, suffered a locker room injury after the game, so it looks like he’ll be sitting a few games out. His skates fell down in his locker and sliced a tendon on his arm!

My husband and I were wasting time online last night and started looking at property in North Carolina and Tennessee again. We’re still interested in buying NC mountain real estate as a retirement option or an investment, but it’s not something we want to hurry into. You definitely need to see property in person to ensure it’s what you need. I want property that’s private, with a great view, but I’d also like it to be close to a city, like Asheville. Whisper Mountain is one of the new developments outside of Asheville available to buyers. Lots start at $90,000 and the development is planned out with homesites, trails, long range views, and other amenities. It’s like a subdivision, only extremely wooded and private. I like that, because it ensures that the lots will all be developed with the same standards regarding homes. You won’t find a broken down single wide trailer next to a half million dollar home, like you will in other mountain communities. Best of all, the developers have worked to maintain the land and the trees as much as possible, to ensure that you’d feel like you were living in a national park.

With standards like that, no wonder so many Floridians are looking at North Carolina as a retirement option.

The house I grew up in is back on the market again. It was an odd situation when it was sold last year - one of those once of a lifetime buyers who just falls into your lap. It seemed like the perfect situation, despite the incompetence of the Realtor involved, so I’m curious as to why the home is being sold. I looked it up on the MLS and it’s listed at only about $10K more than the guy paid for it. He’s made improvements, but with the market being what it is, and Realtor commissions, he stands to lose money on the deal. The agent’s site doesn’t have the pictures up yet for it, but I’m dying to see what he’s done to the inside!

How low can you go?

In my neighborhood, the base home price has dropped $50K since we bought. Eek! The price for our particular model is down $30K. I was poking around in the website for my county appraiser, and discovered that I could export the data into an Excel spreadsheet, or even create address labels for my neighborhood. (So that’s how the Realtors do it!) I dropped the information and sorted it by price, and found that only 23 homes sold for under $200K. Property values may not be great, but it looks like due to my neighborhood having only a few lots left, things may not be that bad for us after all.

My husband had the good fortune last week to run into several Tampa Bay Lighting players at one of our local ice rinks. He didn’t recognize them at first on the ice, but thought they were better and bigger than the average dad who comes out to play hockey on a weekday. Once they took off their helmets, he realized he was in the presence of Vinny, Brad, Marty and Dan.

Just another day in Tampa Bay…

I’ve seen this Morpheus Photo-Morpher featured on a few other blogs, and I’ve been having so much fun looking at the pictures everyone decided to morph. When I saw what the tool did, I immediately knew what pictures I’d use for my personal photo morphing project. I scanned this old picture of me at the beach (Fred Howard) - I was 11 in it. And I have this great picture of my oldest - also 11. Since everyone says we look alike, I decided it would be the perfect pair of photos to use for the Morpheus Photo-Morpher!

After installing the tool, I just selected my pictures and got the placement ready - that’s easy, and the instructions are very clear. You just place little dots in things that are the same in each picture, like the eyes, the nose, mouth, etc, so that it can naturally morph between the two images.

I would love to continue using this to be able to play around with more pictures - maybe morph the kids baby pictures into their school pictures from last year? You can get your own version of the Photo Morpher from Zoombli.com - what a fun toy this is!

I’m in Boston this week, and it’s my first visit to the state. I haven’t seen much of the city at all, but I’m definitely enjoying the cooler weather and the lack of humidity! Today was a good hair day, thanks to the dry air. It’s not quite Indian summer, but it’s pretty close. I was sitting outside tonight after dinner and actually got a bit chilly, and that was with jeans and a long sleeved shirt on me. This Florida cracker can’t handle these cooler temperatures!

Alas, I return back to Tampa International Airport tomorrow, where I’ll be hit with the oppressive heat as soon as I exit the terminal and head to the shuttle bus to parking.