In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes Spring and Summer, but then we have Fall and Winter. And then we get Spring and Summer again.

This blog’s been dead for a while, so I thought I’d catch everyone up. The past month has been extremely busy, so let’s get right to it.

New Job. As most of you know, I finally found a new job. The company is Eli Research in Durham, NC. It’s a business-to-business newsletter publisher, and I’m working on their healthcare coding pubs. I’d explain what that means, but I’m not even 100% sure. So far the job isn’t too bad, and thankfully the company was very accommodating to allow me to work 1 week in NC, and come back to MD for 3 weeks. My three weeks are just about up, so I’m going to have to be heading down there soon, whether we’ve sold the house or not.

Selling the House. Speaking of selling the house, that’s what we’re in the process of doing right now. And boy, did we pick the BEST time to sell! And yes, that’s sarcasm. For 8 straight years the market in the DC area has been like Bush’s disapproval rating: It just kept going up. But since last summer it has cooled dramatically. I was hoping that this spring it would pick up again, and it seems that everyone else had those same thoughts, as in the past month I’ve been amazed at the number of houses in just our neighborhood that have “For Sale” signs on their lawn. We’ve lived here for almost 4 years, and in the first 3 years, we MAY have seen 2 "For Sale" signs in our little neighborhood at any given time, and they would be “Under Contract” in about 1 week. In the past year the number of “For Sale” signs has steadily increased, and just last week I counted a total of 6 in a 1/2 mile stretch of streets on my way to buy a newspaper. Our agent, who I think is great, has told me the past couple of weeks that the market is dead everywhere, so all we can do is hope it picks back up as the weather gets warmer.

Since this house was the first one we’ve ever bought, obviously this is the first time we’ve had to sell a house. No one is a big fan of moving, but when you rent and have to move, it’s not that big of a deal: You tell your landlord what day you’re moving out, schedule movers or rent a truck for that day, and then box stuff up. But it’s all different with selling a house. First, we had to clean up all the clutter. This amounted to two full SUV loads to the dump a few weeks ago. Then we packed up most of our knick knacks (the 450 shot glasses included) and books, and then stacked those in a corner of the basement. Then we had to clean the place up like we’ve never cleaned it before (and here’s the tricky part), and keep it clean constantly. Since we’re never sure when someone might stop by to look at the house (and since we want to sell quickly we don’t want to turn anyone away), we always have to be about 5 minutes from the place being completely clutter free. So no plates or dishes in the sink or on the counter; no clothes on the floor; no towels except on the towel racks; no papers or bills left around the office; no magazines or books left around the living room; no remotes or coasters left on the coffee table – the list goes on and on. Sage says it feels great to have it clean all the time, but sometimes I just want to flop and not care. It’s a good thing we’re keeping it up, as twice last week agents called, saying they wanted to show the house and they were right outside. We haven’t gotten any offers yet, but our agent (who follows up with everyone who stops by) said 1 person who looked at it was trying to put together an offer, but that they had “some financing trouble”. So that doesn’t sound too promising, but at least the word “offer” has been uttered by someone other than me. Let’s hope there’s a real offer coming soon.

Buying a House. Since we’re house rich and cash poor, we really can’t buy a house down in NC until we’ve sold this one. Even so, we went down a couple of weeks ago and spent two days looking at houses with a realtor. The market in the Raleigh-Durham area is not bad. There seemed to be a lot of houses on the market, but at the same time the good ones aren’t staying on the market that long. The area seems to be growing every year, but not crazy like Northern Virginia. After a while, looking at a bunch of houses in a row, they all start to blend in together. We really only have about a 6-8 maximum of houses we can look at in one day. The ones we saw that we really liked have already received offers on them, so once we sell our place we’ll have to find something quick and get it ASAP. At least they’re not having bidding wars on the houses yet. We looked mostly in the Apex and Cary areas, which are your basic suburbs. They’re both about 20-25 minutes to my work, and most of the new constructions are on small (1/4 acre) lots, but the houses seem to have more charm than the ones up here. We’ve even found some subdivisions that are new but the realtors left most of the trees up when they built. Very few of the houses down there have basements, but most have “bonus” rooms, which are basically an extra big room upstairs. My hope is that we find something with some trees, have some room for a garden, and the neighborhood isn’t noisy.

Red Sox. So the season has opened and the Sox are already looking forward to 2008. Okay, I guess it’s not that bad, but there are plenty of question marks so far. Schilling looked horrible his first day out, but Dice-K and Beckett looked strong. The bats are a problem…Papi and Manny, where are you? Drew, are you going to hit anything this year? And the defense is porous. Maybe the Lugo deal wasn’t so good. I still say Dice-K wins 16 games this year, but now I’m worried that Schilling wont’ win 6. (And what is with the pissing match between Schilling and Dan Shaugnessey of the Boston Globe? I mean, I don’t expect most athletes in Boston to get along with the Boston media, but shouldn’t Shags be above the petty snipes at a player? Just report, you curly-haired doofus!) Let’s hope they’re not out of the race by Memorial Day.

Lightning. The Bolts ended their season last night, not with a bang but a whimper. Two weeks ago they had a great handle on the 3rd seed in the conference, but now they’re stuck in 7th. That means, however, they play New Jersey in the first round, and the Lightning are 3-1 against the Devils this year. Not a bad match up, all considering. At New Years I predicted a San Jose Stanley Cup win, so technically I’ll have to stick with that, but the playoffs are all about hot goaltenders, so I think it’ll be Anaheim and New Jersey in the finals.

Arsenal. I can guarantee one thing: no one who reads this blog cares about Arsenal. Nevertheless, I’m going to whinge about them anyway. Back in March, they had a rough a stretch as any English football team could have. In less than 2 weeks they: a) Lost the League (Carling) Cup final to London rivals Chelsea; b) Got knocked out of the FA Cup in the Quarterfinals by Blackburn after American Brad Freidel made innumerable incredible saves for the Rovers; and c) Got knocked out of the Champions League by PSV Eindhoven (!!) after they can’t find the net again. (Meanwhile in the quarterfinals Liverpool scored 3 goals against PSV in Holland!) Injuries have a lot to do with the drought, with Thierry Henry (the best football player in the world) out for the year with an injury, as well as team leading scorer Robin van Persie out as well. The team is young (the Carling Cup final team averaged an age around 22, while Chelsea averaged 28), so in the next few years these young players could be world-beaters, and Arsenal might be looking at a dynasty like Manchester United had in the late 90’s and early 00’s. But we’ll see…right now they’re barely hanging on to 4th in the Premiership, which is the only way into next year’s Champions League. Losing to West Ham, at HOME (!!) yesterday did very little in helping that cause. (Though it did help West Ham in their fight to stay in the Premiership, which I have to say, I’d like to see.) A big game against Bolton this week, which is currently in 5th place, is as close to a must-win this team has had all year. Come on you Gunners!!!!

Spring? Lastly, the weather. Last Tuesday it was in the high 70’s and gorgeous. Last night it got into the 20’s, and the high the past 2 days has only been in the 40’s. I hate winter and cold weather, and the only thing worse than cold weather is teasing me with 70 and 80 degree days before getting cold again! My tulips haven’t bloomed yet, and I need to cut the grass, but I guess I should wait until it gets above 50. I’m not sure if that’ll be May or June, but hopefully sooner than that.

The first quarter of the year is over, so I guess I’ll end this blog by reviewing my 2007 predictions.

Martin Scorsese will win the Oscar for Best Director
CORRECT. Though this wasn’t so hard to guess.

Chelsea will win the European Champions League
So far it’s not looking too bad. They’ve made the quarterfinals and played Valencia to a 1-1 tie at home last week. They’ll need to win in Spain this week to get through to the semifinals.

Red Sox will win the American League Pennant
Who knows, but I’m keeping the faith!

Lady Bird Johnson will die
She’s still kicking…

The Pettengill Tree Farm will sell at least 10 trees in 2007
I heard a rumor that Ashley was going to cut down all the trees in the Pettengill backyard to make sure this one won’t come true. We’ll see…push those trees!

Helen Mirren will win Best Actress Oscar
CORRECT. Though, again, not real hard to predict.

San Diego Chargers will win Super Bowl
INCORRECT.

San Jose Sharks will win Stanley Cup
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: In Cheechoo We Trust.

Sidney Crosby will win the NHL's Points Scoring title
CORRECT. Unless Joe Sakic scores 23 points in his last game of the season today.

Dice-K Matsuzaka will win at least 15 games for the Red Sox
If he pitches like he did against KC in week 1, this will be a lock.

Roger Clemens will pitch for the Red Sox
This doesn’t look good. Word on the street is that the Yankees are going to make a hard push for him, and if he doesn’t go back to NY, he’ll either pitch in Houston or not at all. With Tavarez taking the gas pipe in his first start for the Sox last night, I can only say one thing: COME BACK ROGER! ALL IS FORGIVEN!

Doug and partner will win The Amazing Race-Concord
I’m not even sure we’ll be able to make it up for the race this year, so this one is in jeopardy.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Snape will die but Harry, Ron & Hermione will all live
We’ll find out come July 21.

Virginia Tech's Men's basketball team will make the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament
INCORRECT. When I made the prediction in December, they had just lost to Marshall, and I thought this prediction was toast. They then went on to beat North Carolina twice, Duke and Maryland and got ranked, and I was thinking, “this could be a final four team!” Then they lost to NC State three times, including in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, but even when they made the big dance, it looked pretty good. After an incredible comeback to beat Illinois in the first round, they looked tired and run-down against Southern Illinois and fell just short. Next year they’ll be lucky to make the tournament at all.

Tiger Woods will win the Masters and US Open
Today is Masters Sunday, and as I write this, before Tiger tees off, he is tied for 2nd, 1 shot behind Stuart Appleby. Only time will tell…

So of the 15 predictions, only 5 have resolved and I am 3-2. If I keep this pace up, I’m looking at a pretty good predicted year.