<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"><channel><title /><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog/</link><description /><managingEditor /><dc:language>en-US</dc:language><generator>RPS Blog Version 1.1.0.0</generator><item><dc:creator /><title>What Makes a Maple Valley Property "Hot" ?</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10074</link><pubDate>Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:58:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10074</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;h2 style="MARGIN-TOP: 2px"&gt;&lt;a href="http://activerain.com/blogsview/489074/What-Makes-A-Maple" rel="bookmark"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;What Makes A Maple Valley Property &amp;quot;Hot&amp;quot; ? &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 10px"&gt;(&lt;a href="http://activerain.com/action/blogs_admin/write/489074"&gt;edit&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a onclick="return confirm('Are you sure you want to DELETE this entry?');" href="http://activerain.com/action/blogs_admin/delete_entry/489074"&gt;delete&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/span&gt; &lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are various reasons why one home may sell over another, including but not limited to: price, condition, timing (a buyer was just waiting for that particular type property to come along). But occassionally a new listing will come on the market that's just absolutely primed and ready to sell fast.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img height="225" alt=" " src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/7/1/3/1/0/ar120948340101317.jpg" width="300" align="right" /&gt;There have been several hot properties come on the market&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10074"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/10074.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>Just Listed Valley Green Townhome...Ready to Go!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10069</link><pubDate>Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:40:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10069</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;div style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 20px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 20px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #4d391e; TEXT-ALIGN: center"&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" shape="rect" href="http://www.vflyer.com/links/links?linkType=921883264e924110d98e4f5116b9e5735b3c11af39bdab7bab294deb4d2ab4443193a4cac4fc6d7d494601de50424d2b86ef460f01e5af8b76b8e3c44a0d9a35fe1ea7bcbc932577471961eafd299a4bf02807763e1af3499724d1fbc0e99b5962544454cca64095&amp;amp;id=111"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;img style="VISIBILITY: hidden" alt="" src="http://stats.vflyer.com/stats/stats?linkType=532b1d80db01f7a17fb9170bb24f7c45d570d78c6ca8201c99c121503eb9bcc40fa7e15175d37e5d0f6594990fd049085608c75882e386dd4a50aad901b82887297b5471cbd09e51" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;div style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px auto; WIDTH: 725px; PADDING-TOP: 35px; TEXT-ALIGN: left"&gt;
&lt;div&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10069"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/10069.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>What's Selling in Maple Valley?</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10035</link><pubDate>Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:17:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=10035</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img height="138" width="100" align="left" alt="" src="http://www.colleenfish.com/agent_files/tulips.jpg" /&gt;The Spring real estate market in &lt;a href="http://www.MapleValleyRealEstate.com"&gt;Maple Valley&lt;/a&gt; is definitely showing signs of increased activity. Sellers are understanding more and more that price is now the driving force right&amp;nbsp; behind&amp;nbsp;showing activity&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;offers.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Buyer are out there, ready and willing to buy, but they&amp;nbsp;need to be able to justify their offered price and will&amp;nbsp;simply not look at any listings&amp;nbsp;which, in their minds, are not priced competitively for&amp;nbsp;current market conditions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall,&amp;nbsp;pending home sales in Maple Valley are up with a good portion of those homes being new construction. &lt;strong&gt;Of the 80&amp;nbsp;sales currently pending, nearly half of them (37 to be exact) are new construction. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/10035.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>Just Listed The Ponds at Greenbrier!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9332</link><pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:53:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9332</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;div style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px ; background-color:#333300 ; text-align:center ;  padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px; "&gt;&lt;div &gt;&lt;a href="http://www.vflyer.com/links/links?linkType=7d4c94a9758ab89d380ce5b3cbd853fe4341c51a5171c2f371e730ee3334e30f29c6a87e73e74a2b76469ab8b6e502c1687d2720590fba9a9bb0fa7caed8da3d45b84afe7457579a98bd864a198a8ddb860992b06ec63518c538754bff3d5894cffc69cb2ae9510d&amp;id=111" shape="rect" target="_blank"  style=""&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;img src="http://stats.vflyer.com/stats/stats?linkType=76068ab51d5957098c3cd4ca81035ce731dd48ad33a3a4b109a794457b40b97fe7b3dcc7adc554a9db4ee093f456e60182ac711155cd06e354a12a74eb47253302ac56775520e037" style="visibility:hidden" &gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="width:754px ; border:0px solid #ffffff ; text-align:left ; margin: 0 auto ; background-color: ; margin-top:20px ; margin-bottom:20px ; "&gt;&lt;div style="padding-bottom:5px ; border-top:0px solid #ffffff ; border-right:0px solid #ffffff ; border-left:0px solid #ffffff ; "&gt;&lt;div style=""&gt;&lt;div&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9332"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/9332.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>My Foray into Video Blogging....UGH!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9283</link><pubDate>Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:01:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9283</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ok, so I'm reading and hearing all over the web and at industry seminars that video blogs are the future of web 2.0 marketing. I've always been willing to try new things, but admittedly this is the most painful of them all. Hopefully I'll learn lots in the coming months about editing and weight loss...but until then, here's my first attempt (very primative) at a video blog entry. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;embed id="VideoPlayback" style="WIDTH: 400px; HEIGHT: 326px" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-4264139982565169597&amp;amp;hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars=""&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/9283.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>There's a New Girl in Town!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9162</link><pubDate>Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:54:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9162</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;h2 style="MARGIN-TOP: 2px"&gt;&lt;span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 10px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;img height="225" width="300" align="textTop" alt="" src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/7/4/7/5/5/ar120640853755747.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And she's such a sweetie!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Around the office we've dubbed her &amp;quot;Hope&amp;quot; but the lucky bidder at our 2nd Annual &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.littlemiraclesauction.com/"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;Little Miracles Auction&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt; will get to call her whatever they'd like. &amp;quot;Hope&amp;quot; is an 8 week old AKC black Lab puppy who was generous donated by Gordon &amp;amp; Ashley Chubb of the Tri-Cities. Hope's Daddy, Coal is a sweet tempered Lab who loves to hunt and fetch. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Last year, the Little Miracles Auction, which is held at the Olson Mansion in Maple Valley, raised over $60,000 for Children's Miracle Network. This year King 5 Television personality John Curley will be the auctioneer and we know we will&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9162"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/9162.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>Thank You John Talton..Who is John Talton?</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9123</link><pubDate>Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:56:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9123</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;For&amp;nbsp;several weeks I've been stewing about the frustrating mixture of forecasts, outlooks and prognosticating which seems to be everywhere I turn lately.&amp;nbsp; One economist says interest rates are going to soar, another states they will trend down. The local Economy is booming, the local Economy is on the brink of a recession.&amp;nbsp;
&lt;p&gt;Then I stumbled upon an &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.inman.com/news/2008/03/21/when-media-coverage-industry-interests-clash"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;Inman news article&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt; which&amp;nbsp;spotlights the conflict between media and industry interests.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;I had to ask myself &lt;em&gt;honestly&lt;/em&gt;,&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;is my negative reaction to all the forecasts and prognostications&lt;/strong&gt; (I use that word deliberately)&amp;nbsp;due&amp;nbsp;more to the fact that &lt;strong&gt;I'm afraid it's negatively impacting my business.....&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;or is&amp;nbsp;the&amp;nbsp; frustration because&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;I think &lt;u&gt;no one really knows&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and it's all&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9123"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/9123.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>Keeping the Greens...Lake Wilderness Golf Course Homeowners Assessments Still Not Finalized</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9121</link><pubDate>Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:18:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9121</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Homeowners in the&amp;nbsp;Lake Wilderness Country Club&amp;nbsp;neighborhood are still awaiting final numbers from the City of Maple Valley&amp;nbsp;on a Local Improvement District assessment the City will likely&amp;nbsp;be imposing to recoup much of&amp;nbsp;it's $4.5 million acquisition cost of the &lt;a href="http://www.lakewildernesspgc.com/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;18 hole golf course&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;When rumours of&amp;nbsp;a sale of the public course for development first began surfacing, the City stepped up&amp;nbsp;and bought the course in the interest of preserving open space. Currently the course and &lt;a href="http://www.lakewildernessgc.com/grill.php" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;restaurant&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is being run by Premier Golf Centers. According to some Homeowners who have attended previous meetings, there is talk of the&amp;nbsp;assessements being tiered&amp;nbsp;per&amp;nbsp;golf course lot-based on the&amp;nbsp;extent each property&amp;nbsp;would have been negatively impacted by the&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=9121"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/9121.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>What Did the Grape Say When the Elephant Stepped on It?</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8811</link><pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:45:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8811</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Not much, it just let out a little Wine.&lt;/em&gt; Get it? &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Ok, it's a groaner, but for some weird reason this joke (the first one I ever memorized and repeated after reading it in the Highlights Magazine at the Dentist's way back in 3rd grade)comes to mind &lt;strong&gt;every time I walk through a listing and hit a floor squeak&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;nbsp;&lt;img height="250" alt=" " src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/6/9/7/9/6/ar12052509769796.jpg" width="250" align="right" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I find the&amp;nbsp;squeak&amp;nbsp;first and other times the buyers will find them. The discoverer often will freeze on the spot,&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;rock back and forth over the squeak repetitively until the other party notices as if to say &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Look what I found&amp;quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When my boys were teenagers we lived in a two story which had a great squeak at the top of the stairs. No way around that baby if you were trying to sneak downstairs. &lt;strong&gt;But when we sold the house, that was on the&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8811"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8811.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>March Report Maple Valley Bank Owned Homes</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8651</link><pubDate>Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:52:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8651</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although Bank or Asset Company owned properties don't always represent the best value on the market, many buyers and investors like to keep up with current inventory. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;font color="#336699" size="2"&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here is the March Bank Owned Inventory Report For Maple Valley, WA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;font size="4"&gt;6 Homes on the Market&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;font size="4"&gt;Prices Ranging from $285,000 to $535,000&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;font size="4"&gt;Size Ranging from appx:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;font size="4"&gt;&amp;nbsp;1850 square feet to over 4,000 square feet&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8651.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>South King County Active Listing Snapshot by School District</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8566</link><pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:10:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8566</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face="Verdana" size="2"&gt;The following chart demonstrates current active listing information for South East King County market areas by School District.These&amp;nbsp;numbers respresent Residential Single Family properties which are listed through NWMLS.&amp;nbsp;Obviously the larger districts, such as Kent has higher inventory, based on a larger geographic area.&lt;/font&gt; &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;img height="277" alt=" " src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/4/1/1/4/3/ar120426467034114.jpg" width="600" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8566.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>We Have a Lazy Boy in Our Kitchen!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8499</link><pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:44:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8499</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img height="319" alt=" " src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/6/8/0/9/9/ar120416962999086.jpg" width="200" align="right" /&gt;Fortunately it hasn't been there very long. And hopefully it won't become a permanent fixture. It's actually been bouncing around the house for a few weeks, ever since my son decided he didn't want it in his room anymore. I can't decide whether to send it to storage for if/when any kids ever move out, or give it to Goodwill. But when I rounded the corner and saw the chair sitting right smack in the middle of the traffic zone between the Kitchen and the Great room my first thought was &amp;quot;Please, please please..... Let no one ring the doorbell tonight!&amp;quot; I would be mortified to have anyone think we actually lounge in the Lazy Boy which is now sitting in my Kitchen. (Although you'll notice Carson thinks it's no big deal)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But &lt;strong&gt;this is what life's like when your home is not on the market&lt;/strong&gt;. Things are out of place, sometimes&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8499"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8499.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>The REAL Scoop on Seattle Rain</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8404</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:24:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8404</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;When my Husband and I first began telling friends and Family about our move to the Seattle area,&amp;nbsp;one of their first responses often was, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;but it rains all the time there!&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;how are you going to stand all that rain?&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; If my parents hadn't already lived in Bellevue at the time, I may have been more concerned, but we were assured that it &lt;strong&gt;didn't rain much more in Seattle than in other cities...it just rained more often&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;.&lt;img style="WIDTH: 354px; HEIGHT: 267px" height="267" alt=" " width="400" align="right" src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/2/5/2/1/5/ar120381106151252.jpg"&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8404"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8404.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>Black Diamond Bakery Now Open For Dinner...Yum!!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8403</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:23:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8403</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how I missed this, but &lt;strong&gt;I just found out&lt;/strong&gt; one of my favorite breakfast spots,&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href="http://www.blackdiamondbakery.com/breakfast.html" target="_blank"&gt;Black Diamond Bakery&lt;/a&gt;, is now serving&amp;nbsp;Dinner! This is a Big, Big deal, as one of the&amp;nbsp;most common&amp;nbsp;complaints we&amp;nbsp;&amp;quot;Maple Valley Folk&amp;quot; have is our shortage of&amp;nbsp;local&amp;nbsp;Dinner spots.&amp;nbsp;Here's&amp;nbsp;a link to their &lt;a href="http://www.blackdiamondbakery.com/dinner.html" target="_blank"&gt;Dinner Menu&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Black Diamond is a small town&amp;nbsp;about 10 minutes South of &lt;a title="Maple Valley WA" href="http://www.maplevalleyrealestate.com/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;font color="#800080"&gt;Maple Valley&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and on the way to&amp;nbsp;Enumclaw. The Bakery&amp;nbsp;first opened in 1902&amp;nbsp;and is known for it's fresh breads which are made daily. The atmosphere is family friendly, with a restaurant, Bakery, coffee bar and a few gift shops.&amp;nbsp;If you're looking&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8403"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8403.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item><item><dc:creator>Colleen Fischesser</dc:creator><title>Maple Valley Market-Price is the Name of the Game!</title><link>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8311</link><pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:07:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8311</guid><description>&lt;div style="font-family:arial, geneva, lucida, sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;img height="200" alt=" " width="200" align="right" src="http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/4/2/5/8/8/ar120347955688524.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My mom used to watch Days of Our Lives every afternoon when I would come home from school. Although I haven't watch a Soap Opera for years, I can still here the music and the announcer's voice over &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Like Sand through an hour glass....these are the days of our lives&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For many home owners having their property listed may&amp;nbsp;seem as painful as watching&amp;nbsp;grains of sand&amp;nbsp;slip slowly through the hourglass.....day after day living life outside their regular routine; making the beds every day, (yes, some people &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; make their bed every day!) keeping the dishes out of the sink, the dog in the laundry room...whatever the hoops they need to jump through&amp;nbsp;may be. The fact of the matter is, &lt;strong&gt;if you want to sell now, you have got to price your home aggressively and if it doesn't sell, be&amp;nbsp;..&lt;span style="font-size:90%;margin-left:5px;color:#0000FF;vertical-align:baseline;"&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;(&lt;/font&gt;&lt;a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://colleenfish.com/blog_post.asp?post=8311"&gt;read&amp;nbsp;more&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font size="-3" color="gray"&gt;)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img src ="http://colleenfish.com/blog/aggbug/8311.aspx" width = "1" height = "1" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description></item></channel></rss>