Susan's Blog

Here comes the annual Christmas in the Village!  Sponsored by the Fair Oaks Chamber of Commerce, this special holiday community event will be held Saturday, December 6, 2008. There will be arts and crafts sold during the day. Santa will be at the American River Bank, the Fair Oaks Theatre Festival will sponsor a special free "Winnie-the-Pooh" show at the amphitheater, and an "Old Fashioned" Christmas parade will begin at 4:00 pm, followed by Christmas caroling and the lighting of the Community Christmas Tree.

This is always a fun event, and you can get some of your holiday shopping done, get into the Christmas spirit, and enjoy some good food with your friends and neighbors. The Fair Oaks Veterans Memorial Amphitheatre, located in Plaza Park in the Village, is an outdoor community theatre, so bundle up the kids nice and warm. 

The Village is the town center of Fair Oaks.  It is just east of Sunrise Blvd, between Winding Way and Fair Oaks Blvd., and Plaza Park is in the center of the Village. American River Bank is at 10123 Fair Oaks Blvd. There is limited parking at the Community Center at the east end of the park, and plenty of street parking surrounding the Village. Call the Fair Oaks Chamber office at 967-2903 for more information. 

Here is a wonderful Thanksgiving love song for you.  It is sung by Johnny Cash to his wife June Carter Cash, and was part of the Thanksgiving episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman years ago.  Johnny and June are both gone now, of course, but I, for one, am so glad that we still have moments like this to enjoy.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I am truly thankful for all of the wonderful people here on Active Rain, who are so helpful and giving, and make me feel that I really have made some great friends.

Around this time of year, we all wish that there were more we could do to help needy families.  We participate in drives like Coats For Kids, we donate turkeys and canned goods and donate to the Salvation Army and programs like our Christmas Cantree, sponsored by the Sacramento Association of Realtors.  All of these are great programs, but I've never seen anything like what I saw in the news the other day.

This photo shows volunteers making kimchi, a traditional pungent vegetable, to donate to needy neighbors for winter preparation in front of the Seoul City Hall a few days ago.  About 2,200 housewives made 130 tons (117 metric tons) of kimchi! Made with cabbage, other vegetables and chili sauce, kimchi is the most popular traditional food in Korea. 

Kimchi, also spelled gimchi or kimchee, is a traditional Korean fermented dish made of vegetables with varied seasonings. Kimchi is the most common side dish eaten at every Korean meal with rice. Kimchi is also a common ingredient and combined with other ingredients to make dishes such as kimchi stew  and kimchi fried rice. Kimchi is so ubiquitous that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) developed space kimchi to accompany the first Korean astronaut to the Russian-manned spaceship Soyuz.

Pretty impressive organization!  All of the ladies are dressed alike and they sure don't have much elbow room.  The cynical side of me wonders if they are truly "volunteers", but I prefer to hope that it is true charity at work.  At any rate, I don't know anyone who could organize something like that around here.  I don't really know much about kimchi, but I'm sure it will be appreciated by the recipients.

Okay folks, I finally got tagged with my first Me-Me.  This one is a bit different from some of the ones I have seen.  Janna Scharf tagged me today for the what-the-heck-are-you-reading Bookworm/Book Club Meme.  Here are the rules:

1. Grab the nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 56.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next two to five sentences.

5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one. Pick the CLOSEST.

6. Tag five people to do the same

*The one book that this cannot be is the Bible*

Okay, I have two books close to me right now.  Shall I choose the novel?  Or should it be the success book?  Hmmmm.  Well, short of taking out a tape measure to determine which is closest to my chair, I guess I'll pick the one I was reading just before I dropped off to sleep last night (I hate when that happens - makes me wonder how many pages I read in a semi-stupor without even knowing what I read).  Anyway, it is At Risk by Patricia Cornwell.  Not her latest work, but one I somehow missed.  I've read all her others. 

Let's see.... Page 56 is a blank page between chapters and page 57 is a short page and doesn't have 5 sentences, so here is an excerpt from page 58:

"He won't be surprised if she sells her house.

‘What do we know about him?' she asks again, the prosecutor who seems to have no feelings about what just happened.

Her attacker is in critical condition.  Win is careful what he tells her.  It is, to say the least, a highly unusual situation. She is accustomed to asking the state police anything she wants and having nothing withheld from her."

Well, there it is.  Maybe I should have chosen the John Maxwell book, but ...

So now for Rule 6.  This is the hardest part.  I've heard some of my AR friends complain about being tagged, while others enjoy it.  Trouble is, I can't remember which is which.  So here goes.

Thomas Martin-BROKER, PROPERTY MANAGER Property Manager in Sacramento, Folsom (Investors Choice Property Management)

Paul Henderson (RE/MAX Professionals)

Russel Ray, San Diego home inspector (Property Consultant)

Pat Preston

Celeste "SALLY" Cheeseman (RA), e-PRO HAWAII Relocations & HAWAII Real Estate

Are all of you smiling?  Please say yes.

I have mentioned to Russel Ray, Jim Frimmer and others that Russel and Jim's cat Zoey reminds me of one of our cats, Dolly. Check out Zoey at Zoey the cool cat approves of Dewey the small-town library cat and see what you think.  Following are a few pictures of Dolly.  She not only looks a lot like Zoey, but she is every bit the contortionist that Zoey is, as you will know if you read many of Russel's or Jim's posts.

 Here are some of Dolly's favorite poses, when she doesn't have her face pressed into a pillow (how do they breathe like that?)

Dolly is not our only kitty.  We have 3 other indoor-outdoor cats: Junior, Charlie, and Oscar, and an outdoor only cat that is a semi-tame feral cat, Smokey.  Smokey over a few years has grown to like my petting him, and we feed him a few times a day.  He has just lately started coming inside, but only as far as the kitchen.  We feed another cat several times a week too.  A little girl we have named Foxy shares herself between our house and the house next door, and we both feed her.  She was apperently abandoned a couple of years ago and we've been taking care of her since.  I won't load up this post with pix of all the kitties - just Dolly for now.

What do you think? Look like she could be related to Zoey?

I was reading Christine Wade's blog post about her son Austin with an injury on his forehead and swollen eye. Father & Son Take Home Trophies in the 40th Annual Lake Elsinore Grand Prix. That picture of him after his swing accident reminded me of my second daughter, Cathy, when she was 6.  She was running through the house with her 6 year old stepbrother, Jeff, and she fell and bumped her face on a table, got a black eye, so I took her to the doctor to get checked out.  Then the boys were teasing her about it at the Girls and Boys Club and they tickled her on the "crossing bars".  She fell and broke her arm.  So we went back to the doctor, who sent us to the hospital emergency room to get her arm set and a cast put on. Because of the swelling, she had to spend the night in the hospital (the night before Thanksgiving, which had her very upset).  The next day I brought her home so she could have turkey dinner with the rest of the family, and she and Jeff got into a shoving tussle and she split open the back of her head.  Took her back to the emergency room to get xrays and stitches. 

She was crying like crazy and wanted me to comfort her, but they separated us, called child protective services, and interviewed us separately.  Cathy was furious that they wouldn't let me be with her, but although I wanted to be with her, I was kind of impressed that they were trying to protect her from who they thought might be an abusive parent (after all, she had a black eye, broken arm in a cast, and a split open scalp in the back of her head - all at once!).  I wonder how many kids could be saved from abusers if that was done more often.

The year before, Cathy was visitng my parents, had gone shopping with my mother, climbed on the railing by the checkstand and fell off head first - black eye and a bump on her forehead.  Nothing serious according to my mom's doctor, but later that day she was out in their yard and fiddling with my dad's push mower that was leaning up against the garage.  It started to roll, pinched her finger and it swelled up really huge and ugly under her fingernail.  Back to the doctor, where he had to drill a tiny hole in the nail to relieve the pressure.  He looked at Mom funny, but had known my mother for many years, so figured she would not deliberately hurt a child.  Poor Mom was beside herself and was afraid to take her eyes off Cathy even for a minute for the rest of the visit.

Life with Cathy was ever like that for years.  I wondered about whether she had balance problems or something, but was assured that she was just curious about everything and adventurous.

Anyway, we can laugh about it now that Cathy is all grown up and has made those emergency trips with her own kids.

Calling all buyers and sellers in the Sacramento area!  This is a great home in a great area, on a quiet street.  Come by and see it, and bring your real estate questions and needs.  Let me show you what I can do to make your transaction enjoyable and as trouble-free as possible.

Susan Neal | Century 21 Noel David Realty | 916-705-8951

4267 Niblick Way, Fair Oaks, CA

Lovely Fair Oaks Home With Huge Yard!

3BR/2BA Single Family House

offered at $299,000

Year Built 1959 Sq Footage 1,104 Bedrooms 3 Bathrooms 2 full, 0 partial Floors Unspecified Parking Unspecified Lot Size 10,019 sqft HOA/Maint $0 per month

DESCRIPTION

---

This wonderful home in beautiful Fair Oaks is on a quiet street without much traffic and lots of obvious neighborhood pride. The home is spanking clean. You will fall in love with this one. Reasonable offers considered.
see additional photos below

PROPERTY FEATURES

---

Central A/C Central heat Fireplace Living room Dining room Dishwasher Refrigerator Stove/Oven Washer Dryer Laundry area - garage Balcony, Deck, or Patio Yard

OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES

---

Dual pane windows throughout Ceiling fans in living room, all 3 bedrooms Electric awning on front window Wonderful covered patio Refrigerator and dishwasher are new New bathroom cabinetry Stone tile flooring in entry, dining and kitchen Move-in ready Wonderful brick fireplace

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS

---

Seller contact info:

Susan Neal

Century 21 Noel David Realty

916-705-8951

For sale by agent/broker

Equal Opportunity Housing

Posted: Nov 6, 2008, 8:45pm PST

Directions: From San Juan, east on Walnut to end, right on Niblick. (Walnut is one block south of Winding Way).

I'll see you there!