Shoulda Stayed in Bed

I dragged myself out of bed this morning--no choice of my own. The baby was up and, try as I might, she wasn't going back to sleep. She and I have been dealing with head colds and it hasn't been a walk in the park. I usually write my posts the night before, but I was too tired to do it yesterday. I woke up wondering what I'd write about today. It seems that all the Advent events that we've been attending have distracted me from the real estate scene a bit. So, here I thought it would be an average nose-blowing-first-day-of-Christmas-vacation morning without a post. Then I turned on my computer.

Boy, have people been busy. Thank you all for taking the time to give me your opinions. I post all comments, positive or negative, sent to this blog---unless they are vulgar or have bad words in the text. I hate to do it, but those are rejected. If you'd like to clean up your comments, I'm more than happy to publish them. You see, I know that everything that I write and publish, whether here or on other blogs, will last as close to an eternity as one can get. In a year or two or five, I may not feel that same about many things, so I don't want someone to think poorly of me because of a way that I chose to portray myself in the past. Also, that kind of vulgarity is offensive to God. I really do think it's funny that the people who are calling me trailer trash are the ones who talk like it.

I'd like to respond to each and every comment, but I'd feel like I'm wasting my time. Having SEVEN kids (uh, no, I'm not Mormon) has taught me when someone is open to listening and when they are not. The overall feeling I get from reading the comments on HousingPANIC (beware of the language on the comments) is that no one is really reading my blog. They're reading my one post about blogs, which I used to advertise those very blogs. Do any of the angry people know how I lost money? It doesn't appear so. When I took the scraps from the homes that we owned, we were renting them out at the time and NOT selling them. Either the readers can't read, are "overcome" by anger (and not optimism, obviously), or just gave my posts a glance. Who knows. That's OK. The bottom line is that the comments show that they don't know my story at all.

The saddest part for me is that I developed this blog as a support community for other investors who have lost money, property, and hope. Most investors won't put themselves out there like I have because of the very people who have attacked me. It doesn't bother me, but it may add insult to injury for others, who would rather just stay in bed with the covers over their head than face the world and their crumbling finances. I would assume that none of the bubble bloggers intended to harm anyone. I actually like and read the blogs--I don't have to agree with them to be entertained. I know this helps them because they generate revenue from their blogs and I don't--my choice because I wouldn't be able to have total control over some of the ads on the site. Now, I hope that I still have a chance in creating that community of investors.

I have made a ton of mistakes--in RE and life, in general--and I was hoping that others would be able to learn from them. I, also, wanted to hear and grow from other investors' experiences.

I know that it's easy for angry people to point to investors like me and blame us for all the evils in the real estate world (or the world as a whole--why not?). I didn't cause the downturn and I'm not at risk for foreclosing on anything. After ridding ourselves of those albatross apartments, our finances look better than they have in two years. I'm a responsible investor, for the most part--but, then again, I don't have to explain myself to anyone.

(This just in--after I wrote and published this post, my son came in to tell me that the crows had broken into our totally enclosed coop and killed or injured a majority of our chickens. How sad and apropos!)