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What's both emotionally and financially your most important posession?

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Priorities vary when we're choosing our nest and the US real estate market has a huge place in  news and Social Media now with advice and the latest stats in this drastically changing world of Real Estate.  Here are a few fun facts. When we look for a home, the amount of square footage is right up there with the amount of money we can or want to spend so top of our list. Did you know however, many, many factors contribute to the final number and it can be irrelevant to your actual available living space for things from furnishings to family. Typically the outside perimeter of the house is measured, then a garage and any unheated area square footages are subtracted from the total. Some listing realtors will measure each room and post the layout on MLS. Here's some fun math trivia. A typical wall in a standard, residential home is 4.5" thick to allow for standard requirements, not even including extra insulation or out of the ordinary requirements for pipes or electrical. So...
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Summer is Here, School is out and it's Sunny and Hot in the Carolinas!

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  Who doesn't love the lush evergreen leaves and uber fragrant flowers of a prolific Sweet Olive A birdhouse set in a carefully pruned spot for birds to shelter or just dawdle on hot Summer days adorns my wildlife garden. Not a day goes by that I don't see at least one bird lounging on top in the shade or basking in the sun like this one. The bush is also very popular to Mockingbirds who enjoy it's shelter from all elements and hiding their nests beyond the leaves in a less dense spot just past the leaves. Thrashers and Robins also covet this prime real estate, but so far, duking it out with the bossier and brazen Mockers has not proven successful for them. Even though their beaks are longer and bodies slightly larger, the Thrashers who have laid claim to this backyard have carefully fashioned their nests only to lose it to the bully Mocker.  For this and a few other reasons, no garden is complete in my book without a Sweet Olive!
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Does Spring Have You Itching to Upgrade But Current Home Prices Have You Overwhelmed in 2026?

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Deciding how much you can afford to spend for a new home can be so overwhelming, it's easy to feel paralyzed by indecision and doubt. With constant news now of "high" interest rates consuming us, one thing that needs to be said is that rates have been a lot higher and banks have been a lot more discriminating in the past regarding who they approve and how much they charge. It may surprise you to know that our parents dealt with interest rates of 16%-18% in our childhood homes and 8.5%-10%  and up, just 10 years before.  Another fun fact is that women weren't always allowed to be listed on a title as a co-owner, or to build credit like today by being included on a mortgage less than 100 years ago. That was especially problematic if a husband died or you divorced and also when a female wife was supporting her male husband financially or supplying most of their income. To quote an old ad, "we've come a long way baby" so let's say your realtor shows you ...
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R&R to Rebuild a Wildlife Photographers Soul and Career After Heart Attacks and Cancer

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Nature Displayed All Around You Adorning Your Walls is Art of the Finest Kind

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 Capturing a rare moment in the rewarding  discovery of beauty in the real world, is a gift to be  cherished and shared. Sharing happy and enlightening pictures filled with life and love on the walls of children's rooms especially, opens special opportunities for rewarding parenting. One is the ever-fleeting chance to communicate with your kids.  Trust me that researching your selection of wildlife will open new doors for parents, but seeing the awe-struck look on your little one's face is immeasurable when you share those stories. It opens a mound of opportunities to bond, as you share stories and smiles back and forth. This little American Bluebird fledgling is hiding in a familiar River Birch tree near his nest, not quite ready to fly into the big unknown with his 2 other nest mates. Not only does his adorableness inspire us into peaceful slumber, but adding his  story is reassuring and uplifting to a child facing a seemingly insurmountable concern. After a b...
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How Important is it to Evaluate the "Nature vs Nurture" Philosophy to Raise our Children?

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Great Egret Nest with Her Young Babies in Charleston, SC The more research that's done, the more scientists are proving we can inherit much more than hair and eye colors from our ancestors, including previously unexplainable behaviors.  It's been proven for example, certain DNA hidden in us can be activated by a mere smell that formerly caused a distant ancestor's same response or reaction.  Scientists exposed parent-to-be mice to a particular smell, then shocked them so the mice associated that smell to a traumatic event, the shock.  The mice were impregnated by non-shocked mice so the scientist could take the hypothesis even farther.  When their mice were born, she measured the amount of  the particular cells in their noses that detect the particular smell that traumatized their parent. Simply put, DNA instructs our cells. She  observed the nose cells that detect that same smell had dramatically increased in the offspring.   One scientist hypoth...
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Theres No Place Like Home

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Article and photographs without Photoshop or AI by Penelope Penn   APRIL IN SOUTH CAROLINA OPENS DOORS TO EXPLORE "Radar," a Great Egret escaped a dire situation in Florid and chose to make his new safe home in South Carolina        A uniquely outfitted Great Egret quickly won the hearts of locals and tourists when he suddenly appeared in a popular Murrells Inlet park, Huntington Beach. I was finally able to unravel the mystery behind him. I learned he'd traveled to find a safe forever home, having been a victim of the tragic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico-now the Gulf of America. That's over 1,000 miles away. Everyone was fascinated by him and he even had his own Facebook pages in the US and internationally. His fans came daily, enjoying him nonchalantly fishing in the park and ultimately nesting nearby, but none of us were sure why he was banded, and outfitted with a wire protruding from his back.      During my affilia...
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