Sherry's Austin TX Real Estate Blog: September 2008

I have made a decision that I think I can live with. I am not renewing any of my magazine subscriptions. I currently take about 12 woman's type magazines. Better Homes and Gardens, Woman's Day, Country Living, and the like.  It is like trying to watch an hour of TV, but there are so many commercials, I get about 15 minutes of the actual show.  These magazines are so full of advertising; I have to search for actual content. I counted pages of one a while back.  There were about 12 pages of ads for every one page of content.  I am not enjoying them anymore! 

I pride myself in being a good cook. I can usually look at a recipe and tell you if it will be good or not. I haven't seen any good ones yet!  I know some things are regional, and often I am thankful I don't live in that region. And if I can't recognize most of the ingredients...I am not spending the bucks or the time to figure it out.  We are not picky eaters. Usually if it is dead and cooked, we are going to dig in. But there are some things that just don't go together, and there are other things that need a little more help that salt and pepper to taste better. But... I am not putting cocoa on my fish!

I am also tired of every magazine telling me the new weight loss trick month after month. There is no new trick! Eat less and get off your butt...that's it!  No new tricks, no new foods.  I am just sick of it being on the cover of every magazine on the rack.

I have given up on fashion!  No, we don't like the witches toed shoes that make our feet look 3 inches longer.  Just like we don't wear pants that make our butts look 30 pounds heavier. Foot doctors have been telling women to quit wearing the high-high heeled shoes. But the shoe designers just keep making them and women just keep buying them. But women would love to buy something with a lower heel, but we can't find it. Yes, they look good, but they are making dollars at the expense of our health!  Have you seen some of these new designers? That right there would be your first clue.  I wouldn't let these fashion idiots dress my dog!  The last couple years the maternity look has been in style.  Most women have been there, and we don't want to go there again! But I didn't recently hear a dad say, he would rather see his daughter wearing that than what was in style before.  Low cut jeans, with the thong showing, and the 2 times too small shirt with the tummy hanging out.  But I am not a teenager, nor am I pregnant!  I want a different choice! 

Decorating..If you go back and look at a really old magazine... it is just like looking at one now.  What was in style back then, went out for a reason, but it is new again! Wall colors and prints used in the 50's came back, and appear to be headed out. Guess we are headed for the 60's now?  I heard they are bringing back the green appliances we all went out and replaced with the almond, then black, now stainless.  Bronze will be the next best thing I guess.  Got to keep the appliance companies in business!

Child rearing....nothing has changed except we aren't supposed to spank anymore. Wonder if that is one of the reason's our youth has gone a little wild. No consequences anymore for bad behavior.  The questions never change...all about potty training, or taking the bottle or pacifier away...

Just nothing new anymore! I have canceled them all!  I must be harder to entertain these days...I have seen it all I guess...and it appears I have seen it twice!

Can you imagine the police showing up at your home or office and arresting you for a serious crime like rape or a murder? You know you didn't do it!  Your family and friends know you didn't.  Suppose you went to a movie by yourself, threw away the ticket stub that you had paid cash for. No way to prove your whereabouts, and no one there knew you or would remember you. Perhaps someone picked you out of a lineup. You might look like the person they remembered. Well, this happens more than we would like to think. People are spending years and years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Even worse, people are being executed for crimes they did not commit. DNA has not been around that long, and unless you have the money for testing and legal fees....you are going to jail. Some DNA tests can run over $13,000.

Their Mission Statement: The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, over 220 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing including 14 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 12 years in prison before exoneration and release.  The Innocence Project's full time staff attorneys and Cardozo clinic students provided direct representation or critical assistance in most cases.  The Innocence Project's groundbreaking use of DNA technology to free innocent people has provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Now an independent nonprofit organization closely affiliated with Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the Innocence Project's mission is nothing less than to free the staggering numbers of innocent people who remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.

Please visit their website at:  http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Please donate to the cause, as they are asking for help this month.  They do not take a case unless they are sure they can prove someone's innocence by DNA testing.  Sign up for the monthly newsletter if nothing else.  The thought of someone spending up to 20 years or more in prison-wrongly convicted, missing the opportunity to see their children grow up, shouldn't happen to anyone.  Prison is a hard life for an innocent victim.  They are currently working on over 200 more cases across the country that they need funds to pay for the DNA medical testing.  To date, over 40% of the DNA testing that has freed someone, has convicted the person actually guilty of the crime.