Hope Leitner, Realtor®, CRS

An old man used to meditate early every morning under a large tree on the bank of the Ganges River in India. One morning he saw a scorpion flailing helplessly in the strong current of the river, tangled in a complex network of tree roots.  The old man immediately reached out to rescue the drowning scorpion. The panicked animal tried to sting him, but the man persisted. For several long minutes his hand darted back and forth, evading the scorpion's plunging stinger as he tried to rescue it. A passerby on the riverbank saw the struggle.  "Hey, old man, what's wrong with you? Don't you know that you may kill yourself to help that dangerous animal?"  Slowly the man turned his head to gaze calmly into the stranger's eyes.  "Friend, is it the nature of the scorpion to sting. Why should I give up on my own nature for fear of his?" Maintaining the compassionate nature in a world that sometimes bites and strings can feel like a struggle...

There are more trees on Earth than there are stars in our galaxy. There are about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. A new estimate published in the journal Nature  recalculates the number of trees on Earth to three trillion. The latest estimate of the planet's tree population exceeds the number of stars in the Milky Way by more than 7 times the previous estimate. This means there are 422 trees for every person on the planet. Next time you take a deep breath, remember you have a small forest of trees helping to fill your lungs with clean, fresh oxygen! 

Here is a thought-provoking story, from the book Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland that challenges the old adage that quality is better than quantity: The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced; all those on the right would be judged solely on the quality of their work. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pounds of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A". When grading time came, a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" grou...

A couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning, while they are eating breakfast, the women sees a neighbor hanging laundry outside and says, "Her laundry is not very clean; she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Maybe she needs better laundry soap." Her husband looks on, remaining silent. Every time the neighbor hangs laundry to dry, the woman makes the same comments. A month later, the woman is surprised to see nice clean wash on the line and says to her husband, "Look, she's finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her." The husband replied, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows." Sometimes what we see when looking at others depends on the window through which we look. 

Your eyes will automatically blink 6 times while you are reading these words. That is because you blink about 12 times every minute whether you try to or not. Buy don't worry - the average blink lasts 1/10th of a second so you want miss much. The tiny muscles that blink your eyes are the most active muscles in your entire body, yet the human vision process is an amazing and complex system which engages more than just your eyes. The optic nerve connects the back of your retina to the visual cortex of the brain all the way at the back of the head. Seeing these words right now requires about half of the brain to get involved.  Did you count your blinks? 

A key factor in attracting home buyers is the cleanliness and orderliness of a home. While buyers are sympathetic toward sellers who must live in a home while selling it, most buyers can't see past the normal clutter of a lived-in home.  Buyers view dozens of homes in a row. When they walk into a home, they're instantly comparing it to a sparkling clean, well-staged homes they've just seen. If a home is even slightly cluttered with toys, books, furniture and refrigerator magnets, buyers can be turned off, simply by comparison. The solution? Work with me to spot potential problem areas. I'll help you figure out where to put your energy for the highest impact. Then start packing. Move 70% of your stuff out to a storage unit, and clean, clean, clean. 

Once upon a time, there was a small body who banged a drum all day and loved every moment of it. He would not be quiet, no matter what anyone else said or did. The community called on many wise people to help quiet the noise. Lots of good ideas were offered.  The first wise person told the boy if he continued to play the drum loudly it would harm his eardrum. The boy did not fear the consequence and continued to bang the drum.  The second person told him that drum-beating was a sacred activity and should be carried out only in special occasions. The noise continued.  The third offered the neighbors plugs for their ears.  The fourth gave the boy a book; the fifth gave the neighbors books that described a method of controlling anger through patience.  The boy still banged the drum. Finally, an older child from the village came along. He looked at the situation, handed the body a hammer and chisel, and said, "I wonder what is inside that drum?"