Aaaaaand We're Back

Hello, loyal readers! I assume you are loyal because, after three years of inactivity, I can only expect the most die-hard Brown Family fans to continue checking this thing for updates.

Much has happened in the last three years. Scott started two companies, I became an administrative judge, my mom moved to Memphis, and Ev graduated from high school and then started college at Tulane in the fall of 2011.

Our most recent big news is that Scott and I moved to San Francisco in December 2011. A move was not on our radar - in fact we weren't expecting to do something like this until Ev was out of college and the coffers were replenished a bit. But an opportunity dropped in Scott's lap that was just too amazing to pass up, so here we are.

We are living in the Mission District in a beautiful building that was constructed in 1897.

Our neighbors are great and we LOVE our neighborhood.

Well, I am not making any promises, but my goal is to keep this thing updated regularly, at least until I find a job.

Danger City

Forbes just came out with its list of America's Most Dangerous Cities. Sadly, Memphis is number two on the list. According to the article, we are one of the only large cities in America with more than 950 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. Also we are apparently a transit point for Mexican drug cartels. I am doubly sad about the article because Detroit, where my sister lives, is ranked number one! We Henderson (/Reschke/Brown) girls love to live dangerously!

However, if I remember correctly, we were number one on the list last year, so I guess a glass half full view would be that we are improving. I'm not going to let this article get me down. We moved back here because we love this city. I see people working everyday to make Memphis a safer place - not only in my neighborhood, but all around the city. I know that in a few years, after more hard work and a new mayor who is not completely corrupt and insane with power, Memphis will be off the list completely.

Then I guess I'll have to move again - to where the danger is!

Catching up

Man, it has been too long since my last update! Here is a brief rundown of events since last you heard from me:

September 25, 2008 - Ev turned 16.
November 9, 2008 - I got in a car accident and totaled my car, but came out without a scratch.
December 16, 2008 - I finally got my wedding rings to fit back on my finger after over a year without them (since the mashed potato fiasco of Thanksgiving 2007).
December 28 through January 2 - We celebrated a late Christmas with my family who came down from Michigan for a visit. We had 11 people in our house for five days and had a GREAT time.
January 10, 2009 - I turned 40!
March 3, 2009 - Everett got his driver's license.
March 4, 2009 - Scott was laid off.
March 11, 2009 - Ev was hired at Graceland.
April 6, 2009 - I was offered a job with the Tennessee Department of Human Services as a hearing officer/administrative judge and I begin the first week of May.
April 9, 2009 - Scott launched his first iPhone game
April 13, 2009 - I finally got a car to replace my beloved Vibe - a '96 Miata. We have been having lots of fun with it!

We are enjoying being back in Memphis. We love our house and take lots of walks in our neighborhood and to the zoo, which is just a couple blocks from our house.

Getting away from it all

Scott and I decided it's time for the two of us to take a trip. We haven't been away alone together since we went to Mexico for a late honeymoon after I graduated from law school.

We weren't sure at first where we wanted to go, but Scott was kind enough to let me pick the destination. We don't have the time or money to do anything quite as exciting as Mexico on this trip. My only requirement was that we go somewhere that won't be hot. We've had weeks of 90+ and 100+ degree weather here in Memphis and I have had enough! My first thought was Chicago. My first thought whenever I get a chance to go some where is Chicago. I just love Chicago. But Scott and I have been to Chicago together a few times, so I figured we should go somewhere new. I finally decided on Boston. We have both been there on business trips, but never for pleasure and never together.

We leave in a couple days. I can't wait!

Highway Star

Everett had his first driving lesson the other day. He and Scott rode around our neighborhood for a bit while Ev got comfortable behind the wheel.


After they came back from the first trip, I hopped in the back and went for a ride.



Ev's driven several times since then and he's doing a great job!

Rain, rain, go away

We had a doozy of a thunderstorm the other day. We really missed the Memphis rains while we were in California, but this was ridiculous!

Our yard is like a mini New Orleans. The house is at the bottom of a bowl, and we have no levies to hold back the water, so when it rains heavily, we quickly find ourselves in the middle of a huge puddle. Here is a picture of our front yard taken near the end of the storm.



Luckily, the previous owners spent a nice chunk of dough installing a French Drain. So, within five minutes of the rain stopping, all the water went down here:


And our yard was left muddy, but water free.

My very own chauffeur!

Someone in the picture below got his learner's permit today. Can you guess who?


This means Everett can get his license near the end of January. Just in time to take a date out for Valentine's Day!

Congratulations, Ev!

Ev's new ride

Ev turns 16 on September 25. Although he does not have his license yet, nor even his learner's permit, he's got a sweet ride waiting for him when he finally gets them.

The day I arrived back in Memphis I found out a good friend of ours was selling the '96 Volvo his daughter drove in high school and college. Scott and I had been discussing getting Everett a car and had worked out a deal with him where we would match any dollar amount he saved to buy one. Well, we weren't planning on getting one so soon, but our friend offered us a great deal and our number one priority for the car Ev would get was safety, so we couldn't pass up the Volvo. Ev still has to save some money to cover his half, but he doesn't have far to go.

I think Ev had imagined something like this for his first car:


But once he gets behind the wheel of the Volvo (and when he comes out of his first wreck without a scratch) I know he'll fall in love with it.

All is well that ends well

Ev's first week as a sophomore at White Station High School started off a little rocky, but things smoothed out quickly.

Even though we registered Ev on the Friday before school started, he was not enrolled when he got there Monday morning. Apparently his file was stuck with files of other transfer students who could not be enrolled until they were withdrawn from the school from which they transferred. Ev was never registered anywhere else, so that was a mistake. So, unbeknownst to us until he got home Monday, he spent the entire day sitting in the gymnasium.

But, all was well Tuesday. He was able to get the office to put him in the system in the morning, he got his schedule and he was on his way. He likes most of his teachers (based on the first week's impressions anyway). He was very happy to see some of his friends he hadn't had a chance to see yet since we got back. He seemed pleased with the first week over all.

A friend of Scott's who lives a few streets away from us has a daughter who is a junior at WSHS. She drives to school everyday, so she gives Ev a ride. That means I don't have to drop him off and pick him up everyday, so I am happy. Ev likes it too. He would be happiest if he could drive himself, of course, but since he can't do that yet, riding with a friend is still several marks higher on the cool meter than catching a ride with mom.

Citizen Petra

My very good friend in California, Petra, became a US citizen last week. Congratulations, Petra!


I was vary sad that I was not there to witness the ceremony, but only until she told me it took place in a room filled with 3,000 people with no air conditioning. Sounds delightful.

Petra is from Snina, Slovakia, small town near the Ukrainian border with a population of just over 20,000. Isn't it beautiful?


Petra came to the United States the first time in high school when she was an exchange student in Minnesota. She returned to Snina to attend law school and eventually came back to the U.S. to stay, arriving in California on July 4th - such a little patriot! She and her boyfriend, Krasen (who is from Bulgaria), plan to move back to Europe in a few years, but for now she is an American girl. Welcome to the club, PP Magee!

Ev is officially a Spartan!

We found out yesterday that our son, Everett, was accepted by White Station High School. We do not live in the WSHS district, but Ev went to White Station Middle School before we left Memphis and most of his friends (including his cousins, Cody and Zach) went on to WSHS. It is also the number one high school in Memphis City Schools system. We are very happy, but it was much more of an ordeal than it should have been to reach this point.

We were told initially that Ev was 26th on a waiting list to get in White Station. We kept up our hopes about WSHS, but we also began contemplating what looked like a very likely plan B, which was going to Central High School (the high school for the district in which we live). Now, I moved to Memphis my senior year of high school and I spent that year at Central. It was probably the worst year of my life. I do not have pleasant memories of Central and my first reaction was "There is no way he is going there." However, once I looked into it and talked to a few people about Central, I calmed down and realized I was making a decision based entirely on emotion. It is a very good school and Ev would get a great education if he went there. So, Ev tackled the summer reading list for Central and I met with the principal to be sure we had our ducks in a row to get him in the classes we wanted. All the while though, we kept jumping through the many bureaucratic hoops presented to us along the way in our attempt to transfer to WSHS.

In the interest of brevity I will spare you the rest of the long story. Suffice it to say most of the hoops we jumped through turned out to be completely unnecessary. The important thing is that Ev is in the school he really wanted and we are pleased. Unfortunately, Ev busted his butt to complete the reading list for Central (he finished three books in less than two weeks) and now he has to three more books to attack. Luckily the teacher has extended the deadline by a month for Ev. He is already half way through the first one (in less than a day!) so he will be fine.

Go Spartans!

Missing California...just a little

We are very happy to be back in Memphis, but I must say there are some things I miss about California.

Mostly I miss our friends. We didn't make a lot of friends while we were there, but the ones we did make were amazing and I wish we could have brought them with us. I speak specifically about Julio and Fabienne (and their daughter, Morgane, of course) and Petra and Krasen.



I think of them everyday. I hope they will all visit us!

I also miss how beautiful California is. The weather was wonderful and the scenery was beautiful. We could admire it from almost every window in our house. My favorite was the view from one of my bedroom windows.


I would lie in bed and imagine I was on vacation somewhere tropical and this was the view out my hotel window. Nice.

Of course, there are many things I do not miss about California. The crowds and the traffic are the first things that come to mind, but I don't have any pictures of those to share with you. However, I do have a picture of my least favorite thing about California: SPIDERS. The place was lousy with them. I found this one just outside my back door one night.


I think he was about to let himself in and help himself to a beer and the remote, but I scared him off. (If you look closely you will see he is on his way to devour a slug. This guy does not limit himself to insects and he does not wait for things to get stuck in his web!)

So, if Julio, Fabienne, Petra and Krasen can stay safe from the enormous beer drinking spiders, we will hopefully see them soon and then I won't miss California so much.

Time for an update

Wow! I have been very lax in my duties to keep everyone updated on our activities. Here is a brief review of our life since June:

June 6 - The buyers who made the offer on our house backed out less than two days after we accepted their offer. We were very disappointed, but got over it quickly. We decide to go ahead with our plan to move at the beginning of July, even though the house in Cali has not sold.

June 13 - My last day at work. Yipee!

July 1 - Scott picks up the 26 foot Penske truck, the largest truck Penske has, that he and Ev are going to load and drive to Memphis. After loading some boxes on the truck Scott is feeling smug because he is confident we will have more space than we know what to do with, despite the fact I insisted, over his objections, on getting such a big truck. I fly out of San Francisco that night with the dogs along in their crates in the cargo hold.

July 2 - We (me, Archie and Jammer) arrive in Memphis. We are picked up at the airport by my good friend Ann and we spend the evening with my sister, Margaret, my nephews, Cody, Zach and Austin, and my friends/cousins, Susan, Bill, Erin, Joe, Karen, Greg, Kevin and Zeke. I receive a few concerned calls that evening from Ev and Scott. After a day of loading the truck they have realized the truck is too small and everything will not fit! No worries. It's just stuff.

July 3 - After half the truck is unloaded, rearranged and reloaded, and several more calls are made to determine what we can and can't live without, the truck is packed. Scott and Ev take off Thursday evening, leaving fewer items in California than we feared we would have to.

July 6 - Scott and Ev arrive in Memphis mid-day. They park the truck, take showers and decide to spend the afternoon visiting friends and family and leave the unloading for the next day.

July 7 - The truck is unloaded. I get busy unpacking.

July 8 - After furniture is arranged, some boxes are unpacked and we can take a breath, we realize that we LOVE our house and are very happy to be there.

July 12 - Zeke and Meredith get married! Yay!

July 14 - Scott begins working from home. He enjoys it, particularly after the camera and sound are set up and he can see and hear his co-workers in California and they can see and hear him.

August 6 - Almost everything is unpacked. Remaining boxes are all collected in the otherwise empty dining room where I can conveniently forget about them until I am ready to deal with them.

That pretty much brings you up to date, except for the fact that our house in San Jose has still not sold. But it's okay because I keep it in my mental dining room where I can conveniently forget about it until I have to deal with it.

One more hurdle jumped [UPDATED]

We accepted an offer on our house on Tuesday. Yay! It was a low offer and we will write a check at closing. Nonetheless, we are very happy and relieved. We knew we weren't going to make money on the house here, so we are just fine with how it turned out (and it helps that we got a good deal on the house in Memphis). Now we can focus all our attention on planning and preparing for the actual move.

We close on the house in Memphis on June 30 and on the house here on July 1, so we need to be packed up and ready to go by the end of this month. Ev's last day of school is June 12 and my last day of work will be June 13, so he and I will have about two weeks together to devote to packing. This will be the third time in two years I have packed up all our stuff. Once we settle in the house in Memphis I do not plan on leaving there for quite awhile. The next time we move, we'll be doing it to be near our grandkids (and Ev knows he is not allowed to have kids until he is 30).

UPDATE: We found out the last night the buyers are backing out. We are very disappointed, but we are trying to keep a positive attitude.

More pictures of the house

I thought I would share a few more pictures of our new house. All the decor you see is the previous owners', not ours. Here is the backyard:


The kitchen:




The living room:


The dining room:


and the master bedroom (it opens up to the stone patio in the backyard):

Our new home

I went to Memphis on a house hunting trip last week. I saw 25 houses in two days, narrowed it down to three favorites and saw those three again on my third day. After I got home Scott and I talked about it and made an offer on the one we liked best. There was already an offer on the house, but it was contingent on the first buyer selling their house. Once the sellers accepted our offer, the first buyers had 72 hours to set a closing date or withdraw their offer.

We just found out this morning that the house is ours (once we close, of course). Here it is:


It's in the historic Evergreen District of Midtown. It's a great house and we are very excited.

Scott is in Memphis this weekend for a conference, so he will be able to see the house in person on Sunday. I'll let you know what he thinks!

Jill's for Jospeh

Our house in California has been on the market for about a month now and we haven't had an offer yet. We found a house in Memphis and made an offer on it, so we are REALLY ready to have this house sold. We decided it's time to look to a higher power for assistance and ordered a St. Joseph statue online the other day from buryjoe.com.


For those of you not familiar with the tradition of burying St. Joseph (the patron saint of the family and household needs), it started when Sister Teresa of Avila (now known as Saint Teresa) and her fellow nuns started burying St. Joseph medals in ground they wanted to attain for their convents. The practice has in more recent times evolved into the tradition of burying a St. Joseph statue which, with a few moments of prayer, is called upon to help sell property. So, we buried the statue in the yard tonight with all the requisite pomp and circumstance, plus our own special touch for good measure.

First, we dug a hole near the for sale sign in your yard.


Next, we placed the statue of St. Joe in the hole according to the directions: head first, feet toward heaven, facing the direction of the street. The directions didn't mention this part, but we decided to toss in our own special offerings to St. Joe. Ev gave him a cookie, in case he got hungry, and I poured in a little of the gin & tonic I was enjoying at the time, in case he got thirsty. Can you see the ice cubes down there?


Before covering the statue, we said the following suggested prayer: "Remember, O most chaste Spouse of the Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who implored your help and sought your intercession was left unassisted. Full of confidence in your power, I fly unto you and beg your protection. Despise not, O foster-father of the Redeemer, my humble supplication, but in your bounty hear and answer me. Amen."

Then we carefully covered him up, sprinkled him with a little water to help the grass grow back, and went about our business.


After the house sells and escrow closes, we'll dig up St. Joseph and give him a place of honor in our new home.

My celebrity look alikes

People used to tell me all the time that I looked like Jamie Lee Curtis. She didn't show up here, so maybe people said that just because my hair used to be so short.



I did it a second time using a different picture of myself and Julie Andrews and Julia Stiles were the only two that showed up again. Robert Downey Jr. showed up on my second one as well.

I did one with a picture of Scott and Magic Johnson popped up as one of his look alikes!

To bark or not to bark

When Karen the stager was here, she said our goal is to get people to say "Wow" when they walk in the house and when they walk in each room. Well, the photographer came today and he said "Wow" three times when I gave him a tour of the house. I am hoping that's a good sign.

Now that the pictures are taken, I think all we have left to do is have the carpets cleaned and figure out what we are going to do about the back yard. You may remember that our back yard is covered in sharp, ugly, white rocks.


The previous owner used to live in Las Vegas where residents get discounts on utility bills if they remove grass from their yards. By the time the lady moved in here, she had developed such a distaste for grass she ripped it out of the back yard and replaced it with the rocks. We would put sod in if we were going to stay, but doing it now would not get us the most bang for our buck.

Karen the stager suggested putting a layer of bark pieces over the rock. Not my first choice, but it will definitely be more aesthetically pleasing than the rocks. As it is now, you are blinded when the sun shines on the rocks and it detracts from the pretty things in the yard (rose bushes and other plants). I think the bark will blend in a little more. And the dogs will certainly like it better (what dog doesn't love bark? har har). The rocks hurt their their little feet.

Successful Staging

We had a very fruitful meeting with our stager, Karen, on Wednesday evening. After looking around a bit, she complimented our decorating taste and then went on to explain the difference between decorating and staging. As I mentioned before, I de-cluttered quite a bit before she came in, but I learned there was much more to do. I knew a large part of staging is to make everything more spacious, but I didn't understand that it was okay (and necessary) to sacrifice some of the decorating in the process. We didn't quite have the right balance yet. I felt a little overwhelmed with the list she left us, but our realtor, CJ, said Karen usually takes a day to compile the list of "to dos" for her clients. She was able to generate ours before she left our house, so I told myself we got off easy.

We worked extra hard on Thursday and Friday evening getting everything crossed off our staging list. We wanted to be ready for the photographer who is coming Saturday to take pictures for the websites and the virtual tour. When Karen was here she took "before" pictures and she'll come back next week to take some "afters." I think she will post them all on her site later, so I'll put up a link here if she does. It should be interesting to see the difference.