anti_elgorgo had friended me, and I used the admin console to ban him/her, and now s/he's no longer listed in my "friend of" list.

Re: buying a house -- Annoying Co Worker is also a realtor and the other day when I was talking about getting a place to rent (which should happen soon) he started in on how I needed to buy a house and ran down all the ways I could get help as a first time home buyer.

A lot of it was state specific, but you should look into programs for first time home buyers.

It took a while for annoying co worker to accept that ,really, I don't want to own a house.

Trudy! I slutted 999's in your honor the other day. Smoooch! It's been so long since I have seen you.

t tacklehugs ms. holt

I'm glad I could offer a little comfort today, Cass, albeit unwittingly. Punctuation and gentle thoughts your way, wittingly.

Snooooooooooooow piiiiiiiiiiics!

And *I* heart Jess. The pics are gawjuss, and so are the two cuties therein. I have also nabbed a couple shots of the tree at night, to possibly icon down the road. I'll not if you'd rather I didn't, or credit you in the comments, if you prefer.

anti_elgorgo friended me in a mass-friending last year, too. I think I just ignored him till he went away (I'm assuming "him"). He never commented. But this time, with Astarte's help, I banned him from commenting, at least. I always friends-lock anything I find sensitive. I'm by LJ the way I was about my paper journal--you read it and find anything objectionable about yourself, you've only yourself to blame for reading something that was none of your business. Pffft.

Trudy, did you by any chance just watch King of the Hill?

Hil, how did you remove him from your list? I almost never go in there, yet that name has befriended me too.

Hil, how did you remove him from your list?

I just followed the banning instructions, and he was removed.

Oh, and P-C, writing "hand stamp" on the envelope tells the postal folks not to run the envelope through the auto-cancelling machinery. It only takes standard sizes (which is why it costs an extra arm to mail the lovely square notes I have), and anything lumpy, like the cards that have applied dried flowers or tiny seashells, or sealing wax seals, won't fit, will tear, and cause the machine to break down. So they frown on lumpy stuff, but will usually take heed if you write "please hand stamp" on the envelope. Although they'll probably start charging an extra arm for that, too.

House buying is looking more do-able for us than I expected. Partly because DH's mother reminded him of an IRA he'd forgotten he had from the life insurance money when his father died, which when added to what the two of us have in 403(b)s (401(k)'s for government/nonprofit workers), gives us something to work with for a down payment. So we're going to spend this year paying down debts, and try to buy around this time next year.

I still hate the whole process, though. I'm not a big picture money person, at all, and it just feels so risky and frightening, to deal with such big sums and long time frames.