Most Peaceful Countries

The July 27, 2010 CHRISTIAN CENTURY has a little blurb about the ranking of countries by a peace index from the Global Peace Index 2010/Institute for Economics and Peace. I was surprised by number one, New Zealand, but only because it's not a country that comes to my mind often. The index measures domestic and international peace and conflict.
The top ten most peaceful in order are New Zealand, Iceland, Japan, Austria, Norway (#5 you gotta be kidding?) Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden. The least peaceful in descending order are Russia, Israel, Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. United States? number 85 of 149.

For Sale

Here's the picture. Aren't they cute? A 1951 JD A tractor and a Massey Harris three bottom plow. For you a special deal!

For Sale

Well, yes, our house is still for sale and we even lowered the price but that's not what I'm thinking of now. I've decided to sell my 1951 John Deere A tractor. To prepare for that I'm going to SD tomorrow so I can wash it and take new pics. Anyone interested in some green and yellow?
Perhaps I'll post a pic when I get back.

Filling in the gaps!

There are some things that everyone in America seems to know but I don't. One of those gaps in my education was filled Wednesday when we attended "A Street Car Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams at the Guthrie Theater. I thought that the performance was stellar even though a local critic panned it in the paper. For sixty years I've heard about the movie/play and now at last I've seen it.
Oh, yes, and the Guthrie is just six blocks from our new condo!

Movement on moving!

It appears that we are set for a August 20, closing on the condo. Updating should be done in thirty days after that so we anticipate moving in mid-September. Tomorrow our contractor is bringing her suggestions and estimates for updating so we can keep the process moving.

We had a showing of our house today and another open house to which two parties came. I was about to return but saw a Jaguar parked in the driveway so kept going. I hoped that there was a person of substance who wants to buy our house. Turns out that they were just slumming.

I'll attach pictures of two views from the condo.

Purchase Agreement Accepted!

This morning we visited the condo we hope to buy. The son of the owners was there and he told me that our purchase agreement has been signed. :) The closing date is August 20. We'll do the updating after that so are hoping to move in on or around Sept. 20. :)
Our contractor who will do the updating was with us so she did measurements and heard what we want done. She will have her estimates to us soon and plans to begin work as soon as we have closed.
We are excited to know where we are going and that focus helps us emotionally while we wait for our house to sell.

Recommended reading.

After our book club discussion last night of THE LATEHOMECOMER: A HMONG FAMILY MEMOIR by Kao Kalia Yang I decided to give it another plug here. It's a powerful sotry very well told.