Hi neighbor! I'm so sorry to hear about the job losses in your family. Things are so tough for so many around here. My best wishes to you and your husband as you look for new jobs and maybe relocate. I hope things brighten up for you soon. Thanks for joining the thread!
North Carolina seems to be a popular place
I am going to have to check it out.
Wings win!
Nice to see Meech get his first. I'm waiting for Helm to get his too! The gloves I wear were used by Helm in prospect camp a couple years ago. I've found that JLA is a great place to buy good equipment cheap. I found a nice pair of CCM pro gloves with little wear on them for $50. The player name on the price tag was "Misc.", but there was "43" written on the cuffs. I had no idea who that was, but I found out that it was some kid named "Darren Helm". I've being a fan of his since finally seeing him in action. BTW, the stick I use is a game-used Rafalski. I picked it up for $75 at another Wings game. Pickings are slim for me, because there's only a few right-handers on the team.
I think JLA will be around for a long time. The Illitch family has an effectively open-ended sweet-heart deal on the facility that isn't likely to be matched if they built something new. They only pay something like $100K a year to rent the building for a whole year. That covers the Wings, concerts, and everything. The deal is considered the best in the NHL. There are certainly nicer places to watch a game in the league, but I love the "character" of the place.
And it is more than twice as big as our current house, with enough rooms for a guest room, a craft room/library for DD & I, and a playroom for the kids.
We need to stay in a hotel for an 8:00am flight at Detroit Metro in 10 days. Do you know of a good and inexpensive hotel we could stay and leave our car? TIA!
Hi there! I don't know if this is the price range you're looking for, but I stay at the Fairfield Inn near the airport when I have an early morning flight. It's very nice, I can leave my car, and there's a free airport shuttle that runs every half hour. I earn Marriott Points staying there too.Hello fellow Michiganders!
Hope to see you around the parks! 
Wow - that sounds WONDERFUL!! I hope things go smoothly and you're able to get the house. Good luck!No, not seriously anyway. I like the idea of Oakland County, but not so much the idea of moving the kids that far, so we're mainly looking in St Clair County and parts of northern Macomb County right now.
I'd actually like to stay in the school district we're in now. I'm so ridiculously picky about schools because I came up in a district that didn't/doesn't have much to offer, and we're in a nationally recognized district. That's how we ended up looking at Oakland County; West Bloomfield is one of few districts that I'd consider as good as or better than ours. And since nothing is selling in our area, we're finding some great bargains!
I'm really hoping this one works out. We've looked at two so far that we really liked that failed septic field inspections, but this one is within town limits and has city water. Its on a much smaller lot, but the location and size make up for it - the balcony is big enough for a patio set & planter boxes and has a spectacular view of the river, and we'll turn the one car side of the garage (3 car garage, split 2/1) into an indoor/outdoor play area for the kids to expand the yard. Its been vacant a while and does need some work, but nothing major, nothing that needs to be done prior to moving in, and nothing my DH can't handle. There's an upside to being married to a contractor.
I've noticed too, probably because we're among those cutting back. This has already been such a rough holiday season that I'm just ready for it to be over. We missed Black Friday for the first time since I was a teenager because neither my mom nor I have much to spend, and then her house burned down that evening which really made for a great holiday weekend.
I won't let myself get too down though, because we're seeing daily reminders of how much worse it could be - we're house hunting, and literally every house we've looked at has either been a foreclosure or a short sale to avoid foreclosure. Its a bit depressing to realize that we're benefiting from someone else's major crisis, but at the same time I'm amazed at how far our money will go. Black Friday bargains are nothing compared to the current real estate market - our real estate agent advised us to make a starting offer of 25K on the 5 bedroom, 3.5 bath house we looked at yesterday! So we might even be able to come in far enough under budget that we'll be able do a fair bit of last minute Christmas shopping and book our next Disney trip for our birthdays in May. ::fingers crossed::
. I like Macomb county. I live in Wayne county but we always travel to Macomb County (Lakeside mall area) for shopping. Friends who live on the east side (Sterling Heights area) always say we need to move to the east side 
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