About Cole County, MO

If you just love living in the country...keeping the exterior wood trim and siding painted or stained is necessary to keep the native fauna from treating your house like a ginger bread house in a room full of hungry kids!!

Painting or staining all exterior wood surfaces helps to protect the wood structure from termites, which swarm periodically to look for new colony locations, wood boring beetles and bees, and woodpeckers!

Allowing the exterior wood portions of any house to remain unprotected or fall in disrepair, will invite nature's bounty of wood destroying organisms to your "Home Sweet Home"!

Happy Trails!!

Last night I held a free workshop for first time home buyers. The goals were for the buyers to identify their price range, understand closing costs, develop a buying plan, and review the purchase agreement.

I had no buyers show up, but I did have a very good loan officer. We used the time productively and made videos. We talked about the interest rates, credit scores, credit fixes and credit restorations. When we finished the videos, I posted them to YouTube. This morning we finished posting to Twitter, Facebook, RE/MAX Website, and LinkedIn.

Here is the link to the Youtube videos: http://youtu.be/qe5IaZVCWHk

What a great evening!

Fireplace & Chimney Inspections in Jefferson City/Columbia/Mid-Missouri

Weather you live in Jefferson City/Columbia/Mid-Missouri or elsewhere in the world, using the home’s fireplace, stove, or even gas fired furnace for the first time is not without some risk. The Mid-Missouri (Jefferson City and Columbia) local news reports are beginning to “heat up” with reports of home fires that are related to fireplace chimney issues.

UPDATE: Fire Damages Columbia Home | KOMU.com | Columbia, MO | is one example of how “out of sight, out of mind” becomes “late breaking news”!

Proper cleaning and inspection of fireplace, stove, or furnace systems are highly recommended prior to the first use of the season. Birds, squirrels, insects, and even lightning can cause un-noticed damage or obstruction to the chimney/flue system.

If you live in the Columbia, Jefferson City, or Mid-Missouri area, feel free to contact me through RobSmithPI.com, and I will gladly be of service to you and yours.

Well...I have moved my Home Inspection business to the Jefferson City, Columbia, Fulton, and Holts Summit area in the heart of Missouri. Today will be my first day as a RainMaker, and this is my first public blog post!

As it turns out, to my delight and amazement, I will be representing ASHI (American Society of Home Inspectors) in the Greater Jefferson City, Missouri market. I am excited to carry the ASHI flag, and do my part to represent my clients by providing "Consumer Protection in every Home Inspection".

I am also looking forward to bringing information and interviews from around the Jefferson City area to the ActiveRain Community!

Please comment with any specific questions or blog topic ideas...I'll stay in touch!!

Rob Smith Property Investigations / RobSmithPI.com / 573.291.6065

There is a special magic between a mother and her newborn child, a wondrous thing unlike any other. This bond is so strong that a newborn’s every gesture, its every need, its every cry and indeed its every nuance is perceived by the mother. It’s instinctive; a mother just senses it. Like special sonar detecting the minutest sound, so a mother can decipher her baby’s needs.

"After carrying this seed inside you for nine months, this new person you give birth to becomes more you than yourself. You protect it with your Life. Overnight, this new being become more important than yourself."

Such is the bond between a Mother and her Newborn Child. This extraordinary Love and Devotion is nothing new, nor is it unique. This is a normal, everyday occurrence, engrained in us to ensure the perpetuation of the species. Every one of us has had that adoration, or else we wouldn’t be here, or we wouldn’t be whole…

Imagine this lovely picture of a young mother nursing her newborn baby. It’s an idyllic image indeed. Now imagine social services snatching this mother’s two day old infant from her bosom, simply because this mother was blind. "Is this a horror story", you ask. Nope; I wish this was all fiction, but unfortunately, it’s the truth! On May 23^rd, 2010, the state of Missouri saw fit to take this baby away from its parents because the parents were blind.

“When the Centerpoint lactation nurse noticed that Erika’s breast was covering Mikaela’s nostrils, she was concerned. But instead of patiently working with the young mother (like we would hope any nurse or lactation consultant would do), she decided that Erika was incapable of caring for her newborn.

On Mikaela’s chart, the Centerpoint nurse recorded the words that would irrevocably change the course of the infant’s future: “The child is without proper custody, support or care due to both of parents being blind and they do not have specialized training to assist them.

A social worker came next to ask questions: How could she take her baby’s temperature? [Ms.] Johnson answered: with our talking thermometer. How will you take her to a doctor if she gets sick? Johnson’s reply: If it were an emergency, they’d call an ambulance. For a regular doctor’s appointment, they’d call a cab or ride a bus.” The couple’s answers were not good enough. The social worker declared, 'Look, because you guys are blind, I don’t feel like you can adequately take care of her.'

Two days later, Mikaela was taken by the Missouri Department of Social Services. For the next 57 days, Erika and Blake were only allowed to see Mikaela two or three times each week for an hour at a time, and only under the supervision of Mikaela’s foster parent.”

A newborn baby’s first days, weeks and months are critical to its development. This family was robbed of so much and it was done in the name of the law, under the guise of “protection”. I hope the parents will make this story public. I hope that measures will be taken to ensure that such a thing will never be repeated. It’s sad indeed, when the state has so much power as to take a baby away from its nursing mother…

Mirela