"Good" housing news expected this week, but does it really matter to you?

Housing sales up. Housing sales down. Home prices up. Home prices down. Mortgage rates higher. Mortgage rates lower. It's a wonder the entire country isn't suffering from motion sickness by now!

Since the fiscal mess began, we have been "treated" to seemingly non-stop reporting giving us monthly and often daily temperature readings of the nation's economic state. Sometimes we feel reassured. Sometimes we feel like we've been hit over the head with a sledgehammer.

The truth is, no one set of figures does a trend make, and we shouldn't get too up or too down by any one particular set of reports.