LOST A SOCK

Reprise

I think I could have rambled forever.

I was on pins and needles throughout all of last week (who are we kidding- through all of the last six weeks with each step of the house deal) knowing and hoping that we should finally close by Friday.  Our original date was November 30th, which came and went.  Then our buyers delayed another week when they were late with some necessary document or another.  I wanted to text our agent every day, twice a day and three times even to see if she knew anything more.  As if she wasn't going to tell me when she knew something.  I couldn't blog because I didn't want to jinx the close by putting it out there-- THE STRESS OF THIS HOUSE SELLING BUSINESS MAY ONE DAY KILL ME.  I hardly talked to anyone about it.  I tried to not even let myself think about it.

We had been in a similar situation before, back in the Fall of 2007 when our closing date came and went.  Back then I kept thinking positive- it will happen, just a little late, and everyone will be happy in their new homes.  But the deal crashed to the ground with the fury of ten thousand fiery airplanes, and it was no picnic.  The last thing I wanted to do this time was think positive, think negative, think at all, feel sad, feel happy, SHOW UP AT THE LENDER'S OFFICE WITH A REASON FOR THEM TO HURRY THE HELL UP.  That reason being my humble offering of an assortment of holiday cookies, of course.  

So within all of this, I did the only thing I could think of and crammed my little family's calendar with as many activities as I could so that I would have to focus on something else throughout last week.  Namely, breathing exercises as Marin and I took yet another karate class minute by minute until we all survived with our pants on.  (Booya!)  I planned a fancy dinner date for my girlfriend Mary and I on Thursday night, so that I would either be crying into my crab cakes or drinking champagne, assuming I would have knowledge of what was to come on Friday.  

I'll be damned if we didn't have to wait until four o'clock Thursday to know that we were closing on Friday morning.  That entire day, I was sick to my stomach. I had a serious meltdown over the phone with Kevin, emphatically communicating the notion that I just couldn't do this anymore.  This, I believe, is what some refer to as a Breaking Point.  In recent months I had made the mistake of hanging our adoption on the sale of this house, fearing with good reason that we could not afford to carry two mortgages and save for our remaining agency fees and two trips to Africa in the coming year.  Over and over, I ran numbers in my head as to how we could make it all work.  And every time I came up with the same answer that this may not end well-- which would piss me off even more about the freaking house and bring me to tears over our baby in waiting.  I gave up my worries at some point on Thursday-- take ME down in flames but we are bringing our baby home no matter what happens with the house.

We began preparing our house for the market in January of 2007, when Jack was just a year old, and we listed it for sale that April.  We dragged ourselves through six long months on the market, cleaning and running out the door with two little guys on a moment's notice for showings.  We moved into our current home in October of 2007, sure that our sale was right around the corner.  We made even more improvements that were demanded after inspections from more interested buyers, signed deals and releases, and carried the two mortgages for nine more months after our move, until Marin's birth was coming close in the summer of 2008.  I needed some sort of reprieve while I had my baby.  The whole situation, in case I've never allowed myself to phrase it so honestly-- sucked.  It really, really sucked.  We took our chances on renters, which also mostly sucked.  While their rent payments helped, they did not completely cover our carrying costs.  Every time it rained we worried about the basement.  We called to check if the roof was okay.  We fixed miscellaneous problems as they crept up, and we held our breath on the first of each month until we had a rent check in hand.  We lost our homestead exemption on the old house because of the renters and we ended up shelling out an extra four thousand dollars last week in property taxes.  Atop the closing costs we agreed to pay for both sides of the deal, atop the roof we put on for them last month, atop the new appliances, repairs after renters, years of carrying the two places and everything we spent on siding and landscaping, new kitchen and bathroom, furnace and carpeting while we lived there because the whole damn economy sat atop a very large bubble that promised we'd see back all of our money tenfold.  This bubble, of course, burst right as we hit the market.  And all that we had paid, improved and fixed to buyers' likings, we still showed up at closing with a cashier's check.  

I have said a thousand times over that I am thankful that we managed to handle it all with our credit scores in-tact.  We're okay now, three days after closing.  I continue to pinch myself every time I remember that we aren't tied to all of that anymore, and I am enjoying the immense relief.  It's almost unbelievable after such a long, drawn out and difficult process.  

But I remember a conversation with Kevin the summer before we got married ten years ago, where he wanted to look at apartments and I didn't want to waste our money on rent.  I wanted to be smart and make an investment.  We failed here.  We damn near lost our asses.  And while it is fine to say that we made it and we can now rebuild, I also want to acknowledge the disappointment I feel from this whole scenario.  I am both grateful that this-- only something like this is one of the most difficult things I've had to live through, and also I am overwhelmed and exhausted now to say this mountain climb of a real estate deal is our story.  The love and good memories I felt as we walked away from the house for the last time was short lived, at this point, to the sigh of relief that this massive burden was no longer ours.  This went on for so long, and my God it was so hard.

We know how everything ended.  I got a call Thursday afternoon that we would close Friday morning.  I blasted out ridiculously excited, near-nonsensical messages here and on Facebook and ran out the door with Mary for a happy dinner.  

And we closed!  After the closing Kevin and I drove a victory lap around the block and we looked at each other a thousand times over the weekend and said, "Oh My God, we don't own that house anymore."  Disbelief.  

There have been a million lessons learned throughout these years and we feel older, wiser and weathered.  I am grateful for that.  And now I get to know how everyone else feels, again--- finally, just moving forward with our little life at a skip and a hop's pace, free from that large burden. 

Whew.

Goodbye, little house.

August 2000

Our first puppy, Daniel, September 2000

Annual Fourth of July parade, 2004

Of paint fumes, November 2006

Kevin's attic craftsmenship (cat inside new wall) 2007

Babies in their favorite hiding place, summer 2007

More babies hiding, August 2010

Two thirds of these babies will argue that they are no longer babies.

At it again, August 2010

We're gonna fight, we're gonna win.  

For sale again, September 2010

December 10, 2010

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.  I hope you had the time of your life.

BELIEVE IT.

How else can I possibly title a post that says, finally, we are scheduled to close on our little old house tomorrow morning?  I have to pinch myself, I can so hardly believe this is real.  

Most of all I want to sit down and write a long entry here, since this is the place where the heartache and the happiness of our drawn-out selling process has been recorded over FOUR YEARS, and maybe a slide show with Green Day giving us a little Hope You Had The Time Of Your Life.  (You saw the Friends finale, yes?  Sob.)  

We are selling our house tomorrow.  And then we are going to have a good, long cleansing cry, toast with a few bottles of champagne, and commence saving for our adoption.  

HAPPIEST. DAY. EVER.

Done

I would like to put very little effort into documenting the shape that our house was left in, though there must be something said for it here, again, right before I post the finished pictures, because it has taken us two solid God-foresaken weeks of hours upon hours upon hours of nonstop work to get the place back into shape to put it on the market.  And also, for as friendly as our renters always were I am so surprised to discover what a pickle they left us in.  Maybe I am taking this far too personally, yes?  They moved two and a half hours away and maybe they felt some sort of privilege to cut ties as quickly as they needed to, and take little responsibility on the way out.  Regardless, nothing says Good Luck With Your Surprise Sale like a dead fridge the size of a garbage truck left in the basement, permanent rust stains in your white porcelain kitchen sink from left beer bottle caps and a dripping faucet, and an entire summer's worth of unpaid water and sewer bills that the city has now deemed us, the property owners, responsible for.  Blech.

We are finished, though.  Oh my word, we are finished.  As in, twenty minutes ago we dragged our exhausted children back home, again, after a long, frustrating night of work at the house. 

The landscaping is clean and weed-free, and we put down new mulch in all of the beds, fixed the stairs, painted the railings and window trim and front door, and scrubbed down the siding.  Somebody buy me.  I'm all yours.

The broken blinds on every window of the house were replaced, new faucet, new floor beneath the kitchen sink, fist size hole in the kitchen wall repaired, broken ceiling light replaced, walls painted, cabinets painted...

I kept reminding Kevin through this entire process that we were not upgrading the house for our buyers.  We were returning the house to a state of decency in which it could sell.  It would have been so easy to think we should list it for a higher price, knowing its condition when we purchased it in 2000 or what it looked like when we reclaimed it two weeks ago.  But all of that is gone now.  We were just making it pretty again, and the money that we spent now, and all of those years, is gone.  It's just bad timing.

This baby, on the other hand, and his brother the stainless stove, function as the proverbial dangling carrot before the house.  (The house!  Bwahaha!)  You rarely see appliances in houses at this price level, let alone stainless and brand new.  These, I hope, will distract buyers from other quirky oddities that come with buying an older home. 

 

I have always loved the character and charm of this house, though, and I hope our buyers will, too.  

Please God one day again give me white baseboards, gigantic windows and pretty hardwood floors.  I am happy to trade this little place in for his big brother.  Or even his big papa.

(A girl can dream, yes?)

And while we're dreaming, I would enjoy one day living beaneath one of the world's largest oak trees again, please.

I debated much more than usual about what color to use through the main part of the house, and ended up with a greyish shade.  I was looking for crisp and clean, and to balance the hardwood floors while showing off the gigantic windows.  I think it turned out pretty well.

The bedrooms in this house are small.  We cannot fix that. 

The closets are small, as well, since the house was constructed in 1904 and back then Ma only needed enough room for her Sunday dress and her everyday dress.  Today Hannah Montana needs room for her twenty-two pairs of designer jeans and four hundred layering tops, and no doubt she will complain about closet size.  Move in, though, Hannah.  It's totally liveable.

This is our upstairs, a picture from four years ago when we first finished it off.  It is void of furniture now, but that is about all that has changed.  Would you believe I remembered the name of the paint color from that long ago, so that I could just paint a few walls? 

Olive Sprig burned in my brain saved me hours of work.  Fantastic.

A similar story with our back room, as well.  The khaki-yellow I chose for the kitchen?  Almost a perfect match.  Touch ups, thankyouthankyouthankyou. 

When we bought this house, the above room was dark brown paneling and floored with fancy outdoor carpeting and a crap-tastic drop ceiling.  We were able to paint and put down new flooring, but a new ceiling job stretched beyond our renovating abilities.  May the buyers forgive.  And forget.  Quickly.

And so is the case with much of this little house.  Fresh out of the college dorms we bought our first house together, and we overpaid for something that needed more work than we could possibly realize at that time.  We put in a furnace and a water heater, central air conditioning, siding, gutters, counters, flooring, a completely new bathroom and mostly new kitchen, finished upstairs bedrooms, re-landscaped, fenced in the back yard and re-finished the driveway.  We poured about thirty thousand dollars into this house- more than three thousand of that just in the last couple weeks, and our listing price in this housing market will not have us see a dollar of it returned.  

It's okay.  It really is okay now.  I am completely at peace with the entire situation, and what a blessing that is.  We are ten years older, and now we know better and now we will do better.  We once had the money, little by little, to fix up a house.  It was there, the house was fixed, the money was gone and we are actually better for the wear.   Had we been able to see it from this end, would we have lived that long with green sparkly countertops and a giant rust and silver kleenex box in the wall?  No. 

We wouldn't have moved, though.  If there is one thing I have seen more clearly from this angle it was our lack of patience three years ago, when the offers were coming in (and falling apart) and we were sure the sticking offer was just around the corner.  Looking back now, we would have waited it out in the house for as long as we had to.  We were different people back then, as was the economy different, and we thought we needed so much more than we really did.  Even last week we entertained the What If scenario for selling the larger place we currently live in, and moving back to the little house.  If not for the tiny back yard and all of the adoption paperwork that sits in Ethiopia and with the US government, unable to be changed.  Then surely both houses would sell immediately, simultaneously!, and the five (six) of us would live in side-by-side cardboard boxes selling pencils and being in love.  That's from some movie, but I can't for the life of me remember which one.

It's time to sell, baby, sell.  Dare I say I am a little excited about this?  (Paint fumes, people.  Two weeks of paint fumes.)  We should get on the market in the next day or two, provided I can track down our agent quickly and Kevin can score a night away from his office.  Wish us luck!

+++

Also, I just noticed that this is my six hundredth post on lostasock.com.  I have no idea how many I wrote for my old blogspot address, but six hundred here alone is a pretty fine milestone, eh friends?

Week in Fast Forward

Oh boy, Internet.  Where to begin?

Kevin and I arrived home from Florida late in the night on Monday, and by early Tuesday morning he and the kids and I were at the old house to survey the...uh...damage. 

Our renters moved out while we were gone over last weekend, and they said they would be back the following weekend to clean up.  Unfortunately for us as the homeowners, the quick split of our renters involves us taking over a second mortgage payment and all of the utilities without notice, so we needed to get in and get it ready for the real estate market as fast as possible.  We have a house to sell! 

We were amazed-- no, shocked-- when we walked into the house.  Many of our renters' miscellaneous items were left laying all over the floors, crowded in amongst more garbage I could have imagined would be there.  The back gate was broken, many of the storm windows were separated from their frames, there were new holes in the walls and scratches in the wood floors, and the toilet and sinks were brown and filthy.  In the first five minutes of our walk through, what we thought would be a quick mental list of pre-market fixes, was devastation.

The thing is, we love our renters.  We have from the beginning.  They are a very kind family and they have never missed a rent payment in more than two years.  They did not intentionally trash our house, as in walking through with a hammer and a can of spray paint, but we learned a lesson in the last week.  Our people, no matter how sweet, did not care for our home, are not invested in our home, in the same way that we are. 

I fell apart for the first couple hours, and then we regrouped.  Kevin shoveled the garbage and the leftover stuff out of the main parts of the house so that at least Marin would stop playing with d-con disks and toilet brushes.  We got to work immediately and within a single day we spent a few thousand dollars on faucets, flooring, appliances, spackle, stain, paint, caulk and cleaning products.  A house to sell, we declared repeatedly.

Throughout the week I spent every waking moment at the house, up until just an hour ago.  There is more to go.  We have accepted the kindnesses of our friends and family who have offered to care for our kids for us on and off while we worked, and when no babysitters were available the kids came with to the house, where they played in the landscaping dirt and with the plethora of paint sticks and pipe wrenches on hand. 

KJ asleep, hours past bedtime in the middle of the empty living room floor.  Lucky for Jackson and Marin, they have no respect for bedtime and were certainly crawling through the back drop ceiling or locating hundred-year-old secret passages abandoned long ago.

In the first three days I had patched all of the holes in the walls and painted the dining room, living room and entry hall, kitchen and kitchen cabinets and one bedroom.  Kevin had changed out the faucets, reassembled storm windows, cleaned gutters and removed eight thousand weeds from the landscaping, each night after work.  We were making progress.

On Friday morning I had neither a babysitter nor the gumption that is required when repeatedly working in an empty house all day with three young, bored children, so we took off for Ikea, where I loaded up on cheap curtains and cute staging items.  Then we went back to work on the house.

On Saturday morning I broke my foot.

Wait. 

Seriously.

This story is exactly the type of thing you read in the Old Testament, about Job who lost his house and his animals and his keys and got twelve kinds of diseases and still did not curse God.  At the tail end of everything that comes with supporting one's sister in the weeks before her wedding, in the week before I was to begin homeschool with two little boys and planning a bachelorette party and a rehearsal dinner, amidst an international adoption, our renters gave us a week's notice that they had to run and we were left with a mess and a mortgage.  Then both my sister and Leslie's cars up and died at the same time leaving four of us to share vehicles until one could be purchased...a purchase I helped negotiate just five hours before I boarded a red-eye to Florida for the funeral of my husband's beloved grandmother.  Then we worked our asses off from morning to midnight, and I injured my foot.  My right foot.  My gas pedal foot, might I add.

My mom had very generously committed herself to our house, our children and our laundry for the weekend so that Kevin and I could plow through as much as possible at the old house, hoping to list the house for sale by next week, and in my excitement for forty-eight hours of uninterrupted work time, I raced out to the grocery store early Saturday morning to provide my children and my mother with a well-stocked pantry and fridge.  And just in the way you would imagine someone who had spent ninety-seven tireless, caffeine-driven hours of home improvement stepping off of a front porch while unloading groceries and cursing at the asshole dog who had just run away for the millionth time, stepping off of a front porch, that is exactly how I stepped off the front porch.  I caught the edge of the sidewalk and rolled my foot down into our landscaping and anything but gracefully plastered my whole self to the very abrasive concrete sidewalk.  

Just so you know how a non-human, ridiculously robotically driven person responds to her bleeding foot and leg and pain shooting up from her foot all the way through her thigh, I stood up, realizing fully that things just went bad, and said in a very matter-of-fact manner, Holy Shit, I do not have time for this.  I was pissed.  I was so pissed.  I sat at my kitchen table with angry tears rolling down my cheeks, counting the rooms left to paint and so on, and I had my sister drop me off at the hospital so that at least Kevin would not miss out on precious babysitter-padded work hours at the house.  I hobbled my ass into the Emergency Room and had x-rays taken, where I was diagnosed by the E.R. doc with a bad sprain.  I have, however, broken a foot before-- this one! in fact!  I fractured my fifth metatarsal back in 2004 when Kevin left a hand weight on a basement stair (this is him, never living it down) and the shooting, awful pain is exactly like this, in my third metatarsal this time.  You know, in the part of my foot that resembles the epicenter of the overblown football. 

As I finished up at the hospital I sent my sister a quick text with something we always say in moments of slight challenge, We gonna fight. We gonna win.  Come hell or high water (please, no) we are going to finish this house as quickly as possible and list it before the summer selling season is officially over.  We are going to start school, and we are going to coast to this wedding.  We are going to carry this empty house for as long as need be this time, and we are going to sell it to the highest bidder.  It has been a long run, and the end is approaching.

Then I sent a text to my husband so that he would come get me, my throbbing foot and my awkward crutches, and bring me back to the house so I could resume work.  I could see my doctor on Monday about a more correct diagnosis and possibly a plastic shoe.

As a person with a husband could guess, Kevin was slightly frustrated with my plans to resume work with a broken foot.  I was slightly frustrated with his plans for me to sit home and stare blankly at the walls.  He was slightly frustrated with being married to the most stubborn person he's ever known and no, he doesn't know why the top of the crutches won't extend from four feet up to five foot seven, can't I just freaking use them like that?  Like a freaking Oompa Loompa?  In the middle of Walgreens where I insist I need to pick myself up a two pound bag of peanut m&m's to help wash down the pain pills, and a few guilt-riddled toy-presents for my children who have barely seen their mama in more than a week now?

We didn't get divorced, thankfully.

I continued on as I was, sort of, and even asked my darling spouse to snap this picture.  You know.  For my blawwwg.

Did I mention Saturday was our dating anniversary?  We've been together for thirteen years.  This is love, baby.

Of course today I stayed perched near the top of an eight foot ladder like a damn flamingo all day today.  He had to know my promises of sitting on the floor with the baseboards wouldn't last.  But the interior painting of the rooms is now finished, and I am no worse for the wear.  I am okay with this- all of this.  I have even been happy about some parts of it.  There have always been things I have loved about this house, and I have been able to enjoy them this week.  And whether or not the end of this house saga is actually near, I know for sure it is at least on its way.  We are finally making progress again, and though this process calls for many sacrifices, it is time.  It is time to say goodbye, happily and gratefully for all of the blessings that came from once having a little old house to live in, and then the trials and the growing that came from carrying a little old house for as long as we have.  At dinner on the very first night of this fiasco, Kevin talked to the kids and explained that this was going to take a lot of work and sometimes be no fun at all, but, he said, we were going to get through this together.  I am glad for the valuable lesson for my kids now, that pulling together and fighting harder is what you do when the going gets tough.  Throbbing damn foot and all.

+++

Oh, wait!  I forgot to share with you the name of my doctor in the emergency room on Saturday.

Dr. Painter. 

I kid you not. 

Writing the next chapter

Once there was a little old house.

(Yep, the next chapter of this story.)

Once there was a little old house that was purchased by a young couple with no very specific dreams at all, more than hopes for happiness and a dog and a little black cat and babies someday.

The house was charming with its shiny hardwood floors and chunky white baseboards, and it suited the young couple just fine.

 

Before long the young couple brought their newborn baby home to the house, and he began to grow there. The mama walked the shiny hardwood floors with him day and night, and he learned to crawl and walk and run.

Family and friends gathered again and again for celebrations, and toys and puzzles and baby items of all kinds filled the little old house. A whole set of lives grew there, just as had been happening for more than one hundred years in that very place.

When they planned for their second baby, the couple worried about the space that was offered by the little old house. They placed the little old house for sale and let it ride for many months, but to no avail. Then they adapted their plans and decided to keep the little old house for a while longer, and they gave it a facelift.

Soon a second baby, a fourth family member, joined the house. This time there was work to be done. There was reorganizing and simplifying in order to make space for the again growing family to fit this house.

The family began changing in so many ways- their beliefs, their goals and their entire lives were becoming more purpose-filled. There were even more toys and puzzles and family and friends. They were ready for the next step, now, and decided again that it was time to move on.

(Like, for real this time.  We were moving, for real.)

The house was listed for sale and the family hoped and prayed that new owners were just around the corner.

A deal came, and a deal fell through. Another deal came, and another deal fell through.  A new real estate agent, another round of interested buyers changing their minds. The family did the best they could with the circumstances and after months and months of touring big, beautiful houses with brand new chunky white baseboards and brand new shiny hardwood floors, they decided to move forward at any cost.

 

The family again adapted their plan to fit the situation. They downgraded their new house budget by half, and they carried the two houses, the new and the old, for almost another year. They prayed for patience and guidance and wisdom, because something had to happen. They adapted their plan again, and they brought in a new family.

Renters.

The renters came as a family of three and soon grew into a family of four, just as the one before them had. They took good care of the house and stayed for more than two years until suddenly…

…well, yes. Until suddenly I received the call last night that our renters have taken a job offer on the other side of the state, and it is time for them to move out of our little old house, next week.

I have imagined a thousand times what this moment would feel like- the moment when the house became all ours again. For anyone who was reading me back in 2007 and 2008 when our house was on the market and deal after deal fell through, you know the way we struggled with it. We weren’t doing anything crazy, really. We were a growing family who was simply ready to spread out into a bigger place. We had outgrown our starter home, though unfortunately at the same time that our country spiraled into a real estate disaster and stock market crash.

I prayed for patience so much at that time. It sounds simple to look back and say we carried the two houses for nine months, but the truth of it was that carrying two houses for Kevin and I meant heavy weights on our shoulders every single day, and worries of what outcome we might face. We paid double mortgages and double heating bills each month, and we shoveled snow and cut grass at two houses. I didn’t want to do it, and honestly I sometimes felt it would break me. I tried, as hard as it was, to trust God that all of it was for a reason.

I also had no idea that I would become pregnant with Marin just three months after we moved out of our little old house. In the middle of shoveling snow and begrudgingly signing that mortgage check month after month I was carrying a baby with a then mysterious kidney condition that would require multiple hospital stays, and surgery. We had no plans for a third child back then, but suddenly we were having one.

I also had no idea that we would decide to adopt our fourth child from Africa before Marin was even a year old.

Most importantly, we could not have known back in 2007 when I was crying tears of sheer frustration and hopelessness night after night, that if we had sold our little old house and bought the big, new house with the chunky baseboards and hardwood floors for double the price, that we could not have afforded to adopt our baby.

The house we live in now- the one we settled on because we just needed to go already, is what is currently making our then unrealized dreams for our family come true.

I had imagined that once it came time to relist our little old house on the market that I would feel panic again, like I once had during those long, emotional selling months. No time is a good time to go through something like this, financially and otherwise.

I am not panicked, though. Isn’t that crazy? I don’t know if this will be easy or difficult, and I have no idea how this story will end.  Something has to happen, and it will.

But first I have to paint walls and polish wood floors again.  Ready?

+++

And, for the sake of fond memories I give you this gem.  I laughed my fool head off when I read this, remembering my Aunt Kathy leaping from her chair to help move the troops, Joyce with the bottle of windex and Mary and Sant hurling bags of freshly opened birthday presents into KJ's room.  And Jakie with the binoculars in the Dairy Queen parking lot.  Good gravy those were some ridiculously funny times, weren't they?)

What to do with All That Time, part The First

So four minutes into the very first day of My Summer Vacation (also known as the three days a week that my boys attend summer camp) Marin and I mapped out a solid plan for our morning: 

  Buzz through the nearest drive thru for a dollar Diet Coke (and one juice box, of course). 

  Then hit Target.

It has been three lifetimes since I have taken only onechild shopping somewhere, so I figured it would be all kinds of fun to commandeer a gigantic empty red cart for pointless mother-daughter browsing, if only for an hour or so before naptime. 

We picked up our drinks, rolled the car windows all the way down and cranked up the radio.  Fun indeed!  We hopped on the expressway for the quickest route to Target, and I tell you not three seconds at seventy miles per hour my dashboard began blinking and beeping.  My tire pressure was low, it said.

Now, I should say something here.  As a thirty-something female I pride myself in knowing how to do all kinds of things, gender be damned.  Through college summers I worked in a hot, filthy wallboard manufacturing plant and hung from iron ceiling rafters wearing a hard hat, lanyards and steel toed boots.  I have driven manlifts with tires taller than myself and can operate just about every power tool useful to owning a home.  I scraped and painted a water tower, once.

...but I've never checked the air in the tires of my vehicle.  It's just something Kevin and I have always farmed out to the ten minute oil change guys, and don't give a second thought to.

(Ego takes a small hit, here.) 

So I slow my vehicle down on the expressway and pull off at the first available exit, hoping to avoid being taken out by an eighteen wheeler as I sit roadside.  By the time we were off and stopped I was convinced that I had surely blown a tire and was trying to figure out if I could really just leave the car there, pushing my toddler in her stroller up the exit ramp to find help. 

(Welcome to the nineties, Mr. Banks.  You have a cell phone.)

To my surprise as I hopped out to check all four tires, nothing was blown.  I could see that they were possibly low, but not flat, for sure.  I thought for a moment that I should return to the oil change place (who just failed to filled my tires not three days before) so that they could fill them again, but spotting a gas station up the road I decided to try my hand at something new. 

I pulled up at the air pump at the very same moment as a truckful of landscaping guys, and politely motioned for them to use the pump first.  This would allow me time to hunt for quarters-- seventy-five cents for two minutes of AIR, people.  Someone has been making money in the recession, and it is the people who are charging for air.

This is where I share with you the most cliche moment of my entire adult life.  The landscaping guy knocks on my window and offers to fill my tires.  I thank him, but decline (knowing darn well I have never done this) and he offers to at least let me know when he is finished with the pump so I can use up the remainder of his air time. 

I am sitting there in my car with my baby daughter-- my big black Expedition that allows me to see eye-to-eye with any given semi-truck driver on the road, and not only do I know nothing about the operation of this mammoth vehicle, but I have never so much as checked the tire pressure and don't know how to fill them when the electronic dashboard message tells me to.  I have just dropped two of my three children off at summer camp and am sipping a diet coke while headed to Target, of all places, where I am probably going to buy a ninety-six pack of toilet paper, which can easily be transported in the back of my SUV.  That, and maybe a new fold up chair for next season's soccer practices. 

Thankfully, I remembered my dad telling me that the recommended tire pressure is printed on the tires, and I filled them rather easily as the nice landscaping guy held the cord for me to prevent it from recoiling.  Kevin has been ribbing me about nice landscaping guys and tire pressure ever since, Lord help me. 

(We did make it to Target.)

(Didn't buy toilet paper.  Didn't buy a soccer mom chair.  Was kidding about those, though it would really finish painting the picture, wouldn't it?)

Choose Your Own Adventure

 

You'll remember this little gem, yes?

Okay, so it's been a relatively quiet eleven months and if you've not been reading for much longer you maaaaay not know that when we moved?  Back in 2007?  We never sold this little puppy. 

Yep, that was the point in time that our country was calling this Nightmare Economy a "Buyer's Market" and people still had jobs and retirement accounts and one could score an interest only mortgage for as little as twelve cents down happily paid with a MasterCard and three salted french fries.  No shortage of buyers that visited our little place, for sure, and unfortunately, no shortage of deals gone bad when it came to the not-sale of our little house.

At this time last year the house was just to the point of tossing dirt upon our heads as we lay in our deep financial grave, and we were left with no choice other than to foreclose find renters.  Fast. 

I like to call myself a doggone economy-downturn pioneer.  Bitches.

(I don't know.  The title, it didn't seem complete yet.)

So our renters signed a one year contract with us, and they kindly paid on the first of each and every month for a whole year and as far as we are capable of knowing, they've taken care of the house.  And they're nice, too.

I took the year and worked my ass off to dig us back out of credit card debt for the second time (where credit card debt is to nine months of two house payments as vomiting from your toes is to the stomach flu) and I went to great lengths to begin rebuilding our obliterated savings account.  Oh yeah, and I had a baby, too.

You love happy stories, don't you?

So recently, just as we began talking sophomore contract with our totally fabulous renters, we were alerted to the fact that we unknowingly (wherein accidental landlords probably would not know but eventually came to know) did not remove the mortgage and homestead exemptions on our old house when it became --- now say it with me, and annunciate, in a slow whisper -- when it became an "Investment Property."  (In the "Buyers Market.")  (Haaaaaa hahahahahaha.)  

So apparently our county really likes you to live in a house if you're getting a tax exemption for living there, and therefore they estimated the back-tax bill to be rather extremely large, and in the mail. 

I'd like to say something clever here, but only the phrase Beginning of the End comes to mind.

Because then bad-ass Escrow had to get in on the action, causing the payment on this little non-homestead of ours to increase by a couple hundred bucks a month, nevermind the fact that our rent checks already aren't covering what actually gets paid to the bank every month.  (But hot damn!  We have great credit!  We're honest suckers payers and we didn't foreclose with the rest of the free world.)

Now let us pause for a moment and think about Spring tulips and baby chicks.  It is what I tried to do when I heard this news, and also I placed my fingers in my ears and sang loudly until I realized that I just looked like a damn idiot and needed to start making out the check.

 

Who can forget the Knucklehead Smiths next door, eh? 

So after our uber-fabulous renters accidentally disclosed the fact that they were not only fully committed to signing another year contract with us but also are currently house hunting for something later this fall or early winter (thus leaving us high and dry in the snow, oopsie) we sort of wondered with the couple hundred dollar payment shortage, the tax thing, the new renter search, if we shouldn't just try selling again.  Look, I know the market is still shit, but maybe we'll get lucky, right?

Hrrrrmmm...  Did I mention the Knucklehead Smiths next door did foreclose in the past year? 

Ohhh they did, and now the Banklehead Smith property is on the market for approximately HALF of what the Knuckleheads bought it for, capping our available asking price somewhere around the twenty eight dollar marker.  Why buy ours if you can get the house next door with a garage and an extra bathroom for thousands less, eh?

We tried to strike a deal with our renters to purchase our place, though they respectfully declined (though still looking for a new lease for whatever reason?)  We've talked about hanging on to it for another year and bleeding the couple hundred dollars per month, though lets face it, my husband works in the financial sector and jobs are anything but guaranteed and stable anymore.  Last, we've talked about bare asses to the breeze, listing the empty house again and shelling out an ungodly amount of cash from our recently partial rebuild of an emergency fund to cover the difference between the final sales price and what is actually still owed on the mortgage.  If we can sell it this time.

We've got mere weeks left in the safety of paid-up renters, so we're going to have to figure this one out pretty quick, eh?

I was willing to bet my (other) house on it

We haven't talked much about the House Situation lately, so let's do.

(You remember, that Situation where I still own two of them?  Aah, yes, who can forget that disaster?)

Back in November we de-listed, painted, cleaned and staged, and then re-listed.  Our first agent, who shall always be remembered as Mammoth Man Who Broke My Stair, really sucked.  I tried to be positive more often than not, so as to bring good vibes and a sold sign, but looking back, he just was not in any way great.  And also when his cell phone rang with the song "WILD THANG" at my dining room table and he chuckled a Wooly Mammoth chuckle while relaying to me that it was HIS WIFE with that particular ringtone, I almost lost my lunch all over said table.  He took the call outside.  (Puts fingers in ears, hums tune as to not think about what they might have discussed, The Fifty-Year Old Five Hundred Pound Wooly Mammoth and the Wild Thang.)

So the new agent is a dream come true.  She was my first choice, though I lost out to Kevin's first pick (see Mammoth above) in the Original 2007 Agent Picking Contest.  When I spoke with her for the first time, I was shocked to hear that she knew exactly who I was.  She had apparently shown our house earlier in the summer to the crooked fridge people, and she loved my decorating.  She even remembered my paint colors and formerly faux finished walls and my curtains.  Gahhh!  I was flattered, and I might have kissed her once or twice for her kindnesses.

She took all new pictures and measurements and wrote up a fabulous blurb about the house, and we re-listed at an extremely low price just to make the house GO.

Also fully understanding that we were listing just a few weeks before Christmas, we figured it would be at least January until something happened with the place.  Because who buys a house just before Christmas, I ask?

I drive by the old house every day just to make sure it didn't, you know, burn down because oh the shame THAT would be and I pop my head in to check for broken pipes or vagrants about every other day.

Back in November, Kevin and I went over to do some staging and painting, attempting to uphold all the curb appeal an old abandoned house (set next door to the Knucklehead Smiths) can offer.  We spent time blowing leaves and sweeping sidewalks and cleaning up the bare flower beds, hoping to bring in any buyer possible.  And might I share with you that as we cleared the ten tons of leaves that had blown into our driveway from that darling Knucklehead Smith Abode next door, we unearthed a cooler.

Listen to me, friends: There was Aaah! Coolah! found in Thaaah Ca-razy Deep Leaves. 

And we are not talking about a six-pack cooler, here.  This is a Case of beer, dogs and brats and all the mustard you could ask for size cooler.  You may remember that one from the Fourth of July?  It had finally made its way off the porch, tumbled through what was once nice landscaping, and became buried on the side lawn.

While I sincerely considered the fun it might be to chuck that big blue filthy thing over the hill and into the creek behind the house, we were kind enough to set it back on the front porch, where it sits today, covered in snow, next to three rotten Jack-O-Lanterns, a pair of new shoes, a pizza box and a jug of antifreeze.

God bless those people.

And also, God bless the people who want to be their neighbors.  We received a (terrible) offer today, less than a week before Christmas.  I guess someone DOES actually buy a house this close to the holidays.

We'll be writing the counter-offer tonight. 

Here we go again!

I was helped in Babies R Us today by an in-progress transvestite named Roxy* just before my toddler blew out his diaper, forcing me to drop everything and buy him a new pair of overalls. But that's neither here nor there.

While I write this, I'm going to brew another pot of coffee.  Maybe you care to join me when it's done?

So...

...I completely underestimated what a big deal packing up the contents of my entire house and moving them to a new address would entail.  I've been busy. 

Besides keeping up with the normal laundry, cooking meals, running to and from school with kids, and the other ten thousand duties fall under my not-for-profit job description, I've been cleaning under beds and behind dressers, packing boxes, running errands like crazy, still showing the house because God forbid our buyers move forward, and making New Address announcements.  Because if there's anything I obsess about, it's doing everything in its proper time, which in this case most certainly calls for my staying up half the night every night to get eighty-seven neatly crafted Hi, We've Moved cards into the hands of our friends and family at the very same moment the first stack of boxes enters our new home.

Punctuality.

There is certainly something to be said for pretty paper, though, isn't there?

With Kevin in a constant state of swamped at work, I've done my best to keep our family time with him at home as normal as possible.  I've been handling the whole business of moving on my own, and have continued planning weekend activities.  That way, I get to take a break from the everyday crazy for a little dose of weekend crazy. 

This past weekend a Terribly Timed Showing killed our Sunday plans for a trip out to the annual fall festival we love, so we switched things up, having found a website advertising a super great pumpkin farm three hours south of us, near Indianapolis.  We figured a road trip might be just the adventure we needed to relax our busy minds, so we woke up Saturday morning and loaded up the family truckster.

(You should know by the very fact I am going to tell you about this particular adventure, that it did not turn out to be quite what we imagined.)

When we finally arrived at the pumpkin farm, with children ready for a good long stretch, the day had already heated up to ninety-one degrees, and what little breeze there was gleefully carried the raunch from the falling-down petting barn out to the parking lot. 

I can't say we were impressed as we entered the place, located approximately seven point five feet from the interstate's guard rail, but Kevin and I do love weekend adventures, so we handed over our twelve dollar admission fee with open minds.  Plus, the website really did advertise good things - pony rides, a storyteller, go-carts, petting zoo, games, food and lots of fun.

Walking past the Admission Booth, however, my husband pointed out to me that we were standing in a scene straight out of Sparky Griswold's Vegas Vacation. 

The place was a little slice of hell on earth, with pedal carts on a dirt track too bumpy for the kids to ride on, a mentally-off or high on mushrooms storytelling lady sitting in a tee pee, and a mound of old monster truck tires spray painted and piled up for kids to climb on. 

Also, it was incredibly hot, and my son the clean freak was none to happy to have dirt! sticking! to him!

We considered a pony ride for the boys until we noticed the sign on the pony gate:

...where the ponies were on chains equaling the approximate distance from one's elbow to knuckle, and the charge was three dollars per child for six pony steps. 

We decided to move on to lunch, only to find that this place was demanding four dollars for a single ear of corn.  We ended up sharing a few hot dogs and one bottle of water, to the tune of ten dollars. 

The tarp covered area you see behind KJ contained the two games they had.  One of the two involved a beebee gun and solo cups.  One shot?  Three bucks.  I bet the Knucklehead Smith kids would have loved it.  In fact, had I looked at the people running the place a little more carefully, I bet I would have noticed a very striking resemblance.

Please understand something:  Kevin and I are not cheap, usually.  Most of our family fun takes place in the pricey city of Chicago, and we don't bat an eye at paying $30 for six hours in a parking space.  On the other hand, when driving three hours to a joke of an awful yokel pumpkin farm, we found ourselves counting every dime.  Because here?  Dimes were not accepted.  Only fives and tens and twenties in return for a whole lot of nothing much.

Our only hope at this point, a mere twenty-five minutes into the experience, was the highly anticipated hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.  That couldn't possibly go wrong.  Right?  And heck, it was free!

Of course, there were no blocks or seats or hay bales on this tractor pulled cart.  Just a slab-o-wood and a layer-o-dirty-hay that stuck to our sweaty arms and legs. 

Jack was just thrilled...to have hay! sticking! to him!

I tried to suck it up and play along.  I really did.

But the damn hay was naaaasty. And the children were hot, and tired, and screaming.  And the pumpkins were expensive too, and it was very clear that it was time.

To leave.

We re-loaded that family truckster after just thirty five minutes, and got the hell out of there.

THAT was IT?

After that, we took our hot, overtired children and stopped off at the Frema-Useless Clutter household to say hi.  Which of course turned out to be a lesson for the parents-to-be on how not to parent children at all, as my children ran like wild screeching apes from one room to the next, blowing off all of the three-hour-drive-no-pumpkin-farm-fun steam they'd been building up.  We were a sight.

Though, the Wildness failed to tear me away from the fashion show of Baby! Girl! Clothes! in Freka's closet.  How fun is that for a mommy of boys?!  (Lots of fun, in case you couldn't guess.)

Thankfully, by the time we made it to our last stop for dinner with friends, the insanity leveled off and the night went smoothly, despite an extraordinary amount of conversation dedicated to rabbit food and donkey poop.  Our college friends so get us.

We made it home around midnight, just in time to grab a few hours sleep before we had to get ready for our next showing. 

I'm counting on the idea that next fall should be very different.  I'm hoping that it involves a finished new house, one mortgage, and not a single damn cardboard box.  I'll look forward to a nearby pumpkin farm and temps in the sixties, and more great (and calmer) visits with friends. 

I'd like to think life will slow down by then, eh?  (Just say yes.)

Coffee's ready.  Go dig out a cup from that box over there.

*Transvestite-in-progress who, interestingly, looked exactly like Hollywood from the great 80's film Mannequin, which I watched approximately seven thousand times as a kid.  I could spot him anywhere.

I know what we should do! Let's talk about the house! (Crowd sighs.)

Welcome, one and all, to the beginning of Week 13.

That's right, folks, thirteen long, ugly weeks of waiting out this miserable real estate market.

I wish I could say that things are looking up, but, well, they just aren't.  When we spoke with our selling agent last Monday, he suggested that if anything at all, things should pick up around the first of September.  He claims that late summer/early fall is the hot season for real estate, so we went ahead and lowered our asking price in hopes of bringing in a new batch of buyers. 

Since lowering our price seven days ago, we have had exactly zero showings, so I'm wondering if I should just chalk this latest advice up to all the others, as bullshit.  In late May and early June he explained in his all professional experience, that all of the buyers were celebrating the Memorial Day Holiday.  In mid-June, he swore that they were all at graduation parties.  In early July, people were so busy making star-shaped Jello Jigglers, that who had time to shop houses?  In late July, they all went on vacation.  Had I not seen all the rooftop carriers on the roads?  They were packed with buyers.  In early August, it was just too hot.  People were up to their ears in laundry from all those vacations, and again with the non-house shopping.  Purex, on the other hand, was having a fantastic month.

And here we are, soon to close out the month of August, and he is warning us to hang on to our hats, because the next few weeks could bring in hundreds, maybe thousands of offers.  That is, if the buyers haven't all started their children in school for the year.  Then we can wait until next year, after they graduate.  And have parties. 

On a positive (?) note, we did finally receive a stack of feedback sheets on our showings, from buyers who said Thanks, But No Thanks.  I only wish they would drop these Thanks, But No Thanks Sheets off to me personally, as I stalk watch them from the nearby Dairy Queen parking lot, so that I can dump my melting ice cream on their heads after wasting hours and hours of my day.

Thanks, But No Thanks. 

Heh.

Some of the most popular comments included, "House shows beautifully, but...

• ...what is going on with your neighbors?
• ...back yard is too small.
• ...your neighbor's screens are torn to shreds and there is junk scattered through their overgrown yard.
• ...master bedroom is too small.
• ...we are frightened by the next-door neighbors.
• ...the back yard is too small.
• ...there is too much traffic out front.
• ...we were turned off by the neighbors, unable to run a 5K in the back yard, and afraid of those newfangled motorized contraptions that drive on that blacktop-paved passageway in front.  In that order. 

Isn't that precious?

Over the weekend, in hopes of making our bedroom appear larger, we moved Kevin's giant dresser out (into the tall grasses of the Knucklehead Smith's back yard.  No one will ever notice.)  We also spent another $150 on fall flowers for the front porch and back yard, and for more grass seed to fill in patches in the back.  Beyond that, I'm stumped.  We cannot enlarge the back yard, we cannot knock out a wall to widen the master bedroom, and we certainly cannot fix the neighborhood.  This is not the neighborhood we bought into seven years ago, but it's the unfortunate neighborhood we are trying to sell now.

In my frustration last week, I was so bold as to walk up to the craphole next door and photograph for you exactly what my buyers notice as they pull in the driveway:

(Click to enlarge.)

Here is the back deck, as of this morning:

We were floored when they cleaned it up the week before last.  Unfortunately, it went right back to trashville in no time.  Not pictured are the soaking shoes beside the (open) back storm door.

It gets worse:

This is the house next to the Knucklehead Smith house.  Had I been brave enough to take the shot from a forward angle, you would see the piles and piles of crap and toys and garbage on the porch, 1980's Power Ranger sheets falling from the front windows, and a smashed up, dead car in the driveway.  They had, on a positive note, recently mowed their lawn.  It was the second time this summer.

This is what the lawn normally looks like.  Except for twice.

And this, again, is my house.  Which of these places doesn't belong?

Is it possible that I am being ridiculous taking pictures of the neighborhood I can't sell?  Yes. 

Is it possible that I am overplaying the effects of the neighborhood on the sellability of my house?  No. 

Is it possible that I am letting this bother me too much?  Certainly.

Is it possible that even if we had buyers who would buy a decent house in a falling-apart neighborhood, that they would be okay with the indoor swimming pool that is my basement twice in the same week?  Maybe it's better that we don't have showings right now.  Maybe we should put our efforts into Ark Building rather than neighborhood photographing. 

Passing the Hours Monday

Note to self: Avoid discussing non-selling house and abominable neighbors, as well as other secretive information, and above all else keep mind off of the fact that tomorrow morning you must un-enroll KJ from Best Preschool Ever because they want an answer and more money, and your God-forsaken house isn't going anywhere.

Onward.

The last several weeks have been insanely busy.  We went right from the wedding to BlogHer to a trip to Wisconsin, and I really think it's catching up.  The weekend was sick and depressing.

We arrived home late Thursday evening with a bag full of burgers, knowing that the cupboards we were returning to were bare.  We ate our icky greasy dinner, and put the kids to bed, and then I fell on the floor and lay unconscious for twelve hours.  (Or, I sat at the computer until 2am posting Friday Photos and got up with a toddler with the stomach flu at 7am, whatever.)

Jack did indeed wake up Friday morning, sicker than sick, throwing up all over his crib, blankets, toys and bedroom floor more times than I would like to count.  This madness continued for the next...however many hours, and I spent the weekend washing his clothing and bedding, as well as my hands practically every time I touched the child. If there is one thing I dread, it's the stomach flu.  (Just to clarify, for all of you look forward to it with squealing delight.)  Thankfully, no one else has come down with it, which is a serious miracle.  On the other hand, the baby is still sick, unable to get rid of the diarrhea.  He plays like normal for a while, and then asks for his two blankies and two pacis and goes into zombie diaper-blowout mode for a while. 

This was the scene Friday night:

And this was the scene this morning:

If you have any advice on how to fix this poor child, please, advise away.

---

On Saturday morning KJ and I met up with my mom and dad for town-wide yard sales, striking absolute gold in the toys category.  You know, because more than anything, that is what we need at my house.  More toys. I was happy to oblige, though, spending only twenty-two dollars to fill the entire back of my Explorer with Fisher Price primary colors that I will spend the next three years stepping on and cleaning up and cursing about.

Mostly it was about guilt (surprise, surprise) and a non-selling house and toys packed in boxes in the basement.  Someday we will move (when we're dead) and our children will be amazed at what they'd forgotten in the basement.

But I will not have forgotten.

Because I will have spent years of my guilt-ridden existence re-stocking the main level of the house with toys that make them forget all about those I packed away in hopes for a better life in a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood with wonderful schools.

Going to stop talking about it now.

In between washing soiled baby sheets and blankets this weekend, I also managed to wash all of my quilting fabric to get started on my first major sewing project this week: Jack's quilt.  Last night I drew a grid and planned the cuteness out on paper, and today I will purchase an ironing board to make my sewing life infinitely easier.  Up until now, all fabric, dress shirts, slacks, younameit, has been ironed on a towel on the dining room table for lack of ironing board storage space. 

But today?  To hell with no storage space.  To hell with potential buyers stepping over my sewing machine and ironing board and three thousand new toys.  To hell with school starting and wasting the summer in a state of limbo.

Today, we will try to take our mind off of things.

Somebody get me a drink.

Now what was I supposed to write about again?

The other day I promised that I'd share with you the houses we hunted last weekend.  I wanted your opinion, and then I even offered for you to pay for a chunk of whichever one we decide on.  Then when we invite you over for a backyard barbecue and you get tired or drunk or a combination of the two, you can lie down in a room designated solely for yourself, because you paid for it.  You'll thank yourself, I promise.  The bedding will be that fabulous. 

But all that comes to nothing if I can't bring myself to talk about house hunting.  Because today?  I just can't.  Today I mostly feel like Chicken Little, but instead of yelling about a falling sky I find my lips bursting with profanities regarding showings and the absence of a particular desired outcome.

Saint Joseph has been in the ground one week today, friends.  What's the deal?

We showed again today.  We showed again in the middle of Jack's afternoon naptime, which prompted him to scream unintelligible hatreds at me while I scrubbed the kitchen sink and wiped down the basement stairs before the next set of strangers strolled through.  Finally realizing that this woman who had given him life had now given up on him altogether, he sadly pulled his blankie through his crib rails and dragged it to the living room floor.  Then he laid down on top of it and prayed for the angels to lull him to sleep, if only for a moment until his mother started up the vacuum.

I paid him back shortly thereafter with his first Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard from Dairy Queen, and then we were best friends again.

This showing?  Same story with the lock box.  The agent couldn't open it.  The two women stood in my driveway and stared at the Knucklehead Smith Abode next door for a full fifteen minutes before they were let in.

The latest sport for the Knucklehead Smith children, who, did I mention, have been left home alone all summer at the ripe, independent ages of eleven and seven while their parents work?  Is water balloon fights.  Much to my chagrin, their garden hose is four feet from my driveway.  This means that most mornings I put on a pot of coffee, make the beds, and head outside to collect the remains of the previous day's entertainment.  Last Friday they switched over from water to Red Pop.  Yes, they and their rodent cronies were throwing water balloons filled with sticky, red, red, red pop.  Their yellow siding is still showing proof of the affair, though the red has now faded to a dirty-purple-brownish.  On Monday they went back to using water, thankfully, because that way when it splashes up against my car at least I only have to drive what looks like half-shit.  Plain spots are much classier than sticky spots.

Yesterday evening as I returned home from a day at the zoo with my children, I gave up altogether on moving their Knucklehead hose out of my driveway, and I solved the problem. 

I parked on the hose. 

There were no water balloons today.

From my boredom and general real estate malaise springs creativity for problem solving.  Alas I make progress.

For a few months now, I've worried that my writing has wreaked of one-subject house selling hell.  But now after nearly three weeks on the market, I've come to a conclusion.  Reading about the preparations with room painting and power washing and curtain sewing was probably not horrible.  There was always an outcome, with pictures even.  But now?  Now, in this Limbonic (made that word up myself, myself, myself) state of cleaning and showing and nothing, this is where our friendship is tested.  Because I've decided unequivocally, that you're going down on this sinking ship with me.  You're in this for the long haul.  And for that, I thank you (because you have so much choice.)

I've been obsessing over following another blogger who is about a month ahead of me in the disaster that is selling one's house, and the similarities with awful neighbors and fixing half-assed patch jobs are striking.  The misery I feel, it is shared.  How nice to know that I am not the only one who is having the life sucked out of them on this roller coaster ride.  How nice to know that someone else is dying a slow and tortured death with me.

Ahem.

Sorry.

Last week she announced that they finally had a contract on their house, and while I was happy for her, I was quite sad that I would again be alone in the struggle.  But then she brought to the surface something I never even thought of.  Days later, her house failed inspection, and her sale fell through.  Does it get any better than that?

I'd never even considered that possibility, that a contract could come and go.

Sometimes (read: ninety percent of my day) I think about how long we could be here.  The weekend before we listed, I met our buying agent at an open house and I reassured her that we should be a quick sale.  After all, we hadn't missed a beat when it came to making the house look good.   

Heh.

I look at our future monthly budgets and I think that we just might end up the richest damn people in the smallest house on the planet.  And while I cut a non-refundable check last week to KJ's new school for $110.00 and promised more to come, I have yet to cut ties with this year's school.  The new school is forty-five minutes from here, and should we still be here in the fall (and the winter and the spring), I'd be out of my mind to drive that far (one way) for a two-hour preschool session on a daily basis. 

Aah, the waiting game.

Cut to Golden Girls theme. Thank you for bein' a friend...

Salute

We live down the street from a war memorial.

There is a giant statue commemorating soldiers who have lost their lives, plaques with names, and flags flying.  And every Memorial Day there is a gathering there, of soldiers and civilians paying honor to those lost.  There are readings, patriotic songs, and a gun salute.

This Memorial Day it was no different.  The street was closed and the crowds gathered, and a local group led songs.  We could hear (and see) it from our front porch.

A few minutes into the singing, around 11am, Mr. Knucklehead Smith next door emerged from his cave, rubbing his face, in sleep shorts and hair standing on end.  He sleepily stumbled to the edge of his porch, stepping over that favorite rusty can of mineral spirits, to find out what was going on. 

Then, he spoke.

"OH YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!  THIS EARLY?"

Happy Memorial Day.

Weight Loss Wednesday - One of Relief and Frustration. But thankfully, more of one than the other. Also, project completion. Because I just want to see how many topics I really can smash into one entry.

I am seriously hopped up on caffeine at the moment.  So let's pretend we have Blog Tivo today.  Ready?

Dieting is hard, skip skip skip.

Dieting sucks, skip skip skip.

While visiting at my mom's house on Sunday I ate three truckloads of Pastel Easter M&M's.  She doesn't have to throw her candy away because some people possess the self-control required for candy to exist in their homes and still diet, skip skip skip.

Other than Sunday's disaster I did fine, skip skip skip.

Play.

I lost 2.3 pounds this week, for a running total of 88.7! 

Wasn't that a pleasant report?

I am looking forward with great excitement to hitting the 90 pound milestone.  It gets me that much closer to eating m&m's without guilt again finishing this diet already.  I honestly don't know why I chose this exact time in my life to commit to a 30 day weight loss starter again.  Because along with my persistent drive for weight loss, I am also painting and packing this house to get it ready for the market, and pricing everything I can get my hands on for our yard sale this weekend, and searching real estate listings, and praying to GOD that we get off this Preschool Waiting List and on to the Enrolled List because, school of promise, WE HAVE MONEY TO GIVE YOU (I think).  We also decided to re-take our financial integrity this month (you know, because we don't have enough to focus on) and ditch credit cards for good.  That means keeping tabs on every dollar we spend, and making decisions on what we can and cannot afford. 

I wake up at 7am every day (thank GOD my oldest son has finally decided that I am mostly right, but only on this one thing, and 7am is after all a feasible wake up time for him) and from the time my feet hit the floor I am busy with all of this craziness until at least 10 or 11 or even midnight every night.  I am only half sleeping lately, with so many things on my mind.

Is this entry making your head hurt?

If not, maybe this will.

Do you know what that is?

That is what I woke up to this morning.

That is my roof leaking.

Why is it leaking?  Well, because I just painted this room THREE DAYS AGO.  Because we are listing our house on the market in approximately FIVE WEEKS.  Because I don't have enough on my mind, and hell, we've got ALL KINDS OF MONEY for a new roof.

On a good note, the room is finally finished providing I don't have to paint it again after Kevin gets up there to patch the leaky roof.  I packed most of the toys that were in here, going for that theme of 1198 Square Feet Is Huge, Please Make Offer. 

Here's our toy room disaster, before:

And after:

You'll notice the lack of...toys.

Also, please notice the new window treatments.  Quite a while back I fell in love with these curtains from the Pottery Barn catalog.  Refusing to shell out $87 plus shipping for the three windows, my ultra-generous mom stepped in with her mad sewing skillz (clearly putting my novice skillz to shame) and whipped these babies up for me.  The material cost me $9, for a savings of more than eighty bucks.

Here's the desk area before:

And after:

I will freely admit that things in this room had gotten crazy out of hand.  I am a freak about a clean house and clutter-free living, except for this room.  Now that this room is in the yard sale pile boxes in the basement, I can rest easy that potential buyers will not be injured during showings.

Now if I can only convince the Knucklehead Smiths to remove the torn-to-shreds pool liner from two years ago (that looks like it has a body hidden in it) from their deck (as well as all the other crap, but that's asking for a lot, I know) we might be in business.