I seem to have forgotten I have a blog

I am not entirely certain if I haven’t written a word on this blog in nearly one month’s time because I have nothing to say (which isn’t wholly true) or I’m too dag gum busy (which is wholly true) or some other reason that escapes my tired brain… oh, yes, I remember now, a couple things called Facebook & Twitter. Between the two of them and my regular every day family/life/work stuff I manage to stay quite occupied. But I am still alive and kicking for those of you who only know me through this blog.

It’s also the start of a new year, which means that I have to assemble all the data from 2008 into a legible, manageable form to present to the CPA so he can in turn assemble our tax filings. And I have to do this for both our business and our personal records since I am the anal number cruncher of the family.

So until I can get my head in gear to post something of interest to me (because it’s all about me, really), it might be a bit light around here for awhile. We shall see.

In the mean time, here is something that did manage to make me laugh so hard I was crying & my stomach ache from using muscles that haven’t been used in over three months (that would be about the time I did my last workout, truth be known). And frankly, I’m not super happy with that situation which makes me think I’ll be gettin’ back to the gym next week. Hopefully.

Enough for now,
Ciao

We’re moving, again. (part 6)

Welp, I suppose it’s time for another installment in the on-going saga… it has been almost 6 months since we put our house on the market.  Talk about taking far longer than we EVER expected.  And there is still no real end in sight.  Sure, we have had quite a few people come through the house in the last month but no offer has been made.  We did have an almost offer that you can read about here, if you’ve got the time. 

Last week we had someone schedule a walk through (and they actually showed up & left a card!  wow very professional!), so the husband emailed our agent to give him all the details.  Later that same day the agent calls back to say how he, “appreciated us sending the info. but did you miss one?”  Huh?  “No, we didn’t miss one, but people have come through without leaving a card.  Perhaps that’s what this agent did.” So, yeah, he says, “Well, I’m expecting an offer from them any day.” 

WHAT!!!???  Excuse me?  How come you haven’t said anything to us about these people?

Well there is a caveat, they want to bring out a pool contractor to see how much time & money it will take to have a pool installed.  Uuummm, O.K.   I’m not going to count on this one coming to fruition.  It certainly sounds sketchy to me.  In fact, Mr. Realtor, don’t ever tell us that you are expecting an offer.  Tell us when you actually, physically have an offer burning your hands!  It’s just too disappointing when you say ‘you think one is coming’ but then that never becomes reality.  We are desperate to sell and our hopes rise so high when we hear those words.  And then those hopes are smashed against the giant rocks that exist in our minds.

Man, oh Manischewitz, I am so over this whole thing.  I really want to get this house sold so that we can start living in this house again (even if only temporarily).  I miss my family room.  Do you know, well technically you probably don’t unless you’ve been following this saga, we took the T.V. & other electronic devices out of the family room and we haven’t sat in there since!  No Joke.  We’re talking about 6 MONTHS.  Basically when we put the T.V. back up in our bedroom ~cause we took that one down too, that room became our family room.  You can always find us there. 

I seriously miss being able to leave dishes in the sink for more than 5 minutes, I miss the luxury of leaving toys on the floor, and business papers on my desk.  I will say one positive result from this experience (I’m trying with all my power to stay positive & find positive things to take from this ordeal) is that I can now do one million and one things in the morning & still manage to get myself ready for the day without being more than 10 minutes late for work.  Which for me is basically on time.

I pray every day that we will get this house sold and be able to move on with our lives instead of being in perpetual limbo.  Wish, pray, hope for me that we will sell this house!!  PLEASE!!

Enough for now,

Ciao   

Grrrrrrr

We got a call from a realtor at 10:00am that they wanted to show the house to their client sometime between 11-1:00pm.  Yay!  This is actually the 5th client that has wanted to see the house in less than two weeks.  Believe me when I say that I am thrilled by this development.  So I left work, rushed up to the house, and set about making sure it was in show condition.  As in, all the lights were on, all the toys were put away, no dishes laying around, clean the deck of the 10 BILLION acorns and leaves (this is in no way an exaggeration ~ the oak tree must be in the neighborhood of 100 yrs old because it produces the HUGEST acorns), etc. 
(Writer’s note: Since beginning this post I have come to learn that we are not the only one’s with the acorn problem. You can read more about it here if you are curious. Fascinating stuff, riveting some might say.)

I had put all the lights on and was in the middle of clearing the deck when the husband calls to tell me that the realtor cancelled for today and they want to come tomorrow instead!  AAAAAAHHHHH!  Excuse me??!  No you may not come tomorrow, you are coming over now like you said.  I’m not doing all this work for nothing!!!  I had the deck about 75% cleaned by that point.  Geez!  All right, lets go back through the whole house to turn of all the lights.

Back to the office I go…. once I get settled in GUESS what happens.  GUESS, go ahead, GUESS.  I bet you can figure it out… someone else called to say they’d like to look at the house today, between 2:30-3:30pm.  Well, at least on the bright side, all the cleanup I did on the deck didn’t go to waste.

******

Ok, I stated this post on Tues. and now it’s Thurs.  The people that were scheduled to come through between 2:30-3:30pm may or may not have actually come over.  They didn’t leave a card so we have no real way of knowing.  I think that is incredibly rude.  Is it just me?  LEAVE A DAMN CARD!  Or call and tell us that you aren’t coming over!!!  We left lights on all over the house so that it shows well and they didn’t have the courtesy to show-up.  We aren’t PG&E!  Grrrrrrr.  On top of this, the original people that were scheduled for Wed. between 11-1:00pm called at 3:00pm to tell us that they weren’t coming after all but could they reschedule for Thurs. between 12-2pm?  WTF????  Are you kidding me right now?  Why not, we have nothing better to do than leave all the lights on ALL DAY long.

*****

Ok, so now it’s Fri. and this is the longest it has taken me to write one simple post!!  All right, where was I?  Oh, yes, the people that rescheduled for Thurs. 12-2pm didn’t actually show up sometime between 2:30-4:30pm.  I know this because I stopped by the house after 2:00pm to turn off all the lights.  You know, figuring that the people would have already come by at their scheduled time, but NOOOOO, they hadn’t been there yet ~no card.  Decided to leave the lights on just in case they were running late.  Sure enough when we got home at 5:00pm, there was a card there from the realtor. 

We notified our agent so he could follow up.  But get this, the agent that showed our house represents PRO ATHLETES!  And she showed the house to a PRO-FOOTBALLER!!  How cool is that???!  Unfortunately, though it’s highly unlikely that he will make us an offer that we want, apparently this guy likes to low-ball people.  Which, in our situation, just won’t do.  But he did say that our house was on the top of his list so far….

OMG!!! We just received word from our agent that someone wants to present an offer on the house tomorrow night!!!!! 

 *****

Continuing on with the longest post in history….  Here is some new ridiculousness to add to the story… it’s now Sat. night and at about 1:00pm this afternoon we got a call from our agent saying that he spoke with the other people’s agent.  Apparently there was a falling out between the two.  The client & agent wrote up the offer without indicating an offer price.  So the agent said, if you want me to present the offer tonight, then you need to tell me what your offer price is.  And this is in no way a joke, the client says I want to offer $X million.  I’ll just tell you that it was $700,000.00 LESS than what we are asking.  The agent says, I am not going to present that offer to the sellers.  (Hey, someone with a brain.)  Cause, frankly, if they had tried to present that to us, we would have laughed in their faces. 

We owe more to the bank than what the offer was, we certainly couldn’t accept the offer.  In addition, this house & property is WORTH WAY MORE THAN THAT!  Grrrrrr. The house itself is 4,000sq ft.  On 5 acres of land.  4 bdrms, 4 & 1/2 baths, plus an office.  It is gated.  It is private.  It has views of the valley that are unparalled.  The garage alone is over 1,000sq ft.  So COME ON lady, what can you be thinking???!!  Not too mention, we’ve got to have some money left over to buy a new house. 

Well, the client didn’t like the agent telling her that she wouldn’t present that LOW of an offer so she told her that she would find another agent. 

We’re a little sad.  Not about that dumb lady & her agent.  But about the fact that we don’t have an offer on the house.  We were really hoping this would be it!  Alas, it was not to be.

I think that is enough for now (I’ll be sure to bore you with more details as they arrive),

Ciao 

P.S. YAY, I finally did it!  I finished the longest post in history!

We’re moving, again (part 5)

Well, well, well, here we are in OCTOBER!!  October 3rd to be exact.  It has been months since we put our house on the market.  Sadly, not a single offer to date.  I guess it is to be expected.  What with the mortgage industry in the shambles, people forclosing on their homes so frequently now it’s like going through tissue in allergy season.  Plus, there are more houses on the market than people able to qualify for them.  Not to mention the fact that we are in a higher end home; therefore less people looking in that price range.

It is definitely not an ideal time to be attempting to sell one’s house.  We have already reduced the price of the house by $100k.  We really don’t want to reduce it again.  If we have to drop the price again we will be running into a situation where we may not have enough money left over to buy another home!  WTF?! For almost the entire time the husband & I have been together we have owned the home we lived in.  We never rented an apt or condo or anything else.  We have always owned.

So, now it is almost Halloween and Thanksgiving and then Christmas.  I love decorating for each of those times and I don’t know whether I should or not.  On the one hand, we should be able to decorate and enjoy the season but on the other hand I don’t want the house to look cluttered or crappy when prospective buyers come tour the house.  Then I think, well, we are still living here, so F**K them.  We are real people with young children who deserve to have the of fun of putting up pumpkins or scary skeletons or spooky ghosts.  But then I think I want the house to look immaculate and not distract buyers with all that stuff.  AAAAAHHHH!! What to do… what to do?!

On a brighter note, we have had three different people tour the house within the last week.  That is more in one week than in the last month!  I’m not wanting to get my hopes up but am still hopeful that someone is interested in buying the house.  Soon.

Enough for now,

Ciao

I get to see…

Justin Timberlake in concert tonight!!!!  OH YEAH!!!!!  And we have VIP Lounge tickets which means that we will be right at the stage!!!!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!  If you are wondering whether I am excited or not, then just check out the number of exclamation points used so far, that should be some kind of indication.  ***Writer’s note: My apologies to those of you reading that have a problem with excessive use of the exclamation point.

OK, where to start?  One of the girls in our office & her sister went to see Justin Timberlake (aka my mid-life crisis sex toy ~ all right maybe not in reality but definitely in my fantasies!) back in January of this year.  They had a blast & showed us the pictures (I know, they weren’t supposed to bring cameras in but everyone does it, in fact we did it too, and you’ll see those pics below) and told us how fantastic the show was.  He danced and sang like a 2o-somethin’ hottie should. 

Now, the reason that I wasn’t at that show was due in part to my need to pack for a business trip that the husband & I were taking to Las Vegas for CES, which we were leaving for the night after the concert.  But, as soon as we heard how excellent the show was, we immediately decided that we needed to find out where and when he was playing next.  As it turned out, he was playing the very next week in Fresno ~Fresno, nobody goes to Fresno anymore~ and we could still get tickets.  ”Amazingly” enough.  And, not just any tickets, but VIP Lounge tickets which would put us directly at the stage!!  Take that all you people sitting in the nose bleed sections. 

Just so I can brag a little more, here is a picture taken at the Fresno show:
 We were all reaching for his shoes & pants (or any part we could reach!) like the ridiculous teenagers around us, while screaming out his name.   

and here is another one:
 There is just something about being this close to a guy who is so hot, can dance, and sing like nobody’s business.  The energy at the show was super high.  We were screaming right along with the other thousands of screaming teenagers.  Yeah, I know, it’s silly.  I mean we’re “adults”, right?  Ah, who cares!  It was too much fun!!!

The show was originally supposed to be on Sept. 12th.  However, the VMA’s were in Las Vegas this year on Sunday Sept 9th… and Mr. Justin Timberlake was performing and also receiving awards.  Some say that he “may” have “over-indulged” while in Las Vegas.   Like this reporter. But then again it could be truly as the AP reports it.  I’m sure it was more along the lines of TOO MUCH PARTYING! 

Anyhoo, so now we are going to see him TONIGHT!!!  Just a small delay in pleasure.  Helps build up the excitement.  And now it’s CONCERT TIME!  We have a limo driving us to the venue so we’ll be doin’ a little bit of partying ourselves on the way.

OK, enough for now.  I’ll post something in a day or two with some pics & tell ya’ll how PHENOMENAL the show was.

Ciao

Girl’s night, drunk night

Oh, yeah!  It’s girl’s night!  I am so excited!!!  I think I can probably use a few more exclamation marks!!!!

After we went to movie night, a few weeks back, see my movie review, we went to a little bar by the theater and got a drink.  It was mentioned that we should have another girl’s night.  One of the girl’s boyfriend was gonna be out of town for about 4 days.  This makes their place an ideal location to hold “Girl’s night, drunk night/sleepover party” & we picked tonight! 

So after multiple emails between the 8 of us we decide we’re gonna:

1. eat
2. maybe go to a bar
3. drink
4. eat some snacks
5. drink
6. laugh our guts out
7. watch a movie
8. play some cards 
9. drink
10. watch a movie
11. eat more snacks
12. drink again
13. drink more
14. LAUGH our ASSES off
15. eat again
16. drink some more
17. possibly throw up

Probably not in that specific order.  And hopefully not #17, but we shall see.  In fact, I will continue this blog in a part 2 with all the details of the night.

I wish I could say that we are going to be all intellectual while daintily sipping our cocktails and discuss important world issues but I can’t and we won’t.  We all have jobs and most of us have kids so when we get a chance to let loose, you better watch out.

All right, I gotta go start packing.  Aahhhhh, I’m so excited!!  I can’t wait!

Ciao

We’re moving, again. (part 3)

It has officially been 6 weeks since we put our house on the market.  And I’m *sad* to say that we have not had any offers to-date.  Many people have driven by & taken flyers, come to the multitude of open house, and scheduled appts. to view the house with their realtors but alas, not one single offer.  This is starting to get depressing.  I know that I’m probably expecting too much to think that our house should have sold by now, but I can’t seem to help myself.  We’ve always sold our previous homes so quickly, generally within the first 30 days of it being on the market.  If I’m more realistic, then I’ll look at what’s truly happening with the housing market.  But then it will really, really depress me because there ain’t shit happening with the market (and just so you know, I don’t care that ‘ain’t’ isn’t proper English).

I’m doing my best to stay positive.  It will sell when the time is right.  When the right person finds the house.  I need to be patient, I know.  At times it’s difficult.  Especially when things have been extremely slow for our business.  It’s fairly fightening.  I wander, like a lost child, all over the spectrum of emotions and thoughts.  From hour to hour, occasionally, starting at ‘everything will work out fine’ and ending with ‘we are going to lose everything that we’ve worked our whole lives for’.  Then I contemplate the latter scenario… what would it really mean to lose everything?  What if it lead us down another path?  The path for which we were truly destined?  What if we are meant to be free of these things that tie us down, and in a way, keep us prisoner.  When you have so many “things” that have to be paid for, you aren’t free.  You must always work to pay for the house, cars, cleaners, gardeners, PG & E, telephone, water, garbage, and so on and so on ad nauseam!

We are so fortunate to have family close by us, so it isn’t as if we would have to live on the streets.  As some are forced to do.  No, we would ultimately be just fine.  And I generally operate until the philosophy that everything has a way of working out the way it’s meant to be.  Call me a Pollyanna if you want, but I think I do like the world with rose colored glasses.

Besides, what if everything that we are currently experiencing is shaping us?  Forming us?  Molding us?  Because isn’t that one of the purposes of life?  Learning and growing by the myriad of life experiences.  And it’s not just happening for myself or the husband but our children too.  We tend to forget that they are influenced by these events because we see them as so young ~they aren’t actually involved.  But I’m beginning to realize how wrong I am in that judgement.  Even our 2yr old asks, ”is my crib comin to da new house?” or “is da doggies comin to da new house?”  She understands enough to pose these questions.  She comprehends that we will be leaving this house and moving to another and just wants to make sure that her favorite things will be coming with us.  It really is quite adorable, in a slightly heartbreaking way.  I wish that we didn’t have to make the move, for the girls sake.  That’s when I start thinking about the future again… what’s around the corner?  More challenges to be faced with our business?  Random other things that could pop-up completely out of nowhere?  What if the next house fits our life more perfectly than this house?

Even if things turn around completely for our business and we have tremendous growth, my thought on this house is that it’s time to cut our loses.  But when it boils right down to the bottom, it’s completely out of my control WHEN or even IF the house sells.  Maybe I’ll just sing the Bob Marley song, ’Everything will be all right’, in my head ~of course.  Or maybe I will just walk around all day singing it out loud, that will be my new theme song.  And I will make people wonder if I’ve finally lost all my marbles.  But then again, they might just start singing with me!  One can only hope….

In the mean time, we are having another series of open houses, next weekend & the following weekend so wish us luck on finding a buyer!

Enough for now,

Ciao

Our Anniversary (part 2)

So we are back from our trip to Las Vegas with MUCH lighter pockets.  Oh well, the cost of entertainment.  It is nice to win on occasion or every time, but how likely is that?  We are certainly not professional gamblers, this would (of course) increase our chances of winning more consistantly.  But as I said, it’s the cost of entertainment.

On this trip we stayed at the Wynn.  *BEAUTIFUL* hotel.  If you’ve never heard of it or seen it, then go here Wynn Las Vegas.  Our room was definitely more than I was expecting.  Marble floors in the bathroom, seperate shower & tub with a waterfall spout.  Huge room with King size bed and the most comfortable linens.  In fact, I am thinking of switching our old style matchy matchy comforter, sheets, pillow shams for something like the simplicity of their set.  (BTW, you can purchase almost everything they had in their rooms ~ there was a price list!)  FLAT panel television with wireless keyboard.   Lovely damask couch with a matching ottoman.  A stylish table and chair set plus a really nice desk.  Avant garde art.  The view was decent.  We were looking at some of the other hotels on the strip as opposed to the swimming pool but not that big a deal. 

On our first night in town we had a wonderful dinner at the SW Steakhouse in the Wynn.  I LOVE Las Vegas in the summer!!  I know most people will think I’m insane since the weather is roughly 108-110 degrees during the day but at night it’s some what closer to 80-85 degrees.  Perfect!  The restaurant was partially open to a waterfall/lake and we were eating right at the edge of the indoor/outdoor area.  The best of both worlds.  Air conditioning and natural air where we could enjoy the nice warm weather of the early evening and still feel some cooler temps from inside.  Our table faced the waterfall and we could still observe others enjoying their dinner.  I do find pleasure in observing other people.  It always makes me wonder what their lives are like.  What do they do, where do they live, how do they live, do they have children / grandchildren?  

So, on that note, I swear to you we had dinner with the Soprano.  I’ll explain.  They obviously weren’t the people from the show but real people who were like those on the show.  They were seated at the table adjacent to ours.  Thereby affording us a chance to observe without being obvious.   

(Writer’s note: Sorry about the delay.  Been gone a few days and just got back from a family member’s wedding AND had no internet or working computer.  See Damn computers, damn internet.)

Back to the Sopranos.  There were about 7 people, 2 ladies & 5 guys.  The thing that made us think they were like the Sopranos, was how they looked.  The ladies were all done up with lots of gold jewelery ~rings, earrings, necklaces~ and the guys were all dressed in black.  Seriously.  Plus, they smoked during dinner!  Sure, we were in Las Vegas and everyone smokes there.  But during dinner is a bit much these days.  Luckily with our table being situated as it was, the stench of the cigarettes didn’t bother us too much.          

Our food was fabulous.  Filet Mignon served with the most incredible sauces.  There was this jalapeno mango sauce, hollandaise ~of course~, and another sauce that I’ve completely forgotten.  The dessert was sublime.  Lots of chocolate with coffee ice cream (a big favorite of mine).  Plus, the staff took the time to write Happy Anniversary in chocolate sauce on the platter!  Lets all say it together, Aaaahhhh.  It was a nice touch, though.  Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves.

OK, so I’m skipping all the boring details of where we gambled and how much we lost (truthfully, I don’t want to relive the sad, sad parting of my money from my wallet) and I’ll move on to the next day… we woke up when we felt like it!  No *screaming* from a 2 yr old on this morning, no sir.  No 7 yr old standing over me, staring down at me, willing me to wake up.  Just pure peace and quiet.  My wonderful husband went down and got me a latte and bagel.  I ate 1/2 the bagel & he ate a breakfast sandwich ~this will be important to know for later in the story.

We decided to head over to the Rio where they were holding a series of WSOP tournaments.  Yes, we saw a bunch of pro-poker players… can you say Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Gavin Smith, Isabelle Mercier.  Pretty cool.  From there we went to one of our favorite places to gamble, Casino Royale.  Sure its old and hasn’t ever been remodeled but the games are cheap & fun.  We played on a $3 craps table for, and I’m not exaggerating, 4 straight hours.  (Note: Here’s where it’s important to know what we ate for breakfast).  We played from 1:00pm to 5:00pm.  No stopping for lunch, just keep on playing.  Little did I know that the husband was consuming many, many, many beers during this time frame.  I realized how WASTED he was when we attempted to walk back to the hotel.  I lost count of the number of times he stumbled into me.  When we got to the room he immediately fell onto the bed.  Now, I’m a realist (some of the time) and what I realized about this situation is that he was going to pass out and/or vomit fairly quickly. 

So, I did my best to try to motivate him to eat something, take a shower, keep moving, do anything that might keep him from becoming comatose.  Well, in a nutshell, I failed.  He passed out on the bed.  Then suddenly woke up and went to the bathroom.  I waited, and waited, and waited for the upchucking to begin, but heard no sound ~ just absolute silence.  This began to worry me.  What the hell happened?  Did he leave the room?!  No, oh no, he was in the bathroom all right.  Just passed out on the floor.  HELLO??!!  Are you dead down there?! 

Well, I am happy to report that he was not dead on the bathroom floor.  And he did eventually make it back to the bed.  No vomitting.  Thank goodness.  Around 2 1/2 hrs later I managed to roust him.  We made it down to dinner, finally.  He got some food in his stomach and it revived him. 

We went down to Fremont Street and lost more money.  BTW, we really didn’t have the money to lose in the first place but oh well, you only live once, right?!  And as I’ve said before, it’s the cost of entertaiment.  BLAH!

I will say one final thing, we left on Saturday as opposed to Sunday (which is when we usually fly home) and there was NO line at the baggage drop-off, NO line at the ID check point, and NO line at the security check point!  BRILLIANT!  I think we will plan all our future trips so that we leave on Sat.

All right, I’d say that’s about enough for now,

Ciao

Damn computers, damn internet

For the last few days we have had problems with our internet connections (as in NO internet connection) AND my hard drive took a dump (as in crapped out & isn’t working anymore). OOHH SOOOOO MUCH FUN!  Luckily, the husband is a tech genius.  All right, that might be a little bit of a stretch.  He knows a thing or two about computers.  So we were able to save all my information (hurrah!!) and get a brand new hard drive to replace the one that went kaput.  I certainly would love to get a new computer all together, maybe a laptop, but it just isn’t in the budget at present. 

For two days  ~hey, I have children and other commitments I couldn’t just ignore~ I have had the pleasure of installing all my software and saved files on to the new drive.  All the things I need to operate my computer and my life.  Man, we are so very dependent on these damn things now it’s ridiculously frightening.

Any way, in the mean time I haven’t been able to the things I usually do on my ‘puter.  Business, emails, blogs (reading & writing), so on and so on.  I  am *thrilled* to report that all is working perfectly now!!  I suppose I should have known it was coming… every time I turned my ‘puter on it froze up and I had to turn it off by pressing the power button until it shut off & then pressing the power button again until it came on again. (You can see what a tech genius I am. HAHAHA)  Well, one day it just didn’t come on at all.  And wouldn’t you know this would happen RIGHT before we were due to leave for our anniversary trip?!  So, I told the husband not even to attempt to fix it now, it will take too long and cause too much stress.  The last thing I want is for you to be pissed-off before we leave for our trip ~sans jeunes filles! 

(Writer’s note: I am simultaneously ~I may not be a tech genius but I can multi-task~ writing a blog on our trip, you’ll be able to read about that shortly.)  

Of course, the minute we got back he began working on my ‘puter.  What a great husband!  No whining necessary, nice!  It turned out to be a fairly easy fix.  Get a new hard drive and move on.  But that’s when the nightmare mystery of NO INTERNET began.  That whole thing was so complicated, I don’t even want to go into the details.  Suffice it to say that the wireless DSL was interferring with the connection that we had to our office via a satelite dish.

Finally, we have all things working as they should!  Now, I’m just waiting for some other thing to stop working properly, wait, strike that, I won’t ask for a something else to go wrong.  I’ll just say that I am grateful that things are working!

Enough for now,

Ciao

We’re moving, again. (part 2)

We have put our house up for sale and it’s been on the market for roughly one week.  Our Realtor held an open house this past weekend.  There was a really good turn out with a number of potentials.  In fact, one couple is coming back tonight to see the house.  We are hoping they make an offer.  Frankly, the sooner this is over the happier I will be.  You see, we had the house “staged” by a professional interior designer.  Which means that we are renting all the things he brought in to make the house look like a show piece.  Yes, the house does look FABULOUS.  It was kinda like walking onto one of those reality shows where the family goes away & when they come back the house is totally re-done. 

This would be all well and good if we didn’t have children.  But we do.  And keeping the house looking like a photo shoot from Architectural Digest is really, really taking a toll on me & the girls.  It has only been one week and I am already sick to death of saying, “put that down!” or “we can’t play with that”, or ”that doesn’t belong to us!”.  What has probably been the hardest thing to deal with, ridiculous though it may sound, is keeping the kitchen chair pads clean!  We have a two year old!  PLEASE!  She spills food and drinks on EVERYTHING!  I’ve tried putting towels on top of the chair pad to alleviate the stains from spills but then she throws a tantrum because she doesn’t like the towel there.

You may be asking, why don’t you just take off the chair pad?!  Well, see, we have metal chairs with a sort of lattice seat.  They are surprisingly comfortable if you are sitting on your bottom.  But (not Butt) the 2 yr old can’t reach the table if she sits that way so she kneels on the chair.  Kneeling on a metal lattice seat is not at all comfortable for little 2 yr old knees or knees of any age.  So that explains ~I think~ why I won’t take the chair pad off.

Now, I have been keeping the house *spotless* so that at a moments notice or no notice anyone could tour the house.  This is incredibly challenging.  I am constantly picking up papers or socks & shoes or tissues or dishes left scattered about.  I was doing these same things before, however, the difference now is that I have to do it about 500 times per day. 

I let a lot of things slide when I’m not worried about how immaculate the house needed to look at every second of the day.  Dishes were left by the sink (I still don’t understand why the husband can’t put them IN the sink & I’ll save that discussion for another day), dishes left in the sink (by me), dishes left in the dishwasher (again by me).  I always got to them… eventually.  Generally before they got too stinky.  Extra shoes and socks left in the living room or lying about on the floor in the girl’s rooms.  There was never any real reason to pick these things up continuously, at some point or another they would all be cleaned or put away.

Having to make my bed every day, having to make the girls beds every day!  BLAH!  I can hardly stand it.  I’m not usually a total neat freak so this much effort on a daily basis is driving me nuts.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a slob either, I just don’t see the point in making my bed EVERY DAY.  Or having to do the dishes the very minute that they have been used.  What an absurd waste of time.  How does that saying go?  A clean house is the sign of a misspent life.  I couldn’t agree more!

Oh, yeah, neglected to communicate this little tidbit.  We had to take down the 62 in. flat panel T.V. and entertainment center in our family room AND the 37 in. flat panel in our bedroom.  The whole family has been watching the incy wincy 13in T.V. that was the 2 yr olds.  Do you have any idea what it’s like to have to watch Elmo or Strawberry shortcake for the 1,000th time because the only thing the t.v. will play are videos and all the other videos have been boxed and stored & we have no cable?!!    

Honestly, I don’t even want to be here.  If we aren’t here, then we can’t mess it up.  And I won’t have to watch the same dang video AGAIN.  I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with places to go or things to do that will keep us out of the house.  We’ve eaten dinner out 5 of the last 7 days.  It’s getting unbelievably expensive.  Right, I forgot to mention that as part of the “staging” we have to leave *all* the lights on in *all* rooms of the house.  I DO NOT want to see what our PG&E bill will be next month.  And I’m begging, pleading, whining to whomever is in charge, PLEASE let this be over soon. 

Once we have an offer that we’ve accepted, we can go back to our slightly piggish ways.  I won’t have to constantly nag the girls about touching stuff, I won’t have to repeatedly clean all rooms of the house, I won’t have to wash all dishes the instant we are done with them.  We’ll be able to live in the house again, if only temporarily.  Then it will all be a matter of finding our new house, boxing the rest of our things, and moving in to the newest *S* residence!  HA!  Let me say that I am hoping it’s as easy as that.

Enough for now,

Ciao