I’m too chicken to do NaNoWriMo so I’m doing NoBloShoeMo instead

For the last two years I’ve contemplated participating in NaNoWriMo and last year I came pretty damn close to signing up for it. But as the title of this post indicates, I’m too chicken to do it. Well that and November is a notoriously busy month for me with waaaaaaaay tooooooo many other things that have to be done. Heh.

So to be in the spirit of all those souls who are brave enough, crazy enough, glutton for punishment enough, or whatever, I’ve decided to join this funny lady in participating in NoBloShoeMo which suits me just fine because I am a show FIEND! I love shoes! I want to marry shoes! But alas I am already married.  In fact, the husband is often known to say to me, “did you buy one in every color?”  And!!  OMG!!  I am so thrilled to report that we now have a DSW shoe store in our little town.  Huzzah!!  The Mecca of shoes is in my back yard.  Well just about… it’s actually down a couple streets then over one, but hey, who’s keeping track?!

Anywhoooo, I’ve posted my first photo for NoBloShoeMo since it’s still November 1st where I’m at & it is not passed midnight & the clock hasn’t turned back so all that equals I haven’t missed a day yet! Whoot! We’ll see how the remainder of the month goes. As I said, busy time, busy time.

Enough for now,
Ciao

As if my mind wasn’t already made up… here’s another reason

I entered all my information into this handy dandy little widget and it calculated what my tax savings would be under an Obama/Biden administration.

Try it out. Go ahead. You’re not doing anything else anyway… if you’re here reading this! So do it to it.

The Great Schlep also know as coercing your grandparents into voting for Obama which is the right thing to do anyway

I’m not Jewish but does that really even matter?  We can all talk to our grandparents, aunts & uncles, cousins, and family members in general about this!  Not to mention, this is some funny shit, yo.

To get more information go to The Great Schlep. Here is an excellent site for REAL facts.

And if you aren’t registered to vote, then get registered immediately! Before it’s too late! It’s quick & easy. Unlike many other things in life.  Your vote WILL make a difference!!!

Enough for now,
Ciao

***cross-posted on my other blog.***

Operation NICE – Such a NICE idea

Everyday I get an email from Daily Candy. Check it out cause it is always down with the latest, greatest, bestest information. Today they sent out the email to include a link to Operation Nice which I’ve linked below. We should all be nicer to each other and here’s a great site to remind us! With helpful tips included!

Operation NICE

And now we bring you

More on the saga of our house for sale.  It is now month number 9.  Hey perhaps this will be like pregnancy but instead of giving birth to a child, we will sell our house!!  God willing.  We managed to survive Christmas and New Year with the house ready for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to come tramping through.  I somehow kept the house looking like a show piece despite the massive amounts of wrapping paper, ribbons, tie wraps, plastic packaging, and loads of new toys.  The day after Christmas our house looked like it had vomited colored bows, torn bits of paper, and random utensils and plates from the 1,000 piece Tea set my evil  wonderful sister got Pumpkin for a gift.  Ordinarily, it would have taken me weeks to get that mess cleaned up.  This year, I didn’t have weeks, I had a ~as in ONE~ day to get it back to Open House status. 

Believe it or not, there was actually a call from a realtor who wanted to show the house the day after Christmas.  I suppose we could have said no.  But we are trying to sell the house.  So we got it ready for them…  Yeah… they didn’t show up.  Big *f-in* surprise.  Gggrrrr.   

I have just finally agreed with the Husband to stop obsessively cleaning the house on the “possibility” that someone might be coming by to view the house.  Yes, it’s been 9 months and I am so incredibly tired of the constant cleaning.  So we decided that we would bring the lockbox in the house & make all agents call to schedule an appointment before they just show up with their clients.  One agent actually called & said, “we’re outside your house, can you come up and let us in?”  Hmmm, let me think about that…. “No”.  For goodness sake, make an appointment and give us a little tiny bit of notice.  That way the house looks presentable for you, not as if a twister had just blown through.  So no, a minute notice is not enough, but perhaps a days notice??!!  Or at the very least a half an hour notice?

Basically, moving the lock box inside frees me up tremendously.  It means that I don’t have to flip out over every toy Pumpkin drags out of her room to play with in the morning, cause I DON’T HAVE TO CLEAN IT UP BEFORE I leave the house!!  I don’t have to make three beds before I leave the house!  I don’t have to wash every dish before I leave the house!!  You have no idea what a relief it is.  Plus, I’m not constantly yelling at the children not to make a mess.  This is better for my mommy self-image, my mental health, and the gremlins mental health.  And you know, when you really think about, what I consider a mess, to them is just being creative children at play having fun. 

So we came to the conclussion, after reviewing data on the market and discussing the absolute least amount we could accept ~and still have money left for a downpayment on a new house~ that we should reduce the sale price.  This is the second time that we are dropping the price.  Believe me when I say that it makes me want to be sick when I think about how much money we are potentially leaving with this house.  I don’t want to go into the details since I don’t feel up for vomitting right now… suffice it to say that we will barely have enough left to make a minimum downpayment on another house.  And the housing prices here are still ridiculously high even on a simple single family home.  I try not to think about this overly much since it’s fairly depressing.  It is what it is.  I just need to learn to deal with the reality of the situation as it is now.  However, on the upside, once we reduced the price we had about 150 views per day of the virtual tour which was up by almost 100 pre-reduction.  More traffic viewing the house means more chances of the house selling.

********************

So, yesterday we had two agents bring their clients over to see the house.  One agent was bringing the second half of a couple to view.  This could be promising.  If the wife saw the house first and now wants her husband to see the house, then we might have a potential offer.  However, if it was the husband that saw the house first and now wants his wife to see it, then it probably won’t go anywhere.  Reason being, the wife almost always makes the decision about which house they will live in… think about it, you know this is true.  The husband may set the price limit but the wife will ultimately decide which house will be most comfortable for her family.  The other agent has never been out to the house before so his clients are really a long shot.  I sent all the info to our agent last night for him to follow-up.  We shall see if anything comes of this.  I try not to get my hopes up since it has been so long already without any offers.  I’m just going with the flow, what will be will be, and all those other corny expressions.

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

Fire

In some cases fire is a good thing.  Like when you are really, really, really cold or even when your only just really cold.  And, also, when you want to snuggle up with your honey.  It’s good when you need to cook some food.  It’s great to have when you want to take a hot shower.  But there are times when it’s not a good thing.  Such as when you burn yourself roasting marshmellows.  Or when there is a fire burning its way toward your home or school.  Like this…

photo taken from our dining room window. 

This summer, like many summers before, there have been fires.  It certainly isn’t an unusual occurrence.  Different things can start fires, in the case of this fire, they still haven’t determined what started it. 

I always feel terrible for the people that are affected (or is it effected? I can never remember); those that lose their homes, mementos, and sometimes family members or pets.  We have always been incredibly lucky.  Misfortunes have passed us by.  For this I am truly grateful.  I pray that this is another one of those occasions, where fate is on our side. 

Now, from the photo it is difficult to tell how far or near the fire is to us.  It is actually somewhat far.  Plus, there is a lake in between.  Therefore, the likelyhood of this fire reaching us is slim.  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible, just that it’s unlikely.  God willing. 

~NEW DAY~
Ok, it is now the next day.  Got too late for me to stay up & finish the post last night.  Here is the update: They say they have the fire only 10% contained.  There is lots of wind continuing to blow the fire in all directions and the fire itself creates wind, making it even more difficult to fight.  Its already burned 1,000s of acres.  Who knows how many more it will burn. 

As I was driving to pickup Honey bunny from school, I passed about a half dozen fire trucks loaded with tired, soot covered fire fighters.  Those guys need to be thanked!  They risk their lives to put out fires.  THANK YOU FIREFIGHTERS EVERWHERE!!! 

I’ll keep you posted on the situation.

Enough for now,

Ciao