My Absence, My Silence, My Misplaced Sanity

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In April, Himself and I decided it was time to put our house on the market. With all of our homeschooling materials and his penchant for working from home now and again, we need some more square footage.

Thus began a frantic and stressful time called "Getting the House Ready to List." Activities include:

• A massive clean-out of all rooms, shelves, closets, and storage areas, requiring many trips to Goodwill and other donation facilities. And a LOT of giant trash bags.
• Packing up extraneous possessions.
• Renting a storage unit and making MANY trips to store boxes of items and not-strictly-necessary-for-daily-living furniture.
• A wild flurry of home improvement projects we'd put off for the future, such as a brand new deck and new landscaping, new lighting in our bathroom, and the like.
• Repairs and touch-ups, especially paint.

A few weeks ago, this seemed like an insurmountable mission. But we did it and the house is now on the market.

Our current challenge is to keep our house looking like a photo-shoot-ready showplace where no one actually lives while all the time living here with one husband, two active adolescents, and two dogs.

Fortunately, the girls are old enough to get with the program to keep the house "show ready" at (almost) all times. I have only had to yell, "Did you FLUSH the TOILET?!" once or twice. They get it now.

(Aside in case you think we are non-toilet flushers: Back when our area was in the throes of a horrid drought, we began the practice of selectively flushing, and the girls have maintained that practice. I'm sure you understand.)

Also, I'm looking at prospective houses with a real estate broker. This sounds like fun, but it is not. It is fraught with disappointment.

Case in point: the girls and I fell in love with a house but before we could make an offer, it went under contract. I think Tiny Girl will never forgive us for moving too slowly on that one.

But most of the time, houses look promising on the outside, only to reveal a total deal-breaker once you're in the door. Another case in point: yesterday, we looked at a really lovely house, and I was slightly swayed until we noticed that the laundry room was in the basement. And not just in the basement, but through the basement and around the corner behind the stairs. Visions of schlepping clothes up and down two flights of stairs danced through my head. Hmmm.

Then there was the gorgeous large house in a lovely neighborhood overlooking a lake. I pictured myself sipping a cup of coffee on the deck and gazing at the lake in the morning light. Yes, the house needed some work, but still. Then we ventured into the unfinished basement, which featured its own lake. The standing water was almost an inch deep in places!

See?

Himself and I have been the teensiest bit snippy with each other. He said the other night,"I think the stress is getting to both of us." It's probably a good thing he's in Boston for a few days.

It's probably not a good thing I made homemade chocolate chip cookies two days ago and then ate most of them myself.

What do you think?