House for Sale and other insights

Well, with lots of help from friends and family AND my little teenage workhorse, I finally got everything finished, cleaned, repaired, replaced, updated, and everything else in between and without any further ado, the house is now (and finally) ON THE MARKET. It has taken me forever to get to this point. I've worked non-stop for the past week and even took a vacation day Friday and still managed to work from sun-up to sun-down Friday and Saturday both.

We had an open house today with a few nibbles, but no actual offers yet. My mom put the ad in the paper and we realized this morning that my open house was listed in the houses for sale section of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, but not in the 'open house' section. So there wasn't much traffic here today, but I didn't put the "FOR SALE" signs out until about 7:30 PM last night. That's because it took me til then to get the house in condition to actually show. Wait, let me take that back, I was still shampooing carpets at 7:30 AM this morning. Ugh. I think I'll do an open house next Saturday and Sunday and see what happens.

Ironmaiden, I'm so sore that my toes are even sore. I was sitting here this afternoon trying to figure out why one's toes would be sore. I think it was from cleaning showers and grouting the tiles in the bathroom in that squatted down position.

So folks, if you know someone looking for a wonderful home, this is one of the best. I've really loved this house. It looks so good now that I'm really going to miss it and have caught myself telling several people I really don't want to leave now!

This whole business of getting my house ready to sell has made me think about other important things in life. Why is it that we don't give a house all the care and attention it needs until it's time to leave it? I think that we are the same way with our own lives and relationships sometimes.

I remember last year reading Geo's blog and how he was backing away from cycling a little so he could focus on some of the home repairs and jobs that he'd been neglecting for several years. I've thought about that several times as I've worked on the house. Do you know what happens when you neglect all those repairs and maintenance over several years? Yeah, you guessed it, it takes ALOT of effort to get it back to a home again.

Relationships are a little like houses. If you just give them 'lip service' attention for awhile, things will eventually start breaking down. Getting things back on track takes more than just a coat of paint or a yard mowing when things have been neglected for months or years. And our lives are much the same. If you're busy working all the time, spending more money than you should, not exercising or eating right, not stopping to enjoy the things around you (like a really wonderful home or your great family & friends?), life breaks down. You get high blood pressure or diabetes, you gain weight, your muscles turn to flab, your bank account dwindles, your quality of life dissipates. Seems like the older I get, the harder it is to get back in shape too.

I'm hoping I've learned alot more than just how to sell a house. This is one of those places in your life where you need to stop and build one of those alters, so you won't forget the lessons that you've learned, and I've learned a few!

My car thought it was a truck this weekend

Meant to get a post in over the weekend but Lauren & I worked our tushes off ....figuratively. She doesn't have much of a tush to work off and mine appears to all still be back there where I left it.

We started the weekend off by setting flea bombs off in the house Friday evening. You see, I really do like cats, but only one or two at a time. Lauren, on the other hand, would like to turn this house into a cat asylum....or zoo. Anyway, seems we acquired fleas about a week ago so we treated the cats with FrontLine and by the time we set the flea bombs off, I had the heebie-jeebies about fleas so we stayed all night at my sister's. Good thing too, because we took some snacks and wine down to the apartment swimming pool and after a little while, Lauren blasted off like a kamikaze jumping into the pool fully clothed. After a little vino, Gail and I decided to join the girls and we jumped in fully clothed too. We looked like idiots, but we were the only ones down there so it was OK.

When we came back Saturday morning, we had to open the house and let it air for about an hour before coming back in so we decided to get started on our work list. We'll have the house listing show up this coming Saturday and our Open House on Sunday so we have a big list of jobs to complete to get everything ready. So in our pajamas, Lauren and I drove over to the Horticare nursery and in pajamas and unbrushed hair, we got out and loaded the car up with caladiums, a few flowers, and as much mulch as we could fit in the hatch. They were pretty amused at Horticare that we were going to pick up a load of mulch in my little hatchback. They asked where we were going to put the mulch and I just told them in my hatch. So we laid down some big orange trash bags in the back and loaded up.

Later Saturday afternoon, after Lauren and I had worked all day on our front yard landscaping, we headed back out to Horticare to pick up yet another load of mulch. This time we came with a bunch of clothes hampers lined with trash bags AND we had them load the hatch up one more time. When I was checking out, I told the guy that my car thought it was a truck today. He said "Today, it IS a truck!" I'll post pictures of the house and all the nice landscaping on Friday after all the bags of clippings get picked up Thursday. The house looks great right now and we're starting to get excited about getting it listed finally.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing more big jobs around the house. It seems like every time I turn around I see more repairs that need to be done. Plumbing jobs, fixing doors, cleaning windows and screens, trimming hedges, cleaning ceiling fans, touch up paint. I must just be oblivious to all this stuff on a regular basis. If I can manage to keep the house 'straight' and the yard mowed, I'm doing good.

I'm absolutely exhausted from all this work though. Halfway through today, I couldn't even think straight anymore. I signed off from work for the afternoon and took care of the leaking showers with the help of the guys at Fuller Hardware. I'm glad there are still some guys out there that know how to fix things. I'm amazed at how many guys these days don't really know much about basic plumbing or electrical work. I've had to learn how to do all this stuff as I've been working on the house so I guess if you need anything done, I'm available to show off my new skills. I can replace old light fixtures, replace toilet kits, faucets ...... I've even rented the roto-rooter from Home Depot and know how to clean out my lines.

So, put me on everyone's prayer list that someone makes a great offer on the house this weekend. Oh yeah, and I meet with Dr. Schlumberger at UALR for their nursing program tomorrow so cross your fingers that I get accepted for the Fall semester on the accelerated program.

Ironmaiden is a Slavedriver

Yesterday I did a one-hour training session with Ironmaiden since she was leaving for Kansas today and we'll miss tomorrow's workout. I'm not sure how this all played out, but she convinced me to do this whole P90X abs routine. She probably smiled or something and said she knew I could do it or I'd love it or some garbage like that. She always coats that bitter pill with something smooth and sweet. ha!

So today, I started noticing this soreness in my abs and my upper thighs. As the day progressed, I kept getting sorer and sorer. I started noticing every time I got up from my chair that it was getting harder to do and I was getting slower & stiffer. Then when I started putting my socks on for my bike ride this evening, I suddenly could not reach my foot. My mind said "put sock on" and my body said "uhhhh, we can't move like that no more". I ended up laying sideways on my bed to get my stupid socks on. It was like someone locked the wrench into position and it could no longer touch ends.

But hey, maybe a little bike ride is what I needed to loosen me up so off I went this evening for a spin. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I think this is what old people feel like. I haven't climbed Overlook that slow in ages. I kept looking around to make sure no one was behind me or I was going to be completely embarressed. I thought about stopping to pretend I was looking at a house or the shrubs or something except getting off my bike was too hard. When I got back to the house and was trying to get off my bike, I thought I was going to tumble head over heels. But there is a silver lining at the end of this story.

As I was getting out of my bike clothes, Lauren walked in and saw my exposed midrif. You've got to understand before I tell you what she said that I weigh more than I have in quite some time and Lauren is brutally honest. She is, after all, a teenager. So, although I have built some great muscle tone working out with the Ironmaiden, most of it is hidden under a protective layer of fat. Lauren walked in said "Wow Mom, I know you have some fat you need to lose, but I can see your abs underneath."

YES! So there is some sweet justice after all! Somewhere underneath, there is a six-pack trying to escape!!

Get me off this merry-go-round!

Well, here I was just living my life peacefully, without a blog in the world, when all my friends start blogging and the next thing you know, I'm here, bitten by the blogging bug. There have been a few times over the past couple years that I'd almost been bitten but I managed to squeeze by unscathed ...you know, the Geo blog, and the ODWonn mega-blog. But this latest virus has been pandemic in scope, infecting all my cycling buddies in one fell swoop. Resistance was futile and I've now been assimilated.

So all my athletic friends are heading to the Kansas Ironman this coming weekend and I'm feeling like a big L when it comes to my training and fitness this year. I changed positions at work earlier this year and they asked me to get ready to move to Dallas. Things have been crazy with layoffs at least every quarter and everyone scrambling around the mulberry bush or the cobblers bench before "pop-goes-the-weasel". There's been precious little time between me trying to fix the house up to sell, learning my new job, and scrambling to keep survive the latest layoffs, to be consistent with any of my training. The only consistency has been going to see Rebecca twice a week for a workout session. Thank God for Rebecca!

Last week I made a whirlwind business trip to San Antonio leaving at 5:30 AM Wednesday morning and flying back late Thursday night. Then I had to leave at 7:00 AM Friday morning for a last-minute drive to Dallas for a noon meeting and then come back same day. It was insane. So on my way back home from Dallas I started thinking it might be time to get off this crazy merry-go-round, as in ......no Dallas, no more crazy job, no more late nights and early mornings, no more rushing around trying to escape the latest layoff.

You may be asking yourself "what will she do if she doesn't have the merry-go-round to cling to, how will she survive?" Good question! So I've been busy listening to Maggy as she gets all her ducks in a row with college and pursuing a nursing degree, and I've looked into some programs and schools .....I told myself it was mostly for her. But in the back of my mind I keep remembering a conversation I had with Lisa L. last year about how she quit work and went back to school to become an anesthetist. When she told me about it I was like "Wow, if I ever had the chance to ..." but you know, I suddenly realized that I have a chance right now. I will have some $$ in my fat little fist after I sell the house, at least enough to pay off my bills and my car, and enough left over to actually quit my job, move in with my mom for 2 years, and go for a nursing degree. It won't be easy, but it's not like life has been easy these past few years anyway. OK, everyone cross your fingers for me on this because I'm ready for Part Deux of my life to be filled with some REAL life.

Thanks for reading, I think this is going to be fun. Resistance is futile .....start blogging blogging blogging blogging