Nomads

I was reminded today at the grocery store with A, that we are Nomads. We had finished a knock-down, drag out shopping trip. The kind that reminds you WHY you don't take a 2 year old shopping. Those trips where kind, grandfatherly looking men LAUGH when your sweet, adorable child decides to take her crocs off and throw them at you, all the while screaming "Help! Help! Help!". The kind of trip where your lips don't move, but you and your child can hear a guttural voice saying "When we get home......." (you can go ahead and fill in the blank....You know where it ends, and if you don't, then you obviously don't have a 2 year old)

Ya, that kind of trip.

After retrieving her crocs from the polar ends of the parking lot (that girl has an arm, thank god she's got no aim!), I opened the trunk to be greeted by ALL of our laundry. All.of.it. We had 2 showings and an open house last week. To make the 1st floor laundry/bathroom appear larger, we've taken to storing the dirty laundry in my trunk. Along with a boppy pillow, my duffel bag for weekend trips and an HD antenna. Eclectic, no?

Could be worse. DH drives around with a bright pink, Princess couch.

Ahhh, selling a house. Gotta hate it.

(If you've got an in with the gods of home sales, can you put in a good word for us?)

Manual Labor

We're almost ready. Almost.

Its been almost 6 weeks, but the end is in sight. We've taken 2 days of the past 2 weeks, working. The deck is clean, the house is clean, the yard is clean, the cellar is clean...

I'm exhausted. I can't move, but we're.almost.done.

House will be on the market hopefully next Wends. We're also looking into a new construction house 2 towns over. Fingers crossed. 1 acre, 1600sqft ranch.

Hopefully things will settle down and my desire to write will return. Right now I'm pretty sure its packed up and gone.

Sorry.

Shedding

We've started the long, arduous task of "making the house ready to sell". We started with A's room, most specifically her closet. There are now 6 trash bags full of outgrown clothes. I'm heading to Home Wreckers (aka Home Depot) to give the new SpaceSavers Bag tote a try.

It is amazing what happens when you start to look at your house through the eyes of potential buyers. There's the cleaning, that's a given, but then there's the decluttering, the painting, the removal of any trace that people actually live there. I've watched enough Home and Garden TV to know that potential buyers need to be able to "see" themselves living there.

The To-DO list is long and daunting. It makes me want to nap. We forgot to take Before pictures of Ally's room. I'm going to have to remember to do that. Tonight my closet is on the chopping block.

Oh, The Insanity

So we're looking to move. We must be insane. I've found, in the 1 WHOLE week we've been looking, that I'm not cut out for this.

I've given up 3 times already. I've cried twice. This isn't going to be a rosy point in my history. Houses are just ridiculously expensive. Everything we've seen so far is honestly crappier and smaller then what we have now, but priced close to $100,000 more and there in lies a problem. Why spend more, when we are getting significantly less?

The dilemma, we have no room. We are busting at the seams. And oh, ya there was that little break-in issue last fall. I still strain to see our side door every time I pull onto our street. We need want to move Ally into a nicer area. Maybe even one that has some kids her age. An area where we are serenaded by crickets and toads, fireflies and starlight, not police sirens and traffic lights.

Our My problem. I want the house hunting and moving to be over YESTERDAY. I have no patience. I hate the thought of house hunting, bargaining, making offers and waiting to see if they're accepted.

Its going to be a loooooooooong spring and summer.