Exceedingly Mundane

Let’s see… I keep saying I’ll make some kind of interesting blog post, but still, I keep just jotting down what we do every day. My own online diary… B O R I N G! I know, but still a lot going on and it’s all I can do just to record some of this for my horrible memory 🙂

Last week was another busy one, but another good week. On Monday, I ran errands all day. And by all day, I definitely mean all day, I think I went to 7 or 8 places. Walmart, Home Depot, the dollar store, Kroger, Sam’s, Ace Hardware, the bank, the post office and the old house. The Sam’s Club run was, as I had predicted, monumentally large! I had gotten low on so many items, and didn’t even get everything on my list, but still had an overflowing large buggy. Glad to have the pantry and new kitchen to stock up for!

Tuesday and Wednesday were relatively quiet days. I tried to mostly stay home unpacking. Tuesday morning I got up, made myself some coffee and sat out on my back porch, trying to catch up on my Bible reading. I’m SO far behind. I would say that I enjoyed the peace and quiet, but there’s construction all around us, so I heard all of the trucks, machines, equipment and workers. Still, it was very enjoyable! Wednesday was the home inspection at the old house, and Tim got a long list of nit picky items that will need to be addressed. He played golf Wednesday though, and had fun 🙂 Wednesday, I made red beans and rice for supper, which was good.

Thursday, I finally got my rear in gear and got out the door to go walk for first time in the new subdivision. I will have to work on a route, and learn the distances. Later that morning, we met with the landscape guy at new house, as I had a lot of questions about the plants (what are they, how to care for them, how to prune them, when to prune them, etc, especially the roses they planted out front), and Tim had questions about the irrigation system. Tim spent a big portion of the rest of the day on the phone with items from the old house inspection. After work, he headed to Lowes and then the old house to work on items on the old list that we weren’t going to get an electrician or roofer to handle. He got home really late, after dark and was exhausted. He had eggs, sausage, grits and homemade biscuits to look forward to, so that helped a wee bit 🙂

Friday, I got up and went again on a walk, and found a new route! I mapped out some streets that gave me about 3.2 miles, which is about what I like to walk. After I got home and had breakfast, I was talking to Tim and saw a white blob fall out of the sky and land on our driveway… A weather balloon landed on the house!! Tim climbed up on the roof to get the deflated orange portion down, and we put the recorder box in a prepaid mailing envelope attached to it, to mail it back to NOAA. It was pretty cool! Tim spent more phone time, working on items for old house (termite inspection, electrician and roofer), and then after work, we both went to the old house to finish things up (last cleaning, Tim fixed the washer spigot, cut grass, loaded up the mower and weed eater, etc). After that, we came back home (to the new house, can’t call it that much longer!) to meet Gail and Don and then go eat a late supper with them and Elizabeth at Majestic Burger. Don and Gail spend the night, so were our first houseguests at the new house!

Saturday, Gail and Don left early for a soccer game for Katelyn and I asked to tag along (Tim stayed here to work in the garage). Katelyn did really well and scored two goals! After the game, Gail and I dropped Don off at Lake Caroline to play golf with Tim, and then we went shopping. I got a few new things for the house (sponge holders, cast iron griddle, drawer organizers, new rug for front door, two fall wreaths). Poor Gail got to drag around with me from store to store, looking for doo-dads that I wanted. And this was just the tip of the iceberg, there’s still SOOO much more we need, especially shower rods. No one can come stay and take a shower in the guest bath, since I don’t have a rod and curtain or a shower door yet! After shopping, we met the guys for a very LATE lunch at Jason’s Deli (3:30 PM, I was beyond hungry, and fairly irritable!). Don and Tim stopped by the old house to spray a wasp nest, then they went to get the treadmill from the storage unit. Don and Gail headed home, and I know they were exhausted, because Tim and I both were!

Sunday was church and Sunday school. Then, we stopped on the way home at GermanFest (in Gluckstadt) for brats, sauerkrat and shish-ke-bob. We used to go every year when my dad was alive, but had not been in the last couple of years. The sign said 28th annual, and I didn’t realize it had been going on that long! We got enough for us for lunch, and us plus Liz for supper. We had a late lunch, and watched some of the Packers/Bears game after church, then we went walking down the street to look at new houses. We stopped to talk to the neighbors two doors down, the first family that moved in on the street, but we had met everyone but them 🙂 We visited a long time, maybe a couple of hours! Then, we came home to meet Liz and watch the Saints/Cowboys game on Sunday night football (my poor Saints, they can’t win this year, boo hoo)

Monday, we were up early to let Liz use our shower, then get ready to go to the closing. We closed on the old house today, and have now ended that chapter of our lives. I miss the old house, it was the house my parents helped me get when I was still single, that I had when I met Tim, that he came to live in with me when we got married, and where we had lived all of our married life until a couple of weeks ago. A lot of memories there, but it’s time to put that in a box on a shelf and move on to the next chapter. We have a beautiful new home, and as of closing, we now own only ONE home! After the closing, Tim came home and went back to work and I went on another large grocery run. We went after work to get the last load of stuff from the storage unit, so we could close it out by the end of the month. It will be nice to not have to pay for that every month now! Our garage and dining room are our storage units now, LOL! I fixed chicken fried rice and egg rolls for supper, yummy. I’ve been craving Chinese food for quite a while now, can’t wait to go soon.

And, that ends this portion of my boring daily life and my modified online diary! Poor blog, you are pretty neglected except for these daily snippet posts 🙁

I need to be catching up on my blog, I need to watch the mountain of shows on the DVR that are mine (cooking, Masterchef, Dancing with the Stars, etc), but all I seem to do is unpack! And then later, try to figure out where I put something! I think I’m going to be doing that for a long time, figuring out where I stashed something in the frenzy that is my unpacking.

Current phrase heard around the new house: “If you were an X, where would you be?” As in, if you were the scissors, where would you be? If you were the bath soap, where would you be? 🙂

Let’s see, this past week has been a blur, which is par for the course. Monday, I went to the old house to clean everything. Suzanne came and helped and cleaned out the fridge for me, and also broke down some boxes that were left in the garage. After that, we came back to the new house (gotta start calling it “home” now! LOL!) and had leftover pizza and then got to work lining shelves. We lined until we ran out of shelf liner. Tuesday, I went to Walmart to get more, a lot more! I think I got 18 more rolls, which turned out to be close, but I bought too many short rolls and not enough longer ones. Anyway, I picked up Rally’s for lunch on the way back, as Tim was busy at work all day Monday and Tuesday with conference calls. Wednesday, I stayed home all day and worked on unpacking, lining shelves, etc.

We got another offer on the house on Wednesday evening. We made a counter offer, then heard back Thursday morning that they did not accept our offer. Our realtor was pretty confident though, that after they had seen other properties in the area in our price range, they might think differently. And apparently, they did, because they made another offer late Thursday. We slept on it, prayed on it, made one final counter for a minor difference, and then had a verbal agreement Friday morning. We went and signed papers Friday afternoon at our realtors office, then went to Ridgeland Specialty Hardware to get the trash bins that should have been installed before we closed, but were not. After that, we came home and did some more unpacking.

Friday night, we went out to have a celebratory dinner and a long over due date night. Tim took me to Two Rivers, which we had never been to before. Tim had a ribeye and I had the grilled redfish with shrimp. Since we were celebrating, we had tiramisu for dessert, which was delicious!

Tim took two more vacation days, on Thursday and Friday. He has been SO wanting to work on his new surround sound, so he did just that. Thursday, I ran to Fresh Market to get the Thursday Little Meal deal (bacon, juice, potato/cheddar/chive pancake mix and some other items), and also stopped at the old house to check the mail. When I got back Thursday afternoon, he had started cutting holes in the ceiling in the great room (five). Friday, he worked on getting everything hooked up to his components, and we were busy Friday with negotiations on selling the old house. Saturday, he worked on getting his outdoor speakers installed on the screened in porch out back. They sound awesome! All of them 🙂 What really surprised me was that he has it fixed where you can listen to one thing in the great room on those speakers, and at the same time, you can listen to a different input of music out on the back porch. Way cool! Saturday afternoon, we also took both vehicles and loaded them to the max at the storage unit and brought and unloaded them here. Exactly what we needed, more boxes! But we are wanting to get that storage unit emptied so we can stop paying a monthly rental on it. We stopped and picked up Sonic on the way home and had a late lunch at 4 PM, ugh, I hate eating that late! 🙂

Sunday, always my favorite day of the week, was a very busy day for us. We made it back to church, after missing last week (which we both hated to do). We started a new sermon series, Next: A Study of Joshua, and had a great lesson in Sunday School. Gail had texted me on the way to church, saying that she was driving down to pick up David, who was flying home from Alaska. He’s been gone all summer, working for Holland in Alaska and is finally coming home. Well, for about 10 days, then he leaves for a month or more to tour Iceland, Europe, and take a cruise from Venice through the Greek isles, Mediterranean, Straits of Gibraltar and back across the Atlantic. That boy has a tough life 😀 Anyway, she said they would come out to our area of town to eat lunch and hoped we could meet them. So, we met Gail, David, Elizabeth, Jeremy, Kathryn, Katelyn, Sam and Suzanne for lunch at Newk’s. Afterwards, everyone came to see the new house and we visited all afternoon, which was great. Elizabeth stayed a while after to grade papers and watch some of the Saints game with us. It was great to hear it in surround sound! The Saints finally won one, beating the Vikings at home, and are now 1-2. After that, Tim and I split up, and I went to our bedroom to watch some of my massive amount of shows on the DVR and he watched an old movie in the den (Vertical Limit, I think).

So, that catches me up for a little bit. It’s Monday morning now and we are working on new routines. Tim is back at work, I’m doing laundry, but we still have a mountain of boxes to wade through and unpack. One box at a time! I need to go to the grocery story today, and one day this week, maybe tomorrow, I need to make a huge run to Sam’s Club. I had gotten low on many items that I regularly buy there, so there would be less to move. Time to start back stocking up (I don’t like running out of paper towels and toilet paper, LOL!)

Hope everyone is having a great day and will have a great week!

Let’s see… Monday 9/8 turned out to be a fairly quiet day. In the morning, I made the rest of the calls and got all of the utilities transferred over to our name (from the builder’s name) at the new house. The water association was a different one than what we are currently on, so I had to drive up to their offices and fill out the paperwork and give them money. I stopped at Kroger and picked up some food from the deli, bread, milk and cereal. We’re eating take-out, sandwiches and cereal at this point 🙂

Tim met with a realtor who had brought his clients to see the house, and he brought out a roofing guy. We knew the roof would be an issue, since it’s original to the house (21 years old), but has never leaked or given us a problem. The roofer guy said it was fine, just old and probably needing replacing. He is going to send another guy out to measure and make a quote to give to the client, who we hope turns out to be a prospective buyer and gives us an offer on the house.

Monday afternoon, I vegged… trying to grab more “calm before the storm” 🙂 I watched/skimmed some shows on the DVR and deleted them. We got busy after Tim finished working and got back into packing mode. I started on the food in the kitchen and he packed his guns and some guy stuff inside. We also packed all the shoes (yikes, we had more than I thought) and other odds and ends in the closet. Every time I think we’re about done, we find more to pack! I’ve still got books in one of the bookcases which Tim says I need to leave out so the house will show better, and it’s driving me nuts to not have them packed up! There’s also a lot more food and the last of the appliances (coffee pot, coffee grinder, toaster oven, etc), and then our clothes and toiletries. I’m just ready for it to be packed, then moved, and then.. unpacked! LOL!

We finally stopped about 11 PM Monday night and I went to read. Tim apparently stayed up working at work, writing a new program for something. He’s trying to get some projects turned in and stuff done before he is off for a few days. He’s going to take off the rest of this week (Wed-Fri) and then play it by ear as to how much he needs to be off next week. We’re very thankful he has a great (and very understanding) boss and they work for a really good company 🙂

Tuesday morning early, I got busy with more housework and cleaning (as we have another showing this afternoon at 3:30. I watered all my herbs and flowers, thankfully most of them are in pots and will eventually be loaded up on some truck and moved to the new house. I will probably need to pull out the sprinklers and hose again and water the grass, but I am hoping it won’t need it soon. I guess I’ll have to drive back and do that at some point, along with a huge cleaning session after we have moved everything out.

I had uploaded some photos of the perennials that are in our yard (but have now stopped blooming), so we could put out to show prospective buyers that the yard usually looks better than it does right now! I went to CVS late Tuesday morning and picked those up and also went to Dollar General and got more smaller boxes (to use in packing the food and pantry). After a quick lunch, I started back packing in the kitchen. I tackled one of the two junk drawers – and boy oh boy! I had no idea of the junk buried in the back! I was in the middle of packing when the realtor called at 2:15 and said “they are sitting outside your house, a little early, is the house ready for showing”? Um, hello, you said 3:30, so we thought we had another hour! Another fire drill, throwing things around, tidying up, turning on all the lights, then headed to the library (for the free wi-fi, since Tim is trying to work and finish a project before he’s off for the rest of the week).

After the realtor finished in the house, we headed home and Tim wanted to work some, but the blind guy we had contacted called and wanted us to meet at the new house to look at window treatments. We went up there and met him for a while, looked at shutter, shades, and blinds, along with some sample books and finally decided. We’re going to do plantation shutters in the great room, keeping room and breakfast room. We’ll do roman shades on the big back doors and over the kitchen window, and regular 2″ blinds in all the other rooms (laundry, bedrooms, Tim’s office and the ones in the hall looking out front). After that, we found more items for the punch list and met with the builder’s helper guy Spencer. We finally finished up about 3 1/2 hours after we got there! We called Suzanne and met her for a late supper at Majestic Burger. I had my regular thing, a grilled mahi-mahi sandwich on wheat and split some fries with Tim. Not healthy, but we’re SO not eating healthy right now!

So, Tuesday turned out to be another busy day! Wednesday, we close on the new house!

More daily ramblings, as we get closer and closer to the closing on the new house (and giving away investing all of our savings for a downpayment!), and hopefully closer to selling our current (aka old) house.

I posted on Wednesday morning 9/3. Tim had a really bad night, Tuesday night, and didn’t sleep much. He’s pretty sick with a sore throat, cold type symptoms, scratchy voice, congestion, etc. I think he got up once or twice during the night and watched tv or worked on the computer because he couldn’t sleep. Poor thing. He won’t take a day of sick leave though, which is why he has more accumulated with his company than he could ever use 🙂

Wednesday turned out to be a nice, quiet day! I kept thinking to myself all day “enjoy the calm before the storm!” I went to Kroger and got a few groceries, then came home and just did some odd jobs around the house, played on my ipad a little, watched a little tv, and basically ignored packing. Until about 4 PM, then I packed a couple of boxes 🙂 We had no showings on Wednesday, so we didn’t have to rush out of the house and be gone, especially at dinner time. I thought I was done with cooking, but still eeking out a smidge more, although what we had for supper wasn’t really cooking. Tim’s friend Tony came around 6:30 to eat, hang out and spend the night, as he has a really early doctor’s appointment Thursday morning. I made tomato soup and grilled cheese, one of my favorite comfort meals. After supper, we were watching NFL Network and got to talking about the house, so of course, we roped Tony into going to see the new house 🙂 We’re horrible!

Thursday started out as another quiet day. I washed sheets and towels and cleaned up the guest room and guest bathroom. Tony might have been our last houseguest in the old house, since I can’t seem to talk Gail into coming before we move 😀 Tim is feeling a little bit better, but digging around looking for OTC meds to take, so apparently he’s not as well as he lets on! We didn’t have any showings, but ended up with another houseguest. Suzanne called around 5 PM and said her power was out, so she was coming over to stay the night. Tim and I worked in the yard till dark. Might be the last time cutting the grass here, without having to load up the mower on the truck and bring it over 😀

Friday morning, I had a haircut appointment. While I was there, Tim texted me that we had another showing Friday morning late, so I ran home to finish putting everything away and tidy up (again!). We were walking out the front door and the realtor and client drove up, that’s the first time that has happened! She didn’t look like someone who would buy our house, and sure enough, about the time we got to a restaurant to order lunch, the realtor texted they were done (less than 15 minutes). Oh well, we had a nice lunch at Krilakis anyway 🙂 Friday afternoon, after Tim finished work, we headed to the new house (yes, again!) to look for more punch list items. I keep telling Tim “they are tired of us adding things to the list” and “they are only going to fix so much”, but he keeps persisting. 🙂 After we got home, we heated up some leftovers for Tim, popcorn for me, and settled in to watch some things on the DVR and clean up a few shows.

Saturday, Tim had an early tee time, but woke up feeling bad still, so he decided not to go play. Which is VERY unlike Tim. Usually if he makes a commitment, he keeps it. But that is indicative of how bad he’s still feeling, if he doesn’t want to go play golf! We had a lazy morning, then got busy with more packing. My inclination is to get everything packed, everything, even though we still have 4 more days to closing and a week before the “big” move. Sigh. Suzanne popped over (unannounced!) around lunch and visited for a while. We packed (and sweated) all afternoon and into early evening. I can tell I’m going to be sore for the next couple of weeks, LOL!

Sunday is SO my favorite day of the week! We are loving church and our new Sunday School group. I told Tim today after we got out, I was just the epitome of happy, because they gave us new Sunday School books for the fall period (“Bible Studies for Life” from Lifeway). I nearly squealed in delight when I was handed one 🙂 I was always a teacher’s pet, you know 🙂 Anyway, we are nearing the end of the sermon series “All In” and had another good sermon from our regular pastor, this week’s symbol was the altar. And he did a play on words, and urged us all to live All-In, “all-tered” lives. Sunday School started in the new book, and this week we talked about church membership, and what it means to be a “member” of a church versus a part of the body of Christ (from Ephesians 2:17-22).

After we left church, we stopped at the auto parts store to get some injection cleaner for the engine of the Explorer, since the “check engine” light keeps coming on, unless we put in ethanol-free gas. Then we went to Taco Del Mar, where we have not been in ages. I had two avocados left at the house, so we decided to pick up enough tacos, burrito (for Tim), rice and beans to go along with the guacamole and chips, to last us for lunch and dinner. I packed all the cookware, all the dishes, all the glasses yesterday, so we are down to using paper plates and plastic cups. We got home late, changed into Saints shirts and started the recording of the first Saints game against Atlanta (which they ended up losing in overtime by a field goal), when our phones started going crazy. We got a text from Tim’s mom that they were headed to town and wanted to catch up and maybe see the house and do some shopping, and we got a text from one realtor, and then a phone call from a second one, wanting to show the house, one at 4:00 and one at 4:30. We finished eating, cleaned up the house, changed clothes, turned on all the lights and left around 2 PM. We met Tim’s family at the outlet mall, where Linda got some clothes for the Gideon meeting and Mitchell got a new suit (he’s going to go back to speaking in churches in the area for the Gideons). I got a pair of black ankle boots for fall/winter at the Clarks outlet, not sure if they are what I want, I might should have looked around more, but I don’t have a lot of extra time right now to clothes shop! LOL! Tim’s family ate before we got there, so we met them to shop, then headed to the new house. Brittany and David saw the house for the first time, and we got to meet Emi’s brother Lazarus, who arrived recently from Mexico. After that, we all headed back to Pearl and shopped for Terry’s store until closing. Tim and I came home, ate leftover tacos and finished the sad Saints game. Now, we are watching Sunday night football. I’m glad football has returned! This is our ONE Saints game in this house, next week we will be watching (hopefully!) from the new house!

I expect Monday and Tuesday to be very busy… lots of calls to make, I’m sure last minute things will pop up, and we are waiting to hear on the closing time and location on Wednesday. After we sign papers and give them all our money, we’ll get keys and start moving in! The big move is scheduled for next Saturday, we should have a crowd, all of Tim’s family and a lot of mine who are here. We can’t wait!!!

I’m counting down the days to closing on the new house!

Let’s see … the last boring rambling post ended on the Saturday before Labor Day. I posted in the morning, while Tim was playing golf. After I got off the computer, I got in the kitchen and tackled the last great job – starting to pack my kitchen. I made a small dent, packed about 3-4 boxes and partially emptied a couple of cabinets. Still a long way to go, but I hope to get more packed on Labor Day. I got a call from our realtor while I was slaving away, that she wanted to show the old house at 1:30 PM. That was a first, so far she’s just been the listing agent and had not shown it herself. It was a friend of hers, she said. Tim got home from the golf course after lunch, so we got cleaned up and headed out around 12:45. I let Tim pick where to go eat (after all that hard work lugging his heavy golf bag for 18 holes, he should get to pick!), and he picked Five Guys. Not exactly healthy, but still very tasty! We love their drink machines, and the burgers and fries cannot be beat. After that, we left and drove to the new house and met Tim’s buddy Charlie. We spent a couple of hours there, going through the house again and adding more items to the punch list. Charlie works for a builder and has a great eye and pointed out a lot of things we had missed. It was raining when we got to the house (yeah for not having to water at the old house for a few more days!!) and I got to stand out on my back screened porch and see it rain, hear it in the trees, smell the freshness. Bliss, sheer bliss. I told Tim, expect me to be out there quite a bit when it’s raining. Now that the screen is up, there are no bugs and it’s just heavenly. Anyway, after that, we headed back home and settled in. USM was playing on the brand new SEC Network against Ms State, and as I feared, it was a huge blowout. We used to have such a good football team, always having winning seasons and going to bowl games almost every year. That came to a screeching halt two years ago, and our poor Golden Eagles have not won but one game in two seasons. Ms State humiliated us on tv, beating us 49-0. Excruciating to watch, to say the least.

Sunday is always my favorite day of the week! Church, with our regular pastor, still in the sermon series “All In”. This week’s symbol was the yoke, as from Matthew 11:28-30, “come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you… for I am gentle and humble”. Another great sermon. This week in Sunday School, Skip led the lesson rather than Tommy and chose a passage from Leviticus 25:1-7, about the Sabbath and the land taking a break on the seventh year, as well as the people observing the Sabbath. Very interesting discussion and we really enjoyed it 🙂 After church, we texted Suzanne and told her we were going to lunch at Newk’s and invited her to come. She was having a hard time and said she really needed to see us, so she was glad to come meet us. Tim had a bbq chicken pizza, I had a half caesar salad with salmon, and Suzanne got the grilled pimento cheese and tomato basil soup. I can’t wait to be in the new house and it gets to be fall, and I make my homemade tomato-basil-parmesan soup in the crockpot, LOL! We visited a long time at Newk’s, till a little after 2 PM. After that, we came home and Tim did the live draft with our fantasy football league. I decided to let it auto-draft for me this year, I have enough stress with the two houses and packing and moving to worry about fantasy football, LOL! 🙂

Monday morning, Tim had another early tee time. Nothing like waking up at 6 AM on a holiday 🙁 He left to go play, and I started cleaning up the house. We had another showing at 10:45 AM. I have already (after ONE week!) gotten tired of dressing and going to a store to wander for an hour, so I took my Kindle, went down to the gazebo near the lake and read while the house was being shown. Tim called after I got back, and was headed home, after helping a buddy with his golf cart (translation: they had to soup it up!). He stopped and got us Chick-Fil-A on the way home, which was good and also very sweet of him. After eating, he went down to the neighbors to help with his fence, but he’s still not ready for help (which I think means he is stalling, because he knows we are moving in a little over a week!). We ended up visiting with our neighbors for a while, which was nice and might be the last time we sit and visit 🙁 After that, we both got to work packing, me in the kitchen and Tim in the garage. After several hours, our next door neighbors came over to check out our current house, and stayed to visit. We offered to take them to see the new house and we were so happy they agreed, and they said they loved the new house, just beautiful!

Tuesday, we got back to work. Tim woke up with a sore throat, and unfortunately I had packed most of the medicine! Lucky for him I knew where I had put that box 🙂 I got busy cleaning the house, defrosted the outside freezer (MAN, i can’t wait to upgrade to a frost free one), cleaning bathrooms, floors, sinks, etc and basically keeping the house “show ready”. Good thing too, because we got a call from the realtor saying that we would have a second showing this afternoon from one of the ones that came to see the house this weekend. Anyway, I made some supper, early in the day and put in the fridge and I told Tim, this may very well be the last meal I cook in this house! Sniff sniff. We got the house ready and left, and headed to the new house. We were happy to see more of the punch list done, and that they had started to do the cleaning. Also, the gas was on, so the gas lanterns were burning out front, the posts and corner pieces were installed on the front porch and I got to play with lighting the gas burners on the cooktop 🙂 After we got home and had supper, we watched a little tv, then Suzanne came over to visit for a while. She tried to run, but it was raining, so she had to do the treadmill. She’s training for her 10K in November, so she really does need to stick to the schedule of running.

I know these posts are NOT interesting to anyone else. They’ve turned into a diary of what we are doing, with nothing really fun or interesting for others to read. Tim wants me to keep a record of showing the house, and this seemed like the easiest way. Hopefully we can get an offer soon, but if not, then maybe it will show better after we’ve moved out. Anyway, I’m glad to be able to get a lot of things down that are going on. I know as the date approaches for us to close, it’s going to be nearly impossible for me to blog regularly, and I hope that I can remember a lot of it once we do finally get to a point where I can sit down and type it all out on the blog. In the mean time, it’s now Wednesday morning and our day count is down to seven, we are set to close a week from today! Tim and I will start moving on our own after closing and then next Saturday, we’ll have the “big” move. I can’t wait!

More later, as time allows!

This past week turned into a week revolving around the old house. We got the sign up in the yard last Saturday while we were gone to Linda’s, and Sunday we had left the house pristine as we left for church. We hoped we would hear and have our first showing on Sunday, but all we had was a phone call setting up an appointment for Tuesday evening at 6 PM to show the house.

The first “fire” call came Monday morning. A realtor lady was ‘in the neighborhood” with clients and wanted to stop by. HELLO! Tim works from home and we are both here, actually living here. As in, I was cleaning, not dressed, had stuff out, etc. We put her off 30 minutes, threw everything in place, got ready and left. As soon as Tim texted her that we were out, she responded back that they had another appointment and would be an hour or more. Well. My goodness, why couldn’t she have told him that to begin with? We wouldn’t have rushed! Anyway, we packed up and went to the library for free wi-fi. She was supposed to text when finished but after 2 hours, we decided to do a drive by and sure enough, no cars. So, our first experience was not great! We got back, got settled in, and Suzanne came over around 4 to visit. She was having a bad day and didn’t want to be alone. Tim got another call, this time from the realty company we are using, but a different agent, asking to show the house around 6:30 PM. So, another lesson learned, a lot of people look around suppertime, so me cooking dinner at home every night is probably not going to work for a few days or a week or so 🙂 Anyway, Suzanne wanted to go with us, so we ended up going to McAlisters to eat supper and hang out. We did another drive by around 7:45 PM but saw the realtor’s cars, so we dropped Suzanne at her car and headed to Dick’s for Tim to shop. About the time we walked into Dick’s, we got a text from the realtor that they were leaving, so we came home not long after. Two in the first day, I wonder is that about normal? We have never sold a house before, so this is an exciting new adventure for Tim and I 🙂

Tuesday, I got up early to start watering. It took me nearly 3 hours to do the front and back yards. We had had an 80% chance of rain on Monday and didn’t get a drop, but no rain in the forecast for a while, so I had to water.(NOTE to self: you are going to love, love, love having the irrigation system at the new house, no more dragging hoses and sprinklers around, LOL!). The grass looks terrible, hopefully that won’t deter any prospective buyers from buying the house. Anyway, after some cleaning, laundry, running the dishwasher and cooking Monday night’s supper for lunch on Tuesday, we had the house ready for any last minute drop-ins. We had a call around 4 PM, and they wanted to show it last minute, so was really glad to be ready. All we had to do was pick up a couple of items, turn the air down and turn on every light in the house! We went up to the new house and stayed until both showings were over. Then back home for a burger and to veg out a bit in front of the tv.

Wednesday morning I got up early to get started on some housework and get a shower. I didn’t think to check my email for a bit but when I did, I was surprised to find an email from Tuesday night, from our realtor, with the first offer on the house! That was fast, as Tim thought it would be. Of course, it was a horrible offer, $10K under what we listed the house for, asking for several thousand in closing costs, carpet and some other items. Talk about lowball! The realtor also said she thinks another offer would be coming in on Wednesday. We had a showing after lunch on Wednesday, so we relocated to the library again. This was a shorter viewing, so we came back after about 40 minutes.

No showings Wednesday night or Thursday. Thursday afternoon, we met the builder’s help guy (Spencer) at the new house to do the punch list. We walked through everything and ended up with a page and a half of nit picky items. Spenser thinks the house will be ready before the closing date, it’s a shame that we can’t move up the date. They do have to put one final coat on the floors, so there will be another window where we cannot get in the house, boo. After the meeting, we swung through Sonic for corn dogs (for me and Suzanne) and a burger for Tim, then came home to watch the Saints final preseason game. Gail and Don arrived at the beach and FaceTimed with us, to show us the great house they are staying in over the Labor Day weekend with some of their kids and grandkids.

Friday, Tim got off work early… his company usually releases them early before a long holiday. He left to go play golf, but before that, we had a text from a realtor that they wanted to show the house between 4-5 PM. I’m really grateful for a couple of hours notice! I left and ran to Walmart and got some shelf liner for the new house and a couple of other odds and ends. I was glad to receive a text to let me know that they were done, and I could come back! I got home, pulled everything back out, changed clothes, and started cooking supper. So, of course, you see where this is going! I got a text from our realtor at 6:10, asking if another realtor could show it at 6:30. Yikes. I’ve never slung food around in a kitchen so fast! I got out at 6:28 and went to Home Goods to wander around and look for things for the new house. They had a ton of fall stuff and Halloween stuff, and not as much general house things as I would have liked. Tim finished playing golf and drove to where I was and we headed back to the house (it had been nearly an hour, with NO word). We found it empty, so we went in and made ourselves at home! I had to then pull out everything I had hidden, wash dishes, and heat up the food.

Now, it’s Saturday morning and this post is soooo boring! I *know* it’s of no interest to anyone but me, and heck, in two years, I probably won’t care one whit. But today, this week, it’s been an interesting week, so I wanted to document it. It’s Saturday morning, Tim is at the golf course and I’m enjoying some peace and quiet. I wonder if today we’ll have any surprise showings? I will start a new post, to get us through the long Labor Day weekend!