Selling schmelling

We're done. The pictures have been taken, the contracts with the real estate agent have been signed, we're selling our house! Well, you know, if we can find a buyer.

Little things.

Our first open house is this Sunday, which also happens to be TK's birthday.

Here's how I think it'll go, version ONE:

12:00: Open house begins

12:15: Call from agent: "I can't believe how many people are here!"

12:30: Call from agent: "Oh my, there's a bidding war going on! There are THREE couples all desperate for your house!"

12:45: Call from agent: "A fourth couple just threw their name in the mix!"

2:00: Open house ends. People are still milling around outside, marveling at our house.

5:00: Multiple offers, all above our asking price.

What do you think? Am I going to be disappointed on Sunday?

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Here's how I think it'll go, version TWO:

12:00: Open house starts.

2:00 Open house finishes. Agent says: "We got a few looky-loos, but no serious buyers came through. It was a slow day because of x, y, z."

6 months later...

5:00: Finally got an offer, significantly below asking price.

What do you think? Am I going to be pleasantly surprised on Sunday?

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Realistically, I think it'll be somewhere in between those two extremes. Or at least I hope. I know open houses rarely sell a house, so I actually don't have big expectations for Sunday. And quite honestly, we haven't seen any houses we like yet, so the thought of our house selling very quickly scares me just as much as it selling very slowly. Ideally, it'll sell on the very day that we find our perfect new house...whenever that day is...

Oh sorry, fell into dream land again!

Recovered (knock wood!)

I think the whole house is healthy at the moment, though I'm still pretty run down and tired out. Not sure if that's leftover from the sickness, or if it's just normal pregnancy tired, or if it's because I've been cleaning/organizing constantly. I swear, I didn't know our house was such a mess and so disorganized! It looked okay...honest! As long as you didn't open any closets or drawers. Or go into the basement. Or the extra bedroom. Or pay too much attention to the piles of crap on the kitchen counters. Okay, I guess it was a mess.

We're getting there, though there's a lot to still do this week. But if everything goes well, our house will be listed this weekend! Yikes!

So, you know how we celebrated Valentine's Day by moving stuff to a storage space? Yesterday, when we were finally all healthy, we celebrated by...moving more stuff to the storage space. Do we know how to party or what? Super glamorous! I did, of course, wear my Oscar-approved gown for all box moving. So at least there was that.

I got nothin' funny today. Yo, I walk the fine line between sanity and...lack there of...on on daily basis as it is. I'm afraid all this moving stuff has pushed me firmly into the "sane" category. I miss the warm happiness of being just a little nuts.

Off to call a mortgage broker now. Think I should try to tap into my crazy first? I'll try to resist, as I'd like to be approved for more than 3 easy payments of $19.95.

I'll be back...

I'm still around. Of course I caught the stomach bug making the rounds through the house. Feeling slightly better today, though I think I need to go sleep for another 6 or 7 hours.

Anyway, I'm so far behind on reading/commenting on all your blogs...sorry! On the plus side, I can't wait to have so much to read once I'm feeling better!

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And on the other plus side, you do remember Dollhouse is on tonight, right? Yippee!!!

Who's watching with me?

When Peter Parker confuses his secret identities

Once in a while, Peter Parker mixes up his "Spiderman" and "Ruby the Drag Queen" secret identities:



(Thanks to N-man for creating this awesome Potato Head Spiderman in high heels!)

The most (sarcastic) awesome Valentine's Day on record

So, did you all have a nice Valentine's Day? I hope so!

We didn't. Are you ready for a gross story? Here's how mine went:

Well, first I should qualify that I'm not a big fan of the "holiday". We don't really celebrate it. Call us unromantic, but it I'd much rather be kind to one another every day than create some unrealistic demands on a Hallmark holiday.

However, I'd hoped it would go better than this.

We started out our day by...wait for it...renting a storage space. And moving a zillion boxes and furniture! Really, nothing says "Valentine's Day" like a little manual labor.

We got home around lunch time, when B-man started to feel sick. He'd had a stomach bug Thursday night, but hadn't thrown up since then. Turns out he was saving it up for Saturday.

Around dinner time, B-man threw up all over EVERYTHING. I was sitting on the couch with him, and he managed to hit every couch cushion. And a blanket. And me. And N-man. N-man reacted as I wanted to: he ran into the corner, yelling and crying "It's on me! It's on me! Get it OFFFFFFF!" But then running away whenever we tried to get his clothes off.

TK and I started mopping up as best we could the couch and floor, and stripped both boys. TK started a bath and threw the boys in the tub, while I grabbed the blanket, the kids' clothes, and headed down to the laundry. I stripped myself as I was completely covered. I mean, my hair, my shirt, both arms, my watch, my pants, even my socks. It was truly disgusting. I cranked the washer up to hot, and got it going. Then I raced upstairs, completely naked (and still with PUKE in my hair! ACK!)

Now I have a problem, though. What I want more than anything is to turn the shower as hot as it can possibly go, and wash 10,000 times while scalding my skin for about an hour until I finally feel clean. But of course, after the boys' bath, and the hot water washer load, there is almost no hot water left. So I'm forced to shiver in the lukewarm water, desperately washing and washing and washing, hoping frigid water is as good at removing germs as hot.

I went downstairs, and TK and I just stared at the couch. It was pretty disgusting. I finally decided to scrub it with a scrub brush and dishwashing detergent. Probably not the recommended treatment, but it worked.

We got the boys to bed. And that's when TK started to feel sick...

So, I fully realize our Valentine's Day could have been far, far worse. But still, I think that any Valentine's Day that starts out with manual labor and finishes up with half the house covered in vomit deserves a do-over. I hope all of you had a better weekend than we did. And I'm hoping next year we can have a slightly more romantic Valentine's Day!

We interrupt this blog...

...to bring you the GREATEST television news of the year. Do you know what this Friday is? It's the premiere of DOLLHOUSE!

What is Dollhouse, you ask? It's the newest show from Joss Whedon. You know, the genius who brought us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel, and Firefly, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.

The show sounds kind of crazy...it's about a group of women who are routinely reprogrammed to fit the needs of whoever hires them. But really, does it sound any stupider than the premise of a teenage girl who fights vampires? Or a vampire with a soul who fights demons? Or a space-western about outlaws with hearts traveling the solar system? Or a wannabe supervillain falling in love? Boy, Joss Whedon shows don't really condense well to a single sentence!

Dollhouse premieres this Friday, February 13 at 9pm on Fox. You all need to watch it. Seriously. You know how approximately half of my readers have borrowed the DVDs of Firefly from me and loved it? Yeah, well you're all still kind of in trouble for not watching it when it was on TV in the first place. Oh sure, I tried to tell you all how great it was, but did anyone listen? Judging from the ratings it got, I believe TK and I were the only people who watched it back when it was on TV!

So for all of you who missed Firefly, here's your shot at redemption. For those of you not familiar with Joss Whedon shows, they sometimes are a bit of a slow starter. Character development plays heavily in the shows, and you can't get that all out of the way in the first 10 minutes. So don't watch a few minutes and shut it off...give it an episode or two before you make your judgment.

Okay, I'm teasing, you don't *have* to watch it. It'll just make you supercool and really, isn't that what we're all aiming for? Then you can come back here and tell me about how you watched it and I'll love you forever!

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Good golly, I'm excited about this show. But if we're being honest, this blog post is spurred by my fear that like Firefly, I'm going to get totally invested and then they'll cancel it after 10 episodes. And six years later, I'll still be mourning the death of the show...

So I'm desperately trying to tell everyone about it, in the hopes it'll get awesome ratings and NOT be canceled immediately as I fear.

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As a followup to my post about Sophie Kinsella, of course the next day I got a call from the library saying my book had arrived. So, I picked it up and returned the one I bought. At least I didn't waste any money on this one! I wouldn't say it was awful, but I'll never reread it. I posted a review here, if anyone is interested.

The Fine Art of Compromise

The boys are getting so good at reaching compromises. And as an added bonus, the compromises they reach, that make them so pleased, are usually absolutely hilarious. Here are two conversations we had today:

We were talking about how when the baby comes, there's no place in our house now for the baby to sleep. B-man immediately offered to let the baby sleep in their room. I explained that babies cry a lot and wake up during the night, so while it was really nice of him to offer his room, it would be too annoying for him and N-man to have a baby sleeping in their room. N-man had this awesome solution: "How about we put the baby in the closet?"

Both N-man and B-man think that's the perfect solution. The baby is small...the closet is small. It has a door so they won't hear the crying. I don't know, it's kind of hard to argue with that logic!

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Later, I was driving with the boys in the van. They were talking about a new house, asking what color it was going to be. I explained that we won't know until we find our new house. N-man said he wanted it to be yellow. B-man disagreed, demanding blue. The two started arguing back and forth with one another. Finally N-man suggested this awesome compromise: "Okay, B-man, how about the front of the house is blue and the back is yellow?" They both agreed this would work for them.

B-man then asked me what color it makes if you mix yellow and blue. I told him green, so his suggested compromise was a green house. N-man agreed that a green house would be a workable solution.

So I guess we better narrow our search to houses that are either a) green, or b) half blue, half yellow.

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I just love this age! Three and a half years old is so fun!