what a mess

he still hasn't told me what to do.
he seems to feel better about keeping the house on the market this morning than he did last night.
how would we get out of the contract anyway? i guess it is our house and we don't have to sell it if we don't want. i'm just feeling bad for putting it on the market and then possibly taking it off a week later.
today does mark week 1.
i don't mind if he still moves us. i'm pretty neutral about it i guess. now that i'm used to the idea.noq i'm just disappointed.
the problem is if he moves us down to new braunfels and then he's gone for basically 2 to 2 1/2 yrs off and on, by the time he comes off deployment he'll have used his 2 yr minimum at that duty station. they can move him any time any where after that. the issue is not knowing.
oh why can't we see the future!!?
it doesn't matter where he leaves us -we're going to be there without him regardless.
and any one on the outside will of course say "stay where you are" and "call the whole thing off"
like they have been all along.(there's that "i told you so" looming up out of the darkness)

i wouldn't mind having new carpet still. we could afford it. it would drain all of our savings. but we could still get it put in, as a luxury for us.

if he did move us to new braunfels then at least we'd be together for the 2 months that he has before he leaves for OBC and then when he gets back from that we'd be able to be together for the 5 months before the deploys. otherwise i may as well say "hello loneliness" to the next 2-3 yrs of my life! b/c he'll be there and we'll be here on a regular basis due to him working out of town, going to trainings, being deployed, etc.

yes it is a mess and if he would just hurry up and tell me what he wants me to do we'd do something.
it makes me want to scream "doe something dodo!" no "do something DODO!"
i talked to him this morning and asked him what he wanted me to do if someone wanted to show the house. he said let them see it.
ok.
i will.
but you have to make a decision some time. we can't drag this out. we're waisting every ones time.
i had a dream that the realtor called and said someone offered us 15000 over the list price to
take the house as is.

maybe that will come true.

i doubt it.

a phone call

please don't say it.

i told you this would happen.

i told you so.

didn't anyone tell you this would happen?

i don't want to hear any of that.

TJ just called.

he's pending a deployment that's been moved up from jan/2010 to sept/09

now he is wondering whether or not to -yes i know -sell the house.

here's why:
he leaves for 6 months of training in nov. he'll get 2 weeks at christmas and then he's gone for another 5 months
then he's home for about 4 or 5 months before he deploys.
so why in the world would we sell the house?
now that everything is coming together it is falling apart.
he's "sleeping on it"

oh but he still wants the carpet. we'll just have to figure out how to pay for it out of pocket now.

oy vey!

i think i am done for the day.

i am going to bed.

what have i done??

oh boy.

now that my house is perfect for "viewing by strangers" guess what?

we decided to - ahem - get new carpet.

I HAVE WANTED NEW CARPET SINCE WE MOVED IN HERE BUDDY!
and now we are getting new carpet so we can sell the place??? are you serious?

i agree. it needs to be done. it's needed to be done for a while. but why couldn't we have done it before i got things just like i needed them to be to keep up with everything when someone is coming to look at the house? (i know. whining. sorry.)

here's the deal:
so we thought we'd start out at the highest price we could -our house has some very nice features and upgrades to it. (it's WORTH what we priced it at)and then if we get bad feed back or no results then we'd lower the price.
then our realtor noticed the spots where the cat had ripped up the carpet and said "i wish i had seen that before we listed so high. well we'll see what happens"
and TJ has worried about it ever since.
he even tried to make patches -which did fit perfectly and damn near matched. but they did look like patches. it looked worse with the patches down than the ripped up part showing.

so we thought we'd get an estimate from a company our realtor recommended that has been in business for 31 years and has this great program where -as long as your credit qualifies -you don't have to pay for anything until you close on your house. then the title company cuts them a check from the escrow you'd be getting back from your house -easy peesey.

the estimates were amazing! $3200 for the whole house or 1500 just for the living room (which is the worst room anyway).no it's not top of the line fancysmanshie carpet but it will be nice and new and fresh and clean. there are pet stains in some of the bedrooms that i just can't get up anyyway so TJ had me call the realtor and get her advice.

her advice: "well ya'll don't have to do anything you don't want to. but my gut feeling would be that i'd rather see ya'll drop the price of the house rather than just replace the floor in one room. the living room runs into the 2 spare rooms so you'd have old carpet touching new carpet and it would be way obvious no matter how close you managed to match the color. it won't be perfect. it would be better to leave it like it is. but even if you lower the price of the house and do nothing the issue could still come up. there's too much for buyers to choose from right now and for the price we listed at and all the extras you already have it would just be extra amazing for someone to come in and see brand new carpet too."

so now tomorrow i have to spend my day packing up every single floor in each of my closets. unload the book shelves.(but that's not too hard.
and unload the entertainment centers.

oh! and how about this!? TJ has been put on emergency standby for the hurrican! which means he will run home tomorrow just long enough to make sure he has enough supplies and gear for 2 weeks if he gets sent somewhere -and while he's here trying to pack for that adventure i'll need him to help me move our nice fancy flat screen tv (the carpet ppl won't do it b/c they can't afford to break it) and see if we can maybe wheel the piano out in the garage so that we don't have to pay extra for them to do it. so what? will i just have a tv crammed in to my laudry room til TJ gets home to move it back or what?? recruit the neighbors to help me set it back up so the living room is all put together for "viewing from potential buyers"?

bleck. bleck bleck.

i know. more whining.

they will take all the beds apart and move all the furniture and put it all together and put it back.
but they will be here all friggin day!! friday. when on earth will Teege get to take his naps? i'm seriously toying with the idea of dragging the play pen to one of the neighbors so i can dump him in it at nap times. maybe that would help some.

oh joy.

what have i done?

it will be great once it's all done.
but the weekends are busiest for showing and it's going to be tough to get it all put back together before the weekend.

wish me luck.

i am going to need it.

some peace and quiet.

i am doing nothing today.

nothing.

well, aside from the few things that need to be picked up and wiped down and wizzing the vacuum around just in case the house shows.

i plan to sit on my ass all day.
saturday we spent the day in san antonio and then cruised new braunfels and looked at different neighborhoods. you know, jumping out of the car and grabbing flyers out of the boxes on the for sale signs. we even had a few good laughs when we'd pick up a flyer for a house that was SERIOUSLY out of our price range.
sunday we seemed to spend the entire day at walmart.
and then monday we were gone all day again.
i am glad TJ went back to work so i can have some time to myself for a bit.

the grass needs to be mowed. but it has rained every day for the last 4 days or so so it is too wet.
so if any one comes and looks at the house they will just have to ignore the grass.

we have had someone come thru to look saturday sunday and monday.
saturday wasn't a big deal. we had gone out of town for the day. everything was ready. sure. come on by.
sunday was a little different b/c we had spent the last 2 hrs at walmart and had just sat down to a wonderful elegant lunch of chili dogs when they called to show the house. they were in the nieghborhood already so i didn't think i could ask them to wait too long. i told him we could be out of their hair in 1/2 hr. which would have been ALL fine and dandy had my house not reeked of hot dogs and hormel chili. ack! so we went back to walmart and puttered around some more! we had to get the truck anyway b/c it had been left for an oil change. OH! and i got up to the check out with a few items(TJ was in the back paying for the truck) the lady rang up my stuff and i couldn't find my debit card! i dug and dug for it. i had used it earlier that day! finally found it but had already gotten out of line and she had cleared the register somehow. so i asked for my stuff back so i could get back in line. SHE WOULDN'T LET ME HAVE IT! i even showed her my card and she said "well these items are already showing purchased so until i can clear them from the register and they go back on the shelf you have to wait."
WHAT????
i wanted to shake her til her head fell off. i thought you could just void the purchase out and start over.
i eneded up going back thru and getting all new items(thank GOD there were only 3!) and going thru another line.

and yesterday was the worst so far b/c we had been in new braunfels all day looking at houses there. we left the house at 8 am and got back home a before 4. we had been home maybe 15 minutes when a realtor called wanting to show the house between 5 and 6. all's i could muster was a very unenthused "i guess that would be fine" answer for her.that's right in the middle of dinner time at my house! they are allowed to show up until 8 pm which sucks! and i will be putting my foot down when it comes to bed time. Teege goes to bed at 7. anyone that wants to see the house then will have to wait til the next day.
so we hid all of the stuff we had brought in from the car and trooped over to the neighbors house b/c i was going to have a nervous break down if i had to get back in the car. not to mention poor Teege had been in and out of his car seat all day long.
we eventually took turns going in to look at houses b/c it was too much for us and him to take him out for 5 or 10 minutes and then buckle him back in.
oh, and i had to feed him cereal going down the road yesterday.
thank god for that stuff. you just mix it with water and hey, you've got lunch. i assumed we would stop for lunch but we didn't so i'm glad i thought to take something we could fix him on the go.

ah, but we did find 3 great houses. now it's just a matter of selling this one so we can get the VA loan rolling for the next. you can't have more than 1 VA loan at a time so we can't even make an offer on a home yet. that part stinks.

anyway, i'm going to go do my tid bit of sprusing up so i can do my all day of nothing.

what about me??

it's 8 50 on a cloudy sunny morning.
i heard lil tj at 6 playing in his bed. i rolled over and hopelessly tried to ignore him. at 6 30 i got up, changed him, and gave him a bottle and climed wearily back in to my bed. at 7 15 he was still awake, starting to throw a fit.
so i got up. we rocked in the chair and watched cartoons til he had had enough of that. then we moved to the breakfast table where i toasted us each a waffle, made the coffee, mixed him some cereal, fed him. cleaned it all up. started the dishwasher, emailed our realtor about some houses we wanted to see. and put lil tj back down for his morning nap.

big TJ is still in bed.

asleep.

i'm waking him up at 9.

of course he thinks he gets to sleep in b/c he's been away at work all week. but what about me? when do i get to sleep in? when the baby sleeps in. which is almost never these days.
hello??

i know. it's to be expected.

and to make it all worse i was up at 6 45 yesterday morning. and up til midnight. I WANTED TO GO TO BED DAMMIT! i tried to go to bed but big TJ was having SO MUCH fun watching the stupid bob saggit roast on comedy central(which i thought was very stupid and not very funny at all) every time i'd tell him i was going to bed he'd get all pitiful and act like it would be the end of him if i didn't stay up with him so i did. i did manage to drag him to bed at some point. but this is why i like to get to bed at a decent time some nights. (and not every night do i care, but last night i did) b/c it will be me up in the middle of the night or at the butt crack of dawn with our child.

GGGRRRRRRR!!!!

and now the baby is melting down in his crib instead of taking a nap so i better go take care of that before he tears his crib apart.

the 7 am blues

i am trying to make a habit out of getting up early since the house is on the market. that way we have time to get breakfast and all that and i still have time to spruce up the place for any viewers.

I hear TJ waking up at 6 30 this morning. i ignored him for the most part b/c he was happy. i had to put the bumper back in his bed b/c he got his lef stuck something awful the other day. (i thought i was either going to have to call 911 or saw the rails off to get him out. AFTER i had tried to gently twist and pull and prod him free i started planning in my head what to do next. i wanted of course someone to sit with him while i hunted for the hand saw that i was praying we still had so i ran out of the nursery, threw the front door open,grabed the phone, dialed my crazy neighbors number and ran back in to him, where he was hopelessly laying on his side with his leg stuck out in front of him in the bars and his tiny hands hanging on to the rails for dear life, it was obvious he was trying to pull his leg out himself using the bars as leverage. ah but it was no use. the phone is ringing in my ear and i am praying that she is home and just as i hear her say hello i turn TJ farther on his side and his leg miraculously comes loose. i think he had been laying twisted enough on his back that his leg wasn't at the right angle to come loose. but we got it!)

anyway, he pulls and pushes on the bumper and tries to stand on it and kneel on it so we took it out. not the smartest idea i guess. well he's in there this morning just patting away at it! unless i tie the stupid thing in knots he gets it loose and drags it all to the middle of the crib and plays with it.it just doesn't feel like a safe thing for him to be playing with. but he's big enough he can't get tangled i suppose.
anyway i could hear him over the monitor. there was no sound but the quiet pat pat pat of his little hand, probably picking and patting at the teddy bears on it.

when i finally drug myself out of bed at 7 05 to go get him, he immediately got quiet and went back to sleep.

phooey!

oh well.
i'm up.
bring out the coffee.

almost 10 months old now

it's done

I have worked my tail off the last couple of weeks.
depersonalizing.
taking down pictures.
boxing up clutter and knick knack stuff
dishes that we don't need available
the junk in the yard
the leaves in the yard
painted the back door
plugged and painted over nail holes in the walls
tookd down and boxed up more stuff
organized closets
cleande and cleaned.
and cleaned some more
and when they camed to take the photoshoot of the house yesterday my realtor was bubbling over at how much we had done.

the house feels naked.

but i like it.
it's so open and free.
the kitchen even echos when you talk too loud -like an empty house does b/c there's nothing in it to absorb the sound. every surface is free of dust and clutter of any kind. it makes me want to get rid of all my knick knack crap and frames and just have every surface empty. it doesn't look bare really, and it feels so much bigger.
we'll see if all their fancy realtor tricks really work to help it sell faster. the only thing i didn't do was put fresh flowers in vases for the dining table and mantel and plant fresh yellow flowers in one of the beds outside.

the for sale sign went in the ground today.
a nice shiny white a blue coldwell banker sign, sunk in to the grass right in my front yard.
it's kind of depressing.
and exciting at the same time.
a signal for new beginnings
an end to the old annoyances of living here -though i do love this house and my neighbors - there are things about this neighborhood i don't like -ie: we live on a very busy street,the HOA can be a pain and i do have neighbors that have some serious flaws,despite the fact that i love them too it is not enough to cover up when they do things that irritate the hell out of me.
of course when we move there will be new annoyances to get used to. such as an HOA that is twice as expensive and therefore probably 100x as anal.BLAH!

we are meeting our other realtor -the one who's helping us buy - on monday to look at some stuff.. i'm excited about that. she sent us alot of CUTE mls listings to sift thru. of course i stuck to a certain price range -staying below what we are qualifying for b/c NO ONE needs to spend that much money on a house! i don't care if you have a million trillion gazillion dollars! there is no reason to have a 2000$ house payment.
of course there is a difference in the way TJ and I think and what we want. i think it's reasonable to stay in the medium to low of our price range -there are still alot of nice places out there and some even offer a TON of house for your buck. He on the other hand wants to stay in the med/high to high price range b/c "some of these are so nice!" and offer a better variety of upgrades and blah blah blah. if he would sit and look at each listing the realtor sent he would see what i mean. some of the high end houses she sent were built in the 70's anyway.....if i'm going to spend oodles of money on a house it won't be an old one. that baby better be brand spanking new!

ok,moving on.

TJ is playing the roll of married bachelor during the week and husband/father on the weekends.
yes, he went back to work this week. he works tues-fri from 8-6. and that doesn't include the hr of PT he's supposed to do each day. yuck! that makes for a long day. so he'll be home for a few nights each week, and gone a few. until we find a place to buy at least.

our selling realtor is great! she's firing at top speed all the time! totally psyched about the house. she seems to think that it will sell within 4 months at the latest, hopefully as early as 2. most of her houses go under contract after being on the market only 2 weeks.(we've seen a complete list of all her work in the last year. all of the current homes she's in charge of selling are either under contract already or just sold.) this gives me great enthusiasm and hope.

oh,we've decided to check out houses already on the market. it's ll be too tough if we try and build something. especially if this one really does sell fast. we won't be able to live somewhere else for 3 or 4 months,we have too many animals and it would be too far for TJ to drive if me and the baby stay with my mom and i'm pretty closed off to the idea of staying with his mom. so we're going to go house hunting on monday.

wish us luck.

i'm back!

how about a bullet post today? just so you can see what i've been up to and i can spare you all the unnecessary details...

• we found a house. we had been told that they were trying to move tj to san antonio rather than new braunfels but we have yet to hear anything definite on that. they are so close together that the 2 practically run together so what difference does it make which city limit we live in?
• the house: it's one of those new subdivisions that is all brand new homes. the kind that you can walk in to the office and pick your floor plan, your color scheme, the whole works. the build it for you. you just pick which corner of the subdivision to nestle it in. the draw back: there are next to no trees! but you run in to that with newer houses.
• the other draw back. once the "break ground" on our house it will take 4 months to build. this house -based on what i've seen in our current area -will sell way before the new house is ready -which would be about christmas. what to do about that? i guess we'll have to be someones house guest for a while.
• TJ leaves for his next part of school in november. another 8 weeks. he'll be back for 2 weeks over christmas, and leave again in january and be home sometime at the tail end of april. whew! i'm exhausted just thinking about all that!
• what does the above mean for the sell/buy of the houses? a POA, for me. so i can sign all of the selling and buying papers without him here - that's scary and exhilarating at the same time. he's never even considered a POA before, not even during a deployment -which is never safe! but chances are all of the paper work will be needing to be finalized at some point when he is gone.
• our new house will be ready for move in when he is home over christmas -what a great christmas present!
• this house is ready to go on the market. we are finalizing paper work with our realtor friday to get this baby out there to be seen and sold! i do have the heavy duty cleaning and once room,closet, and bathroom left to organize, but it's easy stuff. mostly just stuff that needs to be stuck in a box and stacked in the garage. easypeasy!
• oh, we went to seaworld! last week. it was a blast! i got to feed the dolphins! that was my favorite part!we saw the shamu show, the sea lions show. we went to see the penguins and the sharks -they don't let you feed them though!LOL! we went down one roller coaster -the shortest one they had there. just to cool off. it was one of those water coaster things where you splash in to a big pool at the end and the folks standing on the bridge get all soaked. we were in the 2nd row. we hardly got wet at all. there were 2 dips in the whole thing. once you topped the hill at the beginning you oonched out on this platform and it spun you in a circle -real slow-twice. we realized then we were facing backwards.ACK! and down we went. it was really a short dip -but it was awful. you went almost straight down backwards. and then we went up the next hill backwards, and out on to another platform, and spun 2 more slow circles, and then oonched out over the top of a really steep hill, and then straight down!!!! GAH! IT WAS AWFUL! it scared us both so bad we didn't go on anymore rides. when we hit the down hill part i felt TJ slam his elbow in to my chest. he was trying to hold me in my seat! it was so sweet! i was just clinging to my lap bar for dear life and here he was trying to hold on himself and make sure i didn't fall off the ride. it was calle the Journey To Atlantis. probably the worlds shortest roller coaster, but it was more than enough for me!
• we are trying for baby #2. i'll keep you posted on that. it's going to be interesting. we'll be moving to a new town, where we don't know anyone. and he'll be leaving for an on and off of 6 months- Lord knows just to factor in some extra stress i'll probably end up pregnant on top of everything else. may as well get it all over and done with at once. i'm still about 15 lbs heavier than i'd like to be at this point and my only hope would be that i would have such bad morning sickness -which i had near to none last time! -that i'd loose weight the first trimester. fingers crossed. we'll see.
• TJ ordered his dress blues for the ball last week. they have to have them you know. which is why i guess they can charge out the ass for them. it cost $750.00 for the things. pants,shirt,jacket and shoes. seven hundred and fifty friggin dollars. the draw back of being an officer -we no longer get a clothing allowance for all his uniforms and accessories b/c he makes so much more money. there are things we will both miss about him being an NCO. but i am proud of him for making the change. it really was the best thing for all of us.
• he's branching field artillery. another ACK! but he's excited about that too. i mean, what man wouldn't like to shoot off a cannon and blow something up? that's why he'll be gone for so long at the end of the year. this particular change involves quite a long stretch of training.

and that me dears i suppose is the last 2 weeks or so summed up in a nut shell. we've just been busy busy around here! hope all is well!

• oh wait!!! i got my book! the final book in the Twilight series(THANKS AUNTIE SHADES) that i've been raving about off and on all my blogging days! Breaking Dawn. i can't even decide now which book is my favorite. i think Twilight will always hold a special place in my heart-it was after all where the story unfolded- and New Moon is definitely my least favorite of the 4.And Eclipse, well, i loved it! but Breaking Dawn is nothing like what i expected!there is twist after twist! i find myself speed reading each page to get to the next which means of course that i'm going to have to go back and reread it once the craze is over so that i can better absorb every detail. *SIGH* what a lovely world some books can uncover.