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.