Inspection Results

It's always interesting when someone evaluates your home.  We've been living in it for 6 years and never had a problem.  The house is only 6yrs old so what could possibly be wrong??  They came up with 7 things.

1)  Radon.  I expected that there would be radon b/c all the neighbors had it.  We've never had it tested b/c we never go in our basement.  Apparently on a Radon test 0-4 is "safe".  Our score was.... drum roll please.... 14.  The opposite of safe.

2) Sump Pump.  One of the disadvantages of our current back yard is that it is completely sloped which means you can't put a big patio or a swing set.  At the bottom corner of our yard is a drain (think grate where you don't want to know what weirdo things are dwelling down there).  Because of our elevation and the grate, we would never get water in our basement.  Most of our basement is probably above the grate.  As such, in 6 yrs I have NEVER heard the sump pump go on.  According the the inspector that is because the sump pump doesn't work.  Huh.  I guess you have to periodically put water in the hole in the ground. 

3)  Squishy wood.  The wood trim around the window in the front of the house was squishy in one spot.  They asked us to caulk around the window.  I went out there to inspect the squishyness and when I pressed on it the thing practically caved in.  So now it looks worse than when it was inspected. Awesome.

4)  Pipe caps.  On the roof of your house there are pipes that let the sewage smells escape your house.  Ours still had the caps on them as if they had just come out of the factory (6 yrs ago).  For 6 yrs we have been trying to find out why the jacuzzi tub smells like sewer after you take a shower.  Now we know.  Thanks MI Homes... you are going to get your asses out here and fix that.

Those 4 are the ones we agreed to.  4 out of the 7.  The next three were ridiculous and we said no way Jose.  As a testament to how stupid these requests were, when we responded with "no way Jose" the buyers just signed it.  No ifs ands or buts.

5)  Slanty AC.  The air conditioner is not level and that MAY decrease the life of the a/c.  You should have someone come out and inspect it and make it level and possibly replace it.  Um, no.  It works fine. If you want it level, stick a brick under it when you move in. 

6)  Heater.  The heater "turns off before it reaches the correct heat."  What?  Um, no.  It works fine.  Plus we had it inspected in October - here's the invoice suckers! - and we already bought you a 1yr warranty on all appliances.  

7)  Lightening.  If your house got struck by lightening, it would probably catch fire because of "blah blah blah".  No shit Sherlock.  If the house got struck by lightening that would not be cool.  However, all those "blah blah blah"s you speak of were built like that 6 yrs ago and are up to code.  If you are worried about lightening striking then YOU can pay to get it inspected.

I'm glad the inspection stuff is over.  Now on to the appraisal. 

Brain Dead

I was up really late working last night so I am pretty brain dead right now.  I actually feel numb to this whole process.  I've been trying to take emotion completely out of it because I'm so sick of getting my hopes up and then being disappointed when reality slaps me in the face.

This weekend we are scheduled to see 5 houses.  2 of them are Spec homes so I can't show them to you.  They are in a newer part of a neighborhood we like ok.  A bigger problem is that they will take several months to finish and probably have crappy unestablished yards. 

Of the 3 that are "move in ready" one is a foreclosure.  In a great neighborhood but at a ridiculously low price which makes me think that the inside has been beaten down.  Mr. Molly thinks we could put money into it and make it nice.  I know that this takes time, patience, and money and I don't really have any of those to spare on a "fixer upper."

So now we are down to two.  Both in the same neighborhood... the neighborhood we like ok. 

This one:

It seems like it might be pretty good.  I don't love the street appeal from this picture and I don't love the fireplace and the lawn/yard probably needs work the back.  But it could be pretty good.

And then this one:

Which just looks really small in the picture (why do realtors do that) when in fact it's 3200 sq feet above ground.  It does not have a finished basement, but is at a lower price point so we could finish it the way we want.  It looks like it doesn't have houses behind it which is nice.

There's also a new listing that just came on today (OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!) in a neighborhood we haven't looked in too much.  This neighborhood is kind of like our current one in places, but then there are some places that are nicer.  Mr. Molly drove by it (b/c there are no pics online yet) and said the street appeal is very good.  So we are going to try to add it to the list:

Could "NO PHOTO" be "THE ONE"?????   Who knows.

Not Moving Down, Moving Laterally

The reason the blog is called Movin' on Down is because 1) I am moving and 2) I am trying to get my size down. 

I haven't talked about #2 at all because the fact is that my size is not going down as of late.  Good news is that it's not really going up either. 

Stress and anxiety tend to wreck havoc on my scale numbers. 

I tried to copy/paste a graph of my weight loss in here but apparently I am not tech-savvy enough.  Here's a depiction of what it looks like:

_____
           \________
                            \________________
Feb                                                  End of March

(take that blogger! - i WILL make a graph)

However today I had a weekly weigh in and I lost 1lb from last week.  And my overall weight is only 0.2lbs higher from the lowest I've been since I started in early Feb.  So I'm going to go ahead and call that a victory considering the current conditions and that I haven't really been trying that hard. 

Imagine what I could do if I tried.  It's just... I can only work hard at so many things.  Job, House Selling, House Searching, Setting up Moving/Storage/Rental, Keeping Kids Alive.  That's about it.  Note "keeping kids alive" was last on the list.  Thank God cheese has protein in it and they are in good hands at daycare.

p.s. I'm going to guess that my new Canadian readers are really just Mr. Molly traveling on business.  :)

Mood Swings

So this morning I am happy.  Yes, I can go from despair to happy in 12 hours.  Thank you Zoloft.

Reasons why I am happy this morning:

• My son told me I look beautiful today totally unprompted
• Mr. Molly arrived at his business trip destination safely
• The daycare had free coffee and biscottis for the parents this morning
• Tomorrow is pajama day at daycare
• No work after 2pm today
• Cleaning lady is cleaning the house today
• RL is sending our response to the inspection request to remedy so I don't have to think about that anymore
• I get to talk to BFF this morning, and she is coming to visit in 9 days
• I found a couple houses to look at this weekend; 1 decent one, 1 foreclosure, and 2 spec homes

Note to self:  Take happy pills with regularity during house selling/buying process

Despair is setting in

The above picture is exactly what I feel like right now.  Except I want to add a caption that says "Woe is me! I can't find a $0.5M house I like!"  Yes, I know my problems are stupid.  There could be much worse situations.  Some people can't afford a $50,000 house.  Some people can't feed their kids and some people's husbands or kids have terminal cancer.

In the grand scheme of things, it's great we sold our house and eventually a house we like will come on the market or we will build one.

However, in my world right now, I look every day at realtor.com and my realtor website saved searches and every day the market is the same.  No new houses coming on, at all.  None. 

We just keep going back to ones we've looked at a million times thinking, "well maybe we could make that work." but we don't want to make a forced decision.  This is our "forever" house.  We don't want to compromise.

I wasn't really feeling this kind of despair until today.  Over the weekend we found a great house that we really liked.  We saw it on Saturday first thing and wanted to go back that same day.  RL couldn't make that work with her schedule so we planned to go back Sunday morning.  On Sat. at 5:30pm it went into contract.  Now, we didn't JUST MISS OUT on this house.  It was on the market for 20 days and it was in a neighborhood that we thought we didn't like.  But it turns out that we DO like some parts of this neighborhood and so we decided to try it out.  We just got there too late.  It was our fault.
Here is what we lost on Sat:

 

Above was actually the 2nd house that we missed out on, but the 1st one was mostly timing.  We saw it before our house was listed and by the time we had our contract it was in contract too:

But we still weren't in despair b/c RL told us that a house is coming on the market in the neighborhood we LOVE as a relocation and it would be listed right in our price range. 

Well, today when we talked to RL she said it's coming on the market way above our price range and we can't afford it.  So all the hope I had put into that little nugget vanished and on came the despair.

Now we are looking at apartments, temporary living.  That could end up being a year.  Who knows.

Hoodlums

Not much new on the house searching front so I thought I would tell you a story. 

One day, my dryer stopped drying.  It was very curious b/c it's only 6yrs old and ironically it's the only appliance that we are expected to take with us to the next house storage unit.  I asked the most knowledgeable person I know what could cause a dryer to stop drying.  Google said that probably the heating element had gone out.  He (yes, Google is a man) also said that the first thing you should check is that nothing is blocking the little vent the pushes the hot air outside.

I am not a HandyMolly.  In fact, though I have seen steam coming out of the sides of houses before, I never really thought about the fact that there was a hose leading from my dryer to the outside world.  I went searching for this opening and found a little hood covering a tube.

I reached inside the tube and felt... Styrofoam.  Someone a handyman A hoodlum had stuck a McCafe styrofoam cup inside the tube that expels the heat from the dryer to the outside world.  It was stuck in there so good that I had to break it up to get it out.  It even still had the plastic safety cap on it. 

I was seriously pissed.  When the Sears Handyman came and took the dryer apart he confirmed that the heating element had, in fact, gone out and pointed out singed lint near the burnt out part.  He said I am lucky b/c the house could have caught on fire.  The house that I am IN CONTRACT to SELL in 30 days.

What the hell hoodlums?  Mr. Molly and other observers think it must have been a neighborhood kid who didn't know the extent of what he was doing.  I don't know.  I had landscapers and painters here getting the house ready to list.  My neighbor next door has had workers around for months.. I don't know what the hell they are doing in there.  We also pissed off 3 realtors when we chose RL over them.  So it could have been a person with a vendetta.  Or it could have been a neighborhood hoodlum.  Either way I am pissed and I am checking that tube like every day.

So let this be a Public Service Announcement:  CHECK YOUR TUBE THAT GOES FROM THE DRYER TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE to make sure there is not a McDonalds McCafe Latte cup about to cause your house to go up in flames.  It could happen to you.  Especially if there are a bunch of 10yr olds running around in your 'hood playing "tag."

Inspection Day

As I write this an inspector and Jack and Jill are going through the house.  I'm sure they will not find anything but radon b/c the house is only 6yrs old but you never know.  I don't really care about the inspection at all, except that I feel bad for my in laws who planned a trip out here long before we even started cleaning out closets.  All they wanted was to keep the boys home from school and have a low key day with them and instead they had to be "displaced" for 3 hours (during nap time) for the inspection.  Ah well, we are lucky they are here because they can watch the kids while we go out again tomorrow and look for houses.  Again.

I am not that excited about any of the houses we are seeing tomorrow.  So I'm not even going to write about that.

Instead we are researching apartments to live in as temporary housing.  This, I kind of AM excited about.  Weirdly.  Seems like such a simple life to live in a furnished apartment for the summer.  Plus there will be no pressure to find a house immediately so we won't worry about making a bad decision.  And most apartment complexes have pools.  This is looking better every day.

Here's hoping that more houses go on the market next week!  Fingers crossed

p.s. HELLO to my readers in Russia and Germany!  The internet is so fascinating sometimes.

Dazed and Confused

It's no wonder that RL doesn't know what to do to help us because we must be some of the most confusing clients she has ever had.  The problem is, we don't know what we want.  We thought we did, when we put our house on the market.  But the problem is that what we want is not for sale right now. 

Hey, did you know it's a sellers market?

Anyway - there is one neighborhood we like in Stepford*.  In that neighborhood there are 6 houses for sale; 2 are above our price range, 2 are in our price range but we don't like them, and 2 are foreclosures. So, if we expand our search we are faced with crippling questions such as:

• What are the school districts we are willing to send our kids to?
• Would we move into a non-acceptable school district and look into private school?
• Would we live farther away from work for a good school district and a nice house?
• Would we live in a less nice house to be close to work and in a good school district?
• Would we settle for a bad lot if it was a nice house?
• Would we settle for a bad house if it was a nice lot?
• Is it really that big of deal to go into temporary housing?
• How temporary is temporary?
• Why did we sell our house again?
• Would we even be sad if our house sale fell through?

Mr. Molly and I are truly dazed and confused.  So if you see us, please don't ask "How's the house hunting going?" or "Are you homeless yet?" or "Do you need any boxes?" because I will just stare at you with crazy eyes.

* All names and places are changed

Hilarious

This morning I had 3 cavities filled at 7am.  Because of where they were located they gave me a ridiculous amount of numbing stuff on my left side of my face.  I could not move my mouth/cheek at all.  So I took a picture of me trying to smile and sent it to Mr. Molly, my mom and dad, and my BFF.

Apparently my mom and BFF do not read my Facebook posts b/c they did not know I was going to the dentist.  As a result these hilarious responses ensued...

Mom:  "What the hell" followed by several frantic phone calls.  When I finally got in touch with her she said "I thought you had a stress-induced stroke, I was about to get in the car and drive up there."


Dad:  Gets the txt, find my mom in the house and asks her (while she is on the phone with me) "Does she have Bell's Palsy?"


BFF:  "What the hell is going on with ur mouth?!!?" 
Molly:  Had 3 cavities filled at 7am
BFF:  "Oh good - I thought maybe u were having a stress induced stroke ;)."
Molly:  That's exactly what my mother said.

Apparently I don't hide my stress very well.

Dream #2

Last night I dreamt that I met Jack and Jill,* the people buying our house.  They came over for the inspection and for some reason we were there too.

They were a super young couple, like 22/23 yrs old and they brought several of their friends over for the inspection like it was supposed to be a party.  Jill was kind of rude.  She didn't introduce herself to me so I had to be like "So which one of you is Jill?" and she had a weak handshake. 

Jack was nice and super-cute.  I couldn't figure out why I thought he looked familiar.  One of their friends asked me about the sump pump. 

Later, someone (can't remember who) told me that Jack was a sibling of Kirk Herbstreet.  He had changed his name so people wouldn't make a big deal out of it.  Of course, I did make a big deal out of it.  Herbie is hot.

* Names still changed

What I'm Leaving

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the listing of my current house.  This is what I'm leaving to the NOs (New Owners):

Foyer

 Kitchen

 Family Room and Kitchen

 Master Bedroom (note his and hers closets)

 Master Bath

 Boys Room

 Patio (admittedly, not my fav part of the house but this pic makes it look nice)

So that's what I'm leaving, plus 6 years of memories.  Living in here with no furniture, wedding presents arriving on the doorstep, being pregnant, babies' first everything, some holidays and parties, lots of redecorating by Molly's Mom, and outgrowing it.  This house served Mr. Molly and I very well.  It was good to us.

Just Keep Swimming..... Just Keep Swimming

The boys watched Nemo today and I can't get this quote from Dorie out of my head.  Mr. Molly and I are pretty depressed.  There are no houses on the market right now that are the right house for us.  We have to be out of our house in 5 weeks and then we will be homeless.  I know "it's fine" and "temporary housing is fun" and "don't rush into a decision and make a mistake" but still the whole thing is pretty depressing and stressful.

How do you strike that balance?  You can't wait until you find a house you like and then put your house on the market because what if it doesn't sell.  You can't put your house on the market before you've found a house you like because what if it sells too fast?  The nice houses here are going into contract so quickly.  It's like you need to put an offer in within 24 hours if you want a nice house.  If something sits on the market for 2-3 months than something is wrong with it.

There is one super-nice house but it is in a school district that we do not want to be in.  Could we send our kids to private school?  Probably.  Should we look into that?  I guess so. 

Maybe something fabulous will go on the market tomorrow in the neighborhood we want to be in, in our price range, with the floor plan that we want, the lot that we want, and the size that we want.  But maybe it doesn't exist and we will be homeless forever. 

Maybe we should have accepted that contract on our house so quickly with such an early close date.  But if we hadn't, then our dream house could have come and went before we got another offer.  Regardless, we did accept it and we have to just be patient and not freak out.  Just keep swimming... just keep swimming...

House Hunting

Today we went and looked at 7 houses in 4 hours.  Talk about a roller coaster of emotions.  The first house we saw was by far the best.  House #2 was a foreclosure and was ok inside but had too much street noise.  House #3 was really nice as well.  House #4 had a similar street noise/bad lot problem and Houses 5-7 were B.A.D.  One of them we didn't get past the foyer.

Things I disliked when I looked at houses today:
- Realtors who call a bonus room that doesn't have a closet or a room in a basement that is not a walk-out a bedroom.  That house is NOT four bedrooms so don't lie to me in your listing.  You wasted my time.
- Kitchen without an area for a table.  Who wants to eat at a counter/bar or in a dining room and have those be the only choices?
- Carpet in the dining room.  Why?
- 2nd floor laundry in a closet in the hallway
- Closet doors that are mirrors
- A random cat following us around as we walked through a house
- Blaring classical music
- Overwhelming smells
- Tiny master bedroom closets
- Living rooms.  I don't like living rooms... I think they are dead space.  No one ever knows what to do with one or ever uses it if they have one. 
- Uncovered front porches

SOLD!!!!!!!

And they accepted our counter!!!!!   So we sold the house for 98.5% of list price and in 4 days.  Pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself. 

Ok enough horn tooting.  I'm going to now tell you the hidden costs of selling your house. 

1)  Staging - we are fortunate b/c my mom is an excellent stager.  Thus, we did not have to pay a fee to have her stage the house.  However, in the process of staging the house she did purchase some things and that total cost was maybe $300.  A stager would cost like $350.  This is a cost that is TOTALLY worth it.

2)  Realtor Commission - RL dropped her commission from 6% to 5% because we are both selling and buying with her.  She would not reduce it any more because of the costs that she personally incurs from marketing the house.  This is another cost that is TOTALLY worth it.  RL hired a professional photog to take the pictures to go on the listing.  Of all the houses in our price range on the internet our definitely showed the best.  The photog used a wide angle lens and it made the house look a lot bigger than it is. She also spent considerable time on the internet view of the listing and hosted a realtor tour of the house.

3)  Bins - Holy crap did I buy a lot of bins.  Bins for the closets to put out of season clothes and bins for the basement to organize holiday decorations, all the stuff we took out of the main house for staging, and all the kids books and toys.  I probably bought a total of 15 bins.  Those things are not cheap, even at Meijer.

4)  Dinner - When people want to see your house at night, you need to be out of it and so you need to go out to dinner.  Cost for a family of 4 at a sit down restaurant is about $50 with tip.  If this happened to us more than the 3 times it did, we would have had to start going to McDonald's and then we would all get fat.  Well, only I would get fat b/c Mr. Molly and the 2 kids have insane metabolisms.

5)  Electricity - For every showing you have to turn all the lights on.  Every single light, all the overheads, lamps, and closet lights.  If the showing is at 1pm, you need to turn the lights on when you leave at 7am and they still on till 2pm.  Even then, the showing realtor doesn't turn off all the lights, only the overhead ones.  Related to this cost is the cost of light bulbs and the cost of keeping your heat/air at a normal and comfortable temperature all day.

6)  Carpet Cleaning - You need to have your carpets cleaned before you show the house.  People who don't do this baffle me.

7)  Cleaning Lady - our normal every other week appointment was changed to every week.  This cost could be avoided if you own cleaning supplies, which I don't.

8) Landscaping/Handyman - again if you have time and skillz then you can avoid this cost.  We don't so had to pay people to paint and power wash and edge the beds, etc.  For us, it was worth it.

9) Sleep - I had to sacrifice sleep and that was a cost to me.  I had to go to bed an hour later and get up an hour earlier in order to have everything perfect every day for showings.

10) Sanity - This is self-explanatory and not really a "hidden" cost.  Everyone around me could see that I was slowly unravelling.

So in a nut shell, I'm so freakin' happy this is over and that we only had to show our house for a total of 4 days.  The buyers are coming in Sunday morning to view it one more time, so after that I can go back to being messy.  Shhhhhh... don't tell Mr. Molly.

Friday the 13th

I'm feeling somewhat refreshed today.  Not really because I've had more sleep or anything but because I think Friday the 13th might actually be lucky for us and we might be able to get the contract done today.

The buyers did not walk away in response to our counter, so that was a beautiful thing.  They countered, and then we countered again.  The debate is over price (of course) but moreso over closing date and possession date.  We are very close so I don't see a reason why it can not be worked out. Of course, real estate can surprise you some times so I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket.  They need to respond by noon and if whatever they say is even somewhat reasonable we will say "DONE!"

However, we have 2 more showings tonight.

Tomorrow we're going to go look at houses.  I was able to get a sitter until 4ish so that will help.  It's exciting to think that we could be moving in literally a month!  Friday the 13th is good luck, right?

Roller Coaster

Sorry to leave y'all hanging.  We did get an offer on Tuesday.  We countered it on Wednesday.  They countered it today.  It seems like they are more hung up on timing of possession than price so we may have to negotiate one more time.  I do.not.like negotiations.  They make me want to curl up in the fetal position.  So I've decided to let Mr. Molly handle that b/c as far as I'm concerned the house is selling and I need to move in 6 weeks.

Soooo... switch gears to buying a house.  There is a ridiculous amount of research needed so that we can even come up with a list of houses we want to see.  To date we have looked at 3 houses... 2 were horrible and 1 was awesome (in my opinion).  Mr. Molly thought the awesome one was "nice but not amazing" so we are really not too far along in this whole house search thing.

Next post will outline school district drama and what we are looking for in a house.... stay tuned!!!!  I know, this is riveting stuff. 

p.s. One showing last night, one today, and one tomorrow night.  Wouldn't it be sweet if we could have another offer before we figure out this whole thing? 
p.p.s. Trying to look at houses with two 4 yr olds in tow is horrible.  I do not recommend it.
p.p.p.s.  Shout out to my mom!  Every piece of feedback we've received on our house is that it shows really well and is really nicely staged.  One even said "immaculate".  She staged it and so we probably owe her a cut of our profits from the closing.  Instead we'll reward her by letting her interior decorate our new house.  Congratulations Mom!!

Shortest Lived Blog Ever

So this could possibly be the shortest blog ever.  We already have an offer on the house! The offer came in less than 27 hours after it went on the market.  We had that horrible showing Monday night, then these people came in this morning at 8:30am and made an offer today at 8:15pm.  CaRAYzee.  We may or may not have had a showing at 10:30am today, there was no card or anything.

We have 2 more showings scheduled for tomorrow and also a realtor tour.  We have to counter by 5pm and we are set to see a house we may like to buy at 6pm.

Right now it's just me and Mr. Molly debating over what to counter-offer.  Their offer was good.. clean.. no contingencies, no closing costs.  All they want is a close date of 6 weeks from now. 

So much to debate, so much drama.... generally 2 things I thrive on. 

Tomorrow: 
Realtor tour at 9am
Showing at 10:30am
Cleaning lady at 11:30am
Showing at 3:30pm
Respond to offer at 4:30pm
See a house at 6pm

Oh and work my full time job where I have 3 very important meetings that I have to lead and "be here now."

Oh and make sure my kids are dressed and fed and at school and then picked up on time so I don't have to pay $1 per minute per kid.

Oh and stay within my WW points when all I want to do is stick my face into a pint of Jeni's ice cream.

Shortest blog ever.  Maybe.  It could be all over on May 22nd.

The Ball Ran Me Over

Realtor Lady (RL) told me today, on Judgement Day, "Let's get the ball rolling!"  I have to say that the damn ball ran me over.

I waited all day to see when it would be listed.  I kept checking my email b/c RL promised she would send it right away.  No email, no email, no email. 

Around 4:20pm I got a phone call and it was the "central showing agency" (or something like that) saying that a realtor wanted to show my house from 6:30pm to 7:30pm tonight.  I was like "um, it's not even listed yet".  So I said it was fine and continued the business meeting I was supposed to be having at my desk.

5 min later the "people who make showings" (or something like that) said that the realtor changed the time and now wants to see it tonight from 6-8pm.  I played it cool, "um, ok."  Then I hung up and freaked the f out. 

Shut down my computer and ran out of the building dialing up RL as I went.  Left a probably very screechy message on her VM saying "I didn't even know the house was listed and now I'm supposed to do a showing from 6-8pm and it's 4:45pm and I'm downtown and my house is full of clothes b/c I haven't unpacked from my Easter trip!!!!"  She called me back and said that the house was in fact NOT listed but this realtor must have driven by and saw the sign, which was put up this morning. 

Ok, I guess.  Then RL said that 8-10 is a ridiculous amount of time and she would call the showing realtor and fix it.  I am already falling in love with RL.  Anyway, she called me back and the showing was rescheduled for 6:45-7:15pm.

Still rushed home.. Mr. Molly and I set everything right.. which involved putting all the laundry in the empty suitcases in the basement.  (we are super-clever)  We were out of there by 6:05pm.

Took the kids out to a $50 dinner and by the time we left there I had gotten 3 more calls from the "official showing schedulers" (or whatever they are called) and had 2 showings set up for tomorrow and one on Wed.  Holy crapola!

Got home and were like "phew" for 5 seconds until the doorbell rang.  It was the showing realtor saying "oops, we are late!".  Dude lady... it is now 7:55pm.  You were supposed to come from 6:45-7:30pm.  I gave her the maloccio (Italian evil eye) but she busted into my house anyway. 

So Mr. Molly and I took the kids and stood in the backyard while she showed these people the house.  We just stood there staring at each other as the sky got dark thinking "what the hell happened to our orderly life?"  At least that's what I was thinking.  He was probably thinking about sports.

And then the kids went to bed without a bath and I collapsed from my emotional roller coaster.  The end.

Judgement Day

Today the sign will be put up in the yard and the listing will go on the MLS.  I call it Judgement Day.  Starting today, strangers will look at pictures of my house and pass judgement on it.  What will they think?  What will they say to their friends, spouse, realtor about it?  Sometimes my mom looks at a listing on realtor.com and just says "disgusting."  Will someone say that about my house?  Probably. 

I know I shouldn't care because "to each their own" and "different strokes for different folks" but we put a lot of work into getting this house ready and making it what we think is beautiful.  I just want people to like it.

Mr. Molly says this whole process is 3 steps; 1) getting the house ready to sell, 2) selling it and buying a new one, and 3) moving.  He thinks the 3rd step is the hardest.

Are you kidding me?  No way.  The 2nd step is definitely the hardest for this Grade 1 -Type A personality.  I like to make lists, plan, check things off, have things to look forward to.  The process of selling/buying totally cancels that.  NOTHING is in my control.  Someone could want to see it at any time, or no one could ever want to see it.  I have no idea of timing and pretty much can't plan anything.  Not to mention the effort it takes someone like me to keep things looking "perfect" at all times... that's enough fodor for its own post.

So today is Judgement Day.  The sign goes up and the listing goes out.  Bring it ON.

Dream

Last night I had a horrible dream. Mr. Molly* and I went to see a house but for some reason my parents and other relatives were there too. While we were seeing the house my grandma had an "episode" and for some reason we didn't call 911 or take her to the hospital. Instead we set her up on the couch and had a sort of vigil for her.

People came over and brought food and hung around and used plates and towels from the house. I just kept running around alternating between leading a rosary and yelling at people that we need to be out of the house in an hour. At the end I looked up at the ceiling and it was covered in ants.

This dream is why I'm starting a blog. I clearly have a ridiculous amount of anxiety over moving, ailing relatives, scary bugs, etc. Using this space as an anonymous outlet for my stress over this experience of selling and buying a house.

It's called Movin' on Down because in addition to moving, I'm also trying to lose weight. So there may be some titillating drama over M&Ms and popchips as well.

Enjoy!

* All names and places in the blog will be changed to be anonymous