I'm jumpin out my skin!

We have had 4 showings in 3 days and tomorrow is a second showing! Karen says we could have a contract before we get on the plane Sunday! The doctor is excited to meet with us on Monday. Wants us to meet him at his office after he performs 2 surgeries. Get a tour, have lunch, go for a nice walk, outfit us for some shoes. The car, on eBay has 1 bid. We could come back with a contract on the house, the car sold, and a job! As my friend Dyanne says it'll all come together, it's all coming together! Yeay!


-- Post From My iPhone

For Sale!

Yesterday the house went on the market! If you click on the for sale heading you can see the virtual tour, it really looks good. Our realtor Karen's company does tours every Wednesday. So, yesterday 13 Realtors came over to check out the house. We got really great feedback, one person thought it was priced too high. We have it listed at 265 and he suggested 250. Karen says since we have the hard wood floors, patio cover and back to open space, it's priced fairly. We even had some folks come over in the afternoon and take a look. Wish us luck!

My next post will be from Maui! Friday I'm going out with the girls Marisol and Dyanne for happy hour. Saturday we are de cluttering the closets and garage and Dan has to patch up the driveway. I'm going to take some clothes to a place where my friend Deb volunteers called Safari Seconds http://www.africancommunitycenter.net/safari_seconds.html and drop off some single use food containers to Meals on Wheels (left over personal chef artifacts). Sunday, we are off on our research trip. We will meet with the doctor, check out some rentals, meet with a realtor, open a bank account and snorkel. My buddy John Freeman turned me on to an app called blog press so I can blog from my phone while we are there! Deb will be staying at the house watching the kids and hopefully dealing with potiential buyers. Aloha!

Transform

After reading my blog, my friend John showed me this video. It's perfect! Click on the header "transform".

Ode to Pixel

Dear Pixel,
I hope you like your new home. I know your are stressed, your family is gone, you're in a strange place with a new family. I wish I could snuggle with you and let you know everything is going to be alright, have you lightly bite my chin in your state of bliss. You loved it here, the big open space to prowl around in. Catching birds and flinging mice around like they were your personal live play toys, which I guess they were. You won't be around to tag Baxter in the nose, make him whine, show him whose boss. I'm sorry, we just couldn't take you with us. I'll miss you, I miss you already, I've loved you for 10 years. You are such a lovable kitty, wanting to snuggle, especially happy to curl up on my lap if I'm sitting and reading, my chest if I'm in bed reading. I'll always remember your smile. I'll miss your soft, warm, lithe, body sleeping next to mine. I won't miss your insistence of being fed first thing in the morning. I always thought it was cool that you would come when we called your name; in just the right way with a high note. I love how you find the sun spots and stretch out in them, on your back, and take a nap. You know how to enjoy the simple things. It makes me laugh when I give the dogs their treats, knowing you expected yours as well. I know that you didn't care for fish. We placed you in very good hands, Rich is a great guy and he loves you already. I know his doggie is bigger than Baxter and Lucy. She really wants to play with you, I hope in time you'll want to play with her too. Please forgive us.

The Heavy Weight of Stuff

Busy weekend. I am so exhausted I hope my words make sense. Friday, in order to get ready for the carpet guys Saturday, I moved all the books into the shower by myself. Whew! Seven am Saturday morning Dan and I moved all the miscellaneous junk so the carpet guys could just move furniture and put in the new $3500.00 carpet. They got started around 9:30 and while they were busting that out (until around 4pm) Dan and I worked on the house. Dan painted the outside of the house while I ran the weekly errands. We got a tomato from the CSA so I made us a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich for lunch. I'm so tired I can't even remember what else Dan and I did 2 days ago! I remember Rich came buy and took Pixel our beloved kitty and that we finished for the day and had dinner at 7. Sunday is a different story. I think I will remember that like a woman giving birth remembers labour. It was painful, but the pain is slowly ebbing away as I see how great the house looks. Everything is so sparse, open and clean. I vow to never accumulate so much stuff again! While Dan painted the guest bedrooms and installed 2 ceiling fans, I cleaned the window frames where 8 years of scuzz had grown cozy. I sanded the window sills and stained them and last but not least, I cleaned the windows. Every window in the house got the treatment. We got some old english furniture polish and I went around and hit all the trim. It is amazing how that stuff erases scratches. I saw some furniture and bathroom cabinets that looked really thirsty so I gave those a polish as well. I rearranged the furniture that I could move, brought the things that were unnecessarily crowding up the space into the basement, made lunch, made the beds, and did laundry. When we were good and tired, around 7:30 that night, we took all those books and moved them downstairs. We liked how open the loft looks without them and we didn't want to put them back up because we are taking the bookshelves. We had a great relay going. Dan fished them out of the tub and placed them and the foot of the stairs on the main floor on a table. I took them from there and brought them to the basement and stacked them against the wall. Holy cow, we were in our fat burning zone for about 90 minutes straight. Baxter is outside whining to come in because he does not like the bug zapper and it was going crazy. With every heft of a stack of books to my chin, with every step down the stairs, every lowering the books to the ground, every walk back up the stairs to get another stack, I cursed myself for having so much stuff, notably books! They are 4 deep down there! I want a Kindle, I could have all those books in there, and it would be a lot easier to move around! Today we are finishing up. Our realtor just left, leaving a lock box and for sale sign in her wake and taking a plant with her. Dan installed a new screen door, did yard work and is now caulking. I am off to make lunch after having done some yard work. I'm going to use a lot of CSA veggies for a stir fry; Spinach, kholorabi, zucchinni, carrots, and eggplant. I'll roast up the beets for a maple, pecan, goast cheese salad later in the week and get dinner prepped so Dan can caulk around the sink. Dinner? Julia Child's zuchinni gratin. Zuchinni and onion sauteed, turned into some white gravy with gruyere cheese, topped with bread crumbs and baked until bubbly. We'll have it on country bread toasts with a glass of wine. Oh, my lazy-girl is calling...

It's 3:47am

I shot straight out of a deep sleep. Wide awake now, I lay there with yesterdays remnant's wispy in my mind. I really need to start meditating again. Meditating clears the cobwebs and I end up with a calm, open mind. Since I started smoking again, yoga went by the way side. New quit date though, September 17th, they day I have mouth surgery. As I lay there in the dark, I hear Dan's voice echo "but what if we don't go in November". He said that to me yesterday. I have decided that we are leaving in November. I have decided that the house will be fixed up so nice that no one can resist. I hope that the first people who walk into the door fall in love and buy it. The estate sale is very profitable, we close when October closes, the doctor is ready for us to come work (or not), the dogs are ready and off we go. The thought of staying here really depresses me. I have rung all that I can from here. If I stay here, there will be no more growth, no more inspiration, just long lanes and empty highways of the same old thing. Then work crept into my mind like a slow infectious disease and it was over, no sleep for me! I thought I was being stealthy getting my robe and closing the bedroom door but Dan was awake anyway. "What's up honey?" he says in a soft, loving voice. "Nothing". "Are you ok?" Holding back tears I say I am fine. "What are you doing?" I say I'm going to go downstairs, sit out in the early morning air, and have a smoke. He's up anyway, he stands and gives me a hug and we go down together. Aside from work, his week has been busy trying to find a new bank. When we go for our research trip, we can open an account and have the money from the closing of the house transferred there. He's spent a lot of time on the phone finding an insurance company that covers Hawaii, comparing rental insurance, home owners insurance, insurance for the jeep and a motorcycle. It's a beautiful night, clear and cool, the quite is profound. He says he can't sleep because of his ill fitting pillows. I tell him my ails. I feel much better now. I'm am so grateful that I married a man who not only cares about how I feel, who not only listens, I mean really listens, but bolsters me, helps me find answers.

Yesterday we got our CSA delivery: corn, large and small beets, collards, chard, tomato, eggplant, romaine, tiny, fat carrots, loads of radishes, cilantro, parsley, beans, zucchini, kohlrabi, spinach, red leaf lettuce, one of Dan's favorites; young onions and our beautiful cut flowers. They are so lovely, I posted a picture of them.

Since we have a leisurely morning I think I'll make the leftover poached egg with cheese sauce over toast that I made this weekend, courtesy of Julia Child and stop by Starbucks for some extra strength caffeine. I hear Iz coming from Dan's computer...

My Aching back!

Whew! Feeling my age today! I spent 3 hours talking pictures down and individually wrapping each one in newspaper before packing them into a blanket lined moving box. It was nice, the windows were open so a cool breeze flitted through the sun dappled room. As I was carefully packing our memories, Bob Weir was singing about what a long strange trip it's been and I was reminiscing backwards! I felt like I was already in Hawaii, unpacking the pictures. I can only take that as a good sign. In between loads of laundry I got them all packed while Dan was working on the trim up the stairs and running to the hardware store. We got some collards from the CSA so I mixed them with some boiled potatoes, shallots and bacon for lunch. I thought I was done for the day when Dan asked me to help him paint the upstairs hallway. Ugh! Looks great now. Nobody is going to be able to resist this little piece of heaven! It's going on the market in 7 days, wish us luck! Speckles (Dan's face in covered in little yellow paint spots)just came in after assembling a ceiling fan, lightly kissed my neck and cheek and said I'm done for today, I'm going to take a shower. I having already taken one, am catching up on my blog. We are waiting for the delivery guy to drop off some Kung Pao Chicken and fried wantons for Dan and Pineapple-shrimp fried rice for me. Think we'll open a bottle of wine even though it's a school night!