girlymama

reality check

We made it home safely from Disney today - the exhausted kids slept through most of the flight - and even all our luggage arrived!

We pulled into our driveway to find that our wonderful neighbors had shoveled a spot for our car and a path to our door. (Bear in mind, we got like 20 inches of snow, so this was a big deal!!)We were so thankful!!!

We gathered the kids and opened the door... and saw that the thermostat was set at a balmy 41 degrees. Humm.... That could be problem. 7 hours and $413.59 later, there is finally warm air coming through the vents. Its heaven. However, we apparently are going to need a new oil tank. We'll find out for sure this week  but I see dollar signs.

I can hardly type because my fingers are so cold, so I'm signing off!! Hopefully I will be blogging about Disney in warmth tomorrow morning :-)

meet my new baby

Isn't he cute?

After shopping around, and listening to all of your terrific (practically unanimous) advice,
I went with the Dyson.

Am I a nerd to be so excited about a vacuum?

its hard to get motivated when your coffee pot is broken

I really should be working on the house today. This weekend we are moving everything from storage back into the house, which we cleared out when we put it on the market. So now we have to find somewhere to put everything. I love living in s staged house with no clutter. Sigh.

Anyway, I think that MUCH of the stuff we stored is getting thrown away, given away or sold on ebay. If we didn't use it for 3 months, we're taking a good, hard look at whether we need it at all.

Yesterday I cleaned out the attic. Despite nearly passing out from heat exhaustion and being barely able to life my arms, I'm very proud. Particularly of clearing out the boxes that we never unpacked when we moved in. Four years ago! (We're not the only ones with boxes like that, right?)

Today I really should tackle either the shed or the crawl space, but am feeling supremely unmotivated. 90% of my unmotivation has to do with having had ZERO caffeine today. I'm also distracted because I want to get back on track with my 30-Day Shred, due to, ummm, recent events. Guess I'll start with the mountain of laundry and see where the day takes me.

its over

We lost the new house. They accepted another offer that we cannot match.
Now we have to make some decisions. Whether we should leave our house on the market or not. Or if we should just throw in the towel and give up.

We're sad, but okay. Its nice to know, at least, instead of all this uncertainty. Its very disappointing - we really loved this new house. But we enjoy where we live now and our house is great, so its not the end of the world.  

That's it. Not much more to say right now. Just thought I'd share.

one week for a miracle

We have one week left to sell our house. If we don't sell, we'll have to give up the new house. We are not hopeful, since even after lowering the price, its been eleven days since we've even had a showing. It is highly unlikely someone will buy it in the next 7 days.

I'm really sad.

I know in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal.

I know that things happen for a reason.

I know God is in control, working all things for His purposes, and for His glory.

I know we have a wonderful home now, we don't have to move, and we're lucky to have this house.

I know it could all change in a second, we just need one buyer, and with God all things are possible.

But I still feel sad. I'm trying really hard to be accepting of this, but I'm struggling. We really felt this was what we were supposed to do. We felt confident that this decision was the right one. We felt God's hand on this process...

Were we wrong? Why did God allow us to get so far into this process, only to see it fall apart now? What are we supposed to be learning in this?

selling your house sucks. selling your house when you have children REALLY sucks.

I realized I haven't posted much interesting stuff lately.

Having our house on the market is taking up approximately 85% of my energy units. The kids are taking up the remaining 50%, leaving a mere -35% left for blogging and other recreational activities. Except drinking wine, which I am still managing to squeeze in because it requires very little energy. Thank goodness.

Anyway... its going about as well as can be expected in this market. We've had about 7 showings and our open house yesterday was really well attended. We had a little nibble - one couple came back three times (Woo-Hoo!), but still haven't made an offer. (D'oh!) Everyone who has seen it "just loves it!" thinks "its so adorable!" or "just gorgeous!" and says its "priced just right."

Gee, thanks. So MAKE AN OFFER ALREADY! Don't just come to see it and then tell us how much you like it! There is a REASON we're letting you poke your nose into every crevice of our home! This is not fun for us, what with the three small children and all! And on that note, could you stop requesting showings every day at naptime? Would it kill you to come at a time when Colin is normally awake?

(Sorry. Its the stress. It makes me grumpy.)

Everyone is constantly asking, "Are you moving?" "Well, aren't you clever! Why would you think that? Our house is on the market, but we're planning on staying there after we sell it."

(Sorry. Stress also makes me sarcastic.)

Its KILLING us. Because we're only moving if we sell the house, so we don't want to talk about the new house very much just in case we don't end up moving because we didn't sell our house, blah blah blah, you understand. So we're trying not to get too excited about the new house, but we ARE because we LOVE IT, but we're afraid we won't get it....

Nevermind the stress of keeping the house spotless with three children bent on making as much chaos as possible wherever they go. The girls keep begging me to let them play play-doh. To which I reply, "Are you kidding me? Of course not! Go play with the vacuum instead." We're rarely at home these days. My new strategy is to banish them outside - usually to the car - while I do a quick clean before a showing. Its the only way I can keep them from undo-ing everything I just did.

And - are you ready for this? My mother-in-law is arriving from India in three days. To live with us for two months. So now we're going to have an extra person  around to try and keep from making messes. The bright side is she is WONDERFUL and loves helping with the kids, so can hopefully distract the children while I clean. But, we were really, REALLY hoping to be done with this nonsense before she arrived. But, doesn't look like we will be.

Pray for us.

our house

So I thought you might like to see pictures of our house, since I've been talking about it so much. And since its on the market and all, its probably looking as clean as it ever has, so might as well show it off now ;-)

Here is the outside:
 
the first floor - living room:
 
dining room and kitchen:
 
downstairs is the family room, mudroom and newly de-wallpapered powder room:
  
upstairs are the kids' bedrooms:
 
and our bedroom and bath (redecorated when extremely pregnant with Colin)
 
fourth bedroom (in-laws' room) and kids' bath
 
Do you see how in the bathroom picture the curtain isn't right? And the soap is on the windowsill for some reason? This really annoys me. I really want to take another one and ask our agent to replace it. Is that being too high-maintenance and anal? You can tell me if it is... I won't be offended...

hang on to your hats, people

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately.  There was a reason. A good one. Something I wasn't ready to blog about yet, despite the fact that it was slowly taking over my life. No, I'm not pregnant. Remember those posts about being really, really busy? And those posts about working on the house? Well...

We're buying a new house.

I KNOW!

We've been looking around for a few weeks - just to see what is out there. And we fell in love with this absolutely adorable neighborhood. An amazing neighborhood. It looks like a movie set, its just so cute. And its a fantastic location. Then we found a house in it. And, on Friday afternoon, they accepted our offer.

Holy cow.

We're super excited. Its a great house with an amazing yard!! It's a fixer-upper, so be prepared for some great HGTV-ish posts involving us trying to do things, getting in wayyy over our heads, then having to hire someone to fix what we messed up.  Seriously - it has one of the ugliest kitchens ever. EV-VER. (New kitchen - WHOOT!) And lovely wood paneling. Ugh.

Now there's just one problem. We have to sell our current house. And quick. We've been working like CRAZY for the last two weeks trying to get it in tip-top shape. But then Friday we learned we had to get our house on the market by Tuesday. As in TODAY.

Excuse me for a moment while I breathe into a paper bag. And collapse in a puddle of exhaustion and sore muscles.

We did it, though! Our house is on the market and our inspection on the new house happened this afternoon. So we're seeing dollar signs and lots of work. But also was reminded of all the things we loved about this new place! Like a great layout and hardwood floors and gorgeous moldings and huge closets and the YARD and the space - ohmygoodness the space! Anyway, get ready for some crazy posts!!

Know anyone looking to buy a delightful, adorable little house in the Philly suburbs? 

man, when i take a break from blogging...

...its really not a "break" at all!

But I (well, WE) got a TON done this week. Including:

• a butt-load of yard work. But mainly digging up all of our bushes (that were ALL dead - every! single! one!) and replacing them with new ones (that are actually alive!) and finishing up our landscaping, mulching, planting grass, etc.
• Scrapping wallpaper off the powder room walls. That I have been wanting to do since we moved in almost 4 years ago. Now I'm halfway done painting it this adorable rust-color called "apple blossom." (My husband hates it, but I think its great. Naturally. We rarely agree on paint.)  I'll post a picture when I finish!
• Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Washing windows, cleaning out the fridge, sorting clothes, etc.
• Putting in my volunteer time at the kids schools.

That's only part of it. My back is killingme and we have been falling asleep by 9 o'clock, but at least the yard and house look great!!

But - by the grace of God - Colin started sleeping ELEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT this weekend. Its heaven.

i don't care how cute and furry my kids think you are....

We have mice. IN OUR HOUSE.

While we were gone for a week, enjoying Christmas, relaxing with our family, getting awesome on the Wii, mice were moving into ur house and making themselves very comfortable.

Husband has, um, "caught" 3 so far. And we're still finding "evidence" of more. We've found "evidence" in the kitchen, the family room, the living room and... wait for it... our bedroom! NEXT TO MY SIDE OF THE BED! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

So, if you haven't heard from me, it is because I have been disinfecting my ENTIRE HOUSE every day.

I am so beyond grossed out about this. Husband is not allowed to travel until this is taken care of.