That's my story and I'm stickin' with it. :-) It's actually a combination of being busy and then not being able to figure out what to blog about--there's just too much! I would walk you through each day of the past week, but it's all a blur.
I know that Sara Clifton has been staying with us since Monday. Tammy took a trip to Kentucky to surprise her mom for her birthday, so Sara's been staying with us while Sam is home alone. (Don't tell Tammy, but Sam is breaking all of the rules with Archie while she's gone! He shared the bar-b-qued rib that I took to him the other day and I have a sneakin' suspicion Archie is probably getting to sleep in the bed at night, too! Ha!) Anyway, it's been great having Sara with us! That girl is no hassle at all to have around. Probably because she never is around! Ha! She spends most of her time at college and then studying by the hour. But I've thoroughly enjoyed the times she's actually been here and not locked in her bedroom with her books. We had a really good visit for a couple of hours the first night and last night she actually took the night off and we watched a movie together. Fun! I'm sure she needed the break. That girl is going to burn out so fast if she doesn't start getting her mind off of all of that crazy school work every now and then!
I know that I've stayed up until 3:00 twice this week. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The first time was the night James got home from his Colorado trip. There was a lot to catch up on, you know?! Then after nursing home service on Wednesday night I came home and put the kids to bed, then stayed up until nearly 3:00 watching the DVD and typing up the Assembly Minutes for the Wednesday afternoon session. Took me 5 hours straight, but it was a grand and glorious thing to get it done in one night! It wouldn't have taken that long, but I have a terrible time deciding what to leave out, so I usually put in way more information than would really be necessary. And that was such a terrific session--Jon's message on being filled with the Spirit instead of drunk with wine, Sister Maudie's Sunday School boost, and Sister Prince's great message on sanctification--there was just so much good, meaty stuff in there that I kept typing and typing and typing... :-)
I've also been working on our Regional Planner this week. I'm making some good headway on it, so that feels great. I've made tons of phone calls today trying to make sure I've got all the information that I need. I'm waiting to hear back from three people to get their contact info, and I need to get ahold of one of our Spanish girls from Hatch to check on info for all of the people there. Otherwise, I'm getting close to being done! Which is great because...
I really need to get busy on my lesson for the Minister's Retreat this next weekend. Our theme is "Holiness Becometh Thine House" and I'm on to teach a class to the women entitled "The Advice to Members and Modest Apparel." In a weird kind of a way, I'm sort of looking forward to it! This is a subject that has been on my heart a lot lately as I've been noticing that some of the clothing in the Church is... Well, I'm just not sure we're headed in the right direction! I want to be sooooo careful about this class, so please pray for God to give me wisdom. It would be so easy to get up there and just spout off my opinions about the issue and what I feel is appropriate or not appropriate, but I know that it would be foolish and non-beneficial (probably quite detrimental!) to do so. I've been praying for God to get all of my thoughts and feelings out of the way and help me to really find direction from Him on what He would desire for all of us to hear on the subject. I've been praying for God to search my heart, to search my life, and to search my closet (!) and show me if there is anything in any of those places that is not pleasing to Him. It's so easy to make little compromises without even noticing it. I don't want to do that! Anyway, pray for me and for the Retreat next weekend.
In other news, our house is officially on the market! Wa-Hoo!!! I guess. Ha! This is all so weird and I have sooooo many mixed feelings about it. Not about selling the house or about going to Albuquerque, but about having to work with a bunch of dopey realtors! We had market analyses done by each of the real estate companies here in town because it just seemed wise to get a second opinion on what price to list the house at. I'm glad we did, because the second price was about $7500 higher than the first one! (The market has inched up in the past few weeks since the first estimate.) But it was also a very bad thing to have the other company come give us an analysis because it meant that both companies wanted to carry the house. They each did their best to talk us into using their company and told us several reasons why we shouldn't use the other girl, blah, blah, blah. I finally told James to just lock the two of them up in a room and let 'em at each other, then we could just go with whoever won. Ha! No, they weren't ugly about anything--just really, really wanted our business! In the end I guess it worked to our advantage because each girl kept lowering their commission rate in an attempt to secure the listing, so we ended up with a rate that was almost half of the original rate we would have been paying. :-)
We finally decided to go with the first girl, so yesterday we filled out all the paperwork and officially listed the house! Kind of. It's actually listed for 2 weeks with this particular company and they are the only ones who can show the house. After the two weeks, the commission rate goes up by half a percent and any company can show the house. Weird. Anyway, the agent we actually listed with (who is the head of the company) is in Alaska right now. Great timing. So her assistant is handling everything right now. Sort of. I'm not impressed. I've been in contact with two different girls from the company and I don't get the impression that either of them have any idea what they're doing. They're very nice and that's great. But I really go for competence in situations like this!
I had sent a disc with pictures of the house over to the realtor so they could make up a flier. We listed the house at 2:00 yesterday. At 4:00 I got a call from the assistant and she said that somebody had come into the office, saw the pictures on the computer and said, "I want to see that house." (Yes!!!) She wanted to know if they could come at 4:15. Sure! I've got two naked little boys in the bathtub--come right over! I told her the "sure" and "come on over" parts, but skipped the part about the naked children. James took Katie and headed to the bank. I yanked the boys out of the tub and threw them into their bedroom with some fresh clothes and told them to dry off and get dressed. I then cleaned the mirrors (so important!) and ran around the house turning on a lamp in each room and lighting candles all over the place, then turned on some nice, quiet praise and worship music. (You've got to set a nice, homey, cozy, relaxing tone for people to walk into--it's all about the presentation, you know?! Ha! This is the part that's soooooo fun!) I had just finished everything up and my house was well lit and smelling great when the doorbell rang. I opened the door and there stood the realtor...with two men!!! Can you imagine?! After all that work to light candles and turn on nice music and lamps all over the house?! What a waste!!! (They weren't "weird" guys, in case you're wondering--they were father and son, I think!) They seemed to like the house okay, but couldn't possibly appreciate it like a woman would. In fact, they walked past my bathroom--my completely remodeled, fresh, clean, bright and cheery, smelling like "sunbathed lemon" wondrous bathroom--flipped the light on, glanced inside, then kept walking. Never even set foot inside!!! I just about lunged for their throats. "You get in there and look at that room, you goons!!! It's the best room in the whole house--don't you know that your wife or mother is going to want to know how great the bathroom is?!?!? Dorks!!!" Ha!
The guys were actually very nice and I enjoyed visiting with them. Once I decided that it was actually my right to visit. This is the part I hate about realtors. The realtor girl who brought them was nice enough, but she knows nothing about my house!!! How on earth is she supposed to "show" the house when she knows nothing about it?! And typically, the realtors like for you to be gone when they show the house. I draw the line there. This is my house and I refuse to clear out so I won't be in the way of strangers. But I did my best to stay out of the way and let the realtor to the showing. Which is so dumb!!! This is my house! Why am I not showing it?! This girl had never stepped foot in the house before. She walked in and said, "We'll just sort of wander around, if that's okay." I said sure and took that as a hint that she didn't want me to give them the grand tour. So I stayed back. For as long as I could! Ha! They asked questions. She had no answers. She pointed at the door in the "bonus room" (currently the toy room) and said, "I think that door leads back to the kitchen." The kitchen that she had just come through--the one that couldn't possibly be through that door! One of the guys said, "No, I think it goes into the den." He was closer, at least. The realtor seemed to have no interest in opening the mystery door to see where it led so I finally blurted out, "There's a utility room in there--washer, dryer, freezer--then another door into the den." A nice chorus of, "O-o-o-o-o-oh," came from the three of them. She then had the guts to open the door and peek inside. What a surprise!!! "Oh! Look in here, guys!" ~sigh~ Sooooo frustrating. She's a very nice lady, but she knows nothing about my house! So explain to me why I feel like I have to stay out of the way so she can "show" my house to potential buyers?! That's so dumb!
Then today we stopped by the office to look at the flier they had made up for the house. I'm hoping they weren't finished with it yet because what I saw left a whole lot to be desired! Ha! It was just four pictures (three of the outside of the house, one of the fireplace--but the print job was so poor you could barely even make it out) and the address. No information at all, except a number scribbled at the top of the page. A number that is the old square footage of this house, not the current square footage since we finished out my office and the toy room! This girl was very nice too. But didn't seem to have any idea what she was doing!!! So I'm having some real Choleric moments here. I want to be in control!!! Ha! Ha! Ha! I have discovered that I have a very strong aversion to paying other people big money (in this case, thousands of dollars!!!) to do very poorly something that I know I could do much better by myself!!! I could make up a great flier with tons of pictures of the house and lots of information (even correct information--imagine!!!), put it in a tube out front that says "Take One" next to a "For Sale By Owner" sign, put an add in the paper, then take people through my own home and truly show it to them--tell them how recently the bathroom was remodled and how old the kitchen flooring is and all about the sprinkler system... WHY AM I PAYING OTHER PEOPLE TO FUMBLE THROUGH SOMETHING I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF DOING MYSELF?! Because I'm a ninny, that's why!!! Gggrrrrrr. We've signed a 3 month contract with these realtors, so it looks like we're stuck with it. And honestly, I'm okay with that. Live and learn. I'm just anxious for it to be over. And I really think that when the realtor herself gets back from Alaska (Wednesday) things will start going much better. She's got very nice girls working for her, but not very well informed. Surely the top gun will be able to display a little more competence. Right?!
I think they're supposed to show the house to several different people tomorrow, beginning at 9:00. So we're planning on taking the kids out for donuts in the morning. I hate the idea of letting a sweet but clueless realtor "show" my house, but I think James feels it best that I be gone this time. Scared I might accidentally verbalize some of the frustration that I'm not coping with very well! Ha! I do hope to be here for some of the showings--particularly ones when a woman will be doing the looking! I just think it would be so fun to hear what they think, either way. It's always fun to hear, "Wow! This is soooo great--I love how this house has been done!" But it would be interesting to hear, "Whoa, this is just way too much for me--I couldn't live here!" too. I'm not intimidated by other people's disapproval of my home. I figure it's my house and I love it; and I probably wouldn't like the way they decorated their home either, so it's all cool! Ha! Really, I want to hear the person who says, "This is the house I want--get me the paperwork!" :-)
Weird. A whole post without even mentioning the kids! They're doing great. I just turned around a little while ago and saw a litle Pile-O-Sam curled up on the kitchen floor, asleep with his blanket. That kid. He's developed this habit of sneeking out of bed and getting close to wherever the people are, then snuggling up and falling asleep. In the past month I've gathered him up off the stairs at my Mom's house, the hallway last week, the kitchen floor tonight... Weird-o! Katie has been doing very, very good and is really working on trying to be a good girl. Makes a very happy mama! Joe is doing much better for the most part, as well. Thank the Lord! We've had a good, happy week, in spite of the "pressure" of having the house on the market. And there is such pressure! But that'll have to wait for next time. Let's just say that my favorite sound is the front door clicking closed! Ha! I'll explain later. ;-) Have a great night!!! Or day!!!
~Becki~
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