Bread Crumbs In The Butter

Oh so much going on

8 days till "The Move".

Talking about it for 6 months didn't make it feel real, cause I'm still in denial. Even though my house is 80% packed up.

The big storms this week (and my being stupid and not turning my computer off) cause my computer to fry, just a bit. So, it's off being fixed and I am sitting here on a dinosaur upgraded 486 (I kid you not, that is how desperate I got after two days offline).

It will take approximated 7.2 hours to post this update, so I can't promise to update much in the coming days.  I've joined Notify List and included a link in my sidebar so I can notify those who want to be that I've blogged.

We saw Kid Rock last night.  Besides the Beastie Boys, he put on the best show I've seen. Seriously. I'm a big fan of The Redneck Rapper (he's the only one I will tolerate such blatant chauvinism from, cause he sings about drinking alot).   In his show he had four chicks pole dancing on stage and I said to John "I bet you he went to some nudey bar in Gatineau and asked the bouncer for four of the  roughest, dirtiest women he could find and brought them here. John said he thought they traveled with him.  I read this morning in the paper that it totally went down like I said and that made me laugh.  Once again, Kid Rock did not disappoint.

I have entered packing Hell.

I procrastinated long enough.

About 9am, I realized that no matter how much I wished it so, this house would not pack itself.  So, I started that this morning.  I hate packing. It's menial and labour intensive. I am lazy and feel a constant need to be challenged.  I often walk away in the middle of packing box A to start box B. ADD packing at it's best.

I got a much needed break last night and went to see Bewitched with a neighbour.  Despite the bad reviews, I thought it very cute. I like Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell and thought they did a good job. The only bad side was the gaggle of either really stupid or really young people.  One of them kept kicking my seat and pulling my hair. Another spilled a drink that cascaded down the seats onto my purse.  One girl was a "narrator" who constantly said things like "Oh look. She has a broomstick." or "Look there's her father on the peas."  When I turned around to ask her to please be quiet she said "Oh yeah. I'll be quiet lady."  and snorted.   I decided she was impaired in some way and moved on.

You know, I really want to concentrate and post about my fancy new bed arriving on the 23rd, but I kid you not that for the last ten minutes Meghan has been running in a non-stop circle upstairs above me.  I had better go see what that's about before she wears a hole through the living room floor. Even if she does, the house is sold, so it's not my problem.

***Update to add that the running was Kristyn. Do you ever get the sudden moment of complete frustration and anger that an EIGHT AND A HALF YEAR OLD should know better?  Is it really only week 1 of summer vacation?

I'm letting the kids eat strawberries on the couch.

Done. It's over.

We're sold!

Our agent even let me flip the sign.

We came back from a nice afternoon at my Mom's campsite to a big fat cheque and a waiver on the buyers' conditions. The forms were signed off at 5:30pm, so I'm guessing it went well since the inspection was scheduled to go to 6:30pm.  So, as of the 25th, this house is no longer mine (oops, I mean ours!).

As I was driving home, I took a back road to check on a house that was our main competition. I was so looking forward to "beating them". Darnit. They sold yesterday!

Trying to fall asleep, I realized to myself "I wonder what the new owners would think if they knew a baby was born right here?"  They probably wouldn't care, really. It's not like it was a murder or whatnot, but of course, that's when I realized we had just sold the house Alex was born in.  Think I can cut a whole in the carpet where he was born? I didn't think so.

And so now, I feel a bit ... free.  Today I am going to look at some mattresses.  We are going to treat ourselves to a new king size set. (How freaking wild are we?).

Other than that, there are no big plans for today or this week, besides soccer. Free!

101 Posts

We sold our house tonight.

(Okay, it's conditional on their condition, which is an inspection. Our house is 6 years old. I don't see a problem, but stranger things have happened.)

This is when I get anxious to move.

John has been a pseudo 9-5er for about 3 months now. He goes off to the farm, where we're moving to, because that is where we moved the business (to have the basement clean for selling the house). He comes home for dinner or we meet at various soccer fields around town.

He was a work at home Dad for 3 years, so I admit I was a bit excited to have him gone for the day. Some days he was constantly in my face. I found myself missing him. And dude, when you've been married for 9 years, a good dose of missing is a good thing.

I guess I was only thinking of myself because our kids are beside themselves with how much they miss their Dad. It breaks my heart!  Alex and Meghan only know a Dad who is always home. Kristyn and Erin only know a Dad who is always there when they get home from school.  They would get off the bus and head right to the basement to see him.

Alex is at the stage where Daddy is rapidly replacing Mommy as the fan favourite. Every morning, the first thing he does is look out his bedroom window and says "Dada home?" looking for John's van.  If the van is still here he runs down the stairs and yells out "Dada home!"  They hang out until it's time for John to leave and at that point Alex has a fit of rage that Dada is leaving.  When John gets out the doors (with snot all over his legs from Alex burying his face there), Alex runs to the front window and watches and waves as John drives off.

A few weeks ago John called from his cell at the corner and he said that we have to get out to the farm ASAP after school is over.  Seeing his buddy standing there and waving brought tears to his eyes.

Crap. I hate it when I feel all selfish!  He's right.

Our move is scheduled for the week of July 4.  Our house has not yet sold. We've lowered the price, but won't lower it again.  John's father is going to move in here and rent from us until it sells. So we'll be doing a house switch. The perfect solution to having to carry two houses.

...and that means I don't have to get all freaked out about the fact that I have yet to pack a single box!

...and so it begins!

The sign is up. The house photos are on MLS. The showings have begun. Woo. (Yeah, I'm saying that as deadpan as it looks).

I did cry when I noticed the sign.

I perused the photos immediately and examined every frame inch by inch.  It doesn't look like my house and that's cool, cause it's clean.

And then, what do I see? Under my bed. Is that? A ROLLED UP WHITE SOCK!?  Shown right there in a picture for the world to see!?

I turned to John and he couldn't even argue. He knew what he had done. Those rolled up socks are such a pain in my ass on a regular day. To see one of them UNDER MY BED IN A PHOTO ONLINE was torture. 

Our agent photoshopped it out for the brochure, but I think it remains on the listing. I lay awake at night thinking about it. Seriously.

So far, the house is staying pretty clean. It helps that the kids are only allowed in a small contained area and eat only bread and water over a tarp in the basement. I think it might continue even after the house is sold!

The simple answer is to just get more sleep... Or get better pills!

Yesterday, four people told me how tired I look. One person actually said "Every time I've seen you for the last month you've looked just exhausted!"

I am taking this as a small sign that maybe the stress of "staging" this home is getting to me?

The good news? It's all done. The new carpet was laid yesterday. (Yes, John, I said "laid", stop giggling like a schoolgirl!)  It all looks fab.  Like a fab home that had a bomb go off, but that's just stuff that can be put away and tidied.  I don't think this house has ever looked this good.

Tomorrow at 9am, the house is officially for sale to anyone who wants to purchase it.  If you would like to see the MLS listing, lemme know. I'm not gonna post it for everyone to see so that strangers can come and root through my closets.

We sat down last night and crunched our numbers. We are so very fortunate, lucky people.  I still can't believe our luck in buying this house when we did for what we did.  Because I saved us a mint by painting most of the house myself we made a little allotment of funds from the profits marked "Chantal".  This little sum is for me to decide what to do with. Shop. Bank. Cash into dollar bills and roll around in. Okay, that last one doesn't work if you're in a country that has dollar coins and not bills, but you get the idea.

I'm in the early stages of planning a trip this summer. I haven't decided where yet, or if I'm going alone or with John, but I am thinking New York City.  I haven't been in almost 9 years and I've been wanting to go for the last year.  We shall see.

Tick Tick Tick

The list of things to do before next week is getting smaller, but some of the tasks on that list are a bit daunting. One of them is to paint the porch. Has anyone seen the weather forecast for this weekend? Wet Wet Wet.  The porch has to be painted. It's the first thing you see when you look at the house. Right now the paint is chipping and peeling.

The rest is mostly small cosmetic items that are not hard, just time consuming. I'm chipping away at them today and tomorrow. One of them is to paint the trim of the entire house before the new carpet gets put down on Monday.

Wanna know what one of my bigger worries is about selling this house? I am not prepared to hear criticism about it.  I think we should put in the listing "Owner loves her home and has worked hard to make it look like this. Any critiques will be met with a kick in the ass."

Do you know how many times I've heard "If you love your house so much, why are you moving?" in the last few weeks. Maybe people are getting sick of hearing me whine about moving?

Space. It comes down to space. Right now, this house is perfect with a big space for our kids to play and be entertained etc... The one problem with that is that our business is no longer in the house. The business we are both dedicated to making grow so that we can continue to work from home and always be available to our kids.

It's a no brain-er really. I know that. It all goes back to change and my relationship with it.

John keeps saying we need to sell this house before the bubble bursts on this housing market we got really luck with. Can't say I disagree with him.  Doesn't make me wish this house would just burp and extra 1000 square feet any less!

He just called from the farm and said he would be home for lunch before leaving for an auction. I immediately made plans to pop a movie in for Alex and Meg so we could do ... um ... grown up things. Things he fell asleep before we could get to last night. But he has plans to hang a cabinet in the laundry room.  Shit. Grown up things at lunch time is an awful lot of fun! Maybe if we work real hard at hanging that cabinet?

The floors feel so smooth ...

It was a pretty big scramble yesterday morning when the flooring guy said "You know you can't stay here for at least one night, right?"

Of course it all made sense that we could not sleep in the same house as noxious varsol fumes, but neither John or I had thought of that. Crap.

I spent most of yesterday and today realizing what my life will soon be like living just far enough from civilization to drive me nuts. I had to drive back to Stittsville from Almonte twice, because I'm not yet programmed to think of absolutely everything I need while I'm in a place I can get it.

Okay, once was for a soccer game. Can I just take this one minute to say this. You might think that an over-30 ladies league means that it's not contact. Bullshit. These women are brutal! The worst offenders are at least 45-50!  Do you know who they come after? The goalie. Who is the goalie? Me.  Can I go back to Women's Rec now, please?  Though, I am loving this team. We're second last right now, but I dig these chicks.

What was I saying? Oh yes. Our night at the farm. Our first night was not too bad. The kids were exhausted from running around everywhere and went right to sleep.  The only thing I found odd was that quiet in the country doesn't mean the same thing as quiet in the suburbs. It's quiet. Almost eerily so.  It didn't help that I was finishing off Angels and Demons and anything dealing with religion really freaks me out. Other than John's snoring, it was silent. No cars. No dogs. No teenagers.

I haven't decided yet if the silence is a good thing, but our night there has me feeling less apprehensive about moving. It is beautiful and spacious. It's just what we need.

Look at me! I'm growing...

We're back at our house tonight and the fumes have dissipated a bit. The wood floors look just fab. I want to hump them, but we can't set foot (or other parts) on them until tomorrow at noon. Besides, I think the fumes would be bad for me up close like that.

I get excited by big laundry rooms.

Today marks the third day of John leaving the house at 8am and returning around 6pm.  The business moved to the new house at the farm this weekend. He and the girls kiss me as they leave and Meg, Alex and I spend the day together.

After 5 years of having him constantly here, I was jumping with joy at the thought of finally having him out of my hair.  But crap, what is this? I miss him!  I actually miss having him here to bug me, hump me from behind as I make lunch, and generally annoy me.

The rest of the house will move the weekend after school ends, end of June. The house goes up for sale May 2 with our first open house the following weekend. The floors are being done this Friday and the new carpet installed next Friday. We're pretty much good to go.

Until we move, I will be spending Thursdays at the farm slowly bringing out our stuff so that the big moving day isn't as bad. There are so many things I can't wait to get my hands on. The massive kitchen, the pantry that's as big as my current kitchen, the laundry room that makes me horny ... You know, the usual stuff.

I do have pics of the farm. Leave a comment or email me and I can send the link.

Must get ready for Preschool Duty Day!