Melancholy Moments and The Beach

As some of you know my house was in contract to be sold and we were in contract to buy a house this past winter and then a mistake was made and it all came unraveled. I drove past the house today. The house we paid for an appraisal and inspection for. The one I drove past almost every other day for a couple of months trying to map out different routes to all the places we frequent weekly. Painful. There was furniture neatly arranged on the porch, evidence that someone else has now named it home. I know it's been 4 months but I'm still having a difficult time. We are unmoving, unpacking and trying to get back to normal but it is still difficult.

I'm really trying to be grateful for what I have but I'm still really bummed and each time I unpack a box it's a painful reality of the whole stinky house process we went through. I really want to feel better about all of this. Why can't I feel better?

I feel like I should apologize for being so down about this. And I feel like I should just move on. Believe me I'm really trying to move on I just don't know how to.

On a more positive note though. My parents asked me today if me and my family would like to go to the beach with them this summer, I'm so grateful. I called the huz at work and he was okay with it so I started to look online for beach house rentals. We first discussed going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, cause I love it there. But we then thought of Virginia Beach and ultimately came to the conclusion that we were going to rent a big ol' 12 passenger van and drive to Pensacola, Florida. Crazy! But yes we are going to Florida in August! Very, very exciting.

As kids we lived in Pensacola, Florida for a time when my dad was in the Navy. I have not been there since I was a young babe. I'm very excited to go and rest on the beach, go fishing and just watch my babes have fun in the sun with their grandparents and my nephews, who will be going as well. Can't wait!

Will Our House Really Sell?

So we put our house on the market on November 5th. Thus far we've had 1 showing by a perspective buyer and then we had a sort of open house for realtors in the area. We are told we will have 2 showings this week as of today. This is a slow time of the year for house sales but fortunately our area remains as one of the areas doing above average for house sales...thank God!

But anyhoo...something really cool that's happening is that after the perspective buyer saw our house last week we received a report indicating that she's interested in our house. The report also stated she wanted to take a few days to consider it. Tonight we received word from our realtor that she is coming to see our house for the second time this Tuesday. She also requested the dimensions of our living and dining room spaces. To say we are a bit excited would be an understatement. I guess our house could really sell this week! Of course if not we'll deal with that but it could...wow!

Thought I'd share where things are at at this point in time.

Coming Soon

There is now a realtors sign in our front lawn that says, "Coming Soon"...I'm so relieved. Although our house needs some touch up painting done, the backyard needs some grooming and the house needs a major cleaning we will have it done this week. The house will then be put on the market next Monday. I feel like I can start to relax a little.
In regards to the house we want, once our house is on the market we can make a contingent offer on the house we really want. Who knows if we'll get it but we'll see.
Here's what the outside looks like of the house we'd like.

Update: The Seller of the house we want (the one above) rejected our contingent offer...sad but true.

Spending Money To Make Money.

If I never see another paint can or cardboard box again it will be too soon!

Let's get this house on the market and sold already. I'm so on edge and convinced it's going to take years for my house to sell and my kids will be going to college when it finally does sell and then it will be pointless!

Alright, alright call me a pessimist.

The house we want is having an open house today. I've thought about using the kids binoculars and scoping it out from across the street just to see how many people I must compete with. The Hub suggested I go in and point out all the flaws REAL loud and obnoxiously....I'm considering this option.

But a good friend said to me Wednesday that God will meet my needs and WILL give me this house if it's meant for us. I'm trying to buy that line. God is good. But I've been so burned as of late with relationships that it's so painful for me to not put up a wall between me and God. Why is that? Does that even make sense? How can I accept the good things from God but when I suffer I put up a wall? In general though I've been pretty cynical about all things spiritual. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing b/c I need to figure out things for myself so I can live honestly but with having babes over the last 3 years and going through so many life, physical and emotional changes-let's just say I don't feel like myself anymore.

Wow I really digress. My post title, Spending Money to Make Money, is expressing currently what is happening in our "journey" to put our house on the market. We have spent roughly 10k getting this house up to par. It's very stressful. But I will tell you it's hard to believe our house won't sell, but I bet everyone in this position thinks this.

Wouldn't be cool if in a month from today I wrote a blog post expressing my excitement over selling my house?

The exterior painter comes Wednesday to power wash the house. He will then begin the process of scraping old paint, filling cracks and holes, replacing trim pieces and then painting our house. We will then place our house on the market. So as of today we have about 1o days to finish everything inside the house so we can put our house on the market.

Preparing to Sell

So in the last few weeks we have decided to prepare our home to put on the market. This is very sad for us b/c we love our house and have continued to work on it over the last 6.5 years to make it "our home". But it's inevitable that there is not enough space. It seems two babes in this house was fine/manageable/enjoyable/comfortable. But with Baby J now needing to be in a separate room, sharing a bedroom with W, we realized how much anxiety this has created in us.

Plus with all the toys, clothes and just regular stuff in the house we are busting at the seams.

One thing I have done is begin to weed our house of stuff by selling some large items but this still hasn't been enough. We are now thinking it terms of getting rid of stuff not to create more space for ourselves but instead to create a peaceful experience for potential buyers as they look at our house.

This past weekend I prime painted in preparation to paint the living room, trim, staircase, fireplace and some trim in the dining room. I have a ways to go but it doesn't seem overwhelming...yet. We recently had a new back door installed and a storm door on both the front and back doors. The company who installed the back doors managed to wreck a bit of my laundry room wall. Therefore I need to get them back out here to do some drywall repair-money. They also need to replace some lattice along side the house-more money, & repair some fascia board on the front of the house-even more money. I have a painter coming out tomorrow to tell me his estimate on painting our house-a must. And we need to have our front porch steps repaired. And to top the whole thing off I'm heading to Ikea this saturday to purchase the rest of our kitchen cupboards (we started buying them two years ago).

Wow what a whirlwind of activity! I don't know if we'll actually meet our goal but we are going to try.

We did go out last night with our Realtor to scope out some houses in Olde Town East, essentially downtown. It's awesome over there...well it's also sketchy over there too. But we wanted to look b/c the neighborhood is kind of up and coming and it's similar to German Village. We found a remarkable house & we found a few duds.

We are also looking in Clintonville & Worthington. We haven't had any luck finding 4 bedrooms in Clintonville for our price range and with at least 1.5 bathrooms (ideally 2). Although we're not ready to buy yet we feel so confused with where we want to live. We just assumed Clintonville would be where we "ended up" but you don't get a lot of space for the money and the taxes are high. But of course Worthington taxes are higher but you can get a lot of space and the Hub's parents live there so that would be nice. Plus the schools are good, neighborhoods are safe and it's close to where I do the majority of our shopping.