Hello, I'm happy!

So this is what happy feels like! I woke up in an exceptionally good mood today, so you won't see any rants here. Have a wonderful day!

You are not the boss of me! Damn it.

Open letter to my husband and son who are both sitting on my last nerve:

Okay guys, I am fed up. I've had it. Up to HERE. Roger, DH, I am tired of you speaking to me as if I'm your subordinate. I am your equal. Read that again. I am your equal. I did not marry you so that I could spend the rest of my life picking your dirty underwear and socks up off the floor. I did not marry you to put all of your dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I did not marry into a life of servitude. And if I'm not your slave, then you'd better start paying me. Cause housekeepers, cooks and landscapers are bringing home pretty good salaries these days. And I am tired of doing all this shit for nothing. I'm not asking for you to pay me in cash. What I want is a tiny bit of appreciation and recognition for what I do around here. What I REALLY want is for you guys to keep things clean for a few hours. Having this house look great to sell is WORK and if I'm doing all of that work, you two have got to at least maintain it. I'd like to feel a little support here, too. A hug now and then wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Ryan, dear son of mine, you are 19 years old. I am not YOUR servant either. All I've asked you to do is make your bed and put your dirty clothes in the hamper. I've been dusting and vacuuming your room and cleaning your bathroom---at least make it easier for me to do. I'm tired of picking up all your crap daily just so I can see the damned floor. I know you do not want to move and that you feel it is a great sacrifice for you to do so. But consider this: The money we will make on this house will more than pay for your college education. It means you will not have student loans to pay off when you graduate from college, which means you will start your adult life free of debt. Which believe me, is a HUGE deal. So quit acting like a spoiled brat and start acting more like the adult you want to be treated as.

I love you both, but get this straight---YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

The ants go marching 1 by 1, hurrah, hurrah

OMG--we had over 40 real estate agents trudge through my house today for the brokers' open. I'm sure they just came for the food that was served, but hey, they came. Then I had one really nasty RE agent show my house this afternoon. Geez, I asked her to give me a few minutes so I could turn on the lights and get the dogs out of the house and she just about reamed me a new one. Helloooo! That's why it says "by appointment only" in the listing. Agents are asked to call first so I can remove the dogs and get the hell out of here. Calling first does not mean that you call from your cell phone while parked right in front of my house. I will be so glad when this is all over.
On another note, Txlilbits is a fake. Like we all didn't know that already. Posted photos of a Christian singer and said they were of her. This woman is sick. The strange thing is, there really IS a Lily Knowles living in Granbury, Texas. So is SHE the real TXlilbits or just a borrowed name and address? This just gets curiouser and curiouser. I swear, if I knew she didn't have caller ID, I'd call to find out! What does that make me?
I really miss all my NS friends. So many have left the board or aren't there very often. If they only knew how much they helped me out! In all kinds of different ways, not just with weight loss. I'm still feeling the loss of Diana's friendship, I guess. I can't believe that when she was in San Diego and I spoke to her on the phone, she was so friendly and said she'd call when she got back up here. Haven't heard from her since. I hope she's okay and not drinking. I'll probably worry about her for the rest of my life. I also can't believe that after being friends for 10 years, she's forgotten I exist. Was I that insignificant? Answer: YES. And I think I knew it all along. Had my last name been Foster's or Anheuser-Busch, we'd still be friends.

Feeling more optimistic today. Thank God.

I was so bummed yesterday. Worried about money, wondering why no one is looking at my house. Still no calls today, but I spoke with one of my agents this morning and she reminded me that we haven't done any real adveritising to the general public and that won't start til next week. We also missed the last brokers' open. Our only advertising is in the MLS website and Realtor.com, nothing in the newspaper or local RE websites yet. So, I'm trying not to get discouraged yet. We have an open house again this Sunday and the brokers' open next Tuesday and the ads should start running in the real estated mags and the newspaper, too. The brokers' open will be a catered buffet lunch, so that should help draw in the agents who are too lazy to show up otherwise.
Tomorrow they're coming to spray the fungicide under my house and lay down a moisture barrier. Roger already replaced the trim board piece that was starting to rot and tightened the toilet, so all repairs will be done and we'll have a clear pest report. Geez, this selling of houses is a complicated business.

Well, this sucks.

Our house has been on the market for 6 days now and no bites. We had a huge open house, but other than that only 4 people have come with realtors since last Wednesday. I still think we're overpriced, by about $15,000, for the current market. But our double agents say we're not. It's kind of scary cause if we don't sell soon, we'll have to take out a HUGE mortgage to cover both houses til this one sells. And I don't see how we can afford the payments on two houses. So our other option is to give up the condo and stay here. We have to sell this house by about the middle of October or we're screwed, cause that's when we have to order and pay for the upgrades in the condo. Right now we only have a $5000 deposit that we'll lose, on Monday that will go up to $15,000 and by the middle of October we'll have almost $45,000 we could lose. I just want to turn and run right now. I think Roger and I have to have a serious talk.

AAARRGGHHH!!! Just shoot me now.

I am so totally exhausted! Mentally, physically, emotionally. It's gonna be harder to leave this house than I thought. We had our first open house here yesterday, so we took the dogs out for the day and went up to check on the progress being made on the new abode. It looks the same as last time, to me. The farmers' market was on the green and it was a LOT of fun. Fresh produce, flower bulbs, pottery and lots of food. And live music all day. We actually stopped at a cafe for a blended coffee and were able to have the dogs on the restaurant patio with us. VERY European! And very unusual for Roger to do something like that. We can go somewhere for the entire day and it will never cross his mind to stop for lunch or a soda or anything. Thank God we don't take long road trips---you could starve to death on your way to the Grand Canyon.
Open house went great. We had over 30 prospective buyers in the first 2 hours and steady traffic after that. All of my neighbors called last night to tell us they'd never seen anything like it. Hopefully someone will make an offer soon. If I have to move, I'd like to just get it over and done with. Roger's still excited about the move, but poor Ryan hasn't accepted it yet. I don't blame him. He's lived here almost his entire life and all of his friends are within a few blocks of here. Thankfully he'll be off to San Francisco State in June and maybe it won't be so bad.
I'm very emotional about it. I've never lived in any one place as long as I've been here, and I have so much invested in this house emotionally. After all, my last child grew up here. I'll really miss most of the neighbors. Most of us have been here since the homes were new and we've watched all of the little kids grow up and go off to college. Wow, it's gone by so fast!
Anyhow, if you want to see my real estate ad (big whoop), here's the addy. You'll have to cut and paste, as I'm too computer stupid to do a link. Believe me, I tried!

http://norcalmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Bareis&PRGNAME=MLSLogin&ARGUMENT=St%2BWcSNajDwPepuPyQfSSQ%3D%3D

NOW I'm really done. Maybe.

I must be terribly anal. I stayed up til 4:30 this morning cleaning and washing floors to get ready for buyers at 10 am. OMG. I am so exhausted I can't see straingt. And I get to do it all over again tonight. Well, maybe not quite as much, but it will be like this til the house is sold. We also had our pest inspection today. They found standing water under our house and FUNGI. The inspector said that if he hadn't found it now, we would have had rotting wood in a couple of years. So we need to have a moisture barrier put down AND have it all sprayed with fungicide. YUCK. At least it wasn't mold. Then we would have had SERIOUS problems. The only other stuff he found was a loose toilet and a piece of outside trim that needs to be replaced. Nothing that money can't fix. LOL
I have to do a little more paint touch-up tonight. How I missed one spot, I don't know. Pretty soon, I won't be able to uncurl my fingers. They are seriously sore and swollen from holding paint brushes and rollers.
On the plus side---I've lost a total of 9 lbs. since I started getting the house ready to sell. It's almost easier than NS! And I've eaten nothing but take-out for days!

Done. Finis. The house is listed.

Yeehaw! We finally listed with a real estate agent! Actually, TWO agents. They come as a team. I had the days mixed up and thought they were coming on Wednesday, but they didn't come til Thursday. I got the whole house cleaned on Wednesday and had to do it all over again yesterday. Oh well. I might as well get used to it. They told me over the phone that they thought we should list the house for $699K, but when they came and looked at the house last night, they upped it to $724,000. They hadn't realized the whole house had been remodeled. They told me I had a flair for color and design. Yeah, right! I had to go look at new model homes to come up with ideas. That's my little secret. I figure the way to sell your house is to make it look as much like a model home as possible. So I copied paint schemes and decor ideas. Is that like plagiarism?
Next, I have to have the carpets cleaned, but the real estate agents pay for that out of their commission. They ought to do something with all that money! I should have waited to have the windows washed---maybe they would have picked up the tab for that, too. They're going to put a virtual tour of my house on the internet. How fun. Then, you all can go look at my house! And leave me comments about how that much money would buy a way better house in a different part of the U.S.!

I'm fried.

Yesterday my friend Jane sent some people over to look at my house. So I spent all morning dusting, vacuuming and washing floors. The people can't actually BUY my house, but it gave me an idea of what a stranger might think about it. And they liked it! Then we all walked down to another house in my neighborhood that was having an open house. It looked so bad, that it made me think I'm working too hard to make mine look good! Their cabinets were all peeling and flaking and they had broken tile around the fireplace, etc. and they were still asking $689,000. So I guess we'll ask at least $10k over that. The real estate agent is coming Wednesday pm to talk to us and give us her opinion.
My back yard still needs some work, but I pulled out all of the annuals and replaced them with small shrubs. Tomorrow, I'll redo the walk out to the hot tub. I just wish I had time to put a coat of sealer on the patio. Oh well.
We worked on the garage today. What a mess. But not a black widow in sight. It must be too late in the season for them. We had tons of them in June. I was so afraid to stick my hands behind anything today, but we didn't spot even one of them.
So the garage is ALMOST done. Amd the dumpster is almost full and the storage unit is almost full. Progress, at last!