Kid-less = clean house

We sent the offspring off with Gram so we could work on the house. Or realtor came today to take pictures and we filled out some paperwork, so now our house is clean and slightly more organized. The study/3rd bedroom looks amazing, too bad it took us moving to get it this way! Now we just have to keep it this way, it's amazing what can be done with uninterrupted time. I always feel like I'm forgetting something though when the kids aren't with me. It's strange and liberating at the same time. Our realtor says she has a client who is a school teacher who is interested in our house and they'll probably come look at it towards the end of the week. Wouldn't that be nice! O.k., not much else to report right now. I'm sleepy and the kids will be back soon so I think it's naptime, clean sheets and the rediscovered duvet are calling my name...

Packin' up

Here's why we're so motivated...


Our new backyard and huge screened-in back porch.
This part of the yard is fenced in and there is a lot more that isn't, and a quick walk through the woods leads to a small lake!

So, we're planning on moving in 3 weeks or so. We've been packing boxes like crazy and I finally found the floor of the closet in the study/junk room. There were things in there we moved from Decatur and haven't touched in 3 1/2 years! Sad. Speaking of sad, I've been getting kind of nostalgic about this house the past few days, it is a really good house and we've loved being here. We are outgrowing it though so even if we weren't embarking on this adventure, it would be time to move on. I just hope someone who sees what we see in it can find it soon and buy it! We're meeting with a realtor tomorrow, she seems pretty cool. Most realtors we've encountered have been snooty bee-ot-ches so we're hoping the one isn't. We just want someone to market our house like crazy and give us a fair deal, we know we're not going to make any money off it and that's o.k., we just don't want a mortgage payment while in seminary.
We're going to a dinner tonight at the bishop's house. Kind of scary. It's for upcoming seminarians and their spouses/partners. We had to get a babysitter, we aren't sure how we're going to pay her, maybe she takes partially used Starbuck's gift cards? Anyway, it should be interesting. ^J^ knows two other seminarians from his discernment group and there are some people from the diocese and maybe a few more seminarians from DYVE coming. O.K., the kitchen floor is starting to crawl away so I'd better go sweep.

Lookie-Loos

Well I put out the house flyers yesterday evening and today they are gone! So we've had some lookie-loos and that's exciting, but it makes me nervous! We're not really ready to show this house and need to finish a couple of projects before anyone can come see it, but we wanted to get the sign up and get some info out there. Now I need time to get the rest of the inside painting done and clean up some clutter in the 3rd bedroom. Yikes!

On an unrelated note, we're going to see Rick Riordan today at a book release party and signing at my favorite independent bookstore Little Shop of Stories. He's the author of the Percy Jackson series which is a really fun middle grades book about a boy who finds out he is half Greek god and half human. They are really well done and the kids at school love them, so we've been anxiously awaiting the release of the 4th book. Another really great author, Jerry Spinelli, will be there after. The International Reading Association conference is in town this week so all these amazing children's book authors are descending upon the city. Fun Fun! I'll post pics if my camera cooperates.

Time to change

I've updated this blog a little and changed the name. I'm trying to focus it on our journey to seminary and what we do/encounter while we're there. I've been keeping up with many new blogs and I'm always so impressed with their writing, family life, homeschooling, craftiness, etc. I hope to create a similar blog people can come to a get a little slice of our life On the Mountain.

Last week, J finally found out he was accepted to his seminary of choice and we're ready to move on. We actually called about housing even before he got his "official" acceptance letter! They told us they would be choosing housing for us using the application we sent but that they were pretty sure we'd be getting "one of the larger houses". I was slightly irked at first by this, I thought we'd have more of a choice in the matter, but I'm coping. This is not a choice I need to be worried about: it's only for 3 years and we'll make do with whatever we're given. Most of the houses are bigger than our current house anyway, so nothing would really be a bad choice. Our main focus now will be to get our house sold. I'm done with school and not going back until we get settled. We've painted, pressure washed, planted and pruned and the FSBO sign is in the yard. I'm not sure how we'll do by ourselves, it seems so daunting, but I think once we've gotten it listed online and in some papers we might get some action on it. We've listed it a lot lower than all the other houses in our neighborhood so I'm hoping that will help. Now to keep it clean and "showable", that's the challenge!

Long Time No Type

Life's funny, it seems like just yesterday I was writing the previous post and thinking about the house sprusing up stuff, but it's been a month and a half and nothing has really changed. We're still trying to get the house "ready". I think it's like being "ready" for a baby, like my father-in-law told us once, "if you wait until til you're "ready" you'll never have one". So we just need to do what we can and get it on the market. We actually bought a FSBO sign tonight and I'm going to make up some flyers. It really just seems more like us to do it ourselves (would this be DIO then?). We'll see if we have any action on it or not, we have so many houses in our neighborhood for sale, maybe some agents will stop by.

School has been overwhelming me and causing me to not get much done around the house. I'll be so glad when this semester is over!