Thursday, April 28, 2005

house stuff

Whatever this bug is that I had/have crept back up on me again yesterday. I wasn't able to go into work because I felt so lousy. I ended up sleeping for most of the day. Today I feel a bit better but still a little fragile. It's an odd thing.

Last night, we had another visit from our real estate agent. He brought us a second offer. It's not as a good an offer as the one we are in the middle of right now but it's a solid "back-up" should anything happen to the first one. The offer we accepted on Monday expires on May 1. We don't foresee anything happening to it though.

Tentatively, we have selected May 25 as our moving day. Once the offer is finalized, I'm going to meet with our movers. It's really exciting to be able to plan the move finally. As we're all still getting over being sick, I don't want to do too much this weekend but we are going to start shopping for new kitchen appliances and looking at paint colours. Joe can pick the colour is his room and Mark and I will figure out what we're doing in the other rooms.

The walls in the new house seem to be sheet-rock. The new house has an addition on the back of it and I suspect that they dry-walled the whole place when they reno'd. Everything looks to be in very good condition so I don't expect that painting will be as tricky as it was in our current home. In our place, we have the original walls which are hard as rocks, covered in wallpaper that has been painted over and over. The only sheet-rock is in places where we put it in (the bathroom ceiling and part of the kitchen). The new folks are lucky though, the whole house is primed and ready for paint. When we took everything apart, we never put any pictures back up so they won't even have to fill any nail holes.

Our plan is to paint, clean and move some of the stuff from our storage locker, into the new house, over the weekend (we get in on May 20). I should have everything packed and ready to go by that time. Seriously, there is not much left to pack up at this point. About 75% of what we own is already packed and sitting in storage.

In the meantime, we're just waiting for Monday. My stomach is almost back to normal, after weeks of being tied up in knots. The dark circles are slowly fading from beneath my eyes. Soon, very soon, this blog will be turned into a "hey look at all the stuff we're doing in our new place" blog. Don't say, you weren't warned!

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

adjusting

Last night, Mark asked me why I wasn't jumping up and down, all excited about the offer. I think that his dad was a little surprised that I wasn't bouncing off of the walls about it. I was happy, relieved, really. The truth was though (and I told Mark this), I still felt slightly sick to my stomach. After all, the offer hasn't been finalized, it's not "firm" so I'm still feeling uneasy. We also had another showing today so it wasn't like I didn't have to clean the bathroom "one more time" this week already. Also, because of the lateness of the meeting with the agents (after 7 -- we normally go to bed around 8:30), I was a little keyed up, over-tired, and worried about not getting to sleep last night. I'll feel much better at this time next week, when it's done and dusted.

I realized though that I was getting used to the idea, and was actually relaxing about the whole selling / buying thing when I started making lists in my head before bed. I'm a list-maker and I hadn't allowed myself to make even one list relating to what needed to be done at the new place. It felt kind of neat to start planning, which rooms I'd paint first, in what order we'll move stuff in...all that stuff. Next week, after we sign-off on the deal, I'll book the movers. If all goes well, we plan to move in the middle of the week. That will give us a few days in the new place to paint and clean and a couple of days on the other end, to clean the old place after we've moved.

It's hard to believe that we close on the new house in just three weeks (well, three weeks and three days). In a way, it feels like five minutes since we first saw the new house and, at the same time, like it was five months (in actual fact, it was five weeks ago). It feels good to be feeling good about it, finally.

Monday, April 25, 2005

feeling slightly less tense

The weekend was silly. We had showings off and on all day Friday and Saturday. Sunday we had another open house. Partly, it works out okay because you're not home to mess up the house that you've spent every waking hour making all neat and tidy (to an obsessive degree) for the nice people who are going to come and want to buy your house.

Fortunately for us, we were presented with an amazing offer tonight. It's conditional on the purchaser finalizing their financing but they are pre-approved for an amount greater than our agreed-to price so that should just be a matter of them finalizing stuff with their bank.

They slipped in for a showing at 4 p.m. I say slipped in because Mark thought that they were the 5 p.m. showing, arriving on our door-step an hour early. He was on his way out the door to pick me up from work. When we got home, they were standing in the driveway. We answered a couple of questions that they had and they stood outside, talking to their agent for a while. I really liked the look of them, they were a young couple, probably in their mid-20's. This is a terrific "first home" and I thought that they would make a great fit here.

Anyway, we grabbed Joe** and went out for some noodle soup. When we got home, our agent called about the offer. It was much better than I expected and we accepted it. This week, we will still continue to show the house but we can't accept any other offers until this one expires next Monday. That's totally fine by me, I'm really relieved, well a little bit anyway. I'll feel much better when everything is waived next Monday and I can contact the bank and our lawyer and finalize everything on our end. The closing date they chose works very well for us too, it's a week after our closing date so we'll have a whole week to paint and clean in the new place, before we move in.

Soon, in a couple of days or so, my bodily functions should return to normal and I'll be able to sleep, properly, again. I'm really looking forward to that. It's been a very long month, what with packing up most of the house, going through construction, putting the house back together, cleaning it every day and surviving the worst head-cold I think I have ever experienced. Sleep will feel very very good, I think.

** Joe, for those of you who may not know, is Mark's almost 80 year old dad, he moved in with us last April and it's because of him that we're moving in the first place -- he can no longer do the stairs easily in our current house

Friday, April 22, 2005

Here is this week's Friday Feast, #44:

Appetizer
Name something that helps you fall asleep.
Ordinarily, I have no trouble at all falling asleep. On the rare occasion that I do, I find that counting backwards from 100 will do it. I rarely get to 80.

Soup
Who brings out the best in you?
I think that Mark does. He makes me want to be a more thoughtful, caring person so I am (or try to be).

Salad
What do you like to do on a rainy day?
Curl up with a cup of tea or coffee and watch a movie or read.

Main Course
Complete this sentence: In our home, we never have enough...
time. The days just fly by and we never seem to get everything that we'd like to do, done. The stuff that needs to happen usually does but the things that we'd like to have happen often don't.

Dessert
Which shoe do you put on first?
Wow, I have never thought about it until just now. I always put my right shoe on first. Weird!

Happy weekend kiddies!!

Thursday, April 21, 2005

knocking on wood

I hate to jinx it... but I think that my cold may finally be going away. I've drugged myself up the past two nights and have slept like the dead. Finally, I may be on the mend. Poor Joe is still coughing his lungs up but he seems to do it less often than he was doing so maybe he's getting better too.

*fingers crossed*

Monday, April 18, 2005

hanging on

If you can believe it, Joe and I are still sick. It really sucks and I'm tired of it. I'm also tired of having to keep the house so clean. It doesn't feel like our house at all. We can't relax because you never know when someone is going to want to see it. It'll be worthwhile in the end, I know, because it'll be sold and we can move to the new house but my goodness, it is way more stressful than I ever imagined that it could be.

Other than being sick and selling the house, everything is going okay. Our agent called tonight about a viewing tomorrow and told Mark that we shouldn't be too enthused about the 27 groups for the open house. He got the feeling that most of them were looky-loos. I would imagine that a lot of them were neighbours. That's okay though, maybe someone will mention it to a friend who will want to buy it. Any publicity is good, right?

If you have some fingers to spare, keep 'em crossed for us!

Sunday, April 17, 2005

best episode, recently

It is late, for me anyway. Ordinarily I'm tucked up in bed by now. We stayed up a little later than normal because Sunday is our "tv night." We watch the Simpsons, Arrested Development and, tonight, the season premiere of Trailer Park Boys was on. Don't worry, I'm heading to bed now. My eyes are a little bugged from the tv. Let me just say this, tonight's episode of the Simpsons was the best I'd seen in a while. I love any episodes that deal with the future or with flash-backs and tonight's was brilliant. I particularly liked the mention they made of "Saudi Israelia." Too funny.

Resting was on the agenda this weekend and happily, we got some. Yesterday we did anyway. Today was had an open house so we had to evacuate for a few hours. The whole morning was spend cleaning and sanitizing the house, not to mention putting break on to bake. The house looked pretty good. Apparently, 27 groups of people went through. I'm not sure if that is good or bad, hopefully it's good. I'd love to sell the house this week. That's probably not realistic but I can hope anyway, can't I?

Friday, April 15, 2005

the sickness

Mark's birthday was nice although not terribly eventful. We had planned to go out for dinner but at the last minute decided to just go buy some stuff at the store and make it at home. He wanted something really tasty and at times, Kingston is a culinary wasteland so... We ended up having 2 different kinds of shrimp, some salad and it was delicious. It was much better than anything we could have had in a restaurant and for what we paid for the shrimp, there was no way that the 3 of us could have eaten in a restaurant.

After dinner, my mum and dad came over. Mum brought Mark some yummy looking butter-tart-squares. I say yummy looking because I didn't have one. He had a few and then I put them away. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get to try one over the weekend. I'm not holding my breath though.

Joe and I are still sick with the cold. We were supposed to be going out of town this weekend but that's not happening now. Neither of us feel up to the trip so we're going to skip it. Honestly, I think we're both a little too sick to be disappointed at this point. After work, Mark and I went to Joe's pharmacy and got some cough syrup for him. It was a challenge for the pharmacist to find something that would not interact with the rest of his medications but he did it in the end. I think it'll help Joe. He's just been drinking hot water and sucking on Halls to fight the cough. It's a nasty bug I tell ya.

If all goes well, we'll have a very restful weekend. I hope you do too!!

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Happy Birthday

Today is Mark's birthday. When we started this whole buying and selling houses stuff, we decided to do the gift thing for our birthdays. Of course, I couldn't not get him something. Ordinarily, I get him something hardware related for his computer. This year though, money being tight and all for the next little while, I picked him up a copy of the R. Crumb Handbook. He was pleasantly surprised. I could tell he was not expecting it (when he picked up the wrapped package he said, "could this be a new hard drive?"). There sure is a lot of stuff crammed into the book, it's really cool actually.

I'm back at work today. I'm feeling a bit better but not fantastic. I slept for 6 hours yesterday during the morning. Even though I got up 2 or 3 times, it was more than I slept all together in more than a week. Last night was dreadful. Everytime I'd lay down, I'd start coughing. When I'd finally fall asleep, I'd be dreaming about coughing and then, no surprise, I'd wake up coughing. Fun huh?? I have a croaky, raspy thing happening with my voice which is really irritating. I would love to not have to talk but that's hard to do here at work.

The house thing is going well. We finally got the last bit of tidying up done and I think the place looks really nice. Apparently, the folks who went through it on Tuesday were very happy with what they saw and their agent will be getting in touch with them on Sunday or Monday about the possibility of an offer (we're not accepting any until Monday because we technically weren't supposed to be doing any viewings until tomorrow). Speaking of which, another person went through this morning and yet another is booked for tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed folks, we're looking for a quick sale!

So that's about all the news there is today. I think we're going out for dinner with Mark's dad tonight, to celebrate his birthday. Other than that, we don't have any big plans. We have to go into Toronto on Saturday so we'll probably do something fun then. If you want to send him some happy birthday wishes, pass them along to me and I'll forward them to him.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

it's snot funny

My body is a pathetic snot factory. Seriously. It's been 6 days now and there is no end in sight. I'm exhausted and currently have literally no voice. If I talk, I cough. It's not nice, not at all. On the upside, my nose is feeling less like hamburger right now. My throat isn't so good but at least my nose is looking less "W.C. Fields" at the moment.

The house is coming together. It looks pretty great actually, despite the super slow pace I have had to take doing the cleaning over the past few days. I took Monday and Tuesday off work. After spending several days at the local "Days Inn," we were able to move back into the house on Sunday. I was never so glad to see my bed in my whole life. There is nothing as dreary and depressing as being sick when you are away from home.

Back to the house, we're officially starting viewings on Friday. Yesterday, however, as a favour to another agent in his office, our guy arranged for a viewing for folks who "could look past the mess." They were here twice yesterday. Not sure if we'll be hearing anything from them today or not but I thought that was a good sign. There is another viewing booked for Friday morning and an open house scheduled for Friday. The house looks pretty good. Everything is bright and clean looking. All I really need to do to get ready for Friday is scrub the bathroom, dust Joe's room and go over the whole place again with the vacuum. The kitchen and living room look better than they ever had. It's kind of sad that they only look that good when you're planning on leaving.

I think I'm going to crawl back into bed. I feel like hammered shit and can't talk or breathe so I'm pretty sure that no one will want to see me, coughing and blowing my nose, at the office. I sure wouldn't want to see me, if I had a choice.

Happy humpday kiddies, hope you're feeling better than I am!

Friday, April 08, 2005

busy busy busy

We're still in chaos at home. The house is looking good but it's uninhabitable at the moment. Over the past couple of days, in addition to being homeless, I've developed a nasty head cold so I haven't been sleeping much. Such is life, right?

Anyway, for some "fun" on a Friday, I took a personality quiz. You might want to too, they are always kind of fun. Happy weekend kids.


Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion |||||||||||||| 60%
Stability |||||||||||||| 56%
Orderliness |||||||||||||||| 66%
Empathy |||||||||||||||| 70%
Interdependence |||||||||||||||||| 76%
Intellectual |||||||||||| 43%
Mystical || 10%
Artistic |||||| 30%
Religious || 10%
Hedonism || 10%
Materialism |||||||||||||| 56%
Narcissism |||||||||||| 43%
Adventurousness |||||||||||||| 56%
Work ethic |||||||||||||||| 63%
Self absorbed |||||||||||| 50%
Conflict seeking |||||||||||| 50%
Need to dominate |||||||||||||||| 70%
Romantic |||| 16%
Avoidant || 10%
Anti-authority |||||||||||| 43%
Wealth || 10%
Dependency |||||| 30%
Change averse |||||||||||| 50%
Cautiousness |||||||||||| 50%
Individuality |||||||||||||||| 63%
Sexuality |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Peter pan complex |||||||||| 36%
Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Food indulgent |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Histrionic |||||| 23%
Paranoia |||||||||||| 50%
Vanity |||||||||| 36%
Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 63%
Female cliche |||||||||| 36%


Stability results were moderately high which suggests you are relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

Trait Snapshot:
clean, organized, dislikes chaos, semi neat freak, perfectionist, traditional, realist, fits in most places, enjoys managing others, risk averse, good at saving money, prudent, respects authority, high self control, hard working, does not like to stand out, follows the rules, finisher, resilient, takes precautions, cautious, honest, unfamiliar with the dark side of life, practical, dutiful

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

quick check-in

We've been busy just recently. Very very busy. Our house is in chaos but it's good. The kitchen is looking very good, new flooring is being installed today, I can't wait to see what it looks like. Actually, I know what it looks like but I want to see what it looks like when it's installed. Yikes.

The next few days should be very very messy. Joe will be staying at my mum & dad's for a couple of days because of paint fumes. Hopefully by Saturday or Sunday, things should be back to normal. I'm going to take Monday and Tuesday off as "vacation" so I can clean. The house is now listed, the sign goes on the lawn on Thursday, viewings start next week.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my stomach well and truly knotted that we get a quick sale. Logically, I'm not worried about it, we've already had two or three people express interest in it and it's not "official" yet. Psychologically, I'm a big mess, it's just nerves and lack of sleep. Both of these things should be rectified soon-ish but I may not have a lot of time to check in here. I'll try but can't make any promises.

In the meantime, stay warm and have fun!!