We've also had a surprising two requests for showings and one open house lately (one showing tomorrow), so we've been cleaning like crazy people. At one point I was scrubbing the carpets by hand at 11 p.m., because when I took the girls outside to let Trevor wash the carpets with our steam cleaner, he decided he'd skip using SOAP and just ran a freshener over them. They looked clean, apparently, because they were wet. They were not. After I hand washed them in a fury, I made him go back over them with hot water. Then, we slept with all the windows open in our room and the fan on high so we didn't die from exposure to toxic chemicals. (Oh yes, it's currently too cold at the END OF AUGUST to sleep with the windows open all night.)
I've launched an attack on fruit flies and ants and am cursing myself for forgetting about two bananas that were hiding under our bread in the basket. Our garage no longer smells like it's home to a garbage can (which it is) and Trevor assures me that the paint he wants to put over a few spots in the walls where our baby gate has battered it will be dry by the showing tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that there is leftover paint at his parents' house. Because if there isn't, we'll have a nice little patch on the corner that's waaay more obvious than the scuffs were.
We're happy about the showings, of course, and are pumping the cute and efficient factors up for our open houses with cookies, muffins, whitefish spread, coffee and light music, and we're folding the toilet paper into points as if we have a cleaning lady (a welcome guest who I do occasionally employ for these events, but who hasn't been by in awhile) (note: drop in price of house) (note: clean your own damn house, stay-at-home mom).
I'm getting nervous, though, as the action is suddenly picking up. It may have a lot to do with my explaining to Berit that we needed to pick up the basement just now instead of tear it apart because people were coming over to see if they wanted to live in our house and, if they did, we would move to another house by the park! the library! downtown! her friends! And she said, "But Mommy, will they want to keep all of my princess dresses?" I'm suddenly very aware that we have two children and no home to move into; that we will rent until we build and that, up until now, we've lived very comfortably with a big playroom basement, a great deck as an extension of our living and dining rooms, and a neighborhood where our kids can run up and down the street without being restrained to a sidewalk. Every day and every night we take leisurely walks, chatting with our wonderful neighbors, picking baby pinecones from a particular tree and gathering stones to toss into the creek, which flows under the bridge that Trevor built. Without the home we have on blueprints ready for us, it's hard to consider this as progress. Especially considering that that home is probably five years away, with unknowns in the meanwhile.
I'm constantly seized with the sensation to run out to the yard and yank down the "for sale" sign. What the heck are we doing?
So, I'll let you know on that one.
I've also been working on a project for Country Lines Magazine, which is taking considerably longer than I had anticipated -- what with the whole "business hours" not quite coinciding with "my hours that I can work uninterrupted" and "the hours that I'm not cleaning my house for showings," and the boatload of research the kind people at the magazine have directed my way for only 1,200 words of end-result copy.
We also have a couple of projects we've been brainstorming and in meetings about (real, actual meetings with people other than family members) that may or may not be coming up. If we go forward on them, they'll be serious and we don't know how we'll survive but it'll be worth it. If we don't, we'll always wonder .... well, what if? So major decision-making happening in our household, which could mean something and could mean nothing.
I'm thinking an apt title for this post might be: Fear Of Commitment. Thank God we're already married.
Speaking of which, next month is our six year anniversary. So, of course, Time Flies When You're Having Fun! And, Only Six Years? Seems Like Forever posts coming up.
Berit is belting out serious cries right now because tonight was her first night sleeping without a Pull-Up -- something she's been begging me to do for weeks, after our friends the Marsmans visited and Luke and Paige wore Big Girl Underwears (even Luke gets the big girl nod) -- and
... right after that "and," which was about an hour ago, Berit really started screaming, and I ran up to check on her. Not the pee in the bed we had anticipated, but a bloody nose. Her first, to our memories. Coincidentally on the very same day my sister had nose surgery, to repair an extremely deviated septum (truly -- not a "deviated" "septum" slash "reconstructive" "surgery" = nicer nose, like some of us may have had, or may have had twice). Anyway, there was much calming, bathing, hot chocolate-ing and worrying going on, and now she's off to bed while Trevor and I hope that it's a one-time occurrence. I had bloody noses regularly since her age until a few years ago, when I had a vein cauterized. She doesn't have dark hair, eyes or skin, but she does have my tendency to bleed from the nose. Luuuuucky.
Now the high-fives we were giving each other over a decent bedtime for us aren't valid anymore, and my rambling post ends on a very different subject than it began. We thought tomorrow was our major excitement for the week; seems as though we shouldn't look past our own noses for that. :)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment