Pros. Cons. Feelings.

This afternoon I came home from four hours of sorting books for Berit's preschool to find both girls desperate to go somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere FUN, that is. With ice cream.

So I put Marta in the car (Berit being in the stage where she has to do EVERYTHING by herself at negative turtle speed) and ran into the house to grab a couple of disposable bibs. As I did this I noticed my answering machine blinking. "Hi Lisa, it's Debbie from ReMax of Petoskey, we just had a request for a showing of your house for 4:30 today." Glance at the clock: 3:51. Glance around the house. Uh... Think: Girls are already in the car, ready to go. Can I speed clean the house and get a message to Re-Max?

My decision: No. NO! Why the heck was it a no? But truly, I don't think we would have made it. Yes, I probably could have cleaned up in a half hour, but not perfectly. Did I just shoot myself in the foot? Possibly. Probably not. Who knows. The people who were so interested in the house last week (Wife's favorite! Top three!) just made an offer on another house. We have an open house scheduled for this weekend and we're just not excited anymore. Does this mean we should quit the game? We're thinking about it. But there's that damn What If.

So we cleaned the carpets and we're doing the bathrooms tonight just in case they call tomorrow. But truthfully, if nothing happens after this weekend, I think we're going to take a break from the Realty game when our contract is up. Will our house ever be really, really clean again after we pull our listing? Maybe not. Will we be any closer to living in town? No. So why pull it? Dunno. Do our feelings count for anything here, or should we just brush them off? A whole year on the market, which sinks lower and lower.

Take it off the market PROS:

It might be a better market next year.

We might make more on it next year.

We might appear fresh to buyers next year.

No more frantic dustbunny clean-outs at midnight.

No more bittersweet cookies baked for open houses.

No more packing up the family and forcing our baby to nap elsewhere when someone might possibly like our house, maybe.

Take it off the market CONS:

It might be a worse market next year.

We might make less on it next year.

We'd be free from a mortgage in case we suddenly win the lottery and can build our house immediately, or in case new things coming up might force us to live elsewhere for awhile.

Why bother taking it off? We know we want to sell. What if we do? Who cares if it's winter?

No extra cookies.

Any advice? I should have went for the showing, right? I knew it.