Can't, Never Could

The house is finished. Yesterday at about 3pm we finally got the house cleaned enough for showings. The house looks amazing and the listing is good. We have one chore left - take a garage full of stuff to a storage unit, but luckily we have awesome nieghbors and I woke up to a trailor in my driveway this morning so we can do it in one load. We've done everything we possibly can monetary wise to "maximize" our house. Now it's up to buyers.

There are so many things we've just gotten done and now it feels like we should have done them when we got here. As I sit here, watching the sunrise from my 'office' window and rub my feet on our new carpeting, I feel like making myself an office out of this spare room should have been one of them. We should have laid the carpet when we got here. The hardwoods were in bad shape and I was naive to think we could ever fix them ourselves or afford to have professionals fix them. Plus, not only does our house appear to be clean because those trashed wood floors aren't staring us in the face, but our child LOVES the carpet. When it was first installed she went room by room and swished her hands through the carpet laughing. Yesterday, Bug and I were in our room spinning in circles, going "Whoa whoa whoa" ((she's a cute kid)) and falling over, giggling. On to carpet. All this space we've wasted this whole time because it's not like she could crawl around up here, theres no telling what she would have found to eat. Now she can play up here all she wants and it's time to move.

Not only the carpets, but the work we did to the out side we should have done a LONG time ago, too. For two years I have been pulling up to an overwhelming gross house in serious disrepair, that needed too much work. I pulled up after my class last night and thought, 'Wow! Our house is the best looking one on the block!' I even gushed for a second. Everything we did could have been done before now, we just didn't want to. We were too overwhelmed and for awhile I think we thought we couldn't. "We can't do that, we need someone else." or "We can't afford that. It will have to wait." But once we wrote out our list and got it done, it really didn't take that much money, it was mostly effort.

One of the greatest sayings I've ever heard was, "Can't never could." I was fairly young the first time I heard it, I thought it didn't make sense. But it really rings true to this house. Actually, it really rings true with a lot of things I've done since we've been here. You'll never accomplish anything with an 'I can't' attitude because there's a good chance you'll never try.

I hope we rememeber that when we move to our next better house :o)

The last ten days

In the last ten days we have changed so much. J's family arrived and even with two snow days that didn't allow us to go outside ((it was FREEEEEEEEEEEZING!!!)) we managed to get almost our entire list done! We painted almost the entire outside of the house, added shutters to the upstairs windows and painted the trim from a barn red color to black. We also painted the front door which makes it pop on the front of the house. The house had original dove tail wooden slat columns that were rotting away at the base. The previous owners {{some of my favorite* people - Not really)) used drywall hole kits to try and fix them. They were awful and needed to go. We took them out and replaced them with 4x4 posts and then made a surround out of more wood to make the posts more substantial. They really opened up the front of the house. The posts were maybe 18" in diameter, but after removing them it seemed that they took up the whole front of the house. Dad and J's brother fixed some holes we had from a squirrel in our soffits on the rear side of our house and we also replaced the door going out into the backyard and we also replaced all four outside lights on the house and made them match.


Inside, we painted some accent walls to match the tan color every where else in the house. We had to paint several ceilings because we just stopped doing stuff after we got the walls and ceilings re-textured when we first moved in. J's dad and brother fixed our squeaky stairs and some other small issues inside and carpet is coming in tomorrow morning for the entire upstairs. One small thing a friend did made a HUGE difference in our sellablilty. He was able to figure the wiring in our house and managed to get my dryer moved to where it always should have been next to the washer. {{For two years now I have had to lug all of our wet washed clothes into the garage and put them into the dryer}}. We painted almost every door in the house to make them look nice and new and almost all of the woodwork.

In the midst of all of this we managed to get in a very good visit with J's dad & brother. Not only am I glad that they were able to help with the house, but it is so nice for Bug to get to see her family more often then every eight months. Since she just saw them at Christmas, I'm fairly sure she remembered them. After her initial shyness wore off, she realized her "Papa" was wrapped around her finger and then she had a new best friend. Several time while they were here she walked around the house saying, "Papa? Papa? John?" If they were outside. It was so sad when we got home from an errand yesterday after they had left and she ran to the front door asking for Papa. I have the worst mom-guilt that she isn't closer to her amazing family and it's so great that she got to spend time with them and loved them so much.

So, what's next? Oh how I wish I knew. We had one showing during all of our work that went fairly well and we have one this afternoon. I'm starting to panic a little about what will happen if the house really does sell quickly. We have no POA after the selling of the house and I'm trying my best not to freak about it... we'll see how that goes.

Snow Days

J had to pull the nieghbor out of a rut he made trying to leave for work.


Bug and her pillow pet & silky, Staring at a strangely white backyard.















The snow was beautiful and the day inside was great! We had chocolate chip pancakes and finished some chores and then had homemade soup for dinner... but the joy of snow soon turned into cabin fever and no we're over it :)

THE ROLL

J and I bought P90X when I was four months pregnant. Yes, that means we've had it for almost two years. We decided before we went on our Christmas/Holiday vacation that we were going to start doing it once things settled down. He needs to do it because he currently does not do PT thanks to his over-night work hours and while I'm back down to lower than pre-pregnancy weight, I still have THE ROLL. I have this theory that every mom knows about THE ROLL. It's that oh-so-attractive roll of loose skin you get from having a life grow ((and grow and grow and grow)) inside your belly. It's not necessarily fat. Just skin that hangs over your pants when you sit or bend over and all in all it's just gross. Not only that, but I am a firm believer that a person should take time to 'worry' about the way they look. I'm the kind of girl that puts make up on even when all Im doing all day is sitting at home. I often explain it to J that if I lose interest in how I look, how could he not? At one point in my life I was a rather large person and since I've lost that weight (90Ibs - and that was not baby wight), maintaining myself is one of my top 5 prioroties.

I hate working out in front of people. I'm Irish so my face turns beat red and I get all sweaty and breathing hard and it's just gross. I feel like people are staring at the poor red girl thats about to have a heart attack. The fact that J is a DS and watched people who 'cant' or who quit while they are doing their PT and he makes fun of them was also not lost on me and I was a little nervous about working out in front of him. But we had put it off long enough and yesterday, J and I FINALLY started P90X.

About the only thing I can say now is oooooouuuuuch! It feels good to be working out and actually we keep each other motivated instead of how I thought it would be ((him pointing and laughing at me)). Hopefully, this will help THE ROLL...

Now I'm off to make dinner... if I can lift my arms that high.