Make yourself useful and...

tackle one project in your house that you usually avoid like the plague.
Let me tell you why this is what I'm doing today:
I am super-determined to sell my house. Like, last week.
I'm so over it. It kills me too, because I loved it so much for such a long time. I always wanted this house, because my grandparents have always lived next door to it and I've just seen it forever and for some reason knew I'd live here. My husband was not so sold on it. He still isn't sold on it. I think he resents ever having had to live here at all. We bought it from my father for WAY more than he paid for it and I think that at the time we were too starry-eyed to haggle or walk away, since we were already renting here anyway. But alas, when you're like 21 years old, you usually don't buy a house in the first place and now we own property which I guess is good in the grand scheme of things. So we've been here for a long, long time (I moved in here in the summer of 2004, and the hubs moved in after we got married that October. I was slightly more old-fashioned about those things then. *Sigh*), long enough to have replaced almost everything, like floors and walls and cabinets and water heaters and every single appliance in the kitchen. Someone is going to get what amounts to a brandy-new house. For a while after we moved in, we ripped up the floors and painted all the rooms colors that made us feel good. My kitchen is lemon yellow. My bathroom is orange, like as orange as a pumpkin. The bedroom? Hunter green and purple. Yeah, really. The living room walls are covered with reclaimed barn wood that will probably be the only thing left standing when the house eventually makes the slow slide down the hill and into the lake. Stenni's room is a plain mocha color but we figured that when she's old enough to know what she wants we would change it. I guess now we won't have to. It's very strange to deconstruct the house to the way someone else would want it instead of the way hubs & I want it. The "red room," which always had black and red walls and black carpet and red furniture since we built it, is now a subdued blue color that just seems disappointing. The new backsplash in the kitchen, while very nice, is definitely not what I would have chosen. It's white with a little strip of copper-colored glass tiles at the top. They had to take down the giant shiny copper tiles that I installed myself as a backsplash when I first moved in. It broke my heart.
Here's the a link to the listing on craigslist. I think we'll meet with a realtor within the next week to get the ball rolling. There are still a million projects to be done but it feels like everything I do to get the house ready to sell is killing a little piece of myself. We have been so close to selling so many times now, and this time I found a house that I really do love and could see myself living in for a long, long time. I know that in order to have room for more kids and for hubs to be closer to work this is the next logical step, and I know that I can't stand in the way of it. A new house is an adventure, and the idea of decorating and furnishing it is honestly thrilling to me. Plus there's a bar in the basement, which helps. But I just can't help but thinking that as a homemaker, I've made this home. And I've made it mine. And without it, I won't know what to do with myself. It's terrifying. Any suggestions, besides suck it up? Because that's what I'm going to have to do in the end anyway.
Anyway, for make yourself useful Monday, I'm going to make myself useful and tackle my bathroom. The tub needs a-scrubbin and I have too many creams and oils and other various potions that have been sitting in the medicine cabinet unused for years. I want some potential buyer to think "ooh, this bathroom looks clean and bright and awesome, and there aren't 17 hand soaps all over the place" instead of, "seriously? what does one person need with 12 kinds of moisturizer?"

shopping and packing for vacation

in the coming days, we will leave for a much-needed vacation at the beach. thanks to our frenzied (but semi-organized) planning, we have almost everything set now: the house-sitter is coming to stay with the dog and cats and water the plants so that everything will be just as spiffy when we get back, the packing lists have been made (and most everything has been packed already), and (most of) the shopping has been done. we stay at a house about a block from the beach, only we don't go to that beach. it's expensive and kind of gross. if you've seen jersey shore, you know exactly what i mean, because we are a block away from the prestigious and storied shores of seaside heights. i can't complain though, because we are about 3 miles away from island beach state park, which is lovely, quiet, and super amazing, and also free because teddy's brother bought us state park passes for Christmas this past year. but the house that we stay in (the same one we've stayed in since i was about 4) is pretty much empty...no towels, no bed linens, no mitkas, and definitely NO AIR CONDITIONER! we actually had to leave last year because i was about a million months pregnant and, since air conditioners are not allowed, it was like 104 during the day and 97 at night...in the house. i thought it would get nicer so we stayed until about 10 pm when it didn't get any cooler and i couldn't take the heat anymore. i tried to be a trooper, mostly because i didn't want to sit in the car for another two hours and go home, only to come back down the next day like an asshole (but that's what i did anyway). that not withstanding, we have to take my tiny baby car since teddy's truck is too big to park anywhere, but we have to fit a whole house worth of stuff inside it, plus baby stuff, which everyone knows is at least 5 times larger than normal human stuff. so the bikes, the stroller, and basically anything bigger than stenni has to go with my mom in her SUV.
so my living room looks like a bomb hit it, my house is littered with stuff, and i still have to find my strapless bra, clean my bathroom, send out the entry blanks for the fair which should have been sent out two weeks ago (more on that later) , get to the gym, wash all my bedding and re-make my bed for our house-sitter, clean up the red room, do the dishes from last night, possibly sweep maybe, etc., etc,. etc.
it's funny to me to look at the life teddy & i live through the eyes of others. like our house-sitter, a dear friend/bandmate of teddy's, is taking care of everything for us, including all of the animals and both gardens. we took him on a walk-through of everything last night. i don't think two bottles of wine and pool privileges at my parents' house is enough repayment! but he's being a sport about it all...i think he enjoys the novelty of living semi-"off the grid" for a few days. he talks a good game, like it'll be a "vacation" for him too, but at least he'll enjoy doing it and it won't be drudgery (or at least it won't be drudgery for too long).
what could possible be teddy's last show with his current band is tonight, and i'm pretty bummed about it. i wonder if that chapter of our lives is really coming to an end. i remember before i got pregnant going with the band everywhere, coming home from brooklyn or the poconos or manhattan or wherever at like 4 am and loving every minute of it. i'll personally miss the skeezy little bars and whatnot. there was one in brooklyn i particularly liked, they had free drinks for an hour with cover and there was nothing but old vinyl seats ripped out of cars lining the walls. also there was never anybody there but russkis. ah well. i guess with a kid, that part of my life was really over anyway, but i can't imagine my teddy without some kind of musical outlet, and acoustic open mic nights is just not going to cut it (who goes to those after college anyway?).
when i get back i'm going to document my nj state fair baking, ag, and crafting saga...i've never entered anything in the handicrafts section before and i'm really nervous! we're also entering a zucchini in the biggest zucchini contest (we'll get beat, i know it, but that's ok...i just like to see our names!).
see you eventually!