Will this ever end....and will we survive it?

We are coming into the final stretch. The house is going on the market on the 7th. We have a new realtor. We have a pre-approval from the mortagage company.

The stress of this may kill us. We are snapping at each other. Shawn is muttering under his breath which he never does. I am really irritable, too. I get annoyed easily. I just want this all to be over. We have made this house over into realtor neutral. Anything left in our personality beside our floral sofas is pretty much gone. It doesn't feel like my house anymore. I am really annoyed that all it would've taken a few years back is $2000 and 2 mos. hard work and I would've been really happy.

If anything, I appreciate all the hard work Shawn is doing. He is really going to try to make me happy in the new house...despite his nature to get things for a great bargain. He is trying to get me what I want. Not only because I said that this would be the last move until we retire to a more temparate climate, but because I know he loves me. I should try to remember this.

House During Painting

House Before Paint

Deadlines

So Shawn is driving me crazy. He say we have a deadline to get this house on the market....sometime next week. If I am not doing something to get the house ready, he gets crabby.

It feels like this will never be done!!!!!!!!!!

Still haven't found a new realtor. Shawn has been calling one about a new development that is actually hidden in an old part of a town we want to live in. It looks perfect - close to the middle and high schools. Only Megan would have to change schools for 1 year. That realtor hasn't called Shawn back.

The door got painted to red while we were in Iowa for the soccer tournament. He and his step Dad did a bunch of other stuff, too. Replaced all the faucets, fixed the basement door, and assorted other projects.

Last night we hung our new bedroom curtains.

Tonight, I held the ladder while he painted the high stuff on the back of the house.
I cleaned windows.

When will this all be done????????????????????????????????

Justice

Brianna's team finally won a regular season game. Hooray!

So many games they have been "robbed". Well, maybe not robbed - coming so close and yet not winning. Monday night was another one of THOSE games. We played a team and were taking turns with them scoring. It was tied up when the first of the lightening hit the sky. The ref called the game right after the other team scored putting them ahead by 1 goal. Yes, the safety of the girls is the most important thing - but that sort of loss is the way our luck has been going.

Tonight our girls won. Not only was it great that the bad luck string seemed to be broken, but it felt like justice for another reason. The last time we played this team we tied. One of their parents made racial slurrs against 1 of our players. It makes me both mad and sad at the same time that there are still people like this in the world. Winning made it feel like justice had been served.

New Carpet

What a difference! On Monday, we got new carpet. Granted it is cheap $0.59/ft berber. But it looks so nice. We did the bedrooms and the stairs.

We painted the girls room a color that can only be described as cafe latte. The carpet is a mixture of brown colors so it goes perfectly.

It even looks good in our bedroom...really sets off our cherrywood Pottery Barn knock-off furniture. I am now wishing that we painted the walls in here, but too late now. Oh Mr. Clean Magic Eraser works wonders...but it still looks dull, kinda dirty, despite washing the walls.

I am nervous that when we finally do get a new realtor to sell this house he or she will point out the some more things that are wrong with the house that we should fix. I don't think I could take it. I am ready to be done fixing stuff. I just want to put things back and clean. Take it or leave it!

Really this could be a cute starter house for someone. If I say it enough, I WILL believe it.

The new carpet gives it that extra boost of niceness. It's giving me that extra confidence that we can get her sold and move on.

50 States in 50 years

One of my goals in life is to visit all 50 states by the time I am 50 years old. I'm 37 now so that gives me just under 13 years. Looks like I've got some road trips to plan.

Set backs

Well, just when things are starting to click along - the carpet is picked out and the installation set, the old junk car is being picked up - more and more stuff is going out to the POD.............

Stacy our realtor calls yesterday and says that she is moving to New Hampshire next week. We knew she was leaving but thought that she would be staying at least a month if not through the summer. We are so sad, because we really like and trust her. So now it feels like we have to start over with someone else to sell our house.

Then today I see that the new neighbors have planted pine trees that will one day obstruct our lake view....what little there is. There still is the John situation with his unmowed lawn and junk cars.

It's starting to feel like if this house gets sold it will be a miracle.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/bzymom22/HouseandDI087.jpg[/IMG]

Sweet Victory

Brianna has loved soccer since Kindergarten. The kid would be running down the field with a gigantic grin on her face. When she got a little older and played mostly defense, she would bounce up and down as she waited for the ball to come to her. She would play at recess. She would play spring, summer, or fall. She always wanted me to sign her up. She just loved to play.

Two weeks ago she said to me...Mom, I think maybe I should take a break from soccer. This really made me sad. What happened that a kid that loved soccer so much would want to take a break...in the middle of summer league? Sadly I think I know all too well.

The past 2.5-3 years things have gotten more complicated and have influenced her love of the game. Traveling soccer.

Three years ago I would never even have thought of it, but her coach at the time kept saying...you are going to have her try out for travel, right? She wasn't/isn't a super aggressive girl. She played mostly defense and mid-field. She only got maybe one or two goals a season. She wasn't an obviously stellar player. So we went into it thinking if she makes it, she makes it. If not, she'll play rec. There weren't that many girls that tried out that year...probably too many parents choked on the $200.00 you had to put up front(that would be refunded if your kid didn't make it). She made the team.

That team killed just about everyone they played. Most of those girls were stellar athletes whose older siblings all played travel soccer. Most of the parents and kids knew each other and had played with each other. Brianna was one of their weaker players. She didn't make that team the next year.

I was okay with her not making it, but quite irked at the coach. He was trying to be nice, but told us to have her try-out for a different league so she could be with her friends. Then went on about how his older boys just wanted to play with their friends. Really it was Shawn and I weren't friends with the other parents...we didn't take it as seriously as they did. He had coach's picks and he picked his friends' kids. He should've just left it at - I'm sorry Brianna didn't make the team.

So, Brianna made the "B" team last year. She didn't quite get the whole try-out thing and kept asking me why she wasn't on the other team. But she/we did have a good year. The parents were more our speed. They were mostly parents whose kids were the oldest and didn't take the games quite so seriously. There was a small core of kids that went to school together, but there were more kids that didn't. I tried to prepare Brianna for a season where they didn't win as much. They kicked butt and won almost every game. They even ended their first competitive season in first place.

Try-outs came around again. Due to the politics of soccer, the A and B teams stayed pretty much the same. The only thing was the girl that Brianna most connected with on the team didn't make it(she dropped down to the C team). That was hard on Brianna. Then came winter and spring leagues. Nobody was really that committed and due to our skating schedule, we had a tough time making the practices and games(they were exactly the same time as skating). So they lost - almost every game...there were a couple of ties.

Then there was the decision to move up...from C3 to C2. It was a good decision, because the top teams in our fall league moved up with us. We would be killing teams in the C3. This league is very competitive. No one team is really hands down winning. There are lots of ties and 1 goal wins. This tells me that we are in the right league.

The bad news is that things are not going our way. We have tied twice and lost twice. Both losses were by 1 goal. They were both heartbreakers, because our girls worked so hard, but things were just not going our way. Goals that should've gone in were miraculously being saved by the goalie. The girls are really discouraged.

They had a tournament this weekend and played great. They handily won all 4 games...6-0, 5-0, 5-0, and 4-0 (the last game was called due to Thunderstorms and a tornado watch). This was the confidence boost they needed. The best part is seeing my daughter in love with soccer again.

It probably can't go back to the carefree days of the rec league for her. Soccer has always been her thing, the thing that brought her joy. Maybe that is just part of growing up. Things that are innocent get complicated. Struggles lead to appreciation. Sometimes hard work isn't enough.

Today all I know is Victory is Sweet!

Nostagia

This weekend Brianna has a soccer tournament in the old neighborhood...on the side of the cities that I lived in when I first moved out here. We got to the fields with plenty of time to spare so we drove around. I wanted to show Brianna the places I used to live........the house my aunt and uncle used to own, the apartment I shared with 4 other girls near the community college I attended, the first apartment Shawn and I shared. Things still looked pretty familiar. Not too much had changed. The bowling alley where we used to hang out was still there and so was the drycleaner that I worked at for a brief time.

It got me thinking. We have really been working hard to get this house on the market. It is taking longer than we thought with our full-time jobs, soccer, and just the sheer amount of work that needs to be done. Tons of painting. Replacement of a stove. Replacement of carpet. Replacement of the toliet and both sink fixtures. Replacement of curtains and MORE! But we are working it and it is going to happen. There is light at the end of this tunnel. This is really going to happen.

Besides my parents' home, this is the longest I have lived anywhere. I almost can't imagine living anywhere else. Sure there are a bunch of things that bug me about this house...but this is home. I am surprised that I am a little sad about leaving.

But maybe it is only because all the things that have bugged me about this house(except the lack of light and the garage on the front of the house) are being changed. I have always hated the carpet. It was bad from the beginning. Now I have wood laminate floor in the livingroom and the carpet in the bedrooms is being replaced next week. I have a nice front porch. The gutters are fixed. I got rid of that gross stove. My kitchen and living room are beautiful and I will miss our 3 season porch. I have figured out what kinds of plants work best in my garden. It is sad to leave my house just when I almost have it the way I want it.

Well, not sad enough to stay. There is nothing we can do for the lack of light(though the paint and laminate floors have worked wonders!) or lack of space. It's time to move on. Maybe in 5 or 10 or maybe even 2 years, we will drive by and say...Remember when we used to live there. We will look back on it fondly, but be happy to go to our (new) home.