Selling the House

It would appear I have left out some teeny, tiny details surrounding this move.  Things like why we're moving, when, etc.

So!  Once upon a time, a young lad met a young lass.  Said young lad graduated from their shared institute of higher learning (in Kansas) and found work at a magical place called ESPN (in Connecticut).  Said lass finished her education at the previously mentioned institute, married the lad, and went to join him in Connecticut.  A few years and one baby later they left Connecticut, lived in Kansas for a year (enter baby #2) then decided they wanted those brutal winters back and went to live in Iowa, where the lad grew up.  They lived in Iowa for ten years (baby #3 added somewhere in there) before the lad and ESPN decided they must be reunited, so the now-five of them will all be embarking on a grand adventure this summer.

I left a bunch of stuff out of that, including much of anything about me in that space of time, which I'm finding annoying as I read it over again, but not annoying enough to go back and change it.  Onward!

Yes, we will be venturing out to Connecticut because Derek was once again offered a job at the big ol' sports tv place, as I call it in my head.  But before we do that, we needed to sell our house.

The last time we sold property was when we previously moved from CT, in 2008, when we hired a realtor, she took a bunch of poorly lit pictures of our 600- square foot condo and got around saying the place was miniscule by using words like "cozy" and "homey" in the online description.  Still, it sold within a few weeks and the whole procedure was relatively painless.

Let me tell you, things have changed.

First, allow me to say that we like our realtor.  He has done a wonderful job, and we have felt ourselves to be in more than capable hands.  Even without being first-time home sellers, however, we've had a lot to learn.  There was an interior decorator that toured the house with Derek, the latter of whom was instructed to take copious notes.  She had instructed me via email not to pack any decorative items, but instead to set them aside for her to use at will.  When I got home from work that day I found that she had used most of the things I'd pulled out, and in ways I never would have expected, because I do not have the decorator gene.  I can give you book recommendations until you beg for mercy and claim illiteracy, but decorating?  The most help I can be is to say things like, "Um, I really like old stuff.  Especially if it's just a little bit weird."  Which is no help at all and borderline off-topic.

She also pointed out all the places we needed to de-clutter, which was helpful to me because Derek and I had already been purging and deep cleaning for a couple weeks at that point and I felt I was becoming a bit blind to what the house actually looked like.  The rest of her instructions she seemed to sum up in two words: "Think hotel," repeated many times on the tour with Derek.  My version of this order was "Make it look like no human actually lives here," which is basically the same thing, I guess, unless you're Eloise.  No laundry anywhere, no laundry baskets, no trash cans, only the two approved towels hanging in the bathroom, no shampoo, soap, or person-cleaning product of any kind in the shower, etc.

The house looked amazing after I followed her instructions to the letter, although I only finished executing her marching orders maybe four minutes before the professional photographer arrived- another new part of the process to me.  He, too, did an amazing job.  I should add that both these professionals' services were part of the realtor's commission, so we weren't paying extra for this stuff.


Next is one of the crazier parts, at least to me.  Most of the communications surrounding the showings of our house were done via app.  We downloaded the ShowingTime app, and shortly thereafter we started getting requests for showings- local realtors wanting to book times to take their clients through the house.  I had determined early on that I would say yes to any showing, orienting our family schedule around these in order to get as many potential buyers through this place as possible.  I still say this was a good strategy, but it made for a couple of hairy days.

To be more specific:  Friday I was at a library conference all day.  Because there was so much interest in our home (yay!), throughout the day we got notifications on our phones that a showing was requested for x:xx time.  We then had the option of confirming that appointment, denying it, or requesting an alternate time, all via the app.  I confirmed every one, which was hurray, exciting! while I was at the conference, but once I'd picked up four kids from school (we had a spare that day), it got a little interesting, sounding something like, "Okay, kids, we'll be at this park for an hour, then we can go home at 5:00, okay?  Oh, wait, now it's 5:30.  Hang on, there are two more- 6:30, kids, we just gotta get to 6:30 and then we can go home!"

Thankfully it was beautiful out that day, so we turned the afternoon into a tour of our local parks.  And then we did the same thing most of the day Saturday as showings kept ding-dinging my phone; those then ran right into the open house.  Again, all good things!  But I did get tired of driving by the house to see if anyone was there, then dashing in to vacuum all the floors between showings because evidently it is no longer considered rude to track mud through a stranger's house.


All of those things felt as if they had been worth it when we had multiple offers by Saturday afternoon.  Our house is pending!  Another hurdle cleared!  Hurray and huzzah!

I will confess I'm still kind of waiting for the bottom to fall out on this offer, for something to go wrong.  I don't know if this means I'm a determined pessimist, I have a stress hangover from getting the house ready to sell, or what.

A strange/fun detail about all of this:  the buyers are our neighbors.  She stopped Derek outside the day after the sign went up in our yard and told him she wanted to buy our house, that she'd loved it since they moved to the neighborhood a few years ago.  I figured this was just talk, but evidently some people actually do the things they say they're going to do.  Strangely, this gives me hope for our society.  I have a new level of self-consciousness when I'm in our front yard now, though, making sure they can see I'm plucking out every errant weed and not slacking on maintaining the house in our final weeks here.  It was also interesting to open up the back of the van and pull out all the laundry and junk I'd stashed back there because it wasn't allowed in the house for the showings and open house.  If they were watching out their windows, they could absolutely have seen just how much I had to haul out there to fool the world into thinking no one currently lives here.

  

Not the gif I was looking for, I admit, but absolutely the gif I needed.




Sunday's Gratitudinals

1. Biographies and Memoirs.  Recent favorites include Becoming by Michelle Obama (the former first lady describes politics as "nasty" at one point.  How much more relatable can you get?)  Inheritance by Dani Shapiro (la di da, I think I'll do one of those DNA tests you mail off, it will be fun!  Wait, is this right?  Is this test saying one of my beloved parents isn't biologically related to me?  And this means I'm not a full Jew when that's a huge part of my identity?  WHAT?), and of course, the current favorite the world over, Educated by Tara Westover, which absolutely lives up to the hype.

2. Bosu Balls.  Last week I was excited that our gym finally got one, and this week I'm excited because I realized I was using it upside down, so now I'm fixing that, and let me tell you, it is way easier to stand on those things right-side up.  Look, figuring out little things like which way is up is hard sometimes, okay?  And doesn't this just mean I'll be able to say I know Bosu balls backwards and forwards?

3.  Indoor plumbing.  Forever and always.

4.  Friends and needles, especially together, as it turns out.  No, I'm not a recreational drug user.  Someone remind me to post about dry needling sometime this week.

5.  Having a daughter who is borderline obsessed with the periodic table of elements.  If you have a similar loved one, this book (shown below) is a fantastic gift, and will quickly become a comfort book for them.

Feelings in the Morning, Feelings in the Evening

We told our kids that we were moving about a month ago.  Let me tell you, it was a day.  Actually, it was a weekend because we intentionally told them on a Friday after school so they'd have the whole weekend to process the information.

Here is the internet's and several "family experts" general consensus on how to support your kids in an emotionally healthy way when making a big move:

• Keep a positive attitude!  Your kids take their cues from you!  If you are happy then they will be happy!
• But wait, don't be too happy.  Your kids need to know that it's okay to be sad, and they'll see that by watching you.
• But not too sad!
• This event will build a deep-seated sense of empathy and resilience in your children.
• Don't do it.  Just don't move.  It's too hard and your kids will be wrecked forever. 

What I'm saying is the advice I read was, for the most part, somewhat less than helpful, although I still wasn't afraid to read it to Derek in an increasingly panicked voice.  When we did actually break the news, I like to think we hit somewhere in the middle of all that advice, with Derek remaining calm but also reassuring the kids that they were going to feel many different emotions over a long period of time, and that they were all okay.  He told them that it was okay to be mad at him, it was okay to be sad, okay to be excited, or some mixture of all three of those and more.  I mostly just cried, as did Adelaide.  Caedmon was, ahem, demonstrably upset for around three minutes before he calmed right down and started asking questions about Connecticut.  Atticus took it all in stride after we reassured him that there are sports in CT and that yes, we would be bring the Nintendo Switch.  

Since then there has been a lot of talk about feelings.  So so much.  We talk about how we're feeling on this day and on that day, and how we felt when breaking the news to this person and to that person, and how sick we are of feeling so many feelings.  For a while Caedmon reported feeling sick to his stomach most evenings because he had such a mixture of feelings inside him.  It's been super fun.  

Derek and I are grateful that the kids still want to share these feelings with us, however.  I had feared that at least one of the kids would shut themselves away from the family, and while this still may happen at some point, for now they're still being quite open with us.  We try to encourage this by keeping time open (even when we don't feel like it, or maybe especially when we don't feel like it), and by keeping our reactions to their "feelings" statements very even and validating.  I don't blame you for being mad at us, I would be, too.  I feel sad at weird times, too.  I don't like it when people respond to our news in that way, either.  Yes, we will find a soccer team for you to join out there.  No, you are not automatically getting a phone because we are moving.  No, I will not let you audition for American Ninja Warrior Junior because we are moving.  Uuuh, you want to change your name to Casey when we move and have us all call you that from now on?  Huh.  Let me talk to your Dad about that one.

Sometimes our discussions on feelings devolve a bit.

Tomorrow:  selling a house in the age of smart phones, and why it's amazing! and simultaneously bizarre!

Today's Gratitudinals

1.  FaceTime.  Also I need to know what Tina Fey would call FaceTime because her not-so-subtle name for Facebook on the show 30 Rock- "YouFace"- is so perfect that I feel she is the only person for this task.

2.  Being able to be outside without putting on a million layers just so you don't die.

3.  Middle school track meets. No, Daughter is not in track, but we went last night to cheer on her friends, and MY GOODNESS was it fun.  The pressure is relatively low; (although perhaps it felt that way because none of my kids were actually participating) this is so obviously new to 90% of the kids there.  They're just trying to do weird things like jump over poles backwards and leap around in the sand (can you tell I never did track?).  There is a lot of tripping over hurdles, but also a lot of cheering for a bunch of brave girls willing to go outside of their comfort zones, so much so that I almost lost my voice.

4.  Pinch of Yum's Queso Chicken Chili.  Fast, easy, delicious.

5.  The Popcast.  Particularly the "No's" episodes (the No's of weddings, the No's of Halloween, etc) and the Flavor Town episodes.  Hilarious.

Up and Down and Down Some More and Then Up Again

If you're wondering what preparing to move a family of five 1200 miles away is like, here's the best gif I can find to approximate that feeling:

And the soundtrack is something like, "YaaaaAAAAaaaay!" immediately followed by "NoOoOoOoo!"

Repeat ad infinitum.

"Ad infinitum" is the problem with this whole process, really, at least at this point.  We're past the initial excitement, and the weeping while you break the news to your local loved ones (well, mostly), and the brainstorming about what the future could look like.  We're solidly in the middle, where for every one task you complete, eight more pop up in its place.  

For instance:  Be sure to get everyone to all the various doctors before you go.  Congratulations, you got all your people to the doctor/dentist/eye doc- more or less.  Oh, but wait, now you need to cancel any appointments more than two months in the future.  Make sure you sign any release forms because someday very soon you really will live in CT and some future doctor will need access to your records. What about insurance?  What about when you're trying to clean the inner glass on the oven door because oh yeah you're also getting your house ready to sell and you insist on taking the oven door off yourself because hello you watched, like, two YouTube videos on this and are therefore an expert, but then the door made a scary sound amongst your fiddling so now you need Husband to come help, and he obliges but then the door makes the scary sound again but this time the sound is accompanied by lots of blood everywhere and now it's time to hustle the family out to the car to take Derek to Urgent Care because that door dang near near sliced his right thumb off.  And now you get to add changing the dressing on his thumb daily, plus multiple daily doses of antibiotic, plus finding a doc in CT to take those stitches out in ten days.  

You know- like that.

What I'm saying is, it's stressful.  It's insanely stressful.  And so I've found myself to be just the teeniest bit cranky and out of sorts lately, and feel like it's even infecting the tone of these posts.  So while I've told myself that I want to post close to daily throughout this process so that someday I have something to look back on- half of my memories of our kids' young childhood is thanks to this blog- I don't want it to be a daily whine-fest.  To help battle that back, my thought is to finish each post with a list of five things I'm thankful for on that day.  I'm hoping this will change my mindset, but also reserve the right to abandon the idea pretty much whenever I want, because changing my mind at will is one of the things I exercise with wild abandon in my life.  

Today's Gratitudinals  (Is that a word?  Probably not.  Does it matter?  Definitely not.)

1.  My vacuum.  It's a Shark that we bought maybe a year ago, and we have become extremely well acquainted whilst getting this house ready to sell/ cleaning up after all the nasty people that live here.  I include myself in that round-up.

Picture less hula-ing, heels, and happiness and you'll get the idea.  But also more vacuum attachments!

2.  The Notes and Reminder apps on my phone.  I swear I would remember nothing and everything would be late without those.  

Shopping lists, book recommendations, things I want to remember to tell Derek or do that evening, e v e r y t h i n g.

3.  This book, which I swear isn't just good because it's somewhat pertinent to our family's current situation:

Yes, it's YA, and yes, it's a graphic novel, but that just means you're not going to spend the next six weeks trying to slog through it like this month's Classics Book Club you're already regretting joining.  It's funny, and insightful, and thoughtful.  

4.  Cadbury mini eggs.  Not the cream eggs, mind you, which are positively revolting, but these small, delectable candies filled with Cadbury chocolate that is somehow superior to other, sad, American-born chocolate.  And okay, I know that Cadbury chocolate is made in Hershey, PA, but it's still so much better.  My taste buds neither care nor know why.

5.  The precious minutes it took to write this post.

News of Two Sorts

First off, I feel I should deliver an update on Daughter's performance of Lumiere, given my last post.

Sorry for scribbling out your face, girl over Adelaide's shoulder

She did so well!  She sang, she danced, she spoke in a French accent that was still understandable- a real worry of mine weeks before the performance, when I tried to gently remind her that yes, she was supposed to be French, but the audience still needed to be able to understand the words coming out of her mouth.

As for those candlesticks:  she made around 80% of them herself.  Did the hot glue drippings, the painting, glued toilet paper tubes inside so she'd have something to grip- nearly everything.  The only thing I helped with were creating the papier mache flames.  That and tailoring that blasted men's suit jacket from Goodwill.  It hung on her like a garbage bag when we first got it, and silly me thought it would be a relatively straightforward matter to extract the oversize shoulder pads, amend the lines of the opening and way it hangs, add gold filigree, and so on, and so on.  

After copious seam ripping and repeated plunges into the bowels of the jacket, however, I realized that men evidently require a lot of padding in their clothing.  Then I got mad thinking about how you would never find this in women's clothing; our fabric instead trends toward the uncomfortably sheer.

One of many fistfuls of shoulder padding

As for the musical itself, well, we listened to Adelaide wail about how poorly practices were going and about how this person kept storming off stage and how that person couldn't even be bothered to show up for the (hours long) practices- etc, etc.  Our expectations for the outcome of the show lowered accordingly each time she uttered such a critique, so said expectations were subterranean by the time we arrived at opening night.  But somehow, through seventh grade magic or possibly just lots and lots of hard work, those kids pulled it off.  It was so entertaining.  Adelaide and her friends acquitted themselves admirably, and we were so proud.

Also of note:  my sister Kelli and her family braved predictions of a winter storm, car problems, and the reality of sticking three tiny children in a car for hours and hours to make the drive up and surprise Adelaide that weekend.  I got almost no pictures while they were here, possibly because I'm a terrible sister/aunt, but mostly because I was trying to soak up every second of their presence. 

That is our giant daughter carrying all the toys Kate felt she needed from the second floor down to the first while also making sure she made it safely downstairs.  Please also see that the shirt Kate is wearing is one that Adelaide wore when she was that little.  Which was forever ago, but simultaneously three seconds ago.

Just two other details pertinent to the story of that weekend:  

One: people approached me after both performances multiple times to tell me that they didn't at first believe that Adelaide was a girl.  She was so convincing as a boy, they claimed, from the sound of her voice as she sang to her mannerisms as Lumiere!  My response to this the first couple times was to laugh, but after that I wasn't sure what the appropriate response was.  "No, please, you're too kind"?  "I bet you get that all the time, too"?  

Two:  Adelaide's dear friends got friendship necklaces, which they presented to her that weekend.  They look like matching puzzle pieces that, when fitted together, read "Always together, never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart."  (Commas added by yours truly because why on earth wouldn't I?)  The girls gave her this because she's been struggling with the fact that our family is moving.

To Connecticut.

More on this tomorrow.

I'm Sure It'll Turn Out Fine

The roads are slick but my coffee is warm and today's high temp is several degrees above zero- no small thing this time of year. 

Let's just get this out of the way:  middle school.  I hated it the first time, and I'm not exactly pleased with it the second.  Not that I have to traverse its halls every day; no, that falls to Daughter now.  All we have to do is deal with the emotional fallout every evening, which is super.  Basically it's a continuation of elementary school:  learning how to get along with a set of diverse human beings markedly different from yourself, but now, with hormones! 

One of the good things we're finding about middle school is that there are increased extracurricular opportunities for our less than athletically- inclined eldest child.  When they're younger, around here kids can do sports, or they can do 4-H, or they can do sports.  Now Adelaide is venturing out into the wilds of jazz band and choir, the latter of which includes a school musical this spring.  This is proving to be a learning experience for us all.

These wee seventh graders are undertaking a production of Beauty and the Beast, Jr.  What makes it a "Junior" version, you ask?  Not a clue.  No kissing at the end?  Gaston doesn't swallow a bunch of whole eggs?  All of the participants freak out about having to touch each other, even while playing a part in a stage production?  I mean, pick one.  Adelaide auditioned for several roles, but we all breathed a sigh of relief when she got her part of choice- that of Lumiere- because she had gone to great pains to reassure us that her life would be OVER if she was cast as pretty much anything else.  A teeny, tiny, masochistic part of me hoped that she would get a different part as all this kind of talk was communicating to me that she has much to learn about being a gracious loser and making the best out of less than ideal conditions.  Honestly, though, that lesson has been hammered home in other parts of her life (field day every single spring, and P.E. several days per week), so mostly I was happy for her and the peace of our family's life when she got the part. 

What I didn't consider upon first hearing her joyous news, however, was the costume.

Here are five facts:  We are providing Adelaide's costume.  We do not want to pay a million dollars for it.  We do not want to pay a hundred dollars for it.  As a matter of fact, we want to pay a small percentage of that hundred.  We also do not want to dedicate every spare minute to creating this costume. 

Those five facts do not coexist in harmony. 

So here's what we have so far:  gold leggings.  A gold bowtie.  A men's suit jacket from Goodwill.  An excess of confidence in my tailoring abilities. 

We still need a bunch of things, but chief and most worrisome among these are her candlesticks. 

Are you now remembering that Lumiere is a candlestick?  Daughter Dearest has to keep her hands up by her head for the bulk of the musical, arms at 90-degree angles, which will surely make for tired shoulders but whatever, okay, that's her problem, and besides, she's twelve, she'll bounce back in right around 20 minutes, no matter how sore she gets. 

On both those hands need to be fake melting candles, with fake flames, big enough to be seen by the audience, oh, and mom, I'd really really like it if they actually lit up! 

Google returned disturbingly few helpful results.  I can either make something that takes one hour and looks like trash, or I can go to a trade school, become a licensed electrician, and only then be able to follow along with the Lumiere costume how-to YouTube videos I found.

The closest thing I found to any kind of middle ground is this:

First of all, I don't plan on making a candle for her hat, because I believe in setting healthy boundaries.  Second of all, I found this via a google image search, but the description on how to make it was cut off, and when I tried to find the original image and website, it was no longer available.  So what I know is that I need oatmeal containers, sour cream containers, small plastic plates, white paint, hot glue (for the wax drippings), and gold tape.  What I can't figure out is how they made that flame!  Papier mache? (Mentally add your own accent marks to that second word, there, I don't have time to copy and paste- I have to turn our twelve year old into a candle!  A french candle!)  Balloons?  A good old-fashioned Catholic miracle?  Who knows?!

I also don't know how she's going to keep those on her hands.  Lumiere does a fair amount of gesticulating, and as comical as it would be to me if one of her candles flew off and hit the Beast in the face, I'm pretty sure she would be mortified, so I need to figure out some kind of internal handhold.  And making them light up?  Do I mount little LED flashlights in there?  Incandescent flashlights so that there's a potential for a real fire?  (Exciting!)  Fairy lights wrapped around that flame I still can't figure out? 

I'm sure we'll finagle some kind of solution, but for now my plan is to craft something absolutely horrendous-looking in the next week, convince her this is the final draft, then let her persuade me into trying again so that whatever we actually end up with will come as a relief and look satisfactory to her eyes.  See also:  my entire parenting philosophy.

Four of Those Scattered Directions

Hello and halloo! We're all still alive, thanks for asking.  I'm posting because every few days I think to myself, "It's time to revive the blog!" Then I do a mental fist pump, but not a physical one because occasionally I am able to tell when I look ridiculous.  I usually have these thoughts of writing revival when I am in a place that is not conducive to blogging, and by the time I return home my thoughts have scattered in a thousand directions.  But I'm going to try, try again, anyway!

• Our boys' room is constantly trashed. This is not awesome (or uncommon, I know), but it often looks the way it does because of what they're creating:  on Caedmon's part, notes to leave outside Adelaide's door,

Reads, "I love you."

while Atticus likes to create things for me based on his worries. This one is a "company robot," and it's designed to keep me company any time he's not around. These are the kinds of gifts extreme extroverts give to extreme introverts:  well-intentioned, missing the mark by a mile, but good golly do I love it.

• Right here is where I would put a more recent photo of Daughter, but I'm scared to because as I scrolled through the photos she looked way too pretty and grown-up.  I could instead put the screenshot I sent to our neighbor of the sex offenders who live in our community, whose names and addresses I have memorized.  This wasn't just me being a weirdo neighbor (this time, anyway); we had a little scare where Adelaide and her friend were walking to school and a certain person could possibly have been following them. They went and spoke to the police last night.  Adelaide somehow made the recounting of this visit amusing, because while she is so bright and so brave in many ways, she still finds basic human interaction to be challenging at times.  

• I bought this tiny... espresso mug?  Earthenware teacup?  Something that holds a fraction of the coffee a normal mug does because I'm trying to cut down on my coffee intake. I'm having a bit of trouble typing right now because my hands are trembling due to a surplus of caffeine in my system; while I have indeed been using this wee little cup, in practice it's gone a little wonky as it turns out I have no problem refilling it six times. 

• When our kids were babies, my favorite photos were the ones of them crying (terrible, I know).  At this age, these are my preferred shots:

Three Reasons... (with gifs!)

... to be happy in September, one of my historically least happy months.  If you don't feel like being happy, though, that's okay too.  Go back to your Fiona Apple album and don't mind me.

• First,  a quick and slightly bossy reminder to you to read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making because reading a book with beautiful prose and a protagonist named September can help make things better. Or at least appear to be better. Appearances are all that matter, anyway, right?  I'm pretty sure Chomsky said that.  Or Nietzsche, who has a fun name to say but does not appear to have been a fun guy, like, at all.

• This is a book that exists in this world:

This book is so charming, and deals with difficult subject matter with such humor, and I just love it so much.  This is Honeyman's first book, and she has such a deft hand I want to take her, chain her to a word processor, and force her to write a book a year for the next forever, because that's how I express affection.

This is not too much to ask.

• The elastic waist trend is back in women's wear.  I haven't been this comfortable in years!  What a time to be alive!