This is out of control!

2004-03-30 - 2:27 p.m.

On Sunday, my house turned into a ride a Disney! There was a line-up outside to get in! I'm not kidding! My neighbour across the street was going to come check out our renovated basement and make it look like there was interest in the house, but she didn't have the patience to wait in line! And she was afraid if the line got longer, actual buyers would be turned away!!!!

We ended up getting two offers and accepted a very generous one (They were both generous, but one was *more* generous). Pending inspection, our house is sold!!!! This is completely nutty!

I have appointments on Thursday at the new house to have the kitchen measured for new cabinets and a heated floor (a luxury I didn't dare dream of last time. Now I know I WANT it!!!!) and the Gaz conversion guy is also coming, so we can put that into motion as well. Looks like we'll be moving the last week of May, because our buyers want our house by June 4th. This is CRAZY! Of course, this is all in anticipation of a trip to China in June or July. I want to be mostly settled in before I bring home a baby....

I was having some sellers remorse the other day. I have 3-year-old kitchen appliances that I like, so I wanted to exclude them from the listing and take them with me to the new house. The likelyhood is that the new owners might also redo the kitchen to their liking and these fairly new appliances will end up at Goodwill. But then the offer was made and my husband did some quick calculations. Let's just say I don't need to feel too guilty about buying new ones again! I did learn a few things since last time, and I know that my double wall oven is not a luxury but a *must* for my kosher kitchen. This time though, we'll try to get gaz ones. And my gaz cook top will likely have 5 burners instead of 4, because when I have people over, I'm always short one burner!

I need a bigger pantry and bigger pot drawers, but I know I don't want as much open display shelving this time, it's pretty but completely useless. No island, but bigger sinks. Ah, the things I've learned in the last 3 years....

Is it crazy though if I redo the same look? I have Martha Stewart mint green cabinetry, with a dark blue Corian counter and green and blue tiled floor. I feel like doing the same thing again, but my husband seems to be leaning towards a slight change, at least in color, not so much in style, since the vintage look works well with all our collectibles...

Anything to add? 3

The Passover Shark

2004-03-28 - 11:27 a.m.

You get two for the price of one today!

First off, hats and panties off to Julie, for what has to be to most valiant effort in the history of humor and infertility. Who else could take heart-break and pain and make it so freaking funny! And appropriate! You go girl!

Now, my topic for today is the Passover Shark. If you saw the lovely movie "Love Actually", you might be familiar withe the nativity Lobster and Octopus, but your Haggadah doesn't mention a Shark? Let me tell you how I discovered it last Pesach....

In an attempt to make a real effort at cleaning and scrubbing my kitchen for Passover last year, I purchased the Shark Steamvac, a dustbuster-sized silver, slightly shark-shaped machine that you fill up with water, plug in and 10 mintues later, that little sucker will steam away dirt and grime!

You still have to start by vaccumming your drawers, but when you are ready, no more boiling water all over the counters. Just steam! Steam away that Chometz! Now before I go any further, let me put a disclaimer that there is no Halacha here. I have no idea what an orthodox Rabbi would say of my method, but here is my reasoning: the steam that comes of of that thing is actually way hotter than boiling water that cools as it hits the counter. So I do it three times and it's done for me.

I took out my Shark a few days ago to help in the pre-open-house cleaning, but I can't wait for next Sunday, when it's time to switch the kitchen over. Who knew I would ever get excited about all tha cleaning. Ha, that little Shark....

Anything to add? 0

T minus 5 hours

2004-03-28 - 10:17 a.m.

T-5 hours. At 3:15, the open house begins! It will take all my willpower to actually take the dogs to the park and wait 90 minutes before returning, rather than sitting in my car across the street using our new video-baby monitor to spy on the visitors!!! I'm very curious to see what people think of the house....

Last night, we took a break from our packing and cleaning nightmare to attend a Bat Mitzvah.... Holy Canoli! That was something else! The theme was Madison's Avenue (the girl's name) and they had 3 foot tall statues of liberty on all the tables (we sat at Gramercy Park), rotating taxi cabs as center pieces and a *team* of dancers getting the crowd moving. Oh, and a room filled with arcade games, a cotton candy machine, a ton of kosher candy in a big display like a candy store, a tatoo artist (not permanent!!!). It was out of this world! Had I not been beyond exhausted, I'm sure I would have had a ball, dancing with our nieces and nephews and eating my weight in candy and hot dogs (from a real vendor cart), but by the time the main course came at close to 11 pm, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open, so we split. Too bad, I can only imagine was dessert was going to be like!!!!

OH! I almost forgot! Above our store, there has been a Subway restaurant under construction since last summer.... It finally opened yesterday! The girl tells me it brought a few more visitors to the store, and that was with no one knowing the restaurant was actually opening. So as word gets out that they are fianlly opened, I'm hoping we finally reap the benefits of having moved downstairs to make room for them.... The drawback is that fast food restaurants attract teenagers and teenagers have very sticky fingers around a store like mine, so we might need some sort of security cameras, other than my home made webcamera hooked up to the pc!!!!

Anything to add? 0

a few butterflies

2004-03-26 - 10:39 p.m.

I bought some pretty pink and burgundy shoes with a flower today. I'll wear them with my new white suit to the Bat mitzvah tomorrow. I actually had to ask my husband to go show shopping with me because I am so tired, I didn't trust my own judgement! Must be getting cold in hell, 'cause I've never needed help buying shoes before.

This is a different kind of tired though. Not the hormone-induced I have come to think of as second nature, but a pure physical exhaustion that will be easily remedied with a good night's sleep. Of course, that won't happen til after the open house, but hey, I'll make it.

I did slow down though, we're almost finished everything, so tonight was vegging and knitting night. I'm working on yet another sweater for the little dumpling. This baby better be a reality and better be chilly, 'cause she's going to have a closet full of sweater before we even see her picture!!!! (It's a big closet too! this kid is going to have a cedar walk-in... It's so big, my room in college was about the same size!)

I have to say, I'm getting a bit nervous about selling our house. Not about actually leaving it, I'm totally OK with that and I'm really looking forward to starting over somewhere else, I like decorating and I was running out of projects over here. What I'm worried about is actually finding a buyer. It'a a crazy market right now. Houses are selling in less than a week, above asking, with bidding wars. What if that doesn't happen? What if our crasy cooky style keeps people from seing the possibilities and don't make offers. I guess everyone worries. And the truth is, there is no rush. We can hold out for a while. But it still worries me a little. I guess it would somehow offend me personally if people didn't like my house. I shouldn't care what complete strangers think of my decorating style. Everyone redecorates when they buy a house. But if the house is slow to sell BECAUSE of our style, that would suck....

Anything to add? 0

A strange land

2004-03-25 - 4:06 p.m.

I don't know who's house this is, but these people are very neat and don't have knick-knacks. they also apparently don't have dirty dishes, ever, have only empty garbage cans and light candles in all the rooms.....

Oh, yah, it's my house, but it's all pretend, for the benefit of potential buyers. I wish I could be this neat, with everything in its place, not a dog hair to be found, and the books perfectly lined up.

But the reality is, I need my knitting basket by the side of the couch, my comfy blanket in a ball in the corner of my favorite chair, my husband's many magazines all over the coffee table and the dogs' slimy toys under the dining room table. Why those things would keep an interested buyer from seeing the potential of the house is beyond me, but I'll play the little game for a while and hope that all this nonesense helps us sell the house quickly and we can go back to our regular lives.

On the plus side, we've made good headways in packing things we won't need, so those things are ready to go to the new house. And my Passover cleaning is done! We have srcubbed anc vaccumed every inch of this house, so from this moment on, we only eat in the kitchen, so I don't have to do it again next week. All I have left is the put away the dishes, take out my cheap Passover pots and pans and clean the ovens. Turns out listing your house for sale right before Pesach is actually a good thing!

Anything to add? 2

Packing it all in

2004-03-24 - 7:16 a.m.

the list of things I have to do before Sunday is soooo long, Ive had to type it up and keep track of it in a spreadsheet!!!

not only did we buy the house and we are listing our house, we are having an open house.... on SUNDAY. THIS Sunday..... But the *baby's room* was a total nightmare, as I was in the middle of stripping and redoing the oak. So now I've had to push full steam ahead to do something with it. It won't be as nice as if I was doing it for myself, but at least it will show well.

We're also packing up all our retro collectibles, our books, all the crap that we live with everyday but that just takes up room. Sounds easy enough, but trust me, it's A LOT to do!

My hands are cut up and feel like they belong to an arthritic 80 year old, my hair looks like a mad scientist's and I'm sure I smell like a teenager's sports socks, but I will get it done!

I'll try to take a minute or two every morning to keep you posted on the goins on, but if you don't see updates, I'm buried under boxes. If you don't see updates for several days in a row, please alert the authorities. I'll be buried under boxes!!!!

Anything to add? 2


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