Snail's Pace

Getting our house ready to sell is moving so slow, I can't stand it!  Here is a list of things we still have to get done:

• Paint hall bathroom, hallway, Chloe's room, Tucker's room and the kitchen.  I do have the paint colors chosen though, just waiting for the sheetrock patches to be sanded and primed.  I should be able to get all of these rooms done this week if I can find enough help with the kids. 
• Replace some cedar on the exterior, prep and paint the entire exterior.  Luckily, the style of our house is intended to be off white with just a tad darker off white for the trim so it won't be too hard to nail down colors.  We were hoping for a break in the 100 degree days but that doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon so we will just have to get up really early on the day(s) we do this. 
• Build deck stairs and window well cover for the back of the house.
• Clean up the backyard.  Now that the dogs are comfy in their new space, we can take down their dog run, fill in their holes, scoop their massive poop, etc.  We also need to just make it look a little nicer in general back there, trim some bushes, get rid of the grass clippings pile, etc.
• Master Bathroom sheetrock work and paint. 
• Finish downstairs bathroom area.  We still need to tile the built in shower, tile the floor and set the toilet and vanity.  We also need to lay carpet in the hall and install doors into the laundry room and the space under the stairs. 
• Deep clean each room and shampoo carpets.
• Move out/sell the rest of our CRAP.  The moving sale is slated to take place as soon as the house is show-ready.  Our intention is to do FSBO for 2 weeks-1 month.  We want to have an open house during the Moving Sale so people can walk through without us hovering over them and also get us more exposure since moving sales generally have quite a bit of traffic.  If we don't get any bites doing the FSBO thing, we will call our friend Cina to list it for us. 

Really, it's not all that much and if we had uninterrupted time to work on it, I think we could finish it up in no time.  But then there's the fact that Ryan has something called a JOB.  One that took him out of town all week and now he may be there through this weekend.  Silly job!  Good thing though is that if he ends up working all weekend, he should be able to take Monday and Tuesday off to work on the house, we always get more accomplished when we are both there so that would be great!

My current mantra: This will all be worth it, this will all be worth it, this will all be worth it.

Settling In

Our big transition to the new place is complete. Even though we downsized considerably, the kids are absolutely loving it here! They love sharing a room and for the first time since birth, Tucker is sleeping all night long by himself in his room! No more climbing in bed with Mommy in the middle of the night, no more waking up screaming, no more bedtime struggles! Can I get a Woo Hoo?!

What has apartment living been like for the adults? We hope and pray that only one person needs to use the potty at any given moment, I wash all dishes by hand, and I am channeling my long lost overly anal persona and have gone toy/clutter-nazi on the fam. It's good though, it's nice to be part of a small, friendly community with the confidence that moving here is the right decision for our family. I am very excited for our future!

Next up on our plate is to bust our butts to get our house ready to sell. We have made a lot of progress in the last week, but next week will slow us down as both of our parents are taking much needed vacations so we won't have "built in" childcare. We'll do what we can, which more than likely means the kids and one parent (me, more than likely) will hang back while the other one works on the house. Our goal is listing by August 1st. We will also be having a big moving sale right before listing so I am still going through all of our stuff and deciding what goes to storage and what goes bye-bye.