work day and big news

And so the day sets on our exciting family work day, and the yard is bathed in the light of the new fixture on the garage.

Friends, it's been a journey. We haven't posted about it, but more than six months ago, we decided to list out house for sale. We've been here 11 years. The boys don't remember living in any other home. But we've run out of space, and the boys just keep getting bigger. We've been talking for years about getting a house with one more bedroom and a basement where they could have a rec room ... and the time has finally come.

It took 183 days between the time we listed our house and the time we accepted an offer. Possibly these were the longest, most stressful 183 days of my life. They were filled with cleaning, staging, more cleaning, more staging, frantically leaving the house with the dog at the last minute in the middle of my work shift and hanging out at my cousin Amelia's house or Gramps's house or basically anywhere with an internet connection and people who didn't mind hosting us. On the weekends, every time we had a showing (and there were a LOT of showings), we loaded up kids and dog and drove around town if it wasn't nice or went to the park if it was nice (and since the house was up for sale for the entire winter, there were a lot of not-nice days). And for six months, we heard that our house wasn't "just right," that the rooms were too small, or the basement ceilings were too low, or we needed to change this thing or that thing. It was hard on all of us, but most especially the boys. Each of us was ready to throw in the towel more than once.

But lo! One day we had a showing in the morning, and I went over to Amelia's house and hung out with her husband, Todd, and Pluto for a couple of hours while I worked and Todd did his schoolwork. As I was heading home, our realtor texted that the same people wanted to see the house again that afternoon. Weird, right? As it turns out, the people were a couple in a long-distance relationship. The woman lives and works nearby, but the man had flown in from Arizona for the week to look at houses and go to job interviews. So the man came in the morning, and the woman got off work at noon and came back with him for the second showing. And they liked our house! A few days later, we came to an agreement to sell, and we entered the next anxiety-making phase of the process: inspection.

And that's where the work day comes in. The buyers are getting an FHA loan, which means there are some extra conditions to be met (like the stairways have to have railings, and there can't be any chipped paint anywhere, stuff like that). So today my family came over for the day to help us tackle all the projects. My dad put up the garage light (thus ending the eight-year saga of the unfinished garage light!), and he and Joe worked on the railings. Mike did a bunch of projects around the house, including some wiring things and working on the outside. Bethany and I took down all the exterior doors, sanded and patched them, and repainted them. And J and Carleen helped with various projects, including painting that last section of the awful basement wall. So now everything looks fresh and clean and welcoming ... just in time for us to head out the door.

So now the search is on (well, ongoing) for a new place. Let the fun begin!