Author Archives: Cindy

the really good holiday weekend

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Hope everybody’s been having a fun holiday weekend. We’ve been having a ball, although it’s been pretty low-key, no big cookouts or barbeques or anything like that. Saturday was beautiful, so we spent a lot of the day outside. Dave did a ton of yardwork (sweet man that he is) and Cate and I just hung out and played a lot.

Sunday afternoon, we dropped Cate off at Patsy’s house for a few hours (hooray for her after-hours baby-sitting policy!) and went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I know a lot of people have been nay-saying it, but Dave and I both really enjoyed it. The only thing that irritated me about it was the guy sitting next to me (who had to come to the theater alone, and I think I know why); every time some outrageous plot point or stunt happened on screen, he’d kind of groan and say, “oh, yeah right.” It was like watching a movie with my dad, who has absolutely no concept of the suspension of disbelief. I wanted to punch him (the guy, not my dad – although I have been tempted to sock my dad once or twice during a movie as well). I mean, you don’t go see a Lucas/Spielberg movie and expect realism, right? It’s just supposed to be fun. So with that expectation in mind, as far as we were concerned, the movie was great.

After the movie, we picked Cate up at Patsy’s house and came home. I made lasagna, and while it was baking, she and I wandered around the neighborhood and visited with some of the horses. Then we came back to our yard and spun airplanes (you know, where you pick her up under her arms and then spin around so her feet fly out behind her), then we’d crash in the grass and she’d laugh and laugh and sign “more” to get me to do it again. We did that over and over until I thought I was going to throw up. It was fantastic.

This morning, Cate and I headed out to Target, and for the first time I set her down to let her walk around in the store. She had a BLAST, although it wore me out because I had to chase her down everywhere. She doesn’t quite understand, “Ok, let’s go this way” yet. Hopefully she’ll figure that one out soon.

She conked out in the car on the way home, and is sound asleep right now. Since it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain like the forecast predicted, we might have to pull Dave away from his work and take a family trip to the park this afternoon. Hope y’all are having good weather wherever you are, too.

more traffic

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We have another house showing tonight at 6:45. Yay! I’m not sure if we’re going to get any over the weekend or not. I guess some people might use their three-day weekend to house hunt, but I would think a lot of people will be out of town. And the weather is going to be crappy, which I don’t think will help our cause. Oh well, having two showings the first week is two more than I expected.

Seriously, I know we have a nice house, I just can’t imagine why anyone would voluntarily choose to live in Duvall. The only reason I live here is because Dave already owned this place when we met. After things got serious and we decided to co-habitate, his four-bedroom house in the boonies seemed more practical than my tiny one-bedroom apartment in Seattle. (Did I mention that I had a view of Elliott Bay? And I could see the Space Needle every time I walked out my front door?) God, I loved that place. But I loved Dave more, so I moved. And I’ve been itching to get out of here almost since the first week I moved here (or whenever the first time I saw a cat mauling a field mouse was), so I’m really looking forward to someday living in a house that both of us love for a change. And maybe a place where we could let Cate play in the backyard without worrying about coyotes. A girl can dream, right?

This is random, but it’s been bugging me for the past few days: we had someone come out to pressure wash the siding and the deck, right? I found the guy because he had a sign up near our house, and he came out to give me an estimate the day I called him. His price was reasonable, and he didn’t give me creepy-contractor vibes, so I was planning our list date around when he could do the job. When I called him to confirm, he said that his pressure washer needed a new part, and he was waiting for it, and could he do the job around the end of this week? I said no, that really wasn’t ok, so I’d just find someone else, thanks anyway. He was like, “uh… let me make some calls and I’ll call you right back.” Ooookay. He called me a few minutes later to say that he found the part locally, so he could come on Tuesday (the 20th) to do it, would that be ok? Um. What?

The thing that bugs me is that he MUST have been lying, right? I mean, was he saying that he was going to go for a week without making any income because he was waiting on a part for his pressure washer? He didn’t have another one for when his main one crapped out? I mean, my mom has an extra sewing machine so she can still do her alterations business when her main machine is in the shop. And then suddenly he magically finds the part within about 10 minutes? I don’t know, it sounded shady.

Anyway, he showed up on Tuesday like he said he would, and he did a decent job, so that was fine. When it came time to pay him, he asked me if I would make the check out to him rather than his company “so [he] wouldn’t have to pay taxes.” I didn’t really know how to argue with that. Am I supposed to say, “Well, as a matter of fact, I think you should pay taxes, sorry”? So I made the check out to him personally, handed it over, and… he left. It wasn’t until later that I realized he never gave me a receipt or an invoice or anything for the work he did. So if he had screwed up something on our property, I would have no recourse whatsoever. (Thankfully, it doesn’t look like that’s the case, as far as I can tell.) Now, my guess is that he’s a sub-contractor of some kind, and if I had made the check out to his company, he would’ve only gotten a small percentage of it, and this way he got to keep the whole amount for himself. But yeah, that was totally shady business, wasn’t it?

now if we can just maintain the spotlessness…

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I apologize for any technical difficulties today, I decided to upgrade my version of WordPress, which always seems to cause way more of a headache than I think it will.

Last night was good. We cleaned like maniacs, of course, and I learned that Dave is even more nitpicky about clutter than I am, which honestly shocked the hell out of me. (He hid our decorative basket of extra toilet paper rolls! I thought it looked fine.) I baked cookies, left them out with a little note inviting our guests to enjoy, and the three of us headed out for dinner.

And you know? When it takes 15 minutes to drive to Redmond each way, it’s surprisingly easy to kill an hour. We headed over to Redmond Town Center, and took Cate to one of the play areas. [For you locals: the area between Gene Juarez and Ruby’s Diner.] It was the first time we’d gone there, but it turned out to be perfect for her, because it’s covered (no rain!), it’s gated off (no getting trampled by shoppers!), and it’s got that nice rubberized flooring (no head injuries!).

If we go there again, I’m going to have to bring my camera, because Cate was so ecstatic, it was hilarious. She doesn’t usually get the chance to walk around out in public where there are lots of people around, but since this was a small fenced area, we just set her down and let her go. For the first few minutes, she hardly even seemed to notice the big play structure in the middle, she just walked around shrieking with glee.

We let her run around and burn off some energy for about 20 minutes, then we headed upstairs to the Greek place for dinner. (I guess it’s technically Turkish? I don’t know, they serve gyros.) Since Cate had some time to play beforehand, she was really good in the restaurant. Of course, the place was empty except for us so it wouldn’t have mattered either way, but it was nice to not have to eat my dinner with one hand because she wanted to sit in my lap. Instead, she sat happily in the highchair the whole time, and ate a couple of slices of pita bread. (She didn’t care for the lentil soup we got her.) It was really nice.

When we got home, I found the business card of the realtor who showed our house (nice of her to leave it behind), and I saw that they did, in fact, eat three of my cookies. So I guess that worked.

The downside is that with only three gone, we were left with nine freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, and oh, what to do with them? Yeah. We’d better sell this place fast or I’m not going to be able to fit into my pants pretty soon.

and so it begins…

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The sign in the driveway went up yesterday around 4 p.m. A couple of hours later, Cate was in a foul mood, so I decided that we should head outside and go for a walk. We were just heading out the driveway to go see the horse across the street when one of the neighbors came by to snag a flyer from the “for sale” sign. Gee, that was fast!

It was kind of awkward because I’m sure he didn’t mean to run into me. But he said, “Mind if I take one of these?” And I told him that it was no problem, but jokingly asked if he was going to buy the place. He said that he was going to pass it on to some friends of his who’ve been talking about moving to this area. Hmm. That’d be pretty cool, if it’s true. But I’m pretty sure he was b.s.ing me, and he just wanted to see what we’re asking for the house and what the inside looks like (there are a few interior photos on the flyer). I know that in my parents’ neighborhood, anytime a house goes on the market, my dad snags a flyer because he’s just a nosy type like that.

But anyway, we had a very nice chat, and it turns out that he owns the farmhouse across the street where Cate’s favorite horse lives. (I told him that his horse was how she learned the word “horsey”. He was mighty impressed.)

Then this morning, Cate and I were sitting on the couch watching cartoons while she drank her milk, and I saw a silver Mercedes station wagon pull up in front of our house. The guy got out, took a flyer, and looked around at our property for a good minute or two. I have no idea if he was an agent or a prospective buyer, but he definitely doesn’t live around here, because I would’ve remembered that car. (It was way too shiny to live in this neck of the woods with all of the loose gravel roads and driveways.)

So, here’s a question. I have this fear that no matter how often I scoop the litter boxes, our house smells like cats. Renee has warned against using air fresheners or plug-ins because she says that it smells like you’re trying to cover something up. (Plus, the fragrance probably isn’t good for Cate’s asthma.) So I stocked up on slice ‘n’ bake cookies, because they can be ready in 15 minutes, and they’ll make the house smell all homey. And then to keep us from eating all of them, I thought I might leave the plate out with a note that says “Thanks for coming, please help yourself.” Renee said that was a good idea, because if people are eating, they’re more inclined to stay in the house longer, and they might be comfortable enough to sit on the couch and try to imagine themselves in the house. What say you? Good idea, or does it scream, “we’re desperate and trying too hard”?

Oh, and while I was typing this, we got a phone call that we’re having our first showing tonight at 6:30. Yay!

Listing Day!

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Cate is about a thousand times better today than she was on Sunday. She’s still a little bit snotty, but she hasn’t needed her albuterol since Sunday night, and she’s been in a great mood, so I’d say we’re definitely through the worst of it. The only problem is that this illness has totally thrown off her sleep/nap schedule, so the last couple of nights, she’s been playing happily until after 11:00! That is sooo not ok when mama needs her sleep too.

hi, mama!

Today she’s back at Patsy’s house, since I need to be working and cleaning the house. It’s amazing how trashed the place can get when you’re taking care of a sick child. I wouldn’t say that the work of the Super-Duper House Cleaners last week has totally been undone, but there’s more than a fair amount of clutter around here that needs to be picked up.

Because, after all, we’re going to be listing our house on the market TODAY!!! I’ll get a picture of the for sale sign as soon as it’s up. (Oh, and if you know me, you can email me if you want the link to see our house online. I’m not going to link to it here because I have no need for strangers to know my home address.)

The reason why I’m a little frantic about the cleaning is because Renee warned me that sometimes people want to come see your house the first day that it’s listed. Now, I’m guessing that’s pretty unlikely in our case, since we’re so far out in the boonies, and it’s a pretty horrible day outside (raining and in the 50’s). But of course since she put the idea in my head, last night I had a dream that people kept showing up to see my house when it was in its current disaster state and I was mortified. So yeah, I’ll be working on that.

Listing! The house! Today! Woo-hoo!!!

Edited to add:
We're on the market!
Oh yeah. We’re official. Let the happy dances commence.

because we aren't nearly stressed out enough

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Cate is sick. Again. She developed a snotty nose on Thursday, but was otherwise still totally fun and happy and fine. I was praying that it was just a new tooth, and not a real cold, because LORDY we don’t have time to deal with that right now.

This morning she woke up wheezing. Full-on asthma attack. She’s been absolutely miserable, poor kid. It took a few doses of albuterol before she was finally comfortable enough to take a nap, which is what she’s doing right now.

So it looks like I won’t be able to send her to daycare tomorrow, which sucks because (a) I have a meeting at the Giant Software Company in the morning (a weekly event that’s part of my current project), and yeah ok, Dave will be fine to look after her for a couple of hours, but he has a major deadline looming too, so I don’t know how we’re going to juggle this. And (b) we’re planning to list our house on Tuesday, which means it really needs to be clean, and not covered in snotty tissues like it is now. But how can you clean when the only thing that keeps your sick child content is to snuggle on the couch with her and watch a few DVR’ed episodes of “Johnny and the Sprites”? How heartless would I be to just be all, “sorry kiddo, mama needs to vacuum, you’re on your own”? I can’t do it. So instead, I’m just sort of wigging out about how I’m going to swing this. I suppose cleaning during her nap would be a start, which, oh yeah, come to think of it, means I should probably get my lazy ass off the computer.

Before I get to that, my dad requested a new video, so I took this one for him. It’s from yesterday, when she was snotty-but-happy. We walked across the street to visit the neighbor’s horse, who totally ignored us because he was on the far side of the pasture. But you can hear her say “horsey” a couple of times (sort of sounds like “huddy”).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNM2sZZ-Ogc

(Btw, the cows in the next pasture over? They’re called huddy too, in case you didn’t know.)

real estate purgatory

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Our house is kinda-sorta on the market, but not totally there just yet. Renee, our realtor, came over today to take pictures of the house and to fill out paperwork with us. So that part is done, which technically means we’re on the market, but we’re holding off a couple of days to “officially” list because she wants to do an all-out marketing campaign: flyers, ads, the whole nine yards.

So to sum up: we have a lockbox on the door, but no sign in the yard. I guess we’re in some sort of real estate limbo for the next couple of days.

lockbox! On the door! That means we're almost officially on the market, right?

See? Lockbox. So we’re almost there, right?

I followed Renee around while she was taking pictures today and took a few myself. Then I went and dug up all of the pictures that I took way back when we first started all of these home improvements, so I could do a little before and after comparison. Check it out:

before: front of the house

after: front of the house

You can see the whole set here if you want. The pictures of the kitchen at the end are my favorite.

I’m actually kind of happy that we aren’t listing until Tuesday because it gives me time to do a couple more things that I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t had time to do yet. Nothing that would really be required for the house, just some minor extra stuff to jazz the place up a little bit.

So, there you have it. Not all the way there, but hooray for progress!!