Tips

I'm thinking that if we buy this house, we're going to place ourselves in a bit of a money pit. Too much stuff that *has* to be done, rather than things we just *want* to do. The offer is still on the table, negotiations are still being made, but we can walk away. And my gut says that we will.

So, tomorrow afternoon we are going back out with the realtor to look at more houses. Today, as I sit at my desk, digesting my lunch and pounding through a pile of miniature chocolate treats, I'm thinking about the dead animals I've seen in the homes we've seen so far.

As a general rule, I'd say that it's not a good idea to keep your stuffed dead birds, dead deer, dead raccoons, and zebra skin rug out for prospective home buyers to see. I'd go a step further and say that it's also probably not a good idea to keep all that live ammunition (bullets and the like) in your linen closet, for prospective home buyers to see. You know we're looking in your closets. You know we're walking through the house.

You just might consider that not everyone likes mounted dead animals. Put them in the garage, maybe, or under the bed. I mean, I doubt it will hurt the animals' feelings. No more than it did to shoot them, slaughter them, stuff them and mount them.

All I'm saying is that you have to consider your audience when you're trying to make a sell, you know? Todd and I, for example, will likely have to take down all of our Def Leppard and Tom Cruise posters when we sell our house. Just in case not everyone likes that type of thing.

Reality TV

Do networks actually have to hire actors anymore? Reality TV has taken over. I noticed this last night while scrolling through the TV schedule and thought to myself, "How interesting? They must be making tons of money now, now that they're just filming regular people in the privacy of their homes and bathrooms." Then I wondered why they don't want to come and film Todd, Jack, Lily and me? I mean, we're terribly interesting and live such exciting lives. Just this morning, I unloaded the dishwasher and told Jack he was a "bad boy!" for dragging the shit out of Lily's poo box. Then Lily vomited on the bathroom counter. This is quality stuff.

Now, I love me some Wife Swap, Biggest Loser, and Nanny 911. So I'm not complaining. I do wonder where in the hell they find those people, but...I'm just saying, what was on TV before reality TV, and why don't we miss it? Our obsession with other people's lives goes beyond buying trashy magazines to read up on the latest news about Britney, her husband and baby...we want to know about people just like us. We have to know. We have to Tivo.

We have to start reading more, that's what we have to do.

Casa Luckey

We just put an offer on a house.

Assuming that all goes well, please get in touch with me if you can:
- build a fence
- paint the exterior of a house, repair the woodwork
- "gut" a bathroom shower and re-tile
- install a sprinkler system
- replace kitchen countertop tile that currently has tiny paintings of herbs on it
- rip up linoleum

Of course, we'll need all of this done, for free.

Keeping fingers crossed.

House Update

The update is that there is no update. Spent several hours today with the realtor looking at houses, in people's pantries and at their toilets, and we didn't find anything.

We have found two great houses now, though, that have railroad tracks behind them. Nice.

Last week, because I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I created a spreadsheet that included an evaluation criteria and ranking system for the 17 houses that we wanted to look at this weekend. From this, I was able to statistically rank each house by location, "overall look and feel", price, size, price per square foot, etc. I felt really good after making this list, because I was able to rank the houses and make sure that, in the short timeframe we had today, we'd be able to see at least the top ten. Checked my email this afternoon before meeting the realtor and the top five houses were already under contract. Talk about a blow.

So I'm enjoying a glass of wine as I'm typing this. To take a little of the edge off.

Back to square one. Again.