About Me

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I have three fabulous children and a terrific husband. I was recently laid off and have decided to try the stay-at-home gig. We'll see how it goes!

Monday, April 7, 2014

Finding a Realtor

Finding a realtor to help sell your house is a tricky thing.  Normally I'm a pretty optimistic person, but it's difficulty to trust some one who is going to make money on what you are trying to sell.  They want it to sell fast and not necessarily for the best price.  This can make decision making very difficult.  Of course, the more you sell it for, the bigger their commission. But the longer the house is on the market, the bigger their expenses.

So how to pick a realtor?  There's personal recommendations.  Always a nice way to go because you can get an idea of how the person works.  Drawing out of a hat.  That could work out, but can be a bit scary.  Internet searches can tell you who sells a lot of houses, but are not the best at helping gauge how well you'll work with a person.

We have gone with the personal recommendation.  I think it's worked out well.  She is a great business woman.  I can tell because whenever she "gives me suggestions" I feel like I have to do them whether I want to or not.  Thank goodness for my recent experiences in sticking up for my daughter at school and dealing with repair people.  If not for them I'd be getting trampled on.  I'm glad for my husband too.  He is really great about stepping back and making sure we have time to really consider our options.

For me that is the truly difficult part.  I am relying on an expert to guide us in selling our house.  Only I don't fully trust that guide and don't have enough of a backbone to really question anything.  This will be another great lesson learned.  Hopefully we don't get burned in the process.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Telling the kids

We are concerned about how well the kids will adapt to our move.  We don't want them to be hurt or sad and we want them to make friends quickly.  We are brainstorming ideas to make their transition easier and even planning to do some major spoiling. I feel a ton of guilt right now.  I hate moving them from the only home they've ever known and flipping their world upside down.  I don't know how they feel.  I spent 15 years in the same house.  My parents still live in that house.  They've had the same phone number for the last 30 years!  Their area code has changed more often than their phone number.

My husband moved quite a bit as a child and did not like it.  My concern is that we're hurting our children's sense of safety and comfort.  All we can do is love on them and help them make the best of the move.  I know plenty of other people who have moved their children and they adapted just fine.  Even those who have moved to other countries seemed to do really well.

Telling the kids we are going to move went about as well as we expected.  The baby didn't really care.  Our son looked at us with his mouth agape.  He wasn't exactly sure what we meant.  Once we explained that all his toys would be coming with us, he was OK with it.  Still not happy, but OK.  After I explained he would be guaranteed the opportunity to sled and build a snow man every year, he was almost excited.

Our oldest was quite upset.  She didn't cry or anything, but she is not happy.  I think part of her might be excited to be going to a new place.  She likes adventure and traveling.  But Tennessee is all she knows and I know it's scary for her to think of trying to make new friends and learn how to adapt to a new environment.  Occasionally she'll look at me and say, "Only a few more months until my life is over."  The next day she'll say, "I can't wait to move."  It's quite the roller coaster of emotions around here these days.


Thursday, April 3, 2014

Moving Checklist

There is a whole mess of things to get done when you want to move out of state.  And no matter how extensive a list, you will always add to it.  Here's the beginning of mine.

1 - Tell the kids.  Ha!  That will be fun.

2 - Find a realtor.  Also an interesting endeavor.  I view realtors like I do mechanics; I'm sure most are honest and trustworthy, but I don't trust any of them.

3 - Get the house ready to sell.  Exhausting!

4 - Begin process of trying to sell the house.  Even more exhausting.

5 - Start looking for a new house.  Fun, but exhausting.

6 - Buy a new house.  Terrifying.

7 - Get everything organized to move.  A total nightmare.

8 - Move.  Relief to finally be to that point.

9 - Unpack.  Ugh.

Let the fun begin.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

We're Moving!

My husband has received the official word from his boss and we are being moved to Wisconsin.  That's right, Wisconsin.  This former desert rat, turned Southerner is now going to learn to be a Northern snow enthusiast.  To be honest I always wanted to live where it snows.  Yuma, Az. (where I'm from) has an annual rain fall of about 1 inch and we usually get that in one rain.  My father still calls me to tell me if there were raindrops on his windshield when he woke up.  There are no seasons in Yuma.  It's hot and less hot.  Still it's my home and you can't beat that great big sky and the absolute most gorgeous sunsets you will ever see.

Moving to Tennessee was a huge change for us.  And now we're going North to a place that saw temperatures of -50F this winter.  Granted this was a very cold winter for everyone, but just the fact that it's possible makes me cry a little.  It will be great to be able to do some real sledding.  I've always wanted to take the kids down a big-ole hill.  We'll be virtually guaranteed a white Christmas.  However, we won't know anyone.  And as a SAHM, I won't have access to anyone for a while.  It will just be me and the kids trying to fit in and make friends while my husband is still traveling and meeting people at work.  I'll have no backup, no support system.  We don't have any family here and it took a while to meet people.  But we only had one kiddo then and I had a job.  Now it's just me and three kids.  Thank God for those kids too.  There's nothing like school and extracurricular activities to thrust you into social situations.

The target date for moving is July 1.  We'll see how that goes.