Dismantling

Last night I had dinner with the lovely and brilliant (and funny) Becca of Academomia. Over margaritas (me) and pinot grigio (her) we talked about careers and kids and husbands and more. It was a wonderful few hours, even when it rained and the deck of the restaurant cleared out, leaving just the two of us, sitting under a red shade umbrella chatting away.

Today we are working through the realtor and home stager recommendations. It's a loooooong list. I agree with most of it, but have vehemently rejected those that involve spending any money (like "consider purchasing a leather chair for the corner" - um yes, a leather chair would look lovely there, and had that ever been in the decorating budget, we would have purchased it, but it is not and there's no way we're buying any furniture when we're about to move to a neighborhood with homes 1,000 sq. ft. smaller than ours) and those that involve too much work (repainting Claire's room- it's a soft yellow, and maybe some people won't like it, but hopefully it's not a deal breaker). They also don't like that our dining room is a playroom, but tough. We don't have dining room furniture and we're going to switch it around and move out most of the toys, so it will just have to do. Today's tasks mainly revolve around the walls (removing all hanging frames and personal pictures; fill in holes; paint over holes and any other smudges; clean baseboards; clean light switches) and the front and back yards (trim, blow, power wash, mulch, plant). I'm tempted to make a sarcastic remark about how much fun we're having, but it is actually a little fun. And it's definitely nice to feel like we're DOING something as opposed to just frantically making lists and going to appointments and hearing a whole assortment of people tell me just how much I have to do. The productivity is soothing.

The Fort Worth research remains a little daunting. For those who know the area, we're looking in various downtown and near-downtown neighborhoods like Berkeley Place, Mistletoe Heights, Tanglewood, and others nearby. JP will be working from home (our one piece of good news last week- his company approved him to work remotely, which was HUGE for us and such a relief) and I'll be downtown, so I want as short a commute as possible. We live 7 miles away from my office now and I see no reason to extend that drive. My biggest struggle is finding a daycare for Claire (and Landon, but only for a few months). If any of you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I just need a longer list to begin my research and phone calls. Hopefully we can get our house listed soon so we can heard to Fort Worth for some day trips. JP has still never seen his future city, he's just acting on blind faith and full fledged support for me and my dream job. He's a keeper. A keeper with a very long moving to-do list that he hasn't complained about once.

Back to removing everything personal from my house, along with trash cans, any decor item smaller than a cantaloupe (taken straight from the staging sheet, I kid you not), and pretty much anything else pretty and/or useful. The goal is to make it look like no one lives here. The problem of course is that four people do live here. We'll get as close as we can.