About two months ago, we decided to try our luck at this dismal economy & put our house on the market. No real pressure, but just to see if it would sell so that we could move in closer to our jobs & therefore steal back another hour & a half out of our day from our hellish commute.
Side Note: If you’re looking at real estate & you can buy a jacked up older home close to work or a bigger, pretty house out in the country for less than the city house…BUY THE CITY HOUSE. No, seriously. No house is worth sitting in traffic for an hour twice a day.
Anyway. When we first put the house on the market,I was that obnoxious Type-A seller who’s head exploded every time her email “dinged” at her. A showing! ::head explodes:: Feedback! ::head explodes:: Nothing was safe from my brain matter. & I was a stickler for a clean house – the floors must be lickable, the high chair properly Cloroxed, the sheets in hospital-mode. Because DUH, nobody would buy our house if they saw a dust bunny! Right?!?! Until a month passed. & then another month. & as my email kept dinging at me, life kept trucking along & I realized some very key life lessons through this journey through real estate in our downtrodden economy:
I cannot be everywhere at once. I can’t be in my office, cleaning up my home, running errands, & entertaining my child at the same time. When I try to be everything & everywhere, I usually end up drooling in a bathtub by Friday night, begging Nate for a glass of wine & a lobotomy.
I cannot do every thing & do everything well. It’s simply impossible & something has to give. I can’t be present with my son & still be cleaning constantly. If I’m busy folding laundry, it might mean that I’m missing bath time. & I can’t be sitting in my office chair doing paperwork without mistakes with my mind drifting to my cleaning schedule or fretting over a speck of dirt the buyers might see. Multi-tasking has it’s limits – I can clean the house while watching the baby, or blog while sitting next to Nate, but at the end of the day, I haven’t done either thing entirely well because nothing received my undivided attention. & that’s not fair to any aspect of my life.
I have to PRIORITIZE. There are certain things that life requires of me. Be a mother, a wife, work outside the home. I must juggle those three balls & there is no point in resisting. But I can prioritize the “extras” – the house being on the market, the blog, exercise. After work, Harrison & Nate come first. Is Harrison in bed? Is there dinner? Good. Then to clean up – do I need to do laundry tonight, or can it wait? Do the floors need to be mopped? No? Then I can sit down. & blog or Tweet or do whatever mind-numbing internet activity helps me “relax” that night.
Because sometimes, clean enough is enough. My house is a home. It’s not a monument or a museum or a hospital. It’s a home where we laugh & play & cook & make mistakes. There will be dust bunnies because my priorities lie with my family & work, not the future buyers of my home. There will be a constant pile of laundry because I choose to be present during bath time. There will always be garden beds that need to be weeded because I choose to take time for myself to write, think, & drink tea each night. & there might be an overflowing washer & a tea cup on my desk when a potential buyer walks through, but I was on time to my 8am meeting. But as long as my house isn’t a breeding orgy for cockroaches & my kid doesn’t come off the floor with dirt-crusted knees, we’re golden.
& more importantly, sometimes enough is enough. I’m learning when to call “uncle.” Call uncle? Shit. I’m learning when to SCREAM UNCLE! That after a 5am wake-up call, smushed banana on suit blazer, & one more potential buyer claiming that they don’t like where our kitchen table is positioned (herro? not coming with the house, dumbass!), that I simply cannot write a legal contract on my own. CANNOT. So I cry uncle & ask for help. Or when I simply can’t get Thankful on Thursday written for the second week in a row – UNCLE. It doesn’t get written. Or that three of our October weekends are already booked, barelling us straight into the holidays – UNCLE. Our house goes off the market on September 1st, with plans to try again in the spring.
It’s not easy. Especially when you’re a control freak that sports the Letter A for Type A, not Adultery. Last night, we had friends over for dinner – & I gave in to let someone else make dessert. I wanted sweet potato fries instead of a freshly mopped floor. The bathroom needed to be scrubbed down, so I didn’t get a shower before guests arrived. & we drank beer out of bottles, not our beer steins because I simply could not locate them. But we still had fun, there were still plenty of laughs, & nobody mentioned that my beer cheese dip wasn’t garnished or displayed in anything more than a simple white bowl.
I’m slowly learning to let go, let it be, & I think I’ll be happier in the long run.
Just don’t mention my dust bunnies or the shoes in the corner when you come over, okay?
Valuable lesson. Seriously. Now, teach it to me.
I have learned to let go too and it’s awesome and freeing. And I’m not turning back.
You are wise beyond your years! I’m so thankful to call you my friend!
Flip 1:3
a freaking men. i am home all summer, but my house isn’t spotless. i’d go insane. summer is my time for ME. yeah, i do clean more than during the school year but hell no do i care if my house is perfect.
i love this. you are absolutely right – something has to give. i’m so glad it’s the clean house that’s givin’ not the snuggles after bath time!
I need to let some things go too. But not the things with Eddie. I think I will have to let go of reading so many blogs. Oh, that was even painful to type. I love reading blogs. I love commenting. But it takes SO MUCH DAMN TIME. Sigh…
i hated selling our house, it was on the market for over a year and a half, and WE were the dumbasses that bought another house while we were trying to sell the original house. Can you say “two house payments a month?” OUCH!
I HATED when people made stupid ass comments on the feedback. Um, hello- gray IS a neutral color. Grr!
Good for you. I think I had UNCLE on speed dial
and we didn’t even have kids at that point, either!
why are you still resisting hiring a maid? Seriously? Why are you doing this to yourself? I realize you’re type A and believe that you singlehandedly can wear 14 different hats at once ( trust me, I’m still there too, but learning) but really, like you said, something has to give.
Let someone else clean the house. There is no dollar amount you can put on time with your family, your health, your sanity.. get someone else to clean your house. Just do it already. Just do it. Do it. Do it.
and, have you had an open house? This way 40 people can come see your house at once, rather than having one weird beard from Wisconsin who just wants to be nosy, fuck up your mind mid-day with panics that your UnderWEAR (LOL) are still on the floor while you’re at work.
And trust me, people understand that you have a kid, if someone wants your house bad enough they dont notice the furniture, the dust bunnies, the dining room set…
When we bought our house, I knew the second I walked through the door that I was home. I didn’t give a flying shit what was on the counter, what the applicances looked like, the carpet, the paint. The right buyer will come along in time. Just relax, breathe, and again, HIRE A FUCKING MAID, oh, and schedule one open house before September 1st.
weird beard from Wisconsin –> I am from WI …& THAT IS HILAROUS
hahaha.
Still learning that one – our house still has to be spotless when it shows. But we haven’t gotten a whole lot of interest either (just 3 showings in the last 3 months or so plus an open house) so it hasn’t been too terrible on me.
I do have to ask – what do you do with your dog when you have a showing during the day? That’s the main reason I run around like an idiot on those days, I have to go get our dog and his crate out of the kitchen and take him somewhere – typically my mother in law’s.
The older you get the easier it is to let go of the stuff. Shortly after our first daughter came home I invited our best friends over for a BBQ, the ended up cooking the whole meal while my husband chased the baby & I cleaned myself up from a hiking accident (read whole leg road rash). That’s what friends are for!
I’m 32 now and my house is clean but cluttered. Once I hated clutter and one day I’ll hate clutter again. But for now I chose my kids and that leave no time to deal with clutter…. ah well.
Its so liberating when you let go of all the things that you think you have to do and just be. I am much more relaxed and much more able to deal with the day to day without having to rush through everything.
Love this post!!! Made me think of one of my favorite quotes so I thought I would share it with you…you might have heard it before…”Life is a game where you juggle five balls: work, family, health, friends, and integrity. You work hard to keep all five in the air. Then one day you finally understand work is a rubber ball, if you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls are glass. If you drop one it will scuff, nick, or shatter. Once you understand the lesson of the five balls yo will begin to have balance in your life.”
I have no idea where this is from but like I said your post reminded me of it.
those are some awesomely cute shoes…
so courtney, any advice on how to keep the other 4 balls in the air? LOL.
I think that is a bizarre ass quote
Great post…plus the shoes are super cute. That has to count for something, right?
CUTE SHOES!
& good lesson to learn. I don’t think I could handle a real estate battle with motherhood, being a wife and work. Only another month, right?
I do not even want to begin to fathom how I will keep my house in showing-order at all times when that time comes. It will be near impossible. So you’re already doing better than I am.
I feel like this all of the time. Always trying to do everything but never feeling caught up. Easier said than done, but prioritizing the extras and putting your family first is always the key to real happiness. Good luck with the house situation. Hopefully something will happen soon!
I feel EXACTLY the same way! We went through selling our house 2 years ago and I remember feeling the same way. I also do the mental debate of what is more important…household chores or playing…or extra work I could do from home. Still haven’t figured that one out although my heart says f*ck the work and cleaning and PLAY WITH THE KIDDOS! Easier said than done. Love your blog, I am a “stalker”.
The best advice I was given was to not read the feedback because people are idiots. Just have your realtor read them and she/he will let you know if there is something that you need to address.
It took us almost 2 years to sell our house, after we had already moved out of town expecting it would only take up to 6 months. It was a nightmare. Maybe your area is different, but with things the way they are right now … the only houses I see flying that fast on the market are short-sells and foreclosures.
People right now are looking for a deal considering you can get houses for so cheap. It could take awhile. Why would you give up after a couple of months? Get a housekeeper to deep clean every once in while, hold open houses on weekends, and forget about things being spotless. Don’t give up, if you really want more time with the family and less commute, hang in there.
Also, your realtor should be giving you constructive feedback from the potential buyers … not telling you trivial shit that doesn’t matter.
I’m so glad and more than relieved that I stumbled upon your blog. Now, I know I’m not the only one getting paranoid about doing all things at the same time. I love what you said that we need to prioritize important things in our lives. Doing my paper works while thinking of cleaning the house is really getting into my nerves nowadays. After reading your post, I now realized that we need also to relax and just set priorities in our lives to avoid ending up in a hospital because of exhaustion and too much stress.:-) Thanks a lot.:-)
I hear ya on the cleaning bit. I am a crazy neat freak who at times still has to remind myself that a little dusty and out of order is ok and to enjoy that baby because before I know it he’s going to not want to have anything to do with me. That’s an interesting thought on the house way out we have been discussing moving way out for cheaper taxes. I appreciate hearing the opinion of someone who did it.
Yeah, our house was on the market for 6 months. And of course, within that span of time, we had a serial rapist go wild in our little neighborhood alone. I mean, OF COURSE! It pretty much sunk any hopes of our little house selling.
We’re gonna rent it out now and make a profit doing it!
I’ve done some research and I’m really thinking this is our best option. You could even hire a property manager and not have to worry about issues. They do everything for you. Something to think about if it doesn’t sell.
Great advice. Luckily we haven’t had to deal with ‘selling’ just quite yet.
I do have to somewhat disagree with buying the Jacked up older home closer to work vs. buying the bigger/nicer house out in the country. It really depends on where you live. The town we [were] living in before buying our first home was right there by our work, however the city itself was way to over crowded, dirty, nasty and just run down, yet the prices of houses were sky-high and you got nothing for the money. The house we were renting had NO backyard what so ever and with a little toddler running around a backyard was a MUST have, but we couldn’t afford the prices for the houses that [did] have a backyard SOOOooo we looked 30miles north of where our work’s are and found a little beauty in the suburbs. Completely renovated, LARGE front yard and HUGE backyard [fenced in W/an in-ground pool], located in a very nice calm neighborhood [i.e I don't look out my back door and see a run-down trailer park]. This house, where we used to live would cost upwards of 500K+ and we got it for less then 175K. So it really depends on the area. I can deal with commute if it means im coming home to a nice peaceful place for not only my own sanity, but for my family, vs. having a short commute but having to go home and deal with loud neighbors, a rundown trailer park next to use with a drunk guy that is persistently determined to mow our yard for us AND get paid for it… [true story].
I have a quote too: “A clean house is a sign of a wasted life”. I agree that clean is important, but I like your priorities! Family is more important. Self is more important!
I won’t say anything about the shoes.
I have a tendency to get into a similar mindset. I am often telling myself (sometimes outloud!) that I need to be doing what’s important RIGHT NOW when I get distracted with more trivial things and the important things are calling.
I don’t want to this to sound offensive, I really don’t. But the one thing I kept thinking while reading your post was – what is your husband doing? Why isn’t he worrying about the house work and laundry and dinner like you are? Because this is an issue that keeps resurfacing in your posts and it seems to really stress you out. You appear to be very concerned about being “super mom” and doing it all.
Have you split things up around the house such that this is your domain? Do you work fewer hours and so do more around the house to make up for it? Is there a way that you can rearrange things so that you get more help around the house? Or maybe hire a more competent cleaning service than the one you had last time? Because you’re right – you definitely don’t want to take time away from your baby to scrub the kitchen floor. But if you’re anything like me – you will be tense and stressed out every time you look at the dirty floor. Good luck, I hope things get better in this area soon!
Look at how far you’ve come!! It’s called Balance. Remember when you were first back to work and so overwhelmed? It’s because you hadn’t found the Balance yet. Being a working mama and juggling it all is a SKILL that has to be learned. It takes months to learn, even for moms who aren’t dealing with the PPD stuff, too. Give yourself a pat on the back, you’re getting it
Ah, the ever growing to-do-list… Sometimes I get so frustrated by how little I manage to get done in a day that I give up all together and do nothing the next day. And the world still hasn’t come to an end.