Dog Talk
So. I live with my parents. Again.
I've only been here two days, so I can't really judge what it's going to be like for the next month or months, depending on how fast our house sells. The annoying part is not really my mom or my dad, or even Emily. The annoying part is our dogs. Muggins is a puppy and he wants to play non-stop with General. General is used to sleeping 22 out of 24 hours in the day, and when he doesn't get is pug rest, he gets a little cranky. So they fight. And bark. And wrestle. Muggins weighs about 80lbs now, so he's huge but still bounds around like a puppy and thinks he can sit on my lap while we're in the car. Both dogs are cute and fairly well-behaved alone, but when they are together, no one is having a good time.
The House
Our house is listed!!! Who wants to buy it?
What? She's coming THIS Saturday?
So my real estate agent SAID she was going to put the house on the market today and that she'd email me the listing to proof it and make sure everything is right before it goes live on the internets. Since it's almost 5pm I'm going to assume that she has been too busy today to list our house. She is going to show it on Saturday though. Apparently a lady is looking to buy a house because she's going to teach in C-dale starting this fall, coming from the East Coast. This is the ONE day that she has to find a house. So hopefully she'll like ours!!
I've been getting stuff ready today - re-arranging furniture, de-cluttering, making sure that when she opens our cabinets and drawers that nothing comes falling out. I tend to clean by hiding things, and then forgetting where I put them, so this is forcing me to actually organize, or at least throw it into a bin to be stored in the garage and organized later.
I'm also trying to finish up my grad school summer class work before this weekend so I don't have to worry about it during the move. We have our final presentation on Tuesday and ironically me and my partner interviewed for jobs in STL the same day and we both got them. She's moving this weekend and starts the new job on Monday. I have an extra week, but she was living at home with her parents until now, so she doesn't have a house to sell or buy in the process.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is my last day at work. I've been here 3.5 years. It really went by fast. I've learned A LOT, not only about public relations, marketing, photoshopping, graphic design and working with the media, but about working with others, about myself and about balancing work with home life. I've made some pretty good friends here and I hope that we continue to keep in touch, but judging from the way some of my friends from STL stopped calling me after I moved here, I doubt all of them will keep in touch. Some people are only friends if you are face to face and can see them all the time I guess.
I've been thinking a lot lately about my time in So Ill, and about how it's almost over. I know that my husband is sad to leave, but excited a little bit about moving. I'm not sure how I feel though. I know I'm excited to move, but I'm also a little anxious to start over. We've established our lives together in Carbondale and we have a routine and I know that it works for us. I'm happy that I'll be closer to my parents and my sister, but sad that we'll be further from our friends and hubby's dad in the Benton/Christopher area. I hope that we can continue most of the traditions we've established in the last three years here.
House talk
Well we've cleaned up the curb appeal to the best of our ability. We still need to move some of the fire wood, but I'm hoping hubby will agree to just sell it and be rid of it. I really do not want to try to move it. We signed with Remax today. Our house will officially be on the market this Thursday. The real estate agent is coming over Wednesday night to take photos and measurements. She sounds really positive that we can sell the house for as much as or more than we hoped for. We moved into one of the better school districts in Carbondale, and our house is in the hard-to-find price range in that area. Apparently there are a lot of houses in the 80-90k range, and then the 250+ range, so we are looking pretty good with a nice starter home in between those two ranges.
Operation Curb Appeal
The front half of Operation Curb Appeal is complete. We've added flowers, mulch and flowers and more mulch. We've de-leafed the bushes, and trimmed them so they look sort of square. We dug up the drain pipe that had started showing its ugly face in front of the steps and replaced it with pretty flowers and mulch.
Today is Operation Curb Appeal in the back. We rented a log splitter to make some firewood out of the huge tree that we had cut down. We plan to weed-eat and burn off the smaller pieces of the tree.
And then we move inside.
Big weekend plans
My parents are coming to visit us, probably for the last time in Carbondale. We are going to clean the house, de-clutter the inside and spruce up the curb appeal to attract some buyers. I have an appointment with Remax today. She's going to come look at the house and tell me how much she thinks we can list it for. We plan to plant some flowers in the front of the house, we need to get rid of some of the firewood pile in the backyard, finish putting concrete in the hole of the slab in the back, pull weeds and re-mulch everything.
On the inside, we really just need to de-clutter and get some of our "personality" out of the house so it's ready to show. I watch a lot of HGTV and they always say to take your personality out of the house when you are ready to sell so the potential buyer and imagine their own personality in your space. I can see how that is important, so I've already taken down the shrine of photos that we usually have hanging of ourselves, family and friends. I left the ones in the hallway because I don't have anything to replace them with and they are all matching and look really nice. The potential buyer will just have to imagine their own engagement night, trip to the Cardinals world series winning game, and wedding day being in those frames.
This morning at my house:
This was the view out my bedroom window this morning while I was getting ready for work. See that little deer just chillin in my back yard? I know what he's doing. He's eyeing all that corn growing in our garden. Too bad it's deer-proof. HA! 
Then our little deer friend decided to take a stroll on the street. Here is the other view out my bedroom window where he's walking right past me. I did not have the zoom on.
