Off The Market

The house is officially off the market. Long story short, we just decided that now was not the time. It was a little disappointing because everything for the new house we were building was picked out, and it was going to be pretty pretty. But all and all, this is just not a good economy to be selling in. Have you heard?

The good news about taking a house off the market is the heavenly feeling that comes when you realize you no longer HAVE to make every bed in the house EVERY morning. And you no longer HAVE to clean every dish in the sink (or at least pretend to by hiding the dirty dishes in the yet to be unloaded dishwasher). It means I could go back to my efficient laundry sorting system.

Anyway, once we decided we were staying, we promptly made a list of to-do’s for our house including, but not limited to: painting, landscaping, upgrading, and more. Some are long term goals, some are short term goals. The first on the list was to improve our curb appeal by updating our front landscaping.

(One quick side note: how can you be a realtor and not know it is called “curb” appeal. One realtor put it in the comments section of the showing report that our house had nice “curve” appeal. We’re not even on a curvy street).

I am typically a pretty high maintenance girl when it comes to outdoor work, but on this particular occasion I decided to make the whole event a family affair. We drove out to Justin, TX and picked up some rocks. The phrase “picked up some rocks” does not do it justice. These rocks were huge. I hesitated even putting this picture in the blog because you can not sense from the smile on Jeff’s face how extremely difficult this job was. First off all, it was freezing cold. Second of all, the rocks weighed like 60 pounds each. Third of all… I DON’T DO OUTSIDE WORK! That’s why I became an accountant and not a landscaper.

When we got home, he started to unload the rocks and asked me to “run up to the store and get a pallet of dirt.” He said it just like that too. Like it’s that easy to run up to the store and get a pallet of dirt. After the two loaders used a fork lift to put the dirt in the bed of the truck, they took a couple of steps back and started talking to one another about the capacity of Jeff’s truck. I heard one of them say that she *hoped* it would hold up for the ride home. And I’m all, what do you mean it might not hold up? What will happen if it doesn’t? Will it pop the tires? Will I lose control of the vehicle? Will it EXPLODE? Will it bend the chassis? How do you spell chassis? More importantly, why are you just now telling me it *might* not hold up. So I made a frantic phone call to Jeff who assured me that his half ton truck could in fact hold 2 tons of dirt. He forced me to drive home.

I made it.

It seemed like a disaster averted until I realized that since I did live through it all, it meant my next chore was to unload 2 tons of dirt. My finger muscles have never been so sore. I was almost in tears by the 70th bag. That night, we went to dinner, and over dinner I announced my retirement from all future yard work, effective IMMEDIATELY.

This is a picture of that retirement dinner, and you’ll notice that the kids are donning their costumes for the event…at a local eatery…in the middle of November.

Do you know why?
Because when we called it quits that night, we were tired…we were hungry…and it takes a considerable amount of finger muscle strength to help 2 kids put on a new outfit.

So off to Chipotle we went. Jeff the foreman, Lisa the day laborer, Davis the ninja turtle, and Hayden the Batman.