"Obviously, these people do not watch HGTV."

I went to a home showing the other day. The house online had great promise - it was gorgeous on the outside, beautiful location, not far from rt. 8 and lovely inside shots. When we drove up to it, I thought, this is great.

And then I went in. Barely - because their two dogs were barking their little heads off at me. But I won, and made it into the great room - and by great, I mean, mediocre and stained with dog pee. This was my first thought: "______"

No, it wasn't a bad word. I don't think so. It's just that I couldn't hear myself think over the blaring country music they left on (maybe for the dogs?)

These things aside, I poked around the house, trying to determine if I could live there while avoiding things tumbling out of closets and cabinets. All the while fighting with two dogs who wanted to know why I was invading their turf.

What kind of bothers me the most is the thought that, you know what? Maybe I could live there. But I was so distracted by dogs/messiness/bad carpets/stinkiness that comes with having pets (I know all about it, but when showing your house?!) that I just wanted to get out.

Until I opened the walk- in closet and saw her collection of Michael Kors heels.

And then I seriously considered buying the house. But then I realized that she had them all in a pile ON THE FLOOR.

Now, I am a messy, messy girl. But even *I* keep my lovely shoes in their little shoe organizer in my rinky dink closet. So it made me wonder what else they had been ignoring in that otherwise gorgeous house. And how much it would cost to replace carpets and fix cabinets....

Until I saw the ridiculously huge radon system in the basement. The end.

Wow. This real estate thing is hard.

.... Seriously! You have to keep your house clean for days.... six of them to be exact.

Why just six, you ask?

Because. We just sold it. Yesterday.

Well, okay not exactly. But we did accept an offer (after countering) and our house is Under Contract.

Exciting, right? Oh, sure, it was nerve-wracking. And yes, maybe we did under price it. And I'm sure we'll have lots of people tell us this (as they have already). And I assure you that DOES NOT HELP EASE MY MENTAL STATE. *

You know, my mental state that is currently all confuddled because I won't actually have a place to live in about six weeks. So the house hunt is ON like DONKEY KONG. **

And also because, as my sister just pointed out, my closing is FRIDAY THE 13th. ***

* - Sorry for the over caps. I'm really excited.
** - Again, sorry. But hello? I don't have a place to live in six weeks.
*** - Surely this one too is a gimme, no?

It's a slightly more grown-up version of "Can not!" "Can too!"

On Saturday, I made this:

look like this:

Oh, excuse me. It's kind of hard to see with those two vehicles in the way. Oh wait, that's the point! I can actually park cars in our garage! Saturday morning, I started moving stuff around in the garage and taking stuff into the house to put it where it actually belongs and not where it's been since we moved in a year ago. Eight hours later, I was done. And I did it with minimal help from the Pretend Husband, his father or my brother, who were all doing various tasks in our yard (which looks great, but not dramatically different enough to warrant illustration). Ok, I did ask the guys to move some furniture around with me (I'm no superhero).

And, while I was looking forward to finally being able to park in the garage (and I can't wait for the garage door openers the PH promised me for doing the cleaning), I probably wouldn't have killed the entire day on the project if it weren't for one thing. My dad said I couldn't do it.

Am I the only 32-year-old who still feels the need to prove Dad wrong? My dad stopped by about an hour after I started working on Saturday and when I told him what I was doing, he estimated it would take me about four days to finish.

"Oh no," I said. "I'm parking both cars in here today."

"Today?" he said. "There's no way you're going to finish today."

I had to prove him wrong. Which means at hour seven, with one bay cleaned and swept and a bunch of junk still clogging the other one, when I normally would have left the rest for the next day, I soldiered on and got it done. I have Dad to thank for that (I'm thinking of sending him a card saying, "Thanks for not believing in me!") I think the PH is hoping he'll make a comment about the basement next.

I don't like strangers, so having them feet away from my underwear drawer is really hard for me.

I have worked my butt off over the past few weeks cleaning, cleaning and packing to get our house as uncluttered as possible to sell it FAST.

Not only have I been a cleaning mad woman, but I've also been a packing mad woman. You guys *know me* and my shoes. I packed away about 30 pairs - and most of my clothes including just about all of my sweaters.

I'm really, really optimistic.

So, our house went on the market on Tuesday morning. And today we have our first showings - back to back.

Thankfully, my beloved is staying home to work on cleaning what we didn't get to (mainly, the one room of the house that hasn't been packed/cleaned by me because the contents include things like "golf bags" and other such nonsense).

But, really, even I'm impressed by my house right now. My basement looks like you could hang out down there. Which you always could, I suppose, except that you'd have to pacman your way through boxes and crap everywhere. It practically looks empty right now. So much so, that I put a rug down. And a lamp with a table. I even considered getting a ping pong table.

I'm not looking forward to this being a long process. But, I am looking forward to a new house. A bigger house. One that can house all of my shoes (however, I've told J that our response for when people ask why we're moving is NOT to say "my wife has too many shoes to fit in our house").

So, while strangers walk all around my house today and judge me for my taste in furniture/paint color/carpet/curtains/wardrobe/shoes (at that point, no one can deny my taste, really), I'll be sitting in traffic praying that they like it enough to buy it when it's been on the market for three days. I can dream, right?

(I'll also be praying that they don't really open my drawers - because a) that's creepy b) they're a mess c) no one buying a house has any reason to look at my underwear. But totally just in case, I put all the Victoria's Secret ones on top, and the ugly cotton ones towards the back.)

And *if* they do, I will kick myself for pricing it too low.

And also *if* they do? And want a quick closing? I'll be homeless.

God, I hope I'm homeless at the end of October.*

*Note: God, if you're paying attention to this blog, first: thanks. Second? I mean homeless but with a pile of money to use as downpayment to a larger more fabulous house.

This is why I will not be moving until at least next year...

Dear SJ,

Selling a house S-U-C-K-S. I mean, I'm not going to blow smoke up your butt. It's terrible. I think the only reason I survived it was because a lot of our stuff was still packed in boxes from when we had moved in a year before.

Showings are a pain in the butt because it means having to get your dog out of the house, erase all indications a dog lives there, clean up anything that has accumulated since the last showing, turn on all the lights (that's a little hint from an old pro at this...) and find somewhere to go-- harder than it sounds because even if you have a million stops to make on your way home from work, inevitably, you will not have anything that needs to get done or any way to fill your time for the hour you need to stay away from home. Oh, and don't get me started on the phone call you will receive at work from someone in the realtor's office saying, "I know you indicated you need 24-hour notice, but these buyers are right around the corner and want to stop in at your house. Is that OK?"

But, you know what? It's worth it in the end. I guess it's like childbirth where you forget how painful it was just as soon as you lay eyes on the baby (or so I've heard...). Because the cleaning? The having to vacate your house for an hour at a time? The open houses? The last minute showings? Won't matter at all the day your offer on a new house is accepted.

So, I wish you an offer $30,000 over your asking price from the first people to walk through your house, an appropriate closing date and the current owners of the house of your dreams accepting your offer for $100,000 less than what the house is worth. And, short of that, I have a cabinet full of (your) liquor I'm willing to crack open at any hour, including the one you need to stay out of your house for while a buyer walks through.

Yours 'til the martinis run dry,

FunnyGal KAT