It was only on the market for 2 days, and then I'd had enough.
It was hard having 18 showings, knowing strangers were walking around inside our home,
while we mostly drove around in our car.
On day two, about 1pm, I texted the realtor and said we needed a two hour break.
I said the house would not be available from 1-3.
She texted back: Thanks for letting me know.
I immediately fell asleep thinking all was well.
So did Dennis.
It's been a tiring past few weeks getting ready for this, and also we are not 35.
I woke up at 1:59 and decided to just check my phone.
The realtor had a text waiting saying we have showing at 2 and at 2:15.....
and she added that she told them they had to be out by 3:00
What??
Oh no, she got it mixed up. No, we wanted to be left alone until 3, not after.
Uh oh.
About this time we heard people on our porch.
I opened the door and said, "I'm so sorry but there's been a mistake. We are taking 2 hours off
from showing the house."
Then I realized how crazy that was. The people were there NOW.
So I then said, "If you can just wait 10 minutes you're welcome to come in."
By now both 2 and 2:15 appointments were outside waiting.
I hurried in the house and quickly put the bed back together, cleaned up the kitchen,
and straightened things up and turned all the lights back on.
We let them all in and then escaped back into our car.
Interestingly, both the 2 and 2:15 put great offers in later that day.
And through prayer, we knew exactly which offer to accept.
And as a side note, we would sign up with these realtors again.
They helped us so much...especially in staging our home, and were very respectful of our time
(except for that one honest mistake),
and sold our home in 2 days!
I took most of these last week, just before it went on the market.
A few of them were taken by the realtor photographer.
All (most) family pictures are gone, and the realtor even wanted my kitchen counters naked.
So in some ways it doesn't even feel like our house any more.
Our kitchen never looks like this in real life.
And Den's office...
he usually has about....oh...100 pieces of paper on the floor that he is working on
I bought those cheap plastic hampers for our laundry room shortly after moving in here 26 years ago, and we've used them daily ever since.
See that little robot vacuum on the counter?
That's Bubba....he took over some of the floor cleaning,
after Tyler left home 11 years ago.
I will miss this hidden closet in my laundry room.
It's right behind the door.
This is basically our empty room. We put a few things in here for the pictures.
I had plans to make this my office, or family history room.
I know, probably more pictures than anyone wanted to see,
but soon this will be all that I have left of it.
Just the pictures and the memories.
I like what a friend told me today:
"I think it is always difficult to close one chapter of your life and begin a new chapter."
But it's all good. And we feel really good about the new family soon to move into this house.