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April 20, 2004
I’ve wanted to post an entry about selling our house for over a week now. I haven’t been able to find the motivation, and I think it is because I have told the story so many times, I’m sick of hearing it, not to mention sick of telling it.
So. We sold our house on Saturday, 4/10. It had been on the market exactly one week, and Saturday was the first day we accepted or agreed to review any offers. We had 4. 2 of the 4 were sitting in front of our house with their agents while we reviewed the offers on the table inside. The set-up outside resembled something akin to the game of ‘chicken.’ The two agents’ cars were in front of our house, facing each other, staring each other down. The resulting bidding war ended up being between those 2 potential buyers, as the non-represented weren’t, well, represented. This bidding war was, of course, a fabulous thing for us, and we ultimately got $20,000 more than the selling price. Good indeed. I, however, would be happy to never go through that again. It was really stressful for me, as ridiculous as that sounds. I think it was stressful on a couple of levels, namely: 1) I don’t like haggling or bartering – it stresses me out – just give me a price and I’ll pay it (or vice versa), and 2) I felt sad for whichever party’s offer we were potentially NOT accepting at any given moment. Our little bidding war was very back-and-forth over the course of a couple of hours. We would be in the process of officially accepting one offer (reviewing the offer with our agent), and then suddenly the other agent would either be on the phone or at our front door, with a higher offer. So-on-and-so-forth. So I went back & forth each time; feeling sad for whoever’s offer we weren’t accepting at any given moment. Ultimately, we accepted the offer of a very nice young couple who wrote us a letter detailing just why they love our little house so much, and telling us their visions of their firstborn (not yet conceived, insomuch as we know now) sleeping in the nursery while they enjoy a bottle of wine together on the deck. Ah, steal my heart, why don’t you. They knew just how to sell me. I’m thrilled that they will be the new owners of our little green house…it is the perfect place for a young couple just starting out in their first home.
One anecdote from that day we were reviewing offers: we were having a big BBQ later that afternoon (planned before we even put our house on the market) and Mike had already set up a cooler of beer in the backyard that morning. At one point I said to Mike (as I was stressing out), “I need a beer!” and he replied “yeah, me too.” About 2 or 3 minutes later, Hana (who had been playing betwixt the living room where we were and the rec room downstairs) climbs up the stairs with a bottle of beer in each hand, and brings them right over to each of us! We weren’t sure whether to be totally proud & impressed, or mortified. Our agent thought it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. WOW, who knew we’d trained our two-year old to retrieve beer for us without even meaning to!?
The deal closes on May 10th and we must officially hand over the keys no later than 9pm on May 13th. This poses no problem, as the house we’re moving into (my late grandmother’s house) is open and we’ve already begun the process of moving. It is nice to have a few weeks to do it, and to get settled into our new house. That said, I know that it will still be quite some time until we’re truly settled; moving is such a process.
We are currently living in a half-empty house. Our kitchen amounts to 4 plates, 4 bowls, 4 place settings, 8 glasses, 4 wine glasses, 1 salad bowl, 2 Pyrex dishes, 3 dish towels, 2 pots, 2 pans, and some Tupperware. Our bookshelves are empty, the pictures are gone, the dining room table has disappeared. 4 bath towels, 4 hand towels, and the bare minimum of toiletry essentials. The storage portion of the basement is almost completely empty (a feat in itself).
Our new house, on the other hand, is full to the brim with a (somewhat organized) mishmash of our stuff and my grandmother’s stuff that will be sold at a garage/estate sale in 2 weeks. Hopefully after the garage sale all of the miscellaneous (unwanted) stuff will be cleared out and we can begin to set up a home.
It is sort-of freeing to live in our pared down household. At moments, it is also very frustrating, like this morning when Mike was flipping out because he couldn’t find Q-tips. I sort-of like the idea of only have 2 pots to cook with, of only having 4 towels to be washed. Maybe I am a minimalist at heart. Hahaha, right. I am definitely apt to paring down, but a minimalist I am not, at least not for the long-term. I really like to buy clothes, bedding and towels. Its hard to control myself. I already find myself getting excited at the prospect of buying Hana some new bedding for the twin bed that will go into her new room…
We have some work to do at the new house. We are painting the 3 bedrooms, hopefully this weekend. We picked a pretty basic beige (“mushroom,” perhaps, if I were to work for Jcrew catalog?), and a creamy white for the trim. The rooms are all bright with big windows, so we went a shade deeper (for the walls) than we normally would. It looks really nice…warm but not too dark. We chose a berber carpet in a similar beige/taupe shade (a tone lighter, maybe?) for the floors, but it won’t be installed for another 2 weeks. Which is fine by me b/c next weekend (not this coming, but next) we’ll have people tromping through one of the bedrooms for the garage/estate sale anyway. We considered painting Hana’s bedroom a different color, but I really like the continuity of one color for all three….they are all right in a row along the hallway, and I just prefer the simplicity of one color. Someday, when Hana is old enough to care and pick out a color she wants, then maybe we’ll change it then. In the meantime, she gets boring beige.
We also plan to remodel both bathrooms, hopefully relatively quickly. Eventually we’d like to put hardwood floors in the entry, kitchen & living room. Right now the entry & hallway are tiled (sort of a terracotta—it is actually nice looking, but I prefer hardwoods), the living room is carpet and the kitchen is Pergo. It is all just fine as is, but I would prefer the continuity of all hardwoods, because these rooms are all on the same floor and sort-of flow into one another. That “preference” (hardwoods) of mine obviously comes with a price tag, so it will probably be awhile before we tackle that project. We would also eventually like to replace the kitchen cabinets & countertops, but no rush.
My main priority, after painting & carpeting the bedrooms, is to do something with the bathrooms. Both are carpeted (yes, really) and one has really ugly wallpaper. Both have ugly vanities that we want to pull out and replace. We already picked a tile that we’ll use for both bathroom floors---a dark, charcoal gray tile that looks like slate (but isn’t). We’re still discussing wall colors. I think we’ve decided to paint the main bath white, with one dark charcoal gray wall (behind the vanity & mirror). We’re still undecided on the other bath.
I’m boring even myself. Enough about the house(s).
Hana is doing great. She is starting to talk more each day. She is still limited to two-word phrases, but her vocabulary keeps expanding. She is totally a physical child. Kinetic, is that what you call it? She just loves to be physical. To touch everything, to run, to jump, to climb (the bain of my existence right now), to throw, to kick, to pedal, to pull, to push. That is her world.
The QFC (grocery store) across the street from our house has kiddie-sized shopping carts, and it is one of Hana’s favorite places to go. She calls it “C” and recognizes “C’s” everywhere we go, pointing excitedly from her carseat “C! C! Mama, C!!” She adores pushing her cart around the grocery store with me, but will often take off, careening dangerously down the aisles. And she always, always goes for the candy aisle, and furtively but quickly tosses chocolate into her cart, until I catch up to her and spoil the fun. She also loves to push babies in strollers, and goes bonkers for those toddler-size strollers. She got one for Christmas, and it often has to come along with us wherever we go…it has to be placed next to her in the car, and she holds onto it from her carseat the whole ride.
She loves playing catch, and of course Mike is more than thrilled. Maybe I’m biased, but I honestly think she’s pretty good at throwing/catching. Her arm is fantastic. But even more impressive is that she can catch a ball from relatively far away, and with great accuracy. She also loves to play “soccer” in the back yard, and again, she’s a pretty coordinated kid. Balls are one of her favorite toys, and lately it has been hard to get out of any stores with a “ball” display without a major meltdown…or a purchase. She can now pedal her Radio Flyer tricycle across our patio. It’s a labored pedaling process, but she does it. She’s very determined.
And the climbing. There is nothing she seems to be scared to climb. Numerous times I have found her on top of the stove (via a kitchen chair), trying to reach her binky stash on top of the refrigerator. At the playground, she clamors up the BigToy ladders and psuedo-rock-climbing walls and platforms.
The Terrible Parents of the Year Story actually involved climbing. Here it is. One afternoon, Mike found her on the deck (while he was in the process of building it) all by herself. She had reached the deck by climbing to the TOP of the ladder (you know, past that step that says “DO NOT CLIMB PAST THIS STEP”) and then hoisting herself up about 2 feet ABOVE THE ladder to the deck. Seriously. Had she fallen, she would have probably broken her neck. It would have been about a 9 ft fall. We are still baffled that she could even hoist herself that far with no help (and without falling). We felt like the worst parents to ever walk on this planet. Mike thought she was inside with me, and I thought she was outside with him. Well, she was outside with him, but apparently he didn’t know that, and had gone around the side of the house without realizing his only offspring was madly climbing a ladder to an unfinished deck with no railings, 9 or 10 feet above ground.
Hanging is another favorite. Hana is always finding strange things to hang from, like countertops and chairs and shelves. The worst is our pedestal sink - she loves to hang from sink, which of course is a no-no and I always imagine it falling over on her. She was recently introduced to the bars & the rings at the playground by some older friends, and is obsessed. She now always wants to hang from the bars and pull herself from bar to bar. This requires some assistance, of course, but she doesn’t seem to think it should. “No mama! Mine!” she tells me, which is Hana-speak for “I’ll do it myself.” She cannot though, which is the problem that is frustrating her immensely lately.
I found an old Chinese jump rope the other day, and I showed her how it works. She loves it, but primarily she just likes to arrange it in various shapes on the floor and then jump over it, over and over. Which is good, because this way doesn’t require three people and she can entertain herself while I cook dinner. When we take walks, she is always jumping over cracks or rocks or bugs. Speaking of bugs--we are always stopping to admire bugs, to ooh & aah every bug we see. “Buh! Mama! Buh!” Hana likes to get down on her hands and knees and inspect them very closely, but spiders seem to freak her out. Me too.
I set up a table in our basement with several bowls and measuring spoons & cups, and gave Hana some dried beans, and she entertains herself for hours dumping and pouring and sorting these beans among the various containers. Sometimes she gets a little crazy and starts throwing them, but we’re working on parlaying this into more refined pouring (“Show me how you pour them!”) and this distraction technique seems to be working.
She loves to race (“Reee-ece, mama!”), which means she gets into a track-start position, says “go, go, go!” (her translation of “ready, set, go”) and takes off. She especially likes to race when she’s winning, or when someone is chasing her with zeal.
Hana’s pretty darn good manipulating the shape sorter these days – she can even get that stupid hexagon (or whatever it is) that I still have trouble with… but she is clueless about colors. We haven’t spent much time working on them, and it shows. She doesn’t seem to give a damn. I’ve tried a few times to settle down with her color book, or with “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” and she likes to point out and name objects, but when we try for colors, she loses interest. Hmmph. As for numbers or letters, again, she’s pretty clueless. Any number she sees is “two” and any letter she sees is “E.” She gets the concept:, ie.when she sees a series of numbers, she will count them; it just comes out as “two, two, two, two…” Same for letters: “e, e, e, E!” We also haven’t spent any real time dedicated to learning letters & numbers, so I’m not concerned at all…I just think its so interesting to see the way different kids her age are so focused on different skill sets (to use some really freaking annoying corporate jargon). Her focus is definitely on the physical, which I think is just like her daddy. We’re aiming for a big athletic scholarship, given this proclivity for the physical. ;)
Our Easter was fine. I was dehydrated and hungover from our BBQ the day before (the last guests left at 2:30am, and I had helped them finish 2 bottles of wine in about as many hours), so it was less than perfect for me. But the day was gorgeous…we set a record of 80F here in Seattle. Hana & I went to Mass in the morning and then went to Bellevue for brunch at my great aunt & uncle’s house. I spent as much time as possible on the couch, trying to avoid a terrible headache I felt lurking in the corners of my brain. Later that afternoon, Mike’s family (mom, stepdad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle) came for dinner, and by that time I was feeling much better. We lounged in the backyard and I made a ham, sautéed mushrooms and steamed asparagus. Mike’s mom brought a perfect potato salad and his aunt made a delicious Caeser salad. She also brought angel food cake with fresh strawberries and fresh cream for dessert. Hana was in absolute heaven with the dessert. She is a berry freak, and a fresh cream freak to boot. I was, however, sooooo thankful to fall into bed that night and wake up the next morning hangover-free. This 27-year old body just doesn’t recover like it used to.
I had better get back to work now….More later.
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