town to town playing loud

The house is sold. After all my doubts it didn't really turn out so badly at all. We had a second showing of the house that cropped up just fifteen minutes before we'd planned to close the deal, and this led to a second offer. The second offer forced the first offer to raise their price a bit, ending up with an agreement a little over the listing price. Of course when deciding which offer to accept, it was all about dollars for Shawn and the realtor - but there was a part of me that really wanted to sell it to the couple that was bidding less. They just seemed like nice people.

Normally you aren't supposed to meet potential buyers, and we never met the couple who actually got the house, but the other couple was coming out of our house as we were going in, and I just liked them straight away. I made noises about giving them another chance to bid again and Shawn and the realtor looked at me like I was from another planet and got the papers ready for couple numero uno. Sometimes I have feelings that are highly impractical.

On Wednesday night we had house inspectors coming in to prepare a report for the new owners to assure them the house didn't just look good, but is actually in good shape. That meant we needed to make ourselves scarce again for a few hours. This time we drove out to the country to visit Shawn's mother and her partner.

They have a fenced yard and we were able to let the puppers run free for the whole time. They had so much fun! Tenacious D eat a zillion weeds, Puppy E chased butterflies, and Little Puppy jumped up and down off my chair literally hundreds of times in her indecision as to whether she wanted the comfort of Mum or the joy of freedom in a strange new place.

While we were there, D told us how she and Shawn's mum were saving to buy a porch swing that they loved to add to their beautiful garden. When Shawn's mum went inside to get drinks, Shawn snuck D a cheque to buy the swing as a surprise for her. D told us the next day they drove out to "look" at the swing, and when Shawn's mum said again how much she loved it, D said, "Hey, let's get it." Surprise! If there's anything about being financially stable that makes it possible to "buy happiness", this is it. Doing kind things for other people.

Yesterday was my last day of teaching and I said farewell yet another staff (though I hardly felt I knew these ones since I was there only two days a week) and now I am, once again, a woman of leisure.

I only get to keep Shawn for a week now before he has to start the new job. He's driving out there next Friday. I'm going to miss him so much!

Having sold this house, though, makes it easier, I believe, to get started on the process of finding a new home on the coast. Now we have the down payment ready it's possible to start looking more seriously.

Shawn is going to do some preliminary searching before I join him there to help make the final decision. We've decided to stay firm on the fact that we don't want one of these bizarre 3500 square foot homes, even though they might be common and priced like the smaller ones. There's simply no way we will even own enough furniture to fill a space that big. There is simply no way I will ever have the energy or the desire to clean a space that big. There is simply no way.

I've been polling everyone I know for advice on allergy relief and found that most of them say Benadryl really is the best one. They suggest taking half the dosage and giving my body time to adjust to that first before progressing to the full dose. I've done that a couple of times and definitely found it to work better. Allergies reasonably tolerable and I'm awake. Benadryl, you're lucky. I'm giving you another chance, so don't let me down.

As usual, there are things I ought to be doing and am not doing out of laziness, lack of interest, and lack of motivation. It isn't fair, of course, to leave things for Shawn to do when he gets home from work while I sit around all day lazing, so at some point I'm going to have to kick my own butt so the dishwasher gets emptied, the lawn mowed, the laundry folded and put away. But for now, I think I'd rather take the dogs for a walk. And we're off.

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