Fortunately, the heat has started to break, but I'm drained today anyhow. The past couple of days have been stressful. The photographer came this afternoon to take pictures and I was fluffing the house up until the last moment. Some of it I shouldn't have had to do.
It all started yesterday with the "green" cleaning crew I hired to scour the house. Well, the concept of using earth friendly cleaning products is great, but the execution left a bit to be desired. It wasn't the crew's fault, really - they were nice and worked hard, at least while they were here. Their snarky boss, however, should have realized that a 2-story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1750 square foot house was going to take longer than four hours, especially when I asked that windows be done also. So why did she send out a crew member who had a midday appointment? This commitment pulled both cleaners away from my house for 3-1/2 hours and when they returned, they didn't finish until nearly 7 p.m., which meant I never got around to buying the bistro set for the balcony or potted plants for the front porch. And although they did the best they could with what they had, I still had to redo some of it with the usual toxic stuff. (Only CLR seems to get those tubs clean!) And they didn't get around to the windows, either.
So instead of working at my computer writing exercise dvd reviews and editing a feature, I spent all morning and part of the afternoon doing f*cking windows for no pay. I sweated so much that my hands shriveled up inside my rubber gloves. In the middle of all this my Realtor, David, came by and told me he's beginning to think the house is being listed at too high of a price and the price he's thinking is better will wind up virtually clearing out the funds I had reserved in my brokerage account to partially pay down the 1st mortgage on the new house. Of course this bummed the hell out of me and I started thinking about how utterly broke I was. I mean, I only have a boatload of stock that's not even in that account, plus about 50 other ways to come up with cash in one form or another. What is it about us Cancer people that makes our minds immediately go to the worst, most gloom 'n' doom scenario? I do this to myself every time.
Then the staging lady showed up with the living room furniture. It's utterly gross, but it does the job. I mean, I seriously dislike this furniture and bric-a-brac. I don't even think I know people who would have this type of stuff in their home. The worst of it is that it actually suits this house! That's even more confirmation that this place was never right for me. This house is about as right for me as a guy who spends his free time kicking back in a golf shirt and khakis. In other words, NOT. :-p
But of course, none of this is about me and I really don't care how I feel about the furniture. I just want the place to sell, and whatever will make it sell is fine in my book. David is thrilled with the furniture because he thinks it will do just that. He's probably also thrilled with the fact that even though I'm clearly not thrilled with the furniture, I honestly don't care that it's there! I'm doing my best to be a good client and not a pain in the ass because, after all, he and I have the same goal. Sell the House for the Most Money I Can Get in the Least Amount of Time.
I am happy with the bistro set I found. It's more than I planned to spend, but I like it enough to keep instead of putting it on Craig's List the moment the house sells. And I found some already pre-potted flower arrangements relatively inexpensively, plus I had a 20% off coupon for the whole purchase. Sweet!
The photographer came by late in the day (better lighting, of course) and he spent hours taking glamor pics of the house. I'm beginning to feel like a nobody. Brian's up for the-gig-I-can't-talk-about-in-writing-yet, my cat is an internet star and now Nemesis House is getting all the attention. Where's my brass ring?
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