Stuff 'N' Nonsense

Do's Continued

I almost forgot to include one of the most important Do's:

DO stash your valuables... away from the house if possible.

Did it ever occur to you that thieves may use your open house to case the joint? Or that some less than savory individual may just take something from your home when no one is looking? I'm either paranoid or have a criminal mind because it's something I think about a lot. And even if thievery isn't something you dwell on, it's still a very wise idea to lock away or take away things like jewelry, expensive musical instruments, high end electronic doo dads, credit card bills (they do have your credit card number right on them, you know, all ready to be copied down), expensive collectibles — anything that might appeal to a burglar. That includes cheap stuff you treasure but that might appeal to someone else.

If you have a safety deposit box, great — stash your small valuables there. Larger things should be locked away or maybe taken to a friend's home for the duration (i.e., until you're done doing open houses). Don't tempt fate by leaving your expensive stuff around. You may even be putting your life in your hands if you do — maybe a burglar checked your house out, made a note of what (s)he wanted, figured out the best way to break in and has made plans to return later. Granted, I have a vivid imagination (to match my criminal mind), but it's not an unrealistic scenario.

Frankly, the most valuable things in my house (in my opinion, of course) are my cats, and they came with me during my open houses. (I doubt they are burgar-worthy, however. Even Sparkle, my Somali, isn't worth much since she's spayed. Of course, she thinks she's quite the Big Deal, but that's another story altogether.) I did lock away things I didn't want looked at, like credit card bills and checkbooks, and hid away any costume jewelry that I happened to like (I certainly didn't want somebody's little girl running off with my Hello Kitty watch — it doesn't work, but it looks cool). Brian's recording and rehearsing a lot, so a few of his guitars are generally on his person these days. The rest have been squirreled away.

So anyhow, Sunday's open house... 40 people showed up, two with their agents along, tromped on my hardwood floors with their dirty boots, liked the house but not its lack of air conditioning (that's the only thing I really question regarding my Realtor's recommendations. I suggested at least getting a couple of wall units since I never did install central air and he said not to bother). I got home at twenty after five and there were still people leaving, so the cats and I had to circle the neighborhood for a few more minutes. Then I got home and realized that the Realtor who was doing my open house locked me out! He had been told specifically NOT to lock the door locks in the front and back, since there were no keys for them, but he must have misunderstood because they were BOTH locked! So there I was with Sparkle in her carrier over one shoulder and my laptop over the other shoulder and the other two cats still in my car, trying to figure out what to do. I did find a way to get in, which involved my mangling one of my screens. Of course, while I was doing this, I put down Sparkle's carrier and my laptop. Unfortunately I thoughtlessly set them down on top of each other, which meant that Sparkle almost got squished by my laptop (I'm surprised this cat doesn't hate me sometimes... actually I don't think she really is all that fond of me, to be honest). In any case, the cats and I finally got in.

But unbeknownst to me, the open house wasn't yet done. An hour or so later I was unmangling the screen and messing with a window that seemed to be stuck when a guy came walking down the driveway and stared right at me. This would have been disturbing except that he didn't look threatening (probably about 40-something, thinning hair, dressed casually but nicely), and he was looking at me cheerfully as if he expected me to know him. So I just stared back, wondering to myself, "Where DO I know this guy from?"

"Oh, hello. I was just looking around your house. Don't want to disturb you. I know you still live here. My wife's in the car. Hi, doggy!" The last comment was directed to Sushi, who was behind the gate, barking more out of puzzlement than anything else.

Fortunately, I was able to get rid of him by handing him a flyer about the house. That's the thing about putting your house on the market — all of a sudden, it's okay for people to just wander around your property and stare in windows. At least, a lot of people seem to think it's okay to do this. Monday, Christian came by to add a flyer holder to the "For Sale" sign in front of the house (Christian is my Realtor's younger brother and assistant). So we're chatting for a few moments and out of the blue, somebody stops in front of my house and wants to know about it. So we gave him one of the flyers. I hate to think about what happens when I'm not here. I'm glad I work at home. It means I'm mostly here and can keep an eye on all these Nosy Nellies.

Open to the World, Part Deux (Do)

Since I started with the Open House Don'ts in my last post, I'm going on to the "Do's" here.

DO

1. Follow your Realtor's direction.

I really hope you like your Realtor and respect his or her opinion. If not, why are you in partnership with them? After all, this is the person who is handling the biggest transaction of your life (that is, unless you run your own business). Your Realtor is the expert when it comes to buying and selling homes — you are not. You may not agree with everything your Realtor says, but you would be foolish not to take most of the advice given out.

2. Spend several weeks preparing for your Open House.

I really should have taken several months preparing for mine! Although most of the necessary, hardcore stuff was in place — upstairs had recently been painted and upstairs hardwood floors refinished at about the same time — my place was filled with boxes that had never been unpacked from when Brian and I moved in 5 years ago. And the stuff we did unpack was in no particular order. And we just lived here in a rather shabby, slapdash fashion. So this house wasn't exactly a Vision of Serene Domesticity when I found my dream home and knew I had to get rid of this one asap. I was so high from finding the house I really wanted that I had boundless energy and was able to pull this house into sellable condition in just 3 weeks. That included packing up all unnecessary stuff and putting it into storage (and that stuff, not counting actual furniture, filled about half of a 10x10 storage space!), getting a painter for Brian's music room and having the floor finished (the one room other than the laundry that hadn't been touched), buying curtains, curtain rods, new bed sheets and duvet cover, 2 sets of outdoor furniture and other stuff to spruce up the house, hiring a stager, having the house professionally cleaned, cleaning up the stuff the cleaners missed, and buying some potted plants (and trying to keep them alive until the place sells). Does it exhaust you to read this? Imagine actually accomplishing it! I wouldn't wish that schedule on anyone. Unless they suddenly found that their dream house was up for sale and affordable. Then it's for a good cause.

So assess what needs to be done with your Realtor's help, put together your "to do" list and check off everything as it gets done. Your house may not need as much effort as mine did. But trust me, I'm sure there is work to do!

3. Declutter your home, including your closets.

Okay, I admit that my office closet is still loaded with stuff, but it's mainly packing materials for stuff I sell on eBay, and that can't be helped. But for the most part, we've cleared almost everything out of here that we won't need for the next month. Boxes of books. Bookcases. Clothes. Um, the stuff we never unpacked to begin with. The fitness magazines I can't get bear to rid of in case something in them inspires a story. The cat magazines stayed here because I need them for a current project, but they got put away at the bottom of a bookcase which is now holding most of my work-related stuff. Now the house looks open and airy and the dining room actually has nothing on it except for a pair of delicate glass candlesticks (I think this is a first). People can walk in here and feel like the house is its full 1,759 square feet... maybe more. And the nearly empty walk-in closet looks like it's ready for all the new owner's stuff. Plus there's enough room for potential buyers to put themselves in here. Sure, there's no way you can remove your personality from a house unless you take out all your stuff (and you do want to leave some of your personality within), but you want to leave space for someone else's imagination to picture their own belongings in the rooms.

4. Fix the Broken Stuff, Including the Little Broken Stuff

I actually hired a handyman to come in and fix cabinet doors that won't shut, finish adding knobs to built-in drawers and use his manly muscles to scrape off the bathroom carpet glue that I got fed up doing myself. After he was gone, I kept finding more stuff, and I kept fixing it. So if you've got major stuff that needs doing, do it now before a potential buyer sees it and considers it a liability. And remember to do the little stuff too, because it adds a finishing touch that will not go unnoticed. I like to make jokes about my fixation with cabinet knobs. I love buying nice ones. But you know what? Those pretty knobs really do brighten up my vintage kitchen and makes other not-so-great parts of it (like the dingy sink I keep CLR-ing) more forgiveable. Frankly, I wish I'd had more time and money to fix things, but then a house never really is done. I have to accept that.

5. Accessorize.

Not being exactly a fashion plate (more like the anti-fashion plate), I have a habit of rushing out of the house sans jewelry, scarves, cute hair thingies or anything else to dress up whatever it is I'm wearing (in fact, I'm all-too-often just wearing a tee shirt and bootcut leggings). So I'm not exactly the best accessorizor (I'm not even sure that's a word... wait, I just checked Google and apparently it is!). If accessorizing comes more naturally to you, use your talent with your house. Flowers and plants in the right place really do brighten up a room. Matching curtains and bedspreads really do pull a room together. Towels that match or compliment the wall color can give the bathroom a finished look. I actually have a lavender towel I especially bought for my upstairs bathroom which is painted plum. It doesn't match the bathrooms in the new house so I am not using it or taking it with me. I just pull it out when someone is going to look at the house. When they are done I put it away and use my old towels, which will also not be coming with me to the new house because they don't match the new bathrooms, either.

You know what? It's late again, so I'm going to finish my Open House story tomorrow.

Open to the World

I really hope my house sells very soon. The cats are about to revolt because I had to pack them up in carriers and cart them off to a friend's house no less than 3 times this week — twice for "caravans" (weekday open houses mainly for other Realtors) and the official Open House this afternoon. Binga was especially foul tempered, her ire growing with each subsequent trip. Today was the worst. Once we got to our destination, the other two cats never left their hiding places unless I dragged them out. And when I did manage to wrestle them from under the table or inside a cabinet, Binga would start growling and screaming. Then when I finally brought them home this evening, it took her quite a while to calm down and get back to normal. She was still taking her anger out on Boodie and Sparkle for another half hour or so.

I have been to dozens, maybe even hundreds of open houses over the years (I guiltily admit to being an avid "lookie-loo") and there really seems to be an art to having a good one. In the past few weeks I've been critiquing them and taking note of what worked and what didn't. I saw some truly awful houses and extremely nice homes presented badly, and some decent houses presented well. Even though I couldn't be at my own caravans or open house, I get the distinct feeling that my Realty team set things up quite well... because a successful open house owes a lot to a good foundation and careful preparation. So here's my layman's list of do's and don'ts.

DON'T...

1. Have your house filled with clutter, even if the clutter is comprised of nice knick knacks.

This was one of the big mistakes of an open house I went to yesterday. It was a really nice house on Hill Drive, in Eagle Rock's fanciest neighborhood. Great looking vintage Spanish style in excellent condition with quality upgrades. (Sheesh, I can't believe I'm saying this stuff. I'm beginning to sound like I'm in the real estate business!) When Brian and I saw they were having an open house, we had to stop and look (we'd just finished showing his brother John our new house and he was along for the ride). The first clue we got that something was amiss was the plethora of "Open House" signs peppering the front yard. Seriously, there were like 8 or 10 of them.

The inside reflected the outside. The house was filled tons of sentimental stuff. We couldn't see the walls for all the bric-a-brac, photos and decor. The yard was the same — there were tons of potted plants and the seller's nice stuff. The only people I could picture living in this home were the current owners. A house needs to have room for potential buyers to place themselves and their lives inside its four walls.

2. Hang out at your own Open Houses.

You'd think this would be a no-brainer, but I saw this a couple of times, including at the house above. Having the sellers sitting around makes a potential buyer (not to mention a lookie-loo like me) really uncomfortable. A potential buyer needs to feel free to scrutinize stuff, maybe open a closet or two, sniff around for possible trouble, and wrinkle her nose at a bad paint color choice without worrying about offending the current owners or feel like she's invading their space. To be honest, having the sellers around at the Open House above didn't stop me from doing all the above, but I'm sometimes known to be tactless and insensitive anyway. Most people are far more polite and are put off by the presence of a home's owners. When you're shopping for a house that's costing you the better part of your net worth, you shouldn't feel like you have to be on your best behavior.

3. Leave your pets at home during your Open House

Pets are distractions at best, allergy magnets at worst. Oh, and let's not forget that some people actually don't like dogs or cats. (As an animal lover, I hear that such people exist, but I don't have them in my life. If one of them wants to buy my house, however, they are welcome to do so.) Because I'm a cat fanatic, a kitty will always upstage the house that is up for sale. Of course seeing a cat there will give me a warm, fuzzy feeling about the place (no pun intended... well, at least it wasn't originally intended), but I will probably forget all the important details I needed to make note of. Brian is the same way, but with dogs. If you have pets, allergic potential buyers will know it whether they are there are not, but the less their presence is felt the better. So have some place to stash your critters, if at all possible. The only exception to this is fish, or other aquatic beings. If you have snakes, lizards or insects as pets, maybe you should take those also. I love these creatures, but few others do and having them around will probably creep out some people who might be otherwise inclined to bid on your house.

4. Allow cigarette smoke in your house for as long as possible before you have your Open House.

I'll never forget the dump Brian and I went to a few weeks ago. We had a renter friend along who we are trying to turn into a home owner. We took her open house hopping and had a lot of fun. But there was one House From Hell. It was a much abused mid-century modern in Highland Park. The house was rotting away inside and out. It was full of clutter. Not decor — junk. The rugs were filthy. The kitchen was frightening (which didn't stop me from grabbing a bottle of water out of the ice-filled sink... it was in the 90s that day. There was also a lo-carb Monster energy drink I was dying for, but felt too self-conscious to actually take). But capping it all off was the stink of cigarettes that permeated every last millimeter of the house. The place was filled with permanent second-hand smoke. It was worse than a downtown dive bar in a city where they still allow smoking. It was so bad that when we left, the stale cigarette smell lingered on our clothes. Doing laundry is one of my most hated chores, but I felt like immediately tossing everything I was wearing into the nearest washer. As long as the washer was in a smokefree establishment.

If you're a smoker and refuse to quit in spite of all evidence that your habit will kill you, you will still need to make modifications in your lifestyle if you want to sell your house. Stop smoking inside. Park an ashtray outside and do your smoking there. Air your house out and scrub it down. Do your laundry frequently to keep as much of the cigarette smell off them as possible. Do this for weeks before you even think of having an Open House. Non-smoking visitors will still know that you smoke, but at least their noses won't be bludgeoned with this unfortunate fact. And they may believe they'll have a chance at getting rid of the residue smell once they move in. By the way, this not only goes for cigarette smoke, but also cigar smoke, pot smoke... anything you may happen to smoke. Granted, if it's something not quite legal, you may not want to take it outside but if you really want to sell your house, you'd better figure out a way to lessen the presence of your substance of choice.

You know what? It's late. I'll list the Do's and finish my open house story later.

The Real Story

I love reading the descriptions on house brochures. I always wonder what the behind-the-scenes story is. Now that I've got one for my old house, I can tell you what the truth is:

Description:
"The property is an English-style character home and has maintained much of its original archetectural charm and integrity."

Reality:
When I first saw this house, its charm and integrity had been all but wiped out by hideous 1970s details added by the previous owner. The exterior had been texture coated prison gray with dull blue trim, there was cottage cheesey gunk on the ceilings, the downstairs bathroom had metallic green and yellow wallpaper and formica shelves, the upstairs bathroom was carpeted(!) and there was old, dingy green and beige plush carpet throughout the house (at least it wasn't shag... perhaps I should have been grateful?). I spent a good portion of the past 5 years putting back the charm and integrity.

Description:
"Also featured is a formal dining room with French doors leading to the patio and a patio deck with treetop views off the top of the staircase."

Reality:
Actually, the formal dining room hasn't been used as a dining room, formal or otherwise, in years. It was a storage room until I decided to sell; now it houses the TV and my exercise equipment. The previous owner was renting it out to a tenant (who, from what I gather, was very reluctant to be displaced). The patio was where the doghouse was until the house went up for sale. The new owners can thank me for the patio deck, as I had a new deck installed because the old one was falling to pieces. And no I am not giving up the bistro set — I may have bought it to dress up the house to sell but I love it and am taking it with me.

Description:
"This extremely charming home is light and bright and has a great floorplan with one bedroom and one bathroom downstairs, followed by two bedrooms and another bathroom upstairs."

Reality:
This 3 bedroom, 2 bath home was actually a 1 bedroom, 2 office home for the time we were living here. Actually, the floorplan really does rock — Brian and I were able to set up our offices in totally opposite ends of the house on different floors so we never had to disturb each other (unless I was heading for the kitchen and he had a burning html question. Then our paths would inevitably cross).

Description:
"Both the vintage-style downstairs bathroom and kitchen have their original black and yellow tiles."

Reality:
Before I got my hands on this house, the downstairs bathroom also had really ugly added-on tile around the bathtub that didn't match the vintage tile. I tore the ugly tile out and replaced it with tile that matched the vintage counter. Ditto the upstairs bathroom, with its original yellow and light brown tile. Oh yeah, and I also ripped out the horrible carpet from the upstairs bathroom to reveal beautiful original tile. Had to deal with very stubborn carpet glue for months. The new owners can thank me for saving them that little bit of hell.

Description:
"Also adjacent to the kitchen is a separate laundry room."

Reality:
Actually the laundry room is pretty much the only room in the house I didn't do jack with. It even has the washer and dryer that were here when we moved in.

Description:
"Other features include a large lot with north facing views, a detached garage, hardwood floors throughout most of the home, lots of closet space with one walk-in closet and a California basement with storage and two furnaces."

Reality:
Those hardwood floors cost me a pretty penny to finish. Luckily they came up very nicely. The walk-in closet is off the master bedroom and is so large I refer to it as the "live-in" closet (I'm suprised the previous owner hadn't tried to rent it out — she had 2 tenants living downstairs). In case you don't know, "California basement" means it's just big enough for the 2 furnaces and about 3 boxes. And speaking of boxes, yeah, there's tons of closet space here, but to make things look roomy, we had to rent a storage space and take most of our stuff there. Ironic, no?

Anybody Wanna House?

Got the photos of my old house the other day. The photographer is a real pro — the place looks incredible:

Of course, only so much can be done with the scary, staged living room:

Unfortunately you can't really see the accessories in this photo — balls covered with feathers, a vase set oh-so-decoratively on its side, something that looks like an urn ready to house someone's ashes and a cigar box! Plus the generic books. I finally noticed that one of them is Without a Doubt, the book prosecutor Marcia Clark wrote about the O.J. Simpson murder trial (apparently she's still convinced he is guilty). I'm kind of bummed now that I've already packed away all our crime books — I could have added a mass murderer book or two to the bunch. Or maybe not — I don't want to creep out any potential buyers. My ever-sober boyfriend wanted to add one of his copies of Alcoholics Anonymous. I just got a Spiegel catalog the other day so I tossed it on the table. I figure that the next owner of this home (whether sober or not) is probably also on the Spiegel mailing list, so it will help whoever-it-is feel right at home.

The office is more a reflection of my real personality, even if I am planning on dumping the desk soon:

Of course, this is the tidied up version, without the stacks of books and papers, overflowing bag of recycled shredded paper and empty cans of Go Girl Energy Drink, and various assorted cats (they were not allowed in the photo shoot). Frankly going from the downstairs decor to the upstairs would make my head explode if I were looking at this house for the first time. I really wonder what people are gonna think. (The Realtors, no doubt, will know the living room is staged, so I'm referrering to your average, everyday buyer-type people. Hell, I live here and my head still explodes every time I walk through the living room.)

Here's the schedule: the house is officially listed tomorrow (Monday), caravans (open houses for the Realtors) are on Tuesday and Thursday and the big Open House on Sunday. They're supposed to serve sandwiches at the Thursday caravan — I've already asked that they save me one.

So anybody wanna house?

Coda

The gross "staged" living room? The cats love it! They are all over it, sitting on the pieces and rolling around on the rug and digging their claws into the pile. Little f*ckers. They're even fighting over the best (to them) spots. The dog, on the other hand, is scared of it, which I find quite humorous. Brian thinks it stinks — literally. He doesn't like the scent, er, smell that is now permeating from the living room.

In an effort to subtly put my personal stamp on this grouping of generic decor, I added a couple of books of my own. In between Michael Korda and some other author, I slipped in Sex Goddesses of the Silent Screen (long out of print), and on top of a couple of forgettable coffee table books, I placed Debbie Allen's Confessions of Shameless Self Promoters. That'll probably confuse the lookie-loos who will come to the open house.

Not About Me

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?

Hottest Weekend Ever

And what does one do on the hottest weekend ever? Why, pack up a bunch of junk and haul it off to storage, of course! The photographer is coming to take pictures of the old house either Tuesday or Wednesday and all our extraneous stuff needs to be out so the place "presents" well. David, my realtor, is cracking the whip over our heads! In a nice way, but I can tell he means business.

Brian is amazed we have accumulated so much stuff. I am not — it's what happens when you have a life for years and years and are loathe to toss anything out. And between our books and his records (he has quite a bit of vinyl... very old school), some of this stuff is quite heavy. So there we were in triple-digit weather, lugging boxes around. We sweated, but we drank lots of water and survived. Now the house actually looks livable. At least to someone else — the eventual buyer of this house, who I'm sure will love it dearly — it looks livable. Even tidied up and looking its best, this place seems merely temporary to me.

On top of trying to get this house in shape to sell, Brian's parents were in town, so we had to spend time with them too. Brian's dad really likes our old house. Funny. So does my dad. It's a real homey, traditional two story home — the kind of place you raise a family in. The kind of place you work to pay off the mortgage in. A kids and dogs and Kodak moments type of place. I guess that is why I have never loved this house. I am not about kids, dogs or Kodak moments. I am about cats, naked ambition and moody, larger-than-life, Norma Desmond moments. This trapezoidal peg does not fit into these four walls.

This heat is practically unbearable in a house that has no air conditioning. I was going to invest in a couple of wall units this summer, but then my dream house became available to me. Sweltering in here is making me feel less than coherent. While this is bothersome to me, I've been more concerned about the cats. They're stuck in here 24-7 with no escape, so I've been trying to make them as comfortable as possible by tossing ice in their water fountain and wiping down their paws with a damp cloth (the only place cats sweat is through their paws). Binga and Boodie enjoyed this, and even welcomed having their fur rubbed with the damp cloth; Sparkle was having none of it. She reluctantly let me wipe one paw, then ran off, looking insulted. To be honest, they seem to be suffering less than me. Even Boodie, in all her fluff, seems to have better coping mechanisms than I do. I did, however, find some good information on how to keep cats cool. The list is 3 pages long, so maybe there's even one suggestion that Her Highness Sparkle will accept.

Birthday in Escrow

My birthday was pretty much a non-event. Not that it matters, since I've given myself the best birthday gift ever: a new house. And not just any house — the house I've been dreaming of for a long time:

But of course you just don't buy a house, put a big bow around it and you're done. You have to do the escrow thing, get the loan(s) approved, remove contingencies and prep the old house to sell. So I spent my birthday in escrow.

Pretty annoying too. I got a call at 7:37 a.m. (for me that's the crack of dawn) from the insurance company guy who examines the properties and he can't go see it at the time everyone else agreed to (everything has to be coordinated between the seller, his realtor, my realtor and, hopefully, me). So I call my realtor and make absolutely no sense trying to explain this and wind up falling back asleep until 11:00 (this week has exhausted me). Then I finally get up in the SoCal heat and manage a half hour exercise session (I'm reviewing 15 Minute Workouts for Dummies for the site this week and had the second half of the DVD to do). Showered and ran over to my least favorite place in the world, Target, to buy curtain rods and cheap curtains in my slapdash attempt to make my old house look homey enough to get multiple bids in a slowing real estate market. Then I sweated at home and worked on getting a backup insurance quote until Brian came home with flowers and a card. After thanking him sweetly, I handed him a "to do" list and told him he couldn't take me to my birthday dinner until he'd at least finished the shelving unit in the bathroom and put up the curtain rods in our bedroom and his music room. So he changed the reservation to 8 and went to work, only to discover that the shelving still doesn't fit around the toilet. (Sigh) Then I insisted that we look in on Sherri's cat first to make sure she hadn't expired from the heat in a non-air conditioned home. Muffin was fine, and we were just 15 minutes late to Camillo's, my favorite "fancy" local restaurant. Then on a whim we went into Pasadena without checking the showtimes in the hopes of catching the last showing of Pirates of the Caribbean and made it with time to spare. Brian kept falling asleep during parts of it which was no surprise since he's been up since something like 4:45 a.m. I kept trying to find the story between the special effects, without much success. (It was entertaining anyhow.)

Whoever said that life was more about the journey than the destination never had a birthday in escrow.