Open House

We held our first open house Sunday. Seeing as how it was a holiday weekend, it was the first nice day of said holiday weekend, the house had only been on the market 5 days and we didn't have any interior photos up on our page yet... I wasn't expecting much. However that didn't keep me, my husband, my mother and my father from just about killing ourselves cleaning for about 16 straight hours on Saturday and another 4 hours on Sunday. I cleaned things I had never even thought of before... the banister to the basement stairs, the baseboards in our storage room, the hot water heater, etc etc etc ad infinitum ad naseum. Between the cleaning and staging our house per the instructions of an interior designer we hired, by the end of Saturday night *I* was ready to buy my damn house. Lets just say I'm glad we'll have photos to remember this by since it will be the first and only time my home looks like like it could conceivably be ready for an Architectural Digest photo shoot - and I want proof!

Saturday night after my folks had gone home, hubby and I had a glass of wine with dinner. I went in to sit on the couch while he straightened up the last bit of the kitchen. He found me there about 10 minutes later sitting up, glass of wine in hand, dead asleep.

The good news is that even with everything running against us, we still had about 10 sets of people through. Our professional photographer that came with our realtor's listing package stopped by around 3:30 to take photos of our home and had been to three other open houses that day. He said most had no one show, one house had two people. The fact that we had 10 was looking pretty good.

Of those that came through, two seemed very interested. In fact one of the two was a woman who had come with her mother. She told us upon leaving "your house is wonderful, you'll have no problem selling it" (from her mouth to God's ears please!) to which I said "thank you very much, we've had a couple of people tell us that so I hope you're right". Around 4:20 a guy showed up and wanted to know if it was too late to see the house. Now, we had friends over who arrived at 4:00 for our Memorial Day grill out, but we of course said, "Hey if you wanna see the house -come on in." He then told us his wife (the lady who came with her mother) called him on her way out the door and told him he HAD to come see the house that day. He drove 45 minutes from another town where they live to see the house. I'm hoping against hope that that is a really good sign. We'll just see.

I do have to say it is an odd thing to sit silently in your living room and feign reading a book while a bunch of strangers traipse through your house in judgement. Normally when you are using a standard realtor, you leave the house and come back 3 hours later to discus any interested parties with your realtor who held the house open. In our case, since we are using a discount broker, its up to us to do the heavy lifting.

The first guy to come by was just odd. Period. He came to the door at 1:15 with his son in tow, walked in the front door without so much as knocking. He was wearing a "wife beater t", shorts, a baseball cap, sandals and a large panther tattoo on his ankle. Ummm ok. I greeted him and he immediately went to the sign in sheet giving only his name - no contact information. He then said "so can we just go at it?" Ah sure. Instead of perusing the main floor as one would expect he and his son went straight upstairs. I could hear them moving around for a minute or two before he came back down, said "thank you but we're looking for a bigger master bath," told us our house was great and left. He was there no more than 5 minutes. After being scared to death by our realtor about robbery or worse (he insisted I not be allowed to host an open house alone) I admit I went upstairs to check and make sure everything was in its rightful place. It was.

Apart from that oddity, the rest of the day went as one would expect. Most people milled around in hushed whispers opening closets, going up and down stairs, wandering in and out doors, and murmuring comments to one another along the way. Once in a while someone would ask a question. Then they would thank us and be on their way. There was one couple - possibly Russian or Eastern European - who spoke to each other in their native tongue the entire time. It was a little off-putting. I would have given just about anything for a translator at that point. Most of the time, when someone left I wanted more than anything to run after them in the driveway and beg to know what they liked, what they didn't - what we could do better next time. Unfortunately I'll just have to do that one thing I'm not very good at ... be patient and wait.

West Des Moines House For Sale

I missed my 100th blog post! Serially! This is it -- I wasn't ready for it!! This totally sucks... it should have been cause for a major bloggy celebration and some sort of funny yet tender look-back over the past 100 posts. Crap. I coulda been sooo Barbara Walters (without the annoying attitude) . But nooooo, it had to sneak up on me unbeknownst to me until logging on today and doing the math. Crap again..

Soooo instead, I will shamelessly plug my own interests in that Hubby and I pulled the trigger and put the house on the market, so if you - or anyone you know... or anyone you think you know ... or anyone you don't know yet, but could use this as an inroad - is looking for a house in the West Des Moines, IA area.... here you are. The perfect abode!

Nutshell: Almost 3000 sq ft of finished space (2200+ on main and top floors). 4Br including oversized master with his-n-hers walk-ins, 3.5Ba including walk-in tiled shower in MBR. Totally updated kitchen with new floors, stainless appliances, fixtures, and lights. All new paint in every room, updated main floor bath and foyer with tile throughout both. Professionally landscaped backyard showcasing mature trees with terracing down to small creek.

Post a message if you're interested or want a spec sheet to pass along!

Keeping Up With the (Baby) Joneses

This past weekend we attended the 1st birthday party of one of our good friends' little girl, Elle. Elle is about the cutest little blondie you can imagine and always seems to be smiling. Her mom is a lot the same. We love their family and love spending time with them. Elle's mom and I went through our pregnancies, deliveries and first year of babyhood together. So we pretty much know the ropes. We know how all children and all families are different and we're ok with that. Elle's mommy chose to stay home after Elle was born - I chose to go back to work. We both think that is respectively ok. Elle had some hard times early on with a medical condition that required surgery... Cora had hard times with GERD and colic. We leaned on each other for support. So what I'm saying is that we've been through it all together and come out smiling.

Until this weekend.

Ok, so that's a bit dramatic. We still love Elle's family. We just hate them too. Elle's birthday party was something out of kiddie Vogue (if there were such a thing and I'm sure soon there will be). I don't know how they did it, but lets just say multiple cakes, inflatable play equipment, tented gazebos, decorated tables on expansive lawns and homemade food for about 100 guests was in play. All inexplicably done in an amazingly elegant and non-pretentious way.

Ummmmmm we have Cora's b-day planned. It includes about 15 people, a CostCo cake and an outfit for Cora to wear that MeMe is making. That's about it. When I told Elle's mommy (who will be one of the 15 in attendance) not to expect anything close to this for Coco's party, she graciously said "Well Kristi, I'm home all day - what else am I going to do". Ummm chase a 1 year old around, keep her entertained/fed/changed/sleeping and maybe try and get in a load of laundry or some dishes?? I have weekends - I know the drill. But thanks for trying.

To top it off, as Elle was sitting in her high chair in her adorable pink homemade tutu finishing up her cake crumbs, she took her sippy, tipped it up to get the last bit out (this maneuver has so far eluded Coco) and then held it out to her mommy and said, very clearly... "Milk". Wha? Seriously? So I ask ... "Did she just say 'Milk'?" To which her mommy tells me - "Oh yeah - I guess she's up to about 15 or 20 words - at least the ones I can understand". Hubby and I both looked at each other, mouths mentally agape. We were feeling pretty good with Coco's repertoire of 5 words until then.

So, once we hit the car, I knew the first thing that would be out of Hubby's mouth. He immediately voiced his concern that our child is completely inadequate. That paired with me feeling completely inadequate after viewing the shindig Elle's Mommy put on, made for a sorry couple. Hubby is now convinced that he will teach Coco to say "milk"... as if this word is the holy grail to unlock her language skills.

I, on the other hand am cool with it. I know kids develop at different time frames and I also know by age 2 it usually all evens out more or less. I think its totally cool and really cute that Elle is talking up a storm. I wish Coco would - it would make both our lives a lot easier. But it will happen when it happens. I've also let the supreme-all-being-hostess-master thing go. Its just not me. And I'm ok with that. The bottom line is that I love my friends for who they are... the strengths Elle has will serve Cora well someday when they are friends. The strengths her Mommy has are what make me admire her so much as one of my friends. So instead of comparing the differences - and at the risk of sounding all New Age trippy - I hereby choose to celebrate them. So there. But I'm still making Elle's mommy help with party tips in the future.

Won't Power

Ok, so if you have been watching carefully you’ll have noticed that my regular Tuesday Weight Watcher’s entries have gone the way of the Dodo. I did get 10lbs off… but that is where I have since stayed. Not by any fault of WW… no it’s totally by my own hand. Or mouth more rather. I just don’t have willpower anymore. I look nice in my clothes… I’ve gone down one size… I feel better. So now I just don’t have the motivation to deny myself things I shouldn’t have to shed those last 10lbs and go down one size more.

For instance, today was a co-worker’s birthday. His supervisor brought in a sheet cake and three kinds of homemade cookies (choc chip, peanut butter and sugar). Knowing full well I should take a very small piece of cake from the center (less frosting) and one small cookie, I instead took a corner piece of cake and one of each of the three kinds of cookies. Nice.

On top of that, as I was eating said frosting fest, I was bumped and my piece of cake fell to the floor with a splat. Now if I had willpower that would have been a sign to me that I needed to stop. Instead, I rather took that as a sign that I needed more cake. So instead of having one piece of sugar-laden goodness, I had one and a half. Argh.

Most days I’m ok with where I am. But then I remember that part in The Devil Wears Prada where Anne’s character says “I’m a size six” to which the industry insider says “Oh, the new [size] 14”. Ouch. Oh well… right now I’m too comfortable on my sugar high to much care.

How Do We Get There From Here?

Hubby and I, for the past few weeks, have been discussing some major milestones in our life as a couple. We are trying to decide two key issues: 1) When to move out of our current home and build our "lifetime" home; and 2) When to think about trying for munchkin #2. It hasn't been the smoothest or most pleasant of conversations since we appear to be of two different minds. I want to do both relatively soon in order to get settled, put down roots, and start our lives as a full family. Hubby wants to wait on both in order to give us some time to get used to both ideas and to prepare financially for them. Hubby also feels strongly that we should do one at a time (i.e. either have baby, then build and move, or move and then have baby). He doesn't want us to take on too much at once. The problem is, that is the way of our people - its what we do.

What do I mean by that? Let me give some examples. We got engaged, and then told we were being transferred from Iowa to Memphis, TN all within 12 hours. We got married and moved back from Memphis to Iowa in one weekend. We got pregnant and got a puppy the same weekend. We delivered our first child and while I was out on maternity leave, I interviewed for and accepted a new job. Change is who we are. Its what we do. Its part of being a young family. I am struggling to understand why now, its suddenly time to slow down.

Now before you think me too impetuous, let me assure you that while being financially stable is an admirable goal (and one we BOTH subscribe to) we have crunched numbers from here to kingdom come and, with some minor sacrifices for the short term, can definitely afford to move forward with our dream home now. We will not be putting ourselves at any great risk barring, God forbid, the death or loss of a job by one of us. And of course, in either of those circumstances we'd be in a world of hurt even in our current situation. That's just a low-end calculated risk you take as a family.

My thoughts are simple: 1) I'm not getting any younger. I want to have my second child before I am considered significantly "high risk" for pregnancy. I also want to be done changing diapers by the time I'm 40. I'd like to get daycare out of the way as soon as possible, financially. I'd like my kids to be close enough in age to actually like each other. 2) I'd like to be settled in a new home before having our second child. I do not want to move with a newborn. Having a newborn is hard enough and trying to get a newborn and a toddler adapted to new surroundings (not to mention trying to get a nursery ready with the baby already here) is not something I'm excited to take on.

While I can appreciate my husband's desire not to have to endure building a house (already a stressful event) with a hormonal whale of a wife who will not be much help lifting heavy objects, I think that the better alternative to building a house with a SUPER hormonal, new mommy, leaky, worn out, wife.

So where do we go from here? The age old pillar of marriage - concession and compromise. One thing Hubby and I are good at is talking things through and finding middle ground. I will say this has been one of our harder ones to master. In fact, its not mastered yet. But since neither of us can make this decision unilaterally (at least without risking jail time) we have no choice. We will get there. How and when we'll get there is still a little murky but I have to trust that we will get there. While I'd like to put this issue to bed in order to move forward knowing the game plan, I have to appreciate that some decisions cannot be made in a week's time. Loving my husband means respecting his feelings and wishes - not just in easy times like football season or furniture shopping - but in the hard times too. It means respecting his feelings even if mine are just as strong in the opposite direction on one of the most important things we could choose to discuss. It means remembering I married a person, not a subordinate. Who knows where we will end up, when we will end up there, and how many of "us" there will be when we do. But hopefully by the time we get where we're going, we'll both understand its the right place at the right time.