Now It's Really For Sale

My house has been For Sale By Owner (FSBO, in the biz) for a month now and we finally broke down and signed with an agent/agency and now there's a lock box on my door and tomorrow there will be a big strong sign in the yard (as compared to my flimsy hardware store sign which ends up doing back bends with all this strong wind) and soon some professionally printed brochures will be sitting in my foyer and, yes, I know it is just a house but my friend Don totally designed the mantel over the family fireplace (OK, I own those pieces and I'm taking it with me) but he also built the darling shelves in my kids' rooms which hold their trophies and photos and collectibles and I nearly put my back out 4 years ago painting my bedroom Caribbean Blue and trying to move the armoire back into place by myself while my husband was out of town and I pulled a While You Were Out and emptied the office and rented a sander to redo the floor and totally refinished the office and filled it with new furniture and all of the awesome sports photos and collectibles we own during another weekend when he was gone and, yes again, a new house is going to be fun and exciting but I'm a little nostalgic right now and how do you translate into dollars all the sweat and time and dreams you have put into a house because that's what it comes down to - dollars.

I meant to write about the toaster oven...oh I guess I did

Yesterday I woke up with the flu and while I was getting my son ready for school (because I am a MOM and we still do things like that even at our sickest) the toaster oven stopped working and in my State of Unmentionableness I didn't figure out until hours later that the toaster oven was just fine but I had blown a fuse in the kitchen. Then last night at the hardware store my husband saw a shiny new toaster oven on sale for $50 and brought it home even though I reminded him that the old one was working just fine but the new one is now in place and this morning I had to try and figure out how to work the thing while getting two kids ready for school (and still recovering from the flu). First I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, then I couldn't figure out how to make it make toast and then it totally redeemed itself by toasting the almond slivers TO PERFECTION which is something the old toaster oven could never get right, either burning them or under-toasting them and usually both at the same time (How is that even possible?).

Then I had to finish painting the bathroom. I painted the first coat Sunday evening (my radio partner, Chris Sunday Brunch 10-2 on WOMC 104.3!!, says that's why I got sick....because I did a radio show, then ran errands, then painted a bathroom on Sunday and I did too much. I think that makes me sound like some Victorian chick who ended up in the bed with the vapors after high tea AND a ball in the same day) and I had to lay in bed all day yesterday trying to recover surrounded by piles of stuff that should have been in the bathroom - so I couldn't even stumble around the bedroom safely - and the unfinished walls taunting me.

The bathroom is painted but now I DO feel like a Victorian woman with the vapors because I am EXHAUSTED. But do I have time to be exhausted? No.

Things I Need To Do But Probably Won't

Figure out how to really use the new toaster oven
Do laundry
Clean the house
Find pictures of my son because he is Star Student in his class this week
Clean up the painting stuff in the bathroom

Things I Don't Want To Do But Probably Should

Shower
Get copies of Son's comp sheet for his audition this afternoon
Clean up the painting stuff in the bathroom

Things I Want To Do But There Isn't Any Chocolate Cake In The House

Eat chocolate cake