do the hokey-pokey and reduce yourself to tears of frustration at times. Lately, it feels like our life is one step forward and two steps back.

My mom left for Illinois over a week ago and two days later the moving truck arrived. The movers were two young Serbian boys who did a good job of bundling up moms furniture and carefully loading it on their truck, but they weren’t such good drivers. While turning their truck around in our driveway they got too close to the retaining wall and pushed it out. Now we are diligently looking for someone to repair our retaining wall in the next few months. Do you know anyone?

Don has been busy in the garage-apartment, laying new flooring and cleaning it up. The green paint in the bedroom didn’t look good with the flooring so I spent the weekend painting it “Canvas Tan” to match the rest of the apartment.  Things are looking good up there. Not so much in the house. Don turned on sprinklers to water the grass outside of the breakfast room window, not realizing that I had opened the windows to let in the cool morning air. As I was headed out the door to an appointment I saw the flood of water on the floor and hurriedly shut the windows and grabbed the towels and fans. Since these are real wood floors and not laminate, there isn’t any damage that a light sanding and a few coats of poly won’t fix. We’ll just add it to the list……..

The other night we were busy preparing dinner. The dogs had just finished eating when Don happened to catch old lady Truly peeing on the floor! Oh my gosh! This is new. Truly will be 13 in a few weeks and occasionally has lapses that seem a bit like dementia. We often leave the porch door open for them to come and go as they please but with this heat, we have been running the a/c. Instead of asking me to go out to pee, Truly just did the job where she was standing. Thankfully it was caught in the act so no damage was done but we are starting to feel the pressure to get into the apartment so we can stop adding to the list of maintenance items on our house. It’s starting to get a little overwhelming.

On Facebook yesterday a friend posted how exhausting it is to prepare a home for sale and I had to agree. Our entire summer will be spent prepping this home for sale this fall. There are many activities that I’ll have to miss and the thought of working on stained glass is out the window. Who has time? I keep repeating to myself, it will be worth it. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it; the more your home sparkles, the better impression it will make on a buyer and that translates to a quicker offer and more money in your pocket.  It’s a proven fact. Do not skimp on prepping your home and keeping it maintained. There is nothing more disheartening than being told that your home (or even my sellers home) looks “too lived in” or is showing its age. My home is 13 years old but I want it to look brand new. That only comes with a lot of hard work. Speaking of which, I better get to my list!