Living on the Edge

So it has been a week since we placed our house on the market. We have kept the house immaculate and the kids have even helped. I keep waiting for something to happen. Maybe the phone to ring, the doorbell to ring...heck... anything to ring. There has been nothing. This is a VERY different experience than our last house we sold. By now it was under contract and off our hands. The market is much different than a few years ago. It doesn't help that every other house is a foreclosure or short sale. A bit frustrating for those of us who played by the rules and are now feeling a bit punished by it. Not only is our equity far gone, but even breaking even looks impossible at this point. I know it has only been a week, but I am super frustrated already. David starts work in 4 weeks and I don't want to be stuck down here with the kids by myself... and we can't rent up in PHX until David gets an actual paycheck.
I feel like we have done all we can on our part to sell the house. I planted new pretty, blooming flowers. We painted any "extreme" colors neutral. We cleaned the heck out of this house. We staged half the house to look like a "model home". What more can we do? Oh yeah.... drop the house price another $30k... oh wait... we've already gone as far as we can. We are still cheaper than the new builds in our development by about $15k, but still NOTHING! Have I mentioned that I am a bit frustrated! ARGH!!!!!!
I guess this will be another lesson for me in patience. Have I mentioned that I lack in patience?

ANYWHO! In other things.... Alexis has a new love for baseball. She is actually pretty good at it too. She hits at least 1/2 of the pitches I toss to her. She also loves to play catch. What is even better is that with all her energy, she'll run ALL over the yard. Good thing too, because she doesn't have the greatest aim. She is also finding new independence with the refrigerator and water dispenser. She can operate both now and it makes bedtime fun. We never know exactly how much she has had to drink before going to sleep. No issues yet. She always comes and wakes me up.
Alexis has also developed some fears. She is so worked up lately about monsters. To protect her from the monsters she requires sleeping with 6+ stuffed animals. The other night she had so many animals on her bed, that there was nowhere for her to sleep. David put a limit to 2 animals and placed the rest in a box. That night she woke me up at 3AM to look for the rest of her stuffed animals. 3Am.... are you serious! Then because she was up walking around, she had to go to the bathroom. While in the bathroom she was "small chatting" with me. She was asking where we got a certain movie, and how much it cost. All I could think was, "I can't seriously be having this conversation at 3 AM!".... did I mention it was 3AM! After much reassurance I was able to get her back to bed and convince her that 2 stuffed animals could protect her from monsters just as well as 10 stuffed animals could. OYE!

As Alexis is developing fears, we find that Timothy is more fearless every day. I have found him on top of the table just playing, and he continues to climb on EVERYTHING. He can even climb into the bathtub. We have since locked the bathroom and placed child gates up... because he can also start the water. He is pretty smart.
He can open our doors, and we have found new use for the alarm system. The doors all chime when they open. This has been helpful in knowing if Timothy is trying to escape. This past week he was halfway into the garage. Time to start dead bolting everything, all the time. He also pulled over our nice lamp this week, which then shattered into thousands of tiny glass shards... on the carpet. He spent some quality time in timeout for that one. All these things happen in slow motion... just can't get there in time to catch him. He is a quick one!

As for us old folks... we are just tired, frustrated, and so ready to move on to other things. David is getting bored at home. The other day he never even changed out of pajamas. I asked if it felt wonderful to not get dressed for an entire day. He just shrugged... I think he'd rather be working. He is ready for a challenge. I think the computer games are starting to get to his brain and shrink it a little every day. He better get studying for his licensing exam. Time seems to sit still some days... and other days it just flies by... I hope it just flies by in the near future...