SOLD! Almost...

Top of the World...well, okay, the Moor..., a photo by Nancy Dunne on Flickr.

Yep, after almost four years of waiting and tidying and waiting and chasing down estate agents for feedback someone wants to buy our house.

Let me say that again, because I'm not sure I believe it yet... SOMEONE WANTS TO BUY OUR HOUSE IN KEIGHLEY!

I'm not sure how I feel. I'm overwhelmed and overjoyed and when you add in that I'm probably overtired I find myself to be a little bit...sad. Yep, as much as I used to scream that I hated that house, I'm sad. It was our first house after we were married. It was the house where I stayed the first time I came to visit Hubs.

But at the same time, everything is coming together in a way that I admit I never thought it would. Hubs has his interview at the end of February, almost a month from today. The buyer wants to take possession of the house in four weeks. I may very well be picking Daisy up from Atlanta in less time than that. It's all more than I ever thought would happen.

Now to find a place to live so that the four of us aren't continuing to squat in Anne and Damian's house...

Hey, did I mention I'm now working at Clemson University? No? Oops. Next blog post. Swear.

Is it Wrong...?

...to wonder why I sometimes smell dead things in and around my house, but can't find the source?

...to wish that the people that worked at the dry cleaner's next door would stop talking so loudly in the parking lot that I can hear them inside my house with the doors shut?

...to ponder letting the dogs out because I know they'd run to the fence and said dry cleaner employees would run screaming back into their building?

...to wait until the 16th to buy a new vacuum, making it a month and a half since my house has been vacuumed?

...to hope that I don't go overdrawn in my checking account before the 16th?

...to be anxious that today is exactly six months till my wedding! (thank you, Simon...)

Mills, mon Aristochat

Everybody wants to be a cat,
Because a cat's the only cat
Who knows where it's at.
Everybody's pickin' up on that feline beat,
'Cause everything else is obsolete.
-"Everybody wants to be a cat," The Aristocats, Disney

That cat is my hero this morning. After an overnight interpreting assignment that has left me useless and out sick from work today, I was awakened to the familiar sound of Mills chasing thin air as he does every morning. Only this morning it wasn't thin air. It was a mouse.

Sadly I was on the phone to Simon when I discovered what Mills had and therefore caused him some permanent hearing damage when I split the sound barrier squealing.

My little mouser first cornered his prey in the closet in my office, then herded it out to the sitting room as I got something to scoop it up in so that I could usher it outside. Mills chased it out from under the chair, and then kept it under the table until I could get it into a tupperware container. I then took it outside and flung it into the yard and that little buggar ran STRAIGHT BACK FOR THE STAIRS to come back in the front door. Thankfully it saw me standing there and ducked around into the bushes on the front of the house, then into the house via a vent on the front in the foundation. Hooray.

I couldn't just sit and watch Mills kill it though...don't get me wrong, I don't want mice in my house but there is something so evil about how cats kill their prey. And it made eye contact with me...that was all she wrote. Simon had encouraged me on the phone to save it, chuck it out the door to freedom rather than let Mills kill it, so that's what I did. And the intelligence I saw in those eyes (coupled with terror, of course) lead that little critter right back into the crawl space under my house. Again I say Hoo-Ray.

His adventure this morning has bolstered the opinion in Mills's mind that he is the alpha in this pack. As I was making my tea, he stood up on his hind legs to look (he seems to think that this simple posture will magically make him tall enough to see over the top of the counter) and the dogs came over to see what he was watching. I don't know what exactly happened next but Mills moved his head at them like "You want some of this?" and all three dogs BACKED UP. Too funny.

I gave my little man a saucer with a little milk in the bottom and scratched his ears before he took off on patrol again. Je t'aime, mon Aristochat. Je t'aime très beaucoup.

Sometimes you have to bite your lip and shove

I got a cabinet for my bathroom because this house has a serious lack of storage space. I guess when the original residents lived here their towels and other bathroom sundries just magically disappeared from sight when company came, then reappeared when needed? Anyway, I have installed three wall cabinets and added a floor cabinet to the bathroom since I moved in...all three of which will be leaving with me when I move unless my landlord wants to pay me for them.



When in the box, the cabinet did not look as big as it actually is. There was also no warning about how heavy it was going to be or instructions on how to use the sleeves that are required when one hangs something heavy on a sheetrock/drywall bathroom wall.

Some of the frustration, fatigue, and general irritability from yesterday was still lingering this morning but I had to press on and hang the darned thing because I have to return the drill to my father this evening. Add into the mix that I have limited upper body strength and limited patience with things that don't go right the first time AND that I got about four hours of sleep last night and you can probably imagine the fiesta that was the Hanging of the Cabinet.

But you know what? I did it. All by myself save one call to Scott to ask if the sleeves were supposed to be flush with the wall...I hung the cabinet. There were several failed attempts and some tears and a few "I HATE THIS CABINET!" exclamations, but it is now on my wall, hopefully sturdy and filled with the stuff that I don't want just sitting out for all to see. I found the holes on the back of the cabinet, somehow sprouted two extra hands and found the screws in the wall, bit my lip and shoved...and the cabinet stayed!



Geeeeezominey, I hope that thing doesn't fall on my head the next time I have to use the toilet...

Near Crisis and Homicide Averted

My regular readers know that the painting of the outside of my house has been an ongoing struggle/occurance since I signed the lease back in November. The experience has taught me to have a backbone, to not be afraid to shut the door in someone's face while he/she is talking, and to never take anything for granted, like a closed gate.

I would like to direct your attention to the archives where it is recorded that Profile ran away from my house one morning because my gate had been left open. I didn't leave the gate open, mind you...the person painting my house did. I knew I should have gone ahead and gotten that padlock, I just knew it, but I didn't.

Today when I got home from work, the person had returned and was set up on my front porch, painting the front door. I came in, locked the door, and went to let the dogs out. Thankfully I thought to myself, "Self, you know that even though you've told him over and over to shut the gate he never does, so you'd better check it."

The gate was standing open.

It took all my resolve just to walk over and shut the gate and not run around to the front of the house and...well, do something very ugly and probably illegal in several states to him with the paintbrush in his hand. Instead, I shut and latched the gate and let the dogs out as usual. When the "painter" (I use quotes because I'm about 150% sure he isn't a professional) let me know he was leaving, I told him to make sure he shut the gate. He had the nerve to say he had, but apparently I have inherited the superpower my mother used to have that would render you incapable of lying when she looked at you just the right way. He admitted to having "maybe" left it open "one time" and shuffled off my porch as I slammed the door.

Crisis=dog getting out...that would have lead to a homicide on the front porch.

Just the railing and the floor of the porch to go and the nightmare will be over...

Freedom!

I'm typing this post on my now totally disconnected from the router by any sort of red cable that I was tripping over and the animals would get tangled in that would then cause them to panic and pull the router off the top of the television which I thought was the source of the problem to start with...but it wasn't...computer. Yay for wireless routers and for nice men at Linksys that are patient with people who only play computer geeks on TV...