Category: Just me being me

So, I’m going to start at the end of the story and work my way backwards.

The awesome happy ending to this tale is: we FINALLY sold our house!

Yay! Imagine cartwheels (if I knew how to do them), a weird thrusty kind of dance and me screaming at the top of my lungs, because that was totally how I felt inside when I heard the news.

Kinda a little like this but even more dorky:

 

Our house has been on and off the market for about a year and a half, with lots of showings but no contracts. Over this past weekend, we had two showings scheduled – one for 10:30 am – noon and one for 12:15.

Well, the 10:30 showing surprised me by coming by at 9:10ish, which means I was still at the house (in an old t-shirt and track shorts with glasses on and messy hair, classy). It was a super cute and nice couple who had a ton of questions for me and seemed to really like the house.

Once they left, I finished getting ready and drove to Virginia to visit my friend for the day. When I returned, I could tell that showing #2 had also toured the house (I’m weird like that). 

That evening, my husband and I joked that of course someone is going to want to buy our house now, because it is extremely inconvenient. I recently found out that I’m going to be losing my job, which means that we won’t be able to qualify for a loan until I get a new position.

On Sunday I received a call from my agent, Couple #1 really liked our house. They were going out of town for the holiday weekend, but when they returned they were planning to put in a contract. Okay, I’ve totally heard this story before so I kept my excitement under control.

But then, about an hour later I got another call from my agent. Couple #2 also really liked our house, they asked her to send over all the paperwork and they were planning to submit a contract the next day.

Holy crackers! After months and months of a contract draught, we have TWO couples who are interested in buying our townhouse?!

Couple #2 sent over their contract on Monday and gave us until 11:00 am on Tuesday morning to respond. Unfortunately, Couple #1 wasn’t planning to send their contract until Tuesday night. We weren’t totally happy with the first offer, so we countered at $225,000 (about $5k less than listed). They accepted our counteroffer and scheduled for a home inspector to inspect our house on Wednesday afternoon.

Wow, things really do happen fast!

The home inspector came over Wednesday, which dumped more rain on us than Hurricane Irene. Even though we’ve had 8 years of a dry basement, our sump pump chose that day to break. WHILE the home inspector was looking at our house!

BOO. HISS!

Thankfully I have an incredibly awesome father, who rushed over to deal with the sump pump and diffuse the home inspector situation (he’s a custom home builder, an all-around great guy, and the best BS-er I know). The home inspection list was surprisingly not so bad, with about 10 things that we have to fix before they move in.

Oh, and about them moving in – they want the house on October 27^th, which means we need to move in SIX weeks. Ironically, I also have six weeks left at my job.* So, within the next month and a half we need to pack up and move our entire house AND I need to find a new job.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, since I’m losing my job we can’t buy a new house to move into. Bummer! It works out though, because my parents have a rental property that is going to be vacant the week before we need to move into it. We can stay there until my job situation works itself out and then start looking for our dream house. Of course, once we finally move into our dream house I’m NEVER MOVING AGAIN!

*I’m planning to do a full post on the job drama and the search for a new position. In the meanwhile, if you know of any open positions for a Marketing Specialist with 10+ years of experience shoot me a note on here or my Facebook page.

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Are you a huge dork like me who woke up wondering what the deal is with Labor Day?

Well, if not I can drop some knowledge on you that Labor Day was formed to celebrate various labor associations’ contributions to the US economy. According to my googling, we’re supposed to be recognizing today with a “day of rest” and mark the end of the summer season with a last minute trip or outdoor event. There was something about a parade too.

So with the end of summer, here are just a few things that I’m looking forward to this fall:

• The return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks. My first sip makes me feel like my favorite season is finally here.

• My birthday. I know I’m not 12, but I still feel like a princess on my birthday. I think this year I’m going to start subtracting one from my age though, so in a few years I’ll be 30 again…

• Our house finally selling. At least I hope so! We had two showings on Saturday and apparently both of them are interested in our house. We’re expecting a contract today and possibly one tomorrow as well. Once we find out more, I’ll do a full blog post with all the details.

• A job change. Unfortunately this is not entirely by my choice (long, long story that I will share when everything is finalized), but I feel like this is the universe’s way of kicking me in the butt to go after my dreams.

• Fire. I love bonfires, whether they are at my parent’s house or on camping trips. Once the weather cools down, my sweetie and I will need to plan a camping trip so I can get my smores on!

• Fall festivals. I’ve never been to the Seafood Festival in Annapolis before, but I’m looking forward to going this year to see one of my favorite live bands, Cowboy Mouth. I’m also hoping to make a return trip to the Apple Butter Festival and the Shenandoah Valley Hot Air Balloon & Wine Festival.

Hmm….maybe I should go downstairs to curl up with a book and enjoy my day of rest. It looks like I’m going to be really busy the next few months!

Change.

Everybody does it, but not everyone likes it.

When it comes to your business, it is smart to change with the times. Whether this is by updating your marketing materials, redecorating your reception area or thinking about whether those hot pants really work on your employee uniform.

The downside of changing something about your business is that there is always the fear of alienating customers who like things the way they are.

This morning I came across a perfect example of change. One of my favorite blogs, Young House Love,  just unveiled a new look for their website. They’ve had the same look since the spring of 2008 and decided that it was time to do some design and function updates.

Was there anything wrong with their previous design? Not at all.

Is the new design fantastic? Absolutely!

But you know what is even more fantastic? The fact that they did a blog post detailing why they made the changes and exactly what was done. For those people who instantly distrust any modifications, this is a great chance for the Young House Lovers to explain WHY they made the changes.

Typically I’m not a huge fan of change for change sake, but when it goes hand in hand with a really good reason (like to be more reflective of their design choices in their current house project), I think it’s a great idea!

Check out www.younghouselove.com to see their new website design (they show the old one too if you’re a first time visitor) and how they handled the announcement.

*Please tell me you get my stupid pun of 2 Cents and the blog subject of Change. Corny, right? Yup, that’s just the way I like it!