No news on the real estate front. No offers yet!

However, we do have a showing at 10:30-11:00 this morning. Looks like someone saw our house on Craigslist and is very interested. Let's hope they really like it and make an offer! That would be a very cool birthday present!

Apparently, I'm Kermit. :)

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know.You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems.Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green.Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

I was tagged! My good friend Becky T tagged my blog! :)

To return the favor, I want to chat it up about Becky. Ever since I met Becky online, it was like we'd been friends for all of our lives, even though we've never met in real life. She has a unique way of seeing the world, and always creates the most inspiring and motivating layouts. I'm very proud of all of her scrapbooking accomplishments and get a thrill seeing my friend's layouts in magazines. She makes it easy to get through every day at work - I don't know how I'd do it without her emails. You can't (and shouldn't) talk about everything at work, so she's a great confidante and listener.

Now, it' s my turn to tag someone. I am going to tag Diana! :) Yes, yes, I know you tagged me last week, and I will get those answers up. Might even get them up today! :)

Well, it was a slow, (mostly) quiet weekend.

No showings on Saturday or Sunday. Guess the Easter weekend had something to do with that. I sure hope more people look at it next weekend, when we have our open house.

We went to the DMV, renewed our tags on our 2nd car, checked our mail, and my husband got a haircut. Then we had dinner with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend at a local restaurant. First time they'd been to our house - figured they should see it before we put it on the market. :)

This morning, we got up early and had breakfast with my mother-in-law, (same) brother-in-law, and his girlfriend. It was her birthday on Friday, and she also wanted to give me my birthday present. When we got home, I promptly conked out for a nap, I was so tired.

Spent the day resting, catching up on unwatched TiVo programs. Tomorrow's a new day!

Let's hope tomorrow brings more showings and potential offers. I really don't want the house to be on the market that long. It's stressful keeping it this clean. :D

Clean and Simple 2 is HERE! So is Tracy White's Photography book!

I just called my scrapbook store and they both just arrived in the store. My copies are set aside and I'll have them in my hot little hands by 6 p.m. this evening. :)

Nothing like a double whammy of idea books to get the juices stirred up for scrapbooking. I'm headed to an old favorite scrap store tonight, haven't been there in a while.

UPDATE!

I can now officially let everyone know that I lost the election I was in. I was one of 5 candidates, and only 2 could win, so 2 other folks are disappointed too. I wasn't in last place, but by such a slim margin (2 votes), I consider it a tie.

I appreciate everyone's support. I had a day or two to "mourn" and now I'm moving on. I will still be attending my conference and it will show more than words can say that I'm still committed to be a leader in my profession to show up when I've lost. No hiding my head in the sand.

I haven't decided if I want to run next year or take a breather. It has been brought to my attention that as silly as it may seem, I may just be too young (less than 10 years in the organization, just less than 10 years in the profession) to be elected.

Whew! The house is on the market, officially!

Entered this morning, already showing up on the MLS websites and everything. My agent just has to make one fix - she put the 2004 property taxes (the land didn't have a house, much lower) instead of the 2005 taxes (house on land, much higher). Apparently the database didn't show 2005, but we have records to show what we paid.

In other news, the election results have still not been made official, so I still can't say anything publicly. ARGH! Get the official email out already! Better yet, get it up on the official website. :)

Wish us good luck for a speedy house sale. I really hate having to keep my house looking like a show home. :)

Just had to post this review of the Queen concert before I head to bed.

OMG!

I just saw Queen (with Paul Rodgers) in concert. They ROCKED! I knew our seats were good, but I didn't realize how good they were...I was 20 feet from the stage, and probably 30 feet from Brian May at any given time (unless he was on the walkways).

My ears are still ringing. I *might* be able to hear again in the morning.

They even did Bohemian Rhapsody, by having a big screen behind them with Freddie Mercury in concert footage doing the song - that was spectacular!

Wow! I can honestly say that the ticket price was worth it, staying up past my bedtime was worth it (we're in bed by 10 p.m. Pacific, 5 a.m. comes early)...and the temporary hearing loss was worth it.

Off to bed now.....

WOOHOO!

We are attending the "Queen and Paul Rodgers" concert tonight. I'm so excited! We haven't been a concert since we saw Journey in September 2004. While we aren't on the floor, we are in very decent seats, the front row of our section, so we'll be far enough from speakers, but close enough to see the band.

I received the election results last night. Unfortunately, I cannot publicly reveal the results to any faithful blog readers until the results have been officially announced. While word seems to be trickling out here and there, nothing's final until the email is in my inbox.

Today's the day!

I am a candidate for an elected position in the professional organization that receives all my volunteer hours. I ran for the position of nominating committee. There were 5 candidates, and only 2 can be elected. Today's the day I find out if I was elected or not. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, as I ran in the same election last year (different position) and did not win. If it is anything like last year, if I am not elected, I will receive a call tomorrow. So if I don't get a call by this evening, I can probably assume I am not a winning candidate. That's how it worked last year.

If elected, I will step into my position at the upcoming conference in Las Vegas. I will still attend the conference even if I lose, as I am a presenter, but it would be nice to attend as an elected official. :)

Wish me luck!

In other news, the house is almost ready! We removed the showerhead extension and reinstalled the original showerhead (the original one assumes that both of us are MUCH taller than we are), steam cleaned the carpet in the front area, donated a truckload of stuff to the Salvation Army, and got closer to "stage" clean. What's left to do? Vacuum all carpets, clear the hall closet so it doesn't look so cluttered, wipe down the bathtub and shower surfaces, pick up clothes in the master bedroom closet, and make sure the kitty litter boxes are not overflowing.

On Saturday, I accomplished quite a bit. I did (11) 11x8.5 layouts, and one 2 page 12x12 layout (minus journaling). The 12x12 was for my best friend, pictures of her daughter's face over the years. The other 11 pages were for a "conference" album I'm going to take with me to Las Vegas. I am thinking I could also add pages for 2004 and 2003 in time for the conference.

Here are a couple of layouts I did for the digital design team at Treasures to Scrap. Valerie Fowler (ValGal) is the digital sponsor for April.

This one was done using Valerie's "Trying 2B Girly" kit, and the staples from her "Rustic Craft" kit.



This was one done using Valerie's "Days of Eden" kit.

WOOHOO! Happy Friday!

Tonight, my husband and I are heading over to a friend's house for a barbecue. Informal, casual, just getting together to catch up on each other's lives....kinda nice to have a kickback time in the midst of all the house madness.

We drove by our lot again yesterday. Nope, nothing has changed. :) Construction isn't even scheduled to start until at least June, but it's nice to drive around and point out our lot marker. Some of our friends have driven by to take a look.

Tomorrow, I'm going paper scrapping with my best friend. Don't know what time we're going, but we'll be scrapping for at least six hours. Guess I better upload some pictures to Costco so I have something to scrap! :)

On Sunday, we'll be fixing up all the little stuff in the house. The showerhead in the master bathroom, carpet cleaning all over, and painting any little spots that need a touchup.

The paperwork is signed!

Our house officially goes on the market next Thursday. It was supposed to be tomorrow, but the yard folks won't be done until next Wednesday. It will show better to potential buyers without all the weeds and with some fresh barkdust. :)

In the meantime, I can slow down a bit and recover from this infection I seemed to pick up. I thought it was a sinus infection at first, but I think it has something to do with my mouth (the gums). I did have dental work done last week, so it is the first possibility to explore. I see the dentist tomorrow at 10:30. Let's hope it's a gum infection and not strep throat, which someone brought up at work today. I've never had strep, so I wouldn't know it if I did.

The scrapbook room is no more. Pretty much all I've got left is a computer desk w/hutch, a bookcase, and three stacked cubes. And my XXL tote...that's supposed to last me until we get into an apartment, which is after we have an accepted offer.

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days!

Been busy trying to get the house packed and 'staged' and cleaned.

Tomorrow we sign the paperwork to put the house on the market for Thursday.

Wish us luck that it sells fast (priced right, good location, great view)... :)

A friend is doing a fundraiser, so I said I'd post her eBay auction on my blog. Take a look, it's for a good cause:

Two Front Teeth

Should I be worried that I'm now up to 17 boxes for the scrapbooking room? :) Granted, 5 of those are very small (12x12x12) boxes, but it just makes you wonder. The rest are Uhaul small boxes though - it's much easier to carry those boxes full of paper and stuff if they aren't in a large, overloaded box.

Getting rid of three tall 5-shelf bookcases, and we are taking down the 6' foot tables that line one of the walls. We actually want people to see that the room is big, and not cluttered with all my collected stuff. :)

Still haven't found a storage facility, so I guess the house goes on the market next week with all of our boxes in the garage.

Just keep packing, just keep packing...packing, packing, packing.....

Not only are we packing, we are sorting and purging too. Given the constraints of the garage in our new home, we have to. You actually *gasp* have to be able to park both vehicles in the garage! Heck, we've parked one car in the garage ONE time in the last 7 years. Big change for us, but at least it's helping us "weed" out the stuff we no longer need. My dad took one entire truck load on Sunday for the home he's remodeling, we took a truck load to Salvation Army, and we are still sorting and purging. I even have a pile for Dress for Success, dockers, jackets, etcetera.

We looked at an apartment complex yesterday. It was the only one in this area that I could find that actually allows you to have 3 pets, and we made sure that the words mean that 3 cats are okay. The apartment sure is small (1000 sq ft) compared to our current home (2300 sq ft), so it's going to take some getting used to once we move. They even offered (for an extra monthly fee) to furnish the apartment...which we might just do, since we have a king size bed...and the bedrooms are not king-size rooms. :) We're trying to think of it like an extended hotel stay.

Well, today we signed the papers for our house. The current house goes on the market next Thursday. We viewed an apartment complex today that will allow us to have our three cats. The two bedroom apartment is pretty small compared to this house, so we'll really have to condense and store A LOT of stuff.

Here's the two of us, standing behind our lot marker at the new house. I'll keep the pictures updated, especially as construction starts. :)

One of my favorites memories of my grandparents has to do with Sunday. When we lived back on the East Coast (or visited during the summers), we'd go to church every Sunday. When we got back home, there would be some time to change clothes and maybe play, before it was time for Sunday dinner. We'd have what *we* called Sunday potatoes (aka scalloped potatoes or funeral potatotes), cinnamon rolls, roast beef, and some vegetable. Just thinking about it brings back the smells of the food, the sounds of children running around, and visions of my grandparents' house. Boy, life has changed since then. My grandparents no longer live in the house my grandfather built after his retirement, my grandfather has passed away, and my grandmother no longer cooks for a horde of folks come Sunday afternoon.

One of the decisions we made when I got this new job was that we need to sell our current house and move closer (the commute is currently 45 minutes in good traffic, 1/3 of the trip on a curvy switchback one lane each direction road).

So, we've been looking for houses on the weekends and packing up to move so we can stage our house.

One of the places we saw was a development about 15 minutes away. But it had a LONG priority waiting list - we were #80 on the list! About every 2-3 weeks, they "release" homes. Today, they had a release at 9 a.m. - and it's not based on when you show up, but where you are on the waiting list among the people who show up.

There were 8 homes to be released today. Out of those 8, we liked the site/lot/floorplan of 4, so we had a good chance, IF the crowd was small. Well, the crowd was small (6 couples) but we were couple #5. Our 3rd and 4th choice houses went right away with the first two couples. 3rd couple took our 2nd choice house. And luck of all luck, the 4th couple decided to do one of the other 4 houses, leaving us our first choice house! Woohoo!

Never in a million years did we think that we'd get our house being that far down the priority list. And the 6th couple (they were #86) got what they wanted too....fortunately, these are all of future neighbors, so it's nice we got to meet today. We wouldn't have had a chance if it hadn't been the start of spring break here...I think most folks were out of town.

Now, we just need to finish getting our house packed up and on the market!

Time sure flies fast when you are having fun! :)

Friday night, we had a lovely steak and baked potato dinner with our friends.

Early Saturday morning, I woke my scrapping buddies up at the crack of dawn to get our butts to the Oregon Convention Center by 8 a.m., since our classes started at 8:30 and we needed to pick up tickets and all that jazz. When we were almost there, I realized I forgot my entry for the SS layout contest - what a bummer! :( I entered the Epson digital contest, and still don't know who won. Epson announced the results a day late at the Saturday night crop, which I did not attend because I was at the 2peas Pubster dinner at BJ's....and then I dragged my friends home so we could crash from all the excitement and shopping.

Speaking of shopping...yes I did buy stuff... :) Technique Tuesday stamps, Basic Grey papers, and some Rusty Pickle items.

On Sunday, we slept in, then headed to breakfast. Once we safely got our friends over the Pass, we headed house hunting. We had also decided to put ourselves on the priority waiting list for a home site near my new job. We filled out their paperwork and left to look at other places. Frankly, other than one other development, nothing we saw was worth the prices the builders were asking. Yes, I know the housing bubble has yet to burst here, but I wish it would...the prices are getting ridiculous.

The good news is that the home site is doing a "release" of 8 sites on Saturday. It being Spring Break, there may not be a lot of folks showing up to see if they can get one...at least, that's what we are hoping, since we are #80 on the list! :) Say 10 people show up....not only would 2 people have to "waive" picking the lots, the lots left would have to be something we'd want. We'd be satisfied with any one of 4 of the 8 lots - 2 houses each of 2 plans...the other 2 plans are just not the right flow/plan. Wish us luck! We're giving up attending breakfast with friends to go, so hopefully it's worth it!