(It’s not) Rocket Science

I can’t quite decide if we are in the middle of the slowest mover ever or if it just feels that way because I have no real idea of when the actual move will happen. My husband moved to Atlanta in the end of February but we made the very conscious decision to delay selling our house until the spring/summer. I was swamped in the early spring and couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around doing all the things you need to do before putting a house on the market. Time seemed to move doubly fast once I did start getting the house ready though as I frantically tried to balance work, house prep, and life.

Now that the projects are done and the house is on the market though, I’m just waiting and time has slowed to a crawl again. We’re beginning to whittle down a list of the houses we might be interested in buying in Atlanta but with no contract on our home in Texas yet, we’re stuck in limbo. I thought that this stage of the process would be just as hectic and busy as the one preceding it, the getting ready phase. Aside from keeping our house especially clean though, it isn’t. So I wanted to blog about a list of the things that are currently surprising me.

Keeping the house super clean is easy when you’re the only one in it. Even our cats have been relocated and, while getting the house clean wasn’t easy, keeping it clean is pretty easy when there’s only one of me. It’s also improved my efficiency. I now prep meals only once a week for the whole week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) because cleaning the kitchen every day is a nightmare but cleaning it once a week is pretty reasonable. My week nights suddenly have a lot more free time in them since preparing dinner involves reheating whatever I made on Sunday (lasagna this week!!).

Having people come through your house is the weirdest thing ever. I know it’s a necessary part of selling a home but it’s uncomfortable and unsettling and I don’t have to like it. I have a backpack packed more or less 24/7 with everything that I won’t leave in the house while it’s being shown, which is probably an interesting snapshot of what I value most highly. My camera. My laptop. My research hard drives. My favorite jewelry (the rest is packed away and locked up). My planner. Of course, there are plenty of things in the house that I value deeply but don’t remover because I doubt the people coming through would value them the same way- stuffed animals, family photo albums, books. Maybe having people come through the house would be alright if it (apparently) didn’t involve rocket science.

I went into this process understanding that I might come home to lights or fans turned on, despite our requests that realtors turn them all off. Then one afternoon I came home after a showing to discover the house hadn’t been fully locked up. The first time I wrote off as an uncomfortable fluke. The second time I started to get concerned. Then a door was left open. Not unlocked. Open. I was (unsurprisingly) traveling out of state at the time so I took a deep breath and called our realtor who apologized profusely and promised to take care of it. Hours later, the showing realtor had come and gone again but the door still wasn’t closed. Very close to losing anything that may have once resembled cool or composure I called our next door neighbor, who dutifully traipsed over in the middle of the night to close up the house for us. Everything turned out okay and I vented my frustration to my Mom via text message. Is this rocket science?

She assures me it isn’t and I try to console myself with the idea that we’ll have less to move if everything gets stolen first. It’s also a powerful reminder to me to be the kind of person I wish we had coming through our home as we tour homes in Atlanta.