it's been awhile

Hey there... I haven't stopped by here in quite some time.  We have been busy with out of town trips and out of town visitors and there have been many decisions made and things are moving right along in this little life of ours.

I started going to see a counselor two weeks ago and if you haven't ever tried it, I'd highly recommend it.  Most of the hour involves me sitting there and telling her everything, and since she doesn't know me, I often have to start at the beginning.  As I'm talking and telling someone who is unbiased all about my life and the things that make me sad and happy, I often come to realizations about myself on my own.  I realized that I used to do the very same thing by either driving over to her house or just calling my Grandmother.  There is something to be said about telling someone all of the thoughts that are rolling around in your head so you can actually process them instead of dwelling on them.  It has added another "thing" to do in my week, but I don't mind juggling other things to make it work.

Speaking of big "things" to do, I did sign up for and get accepted into a yoga teacher training program.  My classes officially start on June 8th, but I can start counting all of the yoga classes that I'm taking now as part of my required hours for the program.  I've been trying to go at least 4 times a week.  Adam goes to at least one class a week with me and sometimes he's been going on his own.  He's lost some weight and looks great.  I haven't lost a stinkin' pound but I can do regular push up in my TRX class without using knees or feeling like I might die so that is something!  I do get nervous about the class, feeling like maybe I won't be good enough but then when I'm in the studio and having a particularly good practice (which happens almost all the time these days), I remember that this is what I feel really comfortable doing.  Since I started telling people that I'm doing this program, I've already heard about some teaching opportunities.  I am excited to start classes and get that certification!

In therapy, one of the things I realized that we've been doing (A LOT!) and that makes me feel depressed is taking things we'd like to do and saying "oh we'll do that when we move to Texas".  Stuff such as getting a dog.  I've wanted to get a dog together since we first started dating (and I almost had Adam convinced then!) and we have been putting it off and saying we'd do it when we move.  We also have been saying that about getting a car, buying things, bringing our wedding presents that were given to us in Texas to Chicago, etc.  Obviously, we have to sell the condo first (more on that later) but we do plan to take the money we'll save by renting toward a dog and buying a car.  I feel like that will help us feel a lot more set up before we make our big move, whenever that may be and hopefully help decrease the sense of urgency we both feel all the time.  At this point, I am realistically expecting that we'll be here another winter.  We also made a commitment to each other that if we reach a certain point (quite some time in the future, not anytime soon) that we'll just move to Texas and get whatever jobs we can to stay afloat while Adam looks for something in his field.  I think that having the Chicago address hurts his chances sometimes because companies don't want to deal with our relocation and from all I have heard there are plenty of qualified candidates looking for jobs that already live in the state.

As far as the condo goes, I wish I had better news.  We are going to drop our price this week to what we think is a more "sellable" number.  It unfortunately involves Adam and I most likely bringing money to the table at closing.  However, we just want to be done with this condo and start paying the money back that we owe on it and move on with our lives.  I look at this place as a huge sore spot in my unhappiness here because, whether it is or not, I see it as what holds us back.  I will be happy to pay much smaller rent amounts in the future.  It's going to be awhile before I feel like I'm ready to get back into the real estate market.  I am hoping and praying that dropping our price is going to make a sale a more realistic possibility.  I'd love to put this chapter of our lives behind us and work on the debt we'll incur from living here.

That's pretty much all that is going on around here.  Our days go by so fast when you factor in that we have something going on almost every night after work, whether it's yoga or another work out, book club (me), Bulls games (Adam), therapy appointments, etc.  I can't believe I only have two and a half weeks until yoga school starts!

feeling thankful

We FINALLY have two showings on the condo today after 2.5 long weeks of nothing!  I'm so thankful that I had the foresight and hopefulness to do a pretty nice cleaning of the place on Thursday afternoon/night.

Even if nothing comes from either showing as far as offers, I am thankful because this will provide us and our realtor with real live feedback and we'll know if we have any changes to make.

My fingers are crossed!  This is such a big step in the right direction.  Prayers are being answered.

we got the a-ok

Yesterday I was living in paint hell.  This month has been the longest and most stressful month of my life.  I'm sure probably some (or most) of the stress has been self-inflicted from watching too many hours of HGTV and being horrified of the staging/going to market process for the last couple of years.  I've been dreading these moments from the second I moved into the condo, almost two years ago, and realized that Adam and I living here would not be a long-term arrangement.

Staging has been SUCH HARD WORK!  We got a to-do list a mile long from our realtor when we met at the beginning of the month.  We've had three weekends to take care of all of it, because let's face it, who wants to do anything after a work day other than normal household chores?  Not us.

The first weekend we started the packing process of our stuff, which sucked.  I felt like the entire house was torn apart.  We cleaned up the couch and other furniture that we were selling/giving away.  I packed a ton of stuff in big trash bags for the trip to the Salvation Army.  We listed everything on Craigslist and hung close to home to be there when the weirdos who were buying our stuff came by.  We cleaned and cleaned until I was sure we'd been living in a pig sty of squalor this entire time.   Craigslisting bled over to the weekdays and I ended up finding a great deal on a storage unit.

Last weekend, we FINALLY got rid of the couch.  We took down and packed up all of our "personal" wall art and patched all the holes to prep for touch up paint.  We borrowed an SUV from friends and spent the day moving into storage, buying all the new furniture and making the aforementioned trip to Salvation Army.  The couch's "some assembly required" turned out to be more fun than we were expecting but the place changed before our eyes.  Sunday was spent organizing and cleaning up because we kept tearing the place apart every time we did anything.

Yesterday we started the "touch up paint" process, which can also be known as Jen's Personal Hell.  First of all, the condo is painted about 8 different shades of white (with the exception of the terrible blue paint job courtesy of me and Big Nance in the bedroom that also needed tons of touching up).  It was so hard to keep all of the different whites separated and making sure they ended up on the appropriate wall or surface.  It was all going fine (other than the fact that I felt like I was going to go blind from the sheer whiteness of it all) until I reached the kitchen/dining.  Ironically, the guy at the hardware store told Adam that the semi-gloss paints would be much easier to blend.  As I was painting, I kept looking at it and after about 20 minutes, I completely lost my mind because it wasn't the same color at all.  I have no idea if paint can fade or change colors over time but all I know is that it required us to completely rip apart the kitchen and paint the entire wall.  Not gonna lie, we totally half assed it because at that point, I was very close to needing to be admitted to the nearest mental hospital.  I hate painting and I really suck at it and all of our hard weekend work; time, effort and money we've put in; topped off by my lack of sleep this past month was just pushing me toward the ultimate breaking point.  It was not a good afternoon because the house was, once again, turned upside down when we moved all the furniture for the great painting project.  I don't do as well when I look around the place that I live and see complete and total disorganization (Mom, I know this is SO hard to believe because my room was a train wreck for most of my childhood, but I promise, I'm a reformed adult these days).

Our realtor popped by this morning to check the place over, as he'll be doing all the photos for our listing either tomorrow or Tuesday.  He was shocked and impressed by all the changes.  It felt so validating to know that all our hard work, sweat and my tears have been paid off and that we are in sellable and show condition.  Adam can probably elaborate on this more but I know we have both learned a lot of lessons through this process.  We've talked about doing many of the things we did for staging months ago and never got around to doing them.  The stress we've been under (at least the condo-related stuff) could have been mostly prevented if we'd only put more work into the place over time.  I know I'll be better prepared during the buying process during the next time and I'll probably have our next home in total staged condition before we start meeting with the realtor.  I knew about 95% of the things that we ended up doing well before that initial visit and I should have started on them before.

I feel relieved for a lot of reasons.  We'll know a great deal more about where we stand by this time next weekend.  This week is only going to be a four day weekend because we're going to San Antonio for the first time in three months on Thursday night.  I'm looking forward to the trip maybe as much as I looked forward to going to DisneyWorld when I was 11.  I can't wait for the very much needed R&R.

humble abode

Here are the updated pictures from staging the house thus far:  The paint needs touching up (pretty much everywhere).  Our bedroom is virtually the same but less cluttered because our realtor actually liked the blue color (yes!).  The kitchen has neutral towels that I'll hang for staging, not the maroon and orange you see in the picture.

Much less clutter, other than our red teakettle and coffee pot the kitchen is pretty clean.  And if you haven't been here, this is most of it, which is reason #1 for why I want to move.  I can't wait to have enough cabinets to store my things and enough counter space to cook a proper meal!  Note that there is another tragic floral "arrangement" on the shelves.  GROSS! 

The living room is where the most dramatic changes have occurred.  The orange couch is gone and this much smaller khaki one is in it's place.  The most fun thing about that chair is that it's a super comfy recliner.  The ottoman is also new and has storage space for our much needed blankets.  We also lost our mismatched window shades in favor of the sheer curtains.  Other than the obvious much more extra room because of the furniture, I could kick myself for not doing the windows sooner, it makes a world of difference in the room.

View from another angle.  We pushed the TV back and have the two GINORMOUS tower speakers now in storage.  Also in storage:  the Wii and the XBox, which allowed for far fewer wires and the entertainment unit to be pushed much further back into the wall. 

The lighting in the second bedroom was terrible this afternoon but you can get the gist.  This room used to be a catch all for most of the things we didn't use on a daily basis.  The "bed" is actually a futon that I put on risers and dressed up in this new neutral bedding.  We scooted the desk from another wall, where it didn't allow for easy flow into the bathroom and now the room serves as a bedroom/office.  I still use this room to get ready in every morning since I am up much earlier than Adam.  I love this room now, although, I can't lie to you and tell you I don't miss the bookcase.  That will be one of the first things I want to purchase again when we move.

So overall, you can kind of see from the below pictures that I posted of the things we got rid of on Craigslist just how much more "things" we had lurking around.  I wish I could say we decluttered everything but quite a bit of it is sitting in storage a mile from the condo.  Through this process, we did simplify our lives a great deal!  Adam is making our bed every day and I am forcing myself to leave the house each day and night as though we might have a showing coming up.  It's been difficult but good habits to be in since we have no idea how long the place could sit on the market.  It's also nice to come home to a rather immaculate house every day.  One of my pet peeves about this place is that there is very little storage space so we had big pieces from IKEA all over the place with just stuff in them.  Getting all of that out of here gives me hope for having a larger space in the future and being able to live a more organized life.

If we end up doing the kitchen backsplash this weekend as tentatively planned, I will definitely post pictures next week.

seeing the light

I promise I'll take pictures and post tomorrow but walking into our home today after being gone for the day was shocking.  It was like walking into a completely different environment.  We are about 90% done with our projects that need to be completed before the condo hits the market next Wednesday.  This weekend was a chaotic experience and we most of it packing tons of things we want to keep in boxes that were moved into a new storage unit, purging old items to go to Salvation Army (always my favorite part- simplifying), selling furniture, taking down personal pictures and wall art then patching walls, buying new furniture and completing the "some assembly required"process, cleaning upon cleaning and finally we had the place mostly ready to go just in time to enjoy some birthday cookie cake for a friend last night.

The changes are nothing short of amazing.  We look like we have double the space.  I've completely staged the second bedroom to appear as a bedroom/office instead of the giant catch-all for most of the crap we kept around.  Despite the fact that I am not normally wild about neutral colors, I am totally digging the vibe that we currently have going even though it sometimes appears hotel-like.  I walked in and felt at home in the space.  Any remnants of our single lives apart are mostly gone.  All of the major elements are things that we have chosen jointly and for some reason, that makes a huge difference to me.

The only thing that makes me feel really weird is that I usually made fun of people on HGTV when they do things like putting up floral arrangements for staging.  As of yesterday afternoon, I am the proud owner of two bud arrangements and a larger piece in the living room.  While perusing the fake flowers section of our local Michael's yesterday, aside from feeling like a tool for being in the fake flowers section, I was desperately wishing that I'd fought harder to get into the very-hard-to-get-a-seat-in floral arrangements class at A&M.

Don't laugh.  This was really my best effort.

the big "shot"

Like most humans, I seriously hate and dread getting shots at the doctor's office.  However, I don't know what is worse:  the actual getting of the shot or the fear and anticipation before the needle hits my skin.  Yesterday, I equated selling our condo to the idea of getting a really long shot.  Since we haven't gone to market yet, I am just in the dread and anticipation stage of feeling pretty crappy about it.

Yesterday we met with our second realtor of the week which will brought a little more clarity, and we have made the decision to go to market at the end of the month regardless of what else happens.  Without getting into specifics or numbers, Adam and I came to the decision that now is the time for us to sell and we can find an apartment wherever we end up (whether that also means here in Chicago or not).  The current market dictates that we will most likely sit on the market for a little bit of time.  To price aggressively to sell quickly would most likely mean a loss of a significant amount of money for us.  We'll have to be patient and wait for the right buyer to come along.  When we actually do go under contract, it's taking longer now for people (especially the first time buyer that will most likely be attracted to this condo) to get financing in place.  I don't think that is a bad thing, I'm actually happy to know that financing isn't as easy to obtain now, but in our situation we are prepared to have to wait on the details for a few months.

Staging our house is going to be a complicated process.  Most of our furniture is too big and won't show the condo well, so we are beginning the replacement process.  Other than the money it will cost us, I am OVERJOYED to get rid of the things that I was not around to pick out.  I am looking forward to living in a place that reflects a little more of my taste.  I think the smaller furniture will also serve us better in the future, no matter where we land.  We have a RATHER LONG to do list and about three weeks to tackle it before our target date to hit the market.  The hardest part is going to be packing up so many of the things we use on a regular basis to de-clutter the space and mask the fact that as a married couple we have completely outgrown the space.  The kitchen is going to be such a sad and lonely place without the vast majority of my tools but I eagerly await the payoff in the end when we move to a place with a kitchen I can get excited about cooking in!

The real estate market in Chicago is heavily dictated by the seasons and the optimal time is the end of March to list/buy a home.  I'm trying to be optimistic that there will be buyers that will fall in love with our place.

Since I forgot to take real "before" pictures of the house, pre-staging, I'll leave you with the pictures of the things that I posted on Craigslist that were items that have to go for us to be able to show better.

Our bookcase, which obviously is a SAD thing for me to give up.  Bye bye books, have fun at the U-Haul Storage Facility for many moons.

My personal piece-de-resistance.  AMEN that the orange couch is leaving us.  (I'm still sitting on it because everyone is low-ball offering us on CL and that makes me irritated, trust me, I listed it for several hundred bucks less than Adam wanted to because I am not color-blind and I realize that it is a grotesque orange couch of giant proportions.)

This made me sad when we sold it yesterday.  I LOVED this bench and storage solution but it really did take up a good deal of space in the living room.  We also listed the blue rug and orange rug below on CL's Free Stuff listings and holy moly the emails!  Both were gone in about an hour.  

We went out and about today and found a new couch at World Market and a really cute tiny recliner at Home Goods.  I really want to sell the orange couch before we actually purchase the chair at Home Goods so we'll find out in a few days hopefully if it was meant to be ours or not.  What an adventure this home selling process is!!