Testing T

T’s department uses competitive testing for promotions. T has been studying like crazy (in between bouts of crazy procrastination) for the tests this week. He sat for three exams in three different departments within his organization.

Regardless of how the tests turn out, it looks like we will be moving. T loves the guys he works with, but a combination of other stuff including but not limited to the six hour drive to the ranch is motivating him to seek other opportunities (again, within his current organization). So we will be moving. At the worst time of year to sell a house and in a giant recession. Blah.

I am kept awake nights making mental lists of all the (millions of) things that need to be done to get our house ready for the market. Our realtor is going to come do a walk-through to tell us what she thinks needs to be done. I know we will need to decrapify the house, especially the closets. I know that the way you keep your house to sell it is not the same as how you live in it – something of which I need to convince my husband.

I’m sure there is a ton of junk we can get rid of, but what do we do with the stuff we want to keep? Small Town isn’t large enough to have one of those mobile storage companies, so I envision this white-trash caravan across the state with our stuff flying out of boxes on trailers and in the back of pick-up trucks as we haul our sorry possessions to the ranch for storage in the rodent hotel barn. Oh, boy! Mouse turds! In my stuff!

Then there are all of the mostly finished home decorating projects around the house. I am really good at the planning of home improvements, but here in the land of half-ass they are never really 100% complete. For example, there are two wicked ugly seams in the kitchen wallpaper, drips of scarlet where the paint seeped under the tape onto the cream colored wainscot in the dining room, drips of primer on the vinyl floor of the kids’ bathroom, caulking that wasn’t done adequately by the contractor was certainly not corrected by me.

The most daunting of all, perhaps, is the landscaping. T declared flower beds to be my domain when we moved into this house and I agreed. Then about ten minutes later I was pregnant and I have never found time for them again. They are at best overgrown and at worst, weedy and/or barren. T finished a retaining wall that could be likened to the Great Wall of China behind the pit of despair (aka: our in-ground pool) this summer. He left a trail of dead bushes and mangled liriope in his wake. The bed needs a truckload of top soil and compost. T knows a guy, but has been too (legitimately) busy with other things to take care of it. Now, here it is fall, and even in Texas winter is not really a growing season. And again I say blah.

I know it will all work out in the end. Things always do. Being closer to the ranch will make life more pleasant for everyone, or more exactly, it will make T happier and that will make me happier. Looking for houses is fun, once you get past the trauma of selling the one you already have. I will get to plan/shoddily implement new home improvements! What an adventure!