Assistant to the Castle

~ JodiLea

House For Sale

I used to be The Woman of the House. Now I am The Houses Woman  Slave.

My new morning routine is to coffee up, tidy the kitchen, hide things, and try to get some work done on my sister’s memorial before the phone starts ringing.

Our house is quite popular. I schedule showings for agents and their clients all day long. We have had a few good nibbles, but no offers we couldn’t refuse. All we want is our listed price and a buyer with a pre-approved loan. We think that’s reasonable.

Our agent is surprised that we have so many showings during the week. We are damn lucky, because we can’t show the house this Saturday. It would just be too tacky to give tours of the house during a memorial service. Wouldn’t it?

Chaos will begin tomorrow evening when my beloved girls &  favorite son-in-law arrive. There will be musical beds, hidden toys to be found, and plenty of hugs & giggling. The reason for our gathering, and the person missing from it, will add an undertone of sadness, that, shared by many will be a lighter burden. Which is why we have these things, I suppose. And along those lines, I must bid you adieu and get back to work.

TTFN

A Death in the Family

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

Normally I write about frivolous things with smart-ass humor, or climb up on my soap box and rant good and loud. This post is different.

My sister Melanie and I said good-bye to our terminally ill mother last spring. We leaned on one another during the months we took care of her, and then as we carried out her last wishes. We had lost our father in 1993 and now it was just the two of us. Being “the writer” of the family it fell to me to write mom’s obituary. It had to be perfect. I struggled for 3 days on the thing until I couldn’t find anything more to re-write. That and I had the thing memorized.

If you have ever had the misfortune to write one, I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.  How do you sum up somebody’s entire life? Especially someone you have known and loved your whole life. Writing a stranger’s obituary would be so much easier. Just the facts. No memories. No emotions.

Last month I got a phone call – Melanie died. WTF??  How could she just die in her sleep like that? She’s my younger sister. The second shock was the cause of her death. The coroner explained to me that Mel was healthy – except she had advanced stages of coronary artery disease. Her arteries were so blocked that her poor heart simply gave out. I can almost hear my mom holler, “Well, SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”.  Mom always did get to the point.

So, here I sit sweating over another obituary. Mel’s memorial will be on the 16th, and tonight is my self-inflicted deadline. At 10:08 PM (PDT) I stopped fussing with the copy, closed my eyes and sent my sister’s obit and photo to our local newspaper, and a Bay Area newspaper. Maybe some of her former classmates/co-workers/buddies will see it and drop by.

I hope so – Mel deserves that.

Take My House… PLEASE!

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

House For Sale

Before hubby and I can move to our dream house, we have to get rid of the one we are living in. Paying 2 mortgages has been interesting with both of us toiling at our full-time (and then some)  jobs, but we are really sick of this and want to retire. But retiring means living on less than 1/2 our income, so we can’t –  until we have paid our last payment (into escrow) for this house.

In the meantime our brand new home in the mountains, sits and waits. It’s waiting a lot more patiently than we are. Nerves are bent and frayed. Bodies aching. Some of us (not yours truly, but the other one) are getting more and more grumpy. Some of the pressure lifted yesterday, since we finished up the work that had to be done before we could officially get the house on the market.  Strangers could be walking through my house this very minute!

The house looks fabulous. It never looked this good before. Probably because there’s no trace of people living in it. Nothing sitting on counters. No dishes drying in the kitchen. Fridge is totally naked of magnets, pictures, appointment cards. The simplest task is a pain now – you have to find where you hid the crap you need to do it. To add a doctor’s appointment to our family calendar, one has to look for the calendar. The chances of a writing utensil close by is slim. These items used to hang by the phone in the kitchen. Now they are hidden away inside a cleared out drawer in the dining room china cabinet. Annoyingly inconvenient.

Naked Counter Tops

God help you if you need a tissue. No boxes of tissues are allowed to be on any counter – even bathroom counters can’t have tissues. Bathrooms, BTW, cannot have any personal items in view. “It just isn’t done” our agent told us, and we believe her. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, soap, lotions are big no-nos. Toilet paper was not mentioned and frankly, I was afraid to ask. Some very grumpy someone would not tolerate hidden TP, I can guarantee you.

When I get home,  it feels like I’m walking into an empty house. Where’s our stuff? OMG! We’ve been robbed!  I am secretly, absolutely, loving the fact that hubby isn’t piling his stuff on the dining table and the kitchen counters anymore. He actually puts it away! I have spent 24 years of complaining about his “piles”, and suddenly they disappear.   Apparently, that is how much power Natalie, our real estate agent, has.  Impressive.

Empty Kitchen

To Be Continued…