My entire family is insane.

July 1, 2021 – Photo

I just have to ask, how is it July already? The year is officially half over and if the second half even slightly resembles the first half, I’m in real trouble! Today, while our house was being shown, we revisited the spot where I took this photo. Of course, this time the experience was much less pleasant as it was 111 degrees outside and absolutely miserable. Within 5 minutes, I was sweating buckets! On that particular day (approximately two months ago) when I snapped the photos of the geese and goslings, I couldn’t have ordered better weather. Mid-seventies with a slight breeze, I’ll take any day over a heatwave!

June 30, 2021 – The not-so-little black stove.

I have a story to tell about a ‘not-so-little black stove’ that has resided in our home nearly as long as we have. This is not a tall tale, to be sure; however, it’s a rather long tale, as that stove has been in our lives for nearly 7 years without ever reaching its full potential. I happened to purchase it before we even moved into our home, long before we even closed on the property, as the existing kitchen appliances were an assortment of colors and brands and all on the cheap side (I’d never heard of a Kirkland/Costco brand of refrigerator before). Once we finally closed on the house and could call it ours, I wanted to have (at the very least) a matching set of quality appliances that would look nice and stand the test of time. And since I have a tendency to over-prepare, immediately after we put in our offer on the house and it was accepted, I ordered a brand new set of matching (black) kitchen appliances from Sears (with the delivery date coinciding with the ‘anticipated’ closing date of the house).

June 29, 2021 – Photo

I included a photo of a marmot a while back but this one is from a completely different perspective. While out on a hike, I noticed one sticking its nose out of the end of a pipe. As I got closer, it retreated into the pipe and proceeded to make a lot of noisy ‘chirps’ to alert the others in the vicinity. I tried to wait for it to come out so I could take a picture, but it refused to budge. Since it wouldn’t come out of the pipe, I got creative and stuck the lens of the camera into the pipe and took a couple of shots. This photo was the result. I don’t think the marmot was too pleased with me.

June 28, 2021 – Reasonable Doubt

Boy, I’m not sure what’s going on with my husband but his enthusiasm to move seems to be waning rapidly. We were so gung ho at first, running around like maniacs, trying to complete a bunch of stalled projects from the past several years. And now that nearly everything is done, we are sitting in this weird ‘space’, questioning the point of it all. I still feel pretty confident about our decision but my husband appears to be plagued with doubt. “What if the house doesn’t sell?” he keeps asking me, “What then?” To which I respond, “Then we stay.” The thing is, our house has only been on the market for two days. Two days isn’t much. What is worrying is that there was so much hype about how ‘hot’ the market was and how houses were ‘selling like hotcakes’ and how everyone (we’ve spoken to) was certain that our house would sell in no time and more than likely get bid up way beyond the asking price. That all sounds great but that’s not the current reality.

June 27, 2021 – Photo

Well, it appears it won’t be long before we’ll be leaving. We had our first showing today and another is scheduled for tomorrow. When I think about what I’ll miss the most once I’ve packed my last bag and loaded up the car, it is the abundance of nature and beauty here. No matter which direction I turn, there is beauty to be had. Of course, there is still the possibility that we won’t be leaving because even though the house had a showing, it doesn’t guarantee an offer. I guess if we don’t get any offers, we’ll be sticking around a little bit longer. If we have to stay longer than expected, I must admit that this isn’t such a bad place to get ‘stuck’.

June 26, 2021 – In the nick of time.

Someone must be looking out for me because the timing of everything taking place couldn’t be more perfect. For the last two weeks, my husband and I have been preparing our house to get it ready to go on the market, and it officially listed today. But it’s what happened yesterday that’s much more newsworthy and it involves a family member, my sister Cactus Annie, to be specific. Two separate times, she tried to reach me by phone yesterday. Neither time I answered because I was busily working on the house and didn’t have time to talk. When I finally got an opportunity to listen to her long-winded messages, she sounded very excited. She had ‘big news’ and wanted to share it with me. My friends, she had big news, indeed! But not the kind of news I wanted to hear! From her perspective it was ‘good’, and from my perspective it was ‘terrible’. Frightening, actually.

June 25, 2021 – Photo

Alright, my friends, I’m pulling another photo out of the vault because I’ve had no time for much other than working on the house and getting it ready to put on the market. This photo I took in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. My husband was driving while I was sat in the passenger seat and took photos. When I initially saw this ‘arch of antlers’, I was mortified. I thought they were removed from elk (like trophies) when they were hunted and killed. I was wrong, apparently. It’s a very normal thing for male elk to shed their antlers. In fact, according to ‘Google’, they do it every year during March or April (when their testosterone levels are at their lowest).

June 24, 2021 – All bark and no bite.

If you had told me that once we made the decision to move, that we would have our home listed in just over 2 weeks, I would have told you to get your head examined. Knowing what needed to be done in order to get it ready to put on the market, 6 months rather than 2 weeks seems like a much more reasonable timeline. “We can even wait until next spring,” my husband suggested, “That should give us sufficient time to complete all of our projects.” Ha! Six months?! Apparently, as much as I lament my slow speed these days, I do have the ability to get some serious work done in a timely manner when it counts. Now, that’s not to say that my physical well being isn’t negatively impacted from putting in so many long days. I’m basically a walking zombie. I’ve been staying up until four and five o’clock in the morning and waking up at eight or nine in order to ensure everything on my ‘to do’ list gets checked off. I’ve just kept moving and hoping that once the photographer arrived to take photos of our home, everything would be done.

June 23, 2021 – Photo

I’m pulling something out of ‘the vault’ today because since we decided to sell our home, I haven’t had a chance to use my camera (other than to take pictures of junk I want to get rid of on Craigslist). Anyway, while attending photography class (ten years ago?), our instructor asked us to do a study of ovals and circles. This image was something I ‘dreamed up’ after I discovered taking pictures of eggs, pennies, and oranges wasn’t terribly stimulating.

June 22, 2021 – Assemble first, read instructions later.

First of all, I’d like to make an observation. What is it about wet paint that is so enticing to winged insects? Are they all on a suicide mission or what? Just once, I’d like to paint something outside and not have to pick a bunch of dead bugs off the surface afterward. Today, I painted nearly every door in my house and I am dog tired. I promised the realtor we signed with that I would and I don’t like going back on my promises. We had ‘doors of every color’ and needed some consistency. There were white doors and stained doors as well as cream, yellow, turquoise, and gray doors. If I only had to paint the cream, yellow, turquoise, and gray doors, it wouldn’t have been such an undertaking. But I had to do the white ones also because they looked terrible (the paint had been applied with a roller previously and most of the surfaces were rough and uneven). Cue the paint sprayer!