MORNING: Oh God, it's Monday. Back to work, back to productivity, back to the grindstone. I took a 2.5 hour nap yesterday... you can bet that won't be happening again for a looooooong time. 

I am pulling out of the Wisconsin Dells Aquabike. I'd rather just save the money and go be a cheerleader for Chris. 400 M of flailing swimming yesterday was more than enough for me. I simply haven't done the swim training to give me an "acceptable" swim. I can ride the course, that's not going to be an issue, but I will flop and flail in the water and that will make me sad. Maybe I'll allocate the $250 + USAT fee + processing fee toward something nice for the new house. Or maybe for ME! 

ADDITIONALLY, if I sign up now for the race, there's no guarantee that I even get a finishers shirt! Not that I need another shirt... but if I'm shelling out $250, I'd like to at least have something to show for it. How about a $250 tech tee to commemorate a lousy swim and an uphill bike ride... that you may or may not get due to when you signed up.... No. I think I'll just skip it. 

1:24 PM: Couple of things... we have a showing today. I hope the people actually keep the appointment and show up. And... I'm absolutely buried at work. Like I don't know which end is up. I don't know. I can't prioritize because everything needs to be a priority. I eat lunch at my desk. I barely have time to pee. So many processes and procedures. Why must everything be convoluted and include 86 steps and a flow chart? I have simple tasks that need to get accomplished that involve a degree of difficulty that would impress even the stingiest of Olympic gymnastics judges. Everything around here has a starting points value of 17. It gives me an ulcer.

MAP!

Up, around the lake, back down, over to the gas station in Hebron, back Rosefarm Road, then a little out and back near Union to give us some more miles... 

Photo Flipper... I bring you... COLLEGE:

Me, my dumpster shorts (they have nothing to do with our DUMPSTER, no... these were shorts I fashioned out of a pair of jeans I literally found in a dumpster behind a fraternity house in college.) I cleverly (and craftily... not to mention frugally!) chopped them off with jagged fashion forward edges, and wore them proudly with my rastafarian belt and friendship bracelet. Also of note are my K-Swiss gym shoes and Ralph Lauren scrunchy socks. Oh yes. I was a force with which to be RECKONED! I used to wonder why I had no boyfriend. Now I know. It seems fairly clear, in fact.

Digging the MINISTRY poster as well... and what appears to be an inflatable... something... to the right of Whitney.

10:49 AM: Well, I had a showing scheduled for today, but it canceled. The Broker Tour was useful, I suppose... I guess it was better than NOT having a broker tour. The realtor mentioned that 2 neighbors came through the broker tour. REALLY? That sort of creeps me out.

The Palace has been on the market for 1 week and 3 days and we've not had a single showing. Feedback from the Broker Tour was... pretty much non existent. Happy for the GBO, waiting for the appraisals to come in, and waiting to see what the new list price will be.

In non REAL ESTATE news: I took a rest day yesterday. I had to catch up at work. Worked from 8:30-7 or so. Just so much to do. I know I say that all the time. It's a taper week for the race on Sunday, right? Isn't it?

3:13 PM: So.... I've been thinking about things, speficially wondering why I am so BOTHERED by the fact that no one has asked for an official showing of my house yet... and I've determined that I'm taking this all way too personally. Not on purpose, necessarily, but I'm definitely taking it personally. And that's just crazy. And irrational. I can't take this personally. Everyone has different tastes and preferences and wants and needs and wishes for their home. I can't FORCE anyone else to specifically like what I've put together for myself. (No matter how much I'd want to!)  

That doesn't mean that I find the Palace to be any less fantastic than I always thought it was. *I* love it. And as far as I'm concerned, people should be lined up outside standing on the front porch banging on the door clamoring to get a glimpse of what COULD be theirs for my very low and absolutely reasonable asking price. But, that's not how life works.

I loved the place when I saw it. Someone else will love it when they see it as well, I hope. It's not that they don't love ME. It's just my house. Just things. Must maintain a shred of rationality.

August 1 this year is both WEDDING WEDNESDAY *and* Rachael's actual birthday... so I have combined the two into WeddingsRachaelWednesday!

Her wedding 10/13/1995.

And mine. 4/15/2012.

9:10 AM: Apparently we had a fairly violent thunderstorm last night. I had no idea because I slept straight through it. Woke up this morning and walked outside to water the plants and found them already watered. I was like WHAT? Then I looked around and saw a giant tree branch down a couple of doors over, and some leaves and debris scattered around the neighborhood. News of the storm was all over the radio news this morning... it was supposedly quite loud and crazy. I find it mildly distressing that I didn't hear ANY of it. I could ((LITERALLY)) sleep through a marching band. I suppose that's good in some respects... but it probably makes me a fantastic midnight robbery target.

At any rate, while I was knocked out cold last night, I had dreams... about home showings, home inspections, realtors coming into the home... etc etc. The most vivid scenes I remember are of me in my old condo... it had a gravel floor in my dream and I knew that wasn't going to go over very well with a buyer... so I opened all of the windows to let in a bunch of natural sunlight (I just heard that the other day on the NATE BERKUS show) and I hoped that would distract the buyers from the gravel floor, which was actually buckling concrete. I will say, the windows were fantastic in my dream... they were full length windows and were on the E side of the condo AND the N side of the condo. They let in a lot of light. This was not the case in reality, though. I recall the stress level in my dream as being off the charts HIGH... and I also recall reminding myself over and over again that someone already bought this condo and I didn't have to be concerned about selling it anymore. (For the record, that condo was sold in 2000 or 2001!)

Then, fast forward to the present... and I find myself in the Palace... after a "showing". The walls have been rearranged (by the realtor, presumably) so that when you walk through the door and go into the kitchen, there's a half wall there, and it's awkward to get around. It's blocking the kitchen and you have to sort of suck in your stomach and stick your leg through a gap to get around it. Also, EVERYTHING from all of our kitchen cabinets has been taken out (by the realtor? by a potential buyer?) and left on the countertops. I was so angry! I remember thinking "We didn't go through anyone's cabinets when we were looking at houses! We didn't take people's stuff out of their cabinets! Why did someone do this? Now I have to put all this shit away!" Stress and frustration level fairly high in this dream as well.

Much of this mental anxiety (?) stems from the fact that we are having our "broker tour" today and I'm really hopeful that some broker sees the place and gets excited about it. I'm also looking for some feedback on the place and I'm hoping we get it today. None of this is within my control, and I think that's what frustrates me the most. All I can do at this point is make sure the Palace sparkles like a fcuking diamond. The market is pretty competitive, but from what we saw, it didn't appear as though most of the sellers gave a crap about how their home actually looked. I do. I care. And I want whoever walks through the door to know I care and to know that I'm serious about selling this place.... even at a HUGE loss.

I suppose it doesn't *REALLY* matter, because of the guaranteed buy out... but there is a (teeny tiny) bonus for selling it outright (and not selling it to SF) and 9x out of 10 you will get slightly more if you sell it outright than if you go through the GBO process. We need every penny we can get, so please cross your fingers and toes. The Palace is awesome. It just needs the RIGHT person... someone that doesn't mind living in the middle of nofcukingwhere, and someone who doesn't mind a bit of a commute to work. *sigh*

It's no wonder I slept through the storm. I was very busy in my dreams last night. VERY BUSY.

In honor of my first condo, and in honor (?) of last night's dream nightmare, AND in honor of Rachael's 42nd birthday,  I give you this photo:



Rachael and me, in the aforementioned condo, celebrating her 24th birthday. She is 2 weeks to the day older than me. I signed my first mortgage at age 23. Loving that plastic table. 

Small digs, they were, but they were ALL MINE. The kitchen featured some horrible wallpaper. And on this very evening, we found strange bugs in the cabinets. I'd never seen bugs like these before....We called Rachael's Mom and described them to her, and were informed that by her best guess, my new home was infested with roaches.  

Called an exterminator the next day and indeed, I was sharing my cozy new abode with hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of roaches. *gag*.

I don't recall having a home inspection on this place. I literally had no idea what I was doing. I just figured that buying was going to be a better deal than renting an apartment.

Back in the early 1990's... that was still true.