Friday, January 22, 2021

We cleaned out a room that had become a catch-all...

We cleaned out a room that had become a catch-all for the blankets, clothes, and other miscellaneous stuff we found in the other closets we had previously cleaned out.  When Shaun looked in there before we started his face dropped.  He said "It looks so daunting."  It really did, but we got it done.

For now I am relaxing - on purpose.  I'm about to play on my tablet for a while and just chill down.  I'm low-energy today and that's ok.  Shaun and I have been going hard on getting things done around here and rest is appropriate.  But I really need to make some time to water my plants soon; maybe I can take some time off from everything else and get that done.

Anyway, I hope you all are doing well.  Have a great weekend, friends!  ❤

Thursday, January 21, 2021

I never in my life thought I'd say I missed the days of PMS being terrible back pain + sobbing...

Gotta say:  I never in my life thought I'd say I missed the days of PMS being terrible back pain + sobbing at the drop of a hat, but this headache / nausea / fatigue combo (especially during a pandemic) can go straight to hell.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Today has been pretty good. 🙂

Today has been pretty good.  🙂

Shaun and I woke up and watched the inauguration together despite going to bed sometime around 4 this morning.  Going to bed so late wasn't part of our plan, but we brought Cubba and Rose (dogs) to Talladega yesterday, finally.  We were concerned that Cubba would climb the fence and he did not disappoint.  Despite having a MUCH larger fenced area in which to run around size doesn't seem to matter to him and nothing is better than FREEDOM.  😂😂😂  Thankfully, he is neutered, friendly, stays close to home (so far), and we are out in the country.  Almost every time we noticed he was out he was already trying to climb back in.  😂😂😂

We hate tying up animals but we did tie him last night because we had to make a trip back to Anniston right after we got them home because we were in a rush due to possible rain and forgot their food.  Since it was their first time being here we didn't want him to get out and get lost.  It was not pleasant for any of us, though.  The fenced portion of the yard is shaped oddly and if we shortened the tie he couldn't reach food and / or the dog house and if we left it long he could just climb on out while still tied.  There was no winning.  We were up so late trying to figure out how to keep him contained.  It was not fun.

Anyway, the dogs survived their first night here.  After the inauguration this morning we went out and played with them for a bit.  Rose LOVES having such a big space to run in.  She's younger and more energetic than Cubba so that makes sense.  Then we needed to get busy moving stuff around here so we were outside working basically all day.  Rose seemed to enjoy running around the perimeter of the fence seeing what we were doing.  Cubba got out twice so we had to tell him he was bad and put him back in.  We started giving Rose treats when she's in and he's out so he can see that good food happens inside the fence.  He's stayed in of his own accord for the last 2.5 - 3 hours so we're grateful for that.  He is a very smart dog so I think he'll catch on.

As I mentioned we worked pretty hard today.  We had cleaned out the basement previously and separated everything from it into the garage; trash on one side and donations / yard sale items on the other.  From doing house updates / repairs and cleaning out some of the rooms in the house we had a similar thing going under the carport out back.  We decided to put all of the trash into the carport and all of the donation / yard sale items into the garage.  It was no small feat.  Eventually we are going to have to rent a large dumpster to get rid of the stuff from the carport.  We still have two more bedrooms plus the shop out back to go through, though, so that's not happening just yet.

I would also eventually like to go through the stuff left in the garage and separate it / categorize it so that it would be easier to search through if we have a garage sale, but that is a task for another time.  With the pandemic still happening that might not even be a thing we're comfortable doing.  I don't know, but I'm not a fan of clutter and disarray so hopefully we figure something out soon.

We worked for about 4 or 5 hours straight today so we are exhausted.  I really wanted to come in and do more stuff this evening but I've eaten and now I feel like I'm crashing out.  Big shock there.  😂😂😂  Thankfully, the weather was really nice for doing outdoor work and I really enjoyed seeing the dogs have fun.  I think it's supposed to rain here tomorrow so maybe that will be a better day for us to work inside.

Anyway, friends, I'm off to get some rest.  I hope you all had a good day as well.  I imagine that a lot of you did not, but it'll be ok.  Our new president doesn't mean you any harm no matter who you are and that is far more than I can say for the last one.  Whether it feels like it to you at this moment or not we as a nation just took a step in a right direction.  Representation matters and this is the most diversity I've ever seen in our government.  It makes my heart happy and I hope we continue down this path.

I'm so relieved...

I'm so relieved that we finally took out the trash that was left to fester for 4 years. I've never been more disgusted than anytime I was exposed to the classless, honorless, moral-less piece of shit that held office before today.

And that Poet Laureate, tho. I need a heart ears emoji.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

I need advice / recommendations. I have questions.

I need advice / recommendations.  I have questions.

How do you sell a house?

What are the benefits of going through an agent versus doing it yourself?

If rooms need painting, or the yard needs some landscaping, or whatever along those lines should we do it before putting it up for sale to increase the value of the place or leave it undone so that the new owner can choose how they want things?  If we use an agent do they take responsibility for any of this?  Our house in Anniston is in good shape and we've done some upgrades in the time we've been there, but my living room is not exactly a neutral color and Shaun painted his entire bedroom black.  😂😂😂

Obviously, we will clean the place but how do people get houses to look so perfectly clean in the photos?  Does an agent (if we use one) hire someone to deep clean or is that a thing we just need to do ourselves or hire someone to do out of pocket?  I'm not sure how much time I can personally invest in this because I need to be studying for my certification and looking for a job pretty soon so I'm trying to get an idea of the amount of work that needs to be done and how to best tackle it.

Also, we were planning to let the kids live there until the house sells.  Is that a thing we can do?  Like, say that the house is for sale but that we need a certain number of days to get them moved out?

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have!

Monday, January 18, 2021

I haven't slept well at all tonight...

I haven't slept well at all tonight / this morning; I had a soda yesterday and that was probably enough caffeine to mess me up. But Shaun and Sindar are currently softly snoring back and forth and it's pretty precious. I'm glad I am awake to hear it. 💕

Thursday, January 14, 2021

It's a sad day.

It's a sad day. We took down my nest (super awesome full-sized loft bed with shelves and drawers and storage closet and desk space and roll-out twin bed). I love that thing so much, but it's packed away safely in the basement for now. I can't wait for the day we put it back up. We just have to get ourselves settled and arranged first.