In my blog post, titled, “Finding Peace” I talked about our first week of getting the house on the market and the whirlwind of showings. To my relief, and feelings of utmost gratitude, the house is now under contract. Actually, it’s kind of a funny story. The house went officially on the market April 4th. We had two showings that night. The next morning we had an offer. My mother in law called me to let me know and I was elated. I probably was a little loud in my excitement for them and us. And a little premature. Even after contracts were signed that evening, the wife freaked out and decided to not honor their contract. It was maybe an hour after everything had been signed. They then owed my in laws $100 but I don’t believe they ever paid up and I honestly doubt they will ever see that money. I feel, knowing this, that my in laws may have dodged a bullet with closing issues etc. So we continued to show the house through the weekend and Tuesday evening we got another contract from a Sunday showing. By the end of Wednesday both parties had signed the contract and it was executed. Thursday evening we received instructions on how to prepare our home for the inspection without any indicator of when that would be, but instructions that we’d probably get 1-2 day notice. Andy and I had decided to go through with our garage sale (we had planned on doing so even if the house hadn’t sold because we really needed the garage space). But when contracts had been signed and the showings dwindled off, we were counting our blessings and it seemed like the perfect weekend to do a garage sale. We made posters, posted it online and then looked at the weather forecast (oops). It was supposed to downpour Friday AND Saturday. We decided to pray for a miracle and go forward. Friday was great and didn’t rain until the afternoon. The only issue, which was quite a stressful issue for me, was a text from our realtor. Realtor 10:18 AM: The inspection will be held at 1:30 today. Is that ok? Me: UH what?? No. that will not work CALL ME. Ring ring Realtor: Uh yeah, sorry it’s so last minute… Me: Yeah, we are very busy today, I just don’t think we can get it done, not to mention the list you sent last night has not been done! Can we do Monday? Realtor: Well, that would be really pushing it… Me (thinking) UH, how on earth would that be pushing it, if there is supposed to be a one to two day notice and the contracts were literally signed two days ago? We JUST had the foreman walk through on our property on Wednesday and we signed a contract weeks ago. Andy in the background: Let’s just get it done. Me: Ok, well I guess were just going to do it, and we’ll deal with whatever the inspector says. Realtor: Ok thanks for being so flexible blah blah blah.. Dude you have no idea how much you’re putting me out right now. So I go back to the garage sale, Andy leaves me to take care of fire detectors and wiring with a light. I’ve got wondering Bev and crazy Mav and then a minivan full of customers show up. No English. But they haggle in Spanish and I try my best in my broken Spanish to haggle back. The eldest lady asks for an entire box of toys and wants to know how much I’d charge for the whole box. I told her $10 (which I believe was fair). She looked at me in disbelief at that price. I shrugged and continued helping one of her other family members (while juggling my two children from getting into trouble or into the street). She starts putting toys from the dollar box into the .25c box and then comes up and says, “$7” I said, no, you put the dollar toys back and then we have a deal. She didn’t seem to pleased but did so and paid up. Then they left and I suddenly remembered to breath. Having that many strangers around your children with no other adults trying to haggle away your belongings in a language you barely understand is a recipe for an anxiety attack. I questioned my sanity for throwing a garage sale in the first place. The rest of the morning was slow and only one or two customers at a time. Bev ended up falling asleep on my shoulders and Andy took her inside to her crib and then I only had to handle Mav, who is pretty easy, to be honest. I had ward members show up to shop, gave them a bunch of stuff for free, they bought a little and then they helped me move the stuff back into the garage. I went inside, quickly showered and it was 1:30. The inspector still hadn’t shown. 2:14 and he finally shows up. So not only did they give us zero notice, they were late. That made me even more angry. Their realtor literally had no respect for our time. And come to find out, for the fact that we are still the owners (ok my in laws but that’s irrelevant). We left when the inspector showed up as requested and took the kids to the park. We let them play and eat lunch and then I went and got Max from school. He was starving so I ran home real quick to grab him a snack. As I walk inside, I see that hispanic minivan family roaming through my house. My first thought was they were confused and thought some how they thought it was an open house. There wasn’t a realtor, only the inspector, so he either had left the door open or let them come in. Either way I started to panic. We hadn’t felt the need to secure everything or put away everything (nor did I have time!). I called our Realtor and he didn’t seem that worried about it, because apparently this garage sale family were the buyers but my in laws and I were quite put off. No one notified us of them viewing our home, there wasn’t a realtor present. It was unorthodox and very uncomfortable. As we went to bed Friday I looked at the forecast. Thunderstorms starting at 4 AM and continuing throughout the day. I turned to Andy and said, we’ll see what it looks like in the morning. Well morning came and there were clouds but no rain. We decided to start the garage sale and sale as much as we could till it rained. It occasionally sprinkled, but it never rained. The buyers wound up coming again, this time with their dad who spoke decent English and we had a much better interaction. I said to my friend, Geri that part of me liked selling them stuff to know that a piece of us would be left behind in our home. We ended up selling a lot and donating even more and made enough for me to get the curio I’ve been wanting for my elephant collection and grandma’s porcelain that I inherited. I have to say that the weather was a miracle. As soon as we pulled everything inside, Andy took borrowed tables back to their owners and then nearly as soon as he came home it started to hail golf balls. It was quick, but the rain continued and I felt so grateful that hadn’t happened while we were still outside or trying to take stuff inside. It was very freeing to get rid of stuff that we no longer need. We did replace some of it with newer stuff (like the toaster oven for a more compact toaster, the blender for one with a stronger motor, a bunch of kid toys for their upcoming outdoor play set) but mostly we got rid of a lot of stuff and it feels so good to just have what we need (ok we still have a lot of non-necessity stuff). I’ve realized from the staging that though it felt weird to have our “lives” in the garage, we really don’t need a lot of it. But to be honest, most of the stuff in the garage belongs to my kids and I think they’d disagree. It has been harder to keep Mav entertained and he tries to find any moment of weakness to watch a show or play MineCraft. Mav bought a desk with his “hard earned” money from his grandparents. He was so excited to have a desk just like his brothers and as they played minecraft tonight it was a much more pleasant experience because Bev wasn’t invading Maverick’s space any more. I sang in church with my good friend, Marni Burke. I hope it isn’t the last time we sing together. She has helped me become a better singer but most importantly a more confident singer. I think some day I may even feel up to doing a solo, but doing a duet is a huge deal for me. I really loved the song she selected, “If the Savior stood beside me.” Andy will be the first one to tell you that I tend to mess up lyrics. As I was getting ready for church this morning I was trying to sing the song in preparation. I found myself singing, “Would the Savior stand beside me if He heard the things I say?” When I had a moment to look at the music and realize the words were, “If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say?” I realized that the made up lyrics made a lot of sense to me. The Savior is forgiving, but the Spirit cannot stay with us when we are making wrong choices. I hope that someday I will get to the point that I wouldn’t have to change the things I say or the things I do just because the Savior was near, but that it was who I was all the time. I hope you all have a great week! Bev’s first Friday night movie night with her brothers