Fred Sanford Deaccessions

Ok, so we had ALOT of visitors this morning and sales so fast it all got really confusing and crazy. Reminded me of my days selling espresso at intermission at the Fox Theatre. Now there's a steady stream, but not 40 people at any given time packed in. Even an emergent butterfly visited (but didn't buy a damn thing).

Guess i have to get back out there. Really wish i were working on my bamboo fence!

Garage Sale Tomorrow

And we are tired of getting ready for it. Last night Laiyee came and advised us on prices. She is what KJ called a Garage Sale Evangelist, going every Saturday to all the sales she can and connecting, via cellphone, with her entire regional army of other G S Goers. We know, because the few times we've distracted her and asked her to do something with us on a Saturday morning, her phone will ring incessantly with news from the field and the soldiers out at all the Garage Sales, busily finding this or that for Carolyn, Dottie, Gwendolyn, or Bob. My sign is not nearly as groovy as the ones i made for Mom and BC several years ago, but it will be functional to block the driveway AND announce us to everyone driving down State. Anyhoo, Laiyee brought us some lovely Peonies from her yard. And we had not one, but TWO desserts: individual strawberry rhubarb cobblers, and a wonderful flan that Laiyee made. Lastly are some glamour shots of our gal, Al Gormie. Isn't she a doll? Oh, and wait (there were lots of pictures to download), here's a pic on one of our Robin babies, stuck in my car one morning. He was learning to fly!

Goodbye Braithwood Road

Here are some pics of our empty house in Atlanta, just before we finally left. Steven and I have so many memories there of his Ma, Trotsky and Eydie Gorme, our family and friends... geez it is wierd how a house becomes a vessel for all that. We hope John and Jill will enjoy it and put their own life into the place. So funny how nice it looks empty...we kept saying how we should have lived in it with nothing for a while. There is a lot to be said for minimalism.

Goodbye City Life! and Goodbye Dear Trotsky

It is 2:56 am, and the movers will be here tomorrow at 9 am. I hope they won't be too fast because we are not totally packed, and we both have to go to bed. We can barely stand up. Tricia and Karen and Mom and BC all helped today. We ran out of bubble wrap, and have to get more in the morning. And though everything is well organized and ready to be boxed, a lot of stuff down in the basement still needs to be boxed. Yikes.

And on a really sad note, poor Trotsky is really doing badly. Whatever is growing inside of his head is pushing his eye out of its socket. He is on anti-inflams and pain pills, and seems to not be in pain. We've decided to put him down on Monday afternoon after our house closing. It just doesn't do anything good for him to keep him alive and take him up to Ohio, knowing he is only going to get worse, and that at some point the pills are not going to work. We want him to go while he is still Sir Trots Alot and while he is not in terrible pain. We are both so sad about it, but we keep reminding ourselves of what a great life he has had and all the things he has accomplished in his life. For a dog, he has quite a resume: In 1993 he made it through Obidience Training at the top of his class. In 1999, he successfully decimated an HVAC outside unit by repeatedly peeing on it. In 1996, he was hit by a car on Moreland Avenue, but walked home pretty much unscathed. In 2003, he had to go to a real life doggie ER after digging a giant hole in which he gashed his leg open on some sharp buried crap in our EPA Superfund site of a backyard. In 2000, he slipped into Panther Creek and went down the waterfall while we all watched in horror. In the fall of 2005, we joked that he was barking himself to death... little did we know that it was his last hurrah of doghood. If any of you remember any of Trotsky's other accomplishments that i've forgotten, please let me know!

Real Estate Unloaded. Check.

Well, we successfully sold one of the houses in ATL. We finished all the back and forth negotiation with Jack & Jill's (no kidding) agent, and ended at 12k less than our asking price. Quite respectable, I think. After 75 days or so on the market, I'm just glad it is over, and I'm sure Steven is too, since he had to deal with it WAY more than I did. All I had to do was bite my nails and sign some faxes. We're keeping the investment house in Atlanta (Steven's old house), since that may be our only chance to make any money in real estate in the coming years. Real estate in Athens appreciates a whopping 5% or so per year, if you are lucky. We made nearly 50% on our house sale in ATL, and we scarcely owned it for 3 years. And poor Steven, all this happened on THE day when his mom returned to China after her year-long stay with us. The first time I talked to him yesterday, he was on the way to the airport with JingXia, and I've never heard him so stressed out. Later, he sounded much better, even though Delta and China Airways had apparently already lost his Mom's luggage, and she was only in LA! She should be arriving in Haikou right about now...I'm sure Feng, Da, and Yenshuen will be glad to have her back for a while.

Well, I'm excited that we can finally step on the buy a house gas here, soon hopefully. I'm ready for Steven to quit Earthlink, pack up the house, and get up here. He can take some time off, and step on the find a job in Ohio gas, so we can figure out if we will indeed be able to live in Athens. I hope so! It's a cool little town.

As I told my friend Dawn in an earlier email, a lot is going on here today. This morning, the Athens Marathon and Half Marathon happened. Steven and I will hopefully be running the half next spring. I went for a bike ride with my friend from work, Liz, and most of the course for the Marathon was on the same bike path we were on, which is an old rail bed that snakes all around Athens, parallel to the Hocking River, and goes all the way to the next town to the north, Nelsonville. I'm so glad I got that fancy bike from Dawn and Preston's friend, and i'm so glad there is a rail-trail right at the end of my street. Everyone is outside today, it is really the first beautifully warm day of spring here. All the Frat and Sorority kids are out doing barbies and parties and whatever, people are working in their yards, running, biking, walking their dogs...now my little day of fun is coming to a close, so i can work on a freelance project tonight that was supposed to happen last year.

An Update on the Move

I haven't updated you guys lately on what's going on...for some of you this may be boring, but I know many of you want to know, so here goes.

The job at IBM that Steven was working on did not come through. Something about him not having direct experience with the software they use was the problem. Thank goodness that didn't apply to me when I interviewed with Hilferty last year...the only programs I know that they use are Filemaker pro and all the standard graphic design stuff: illustrator, photoshop, InDesign. All the drawing software I'm learning, as well as learning how to use a mac.

Well, i was bummed about the IBM job at first, but not too much. Steven is proactive if anything, and has been spending his time in the past several weeks getting certifications in all kinds of programming wares and practices...he really is such a student and loves to do all that stuff (and he can buckle down and turn everything off and focus on it...which is sometimes a problem for me...I am easily distracted). For those of you who don't know, he has FOUR degrees and is a bit of an egghead. The IBM job was perfect because we could live here in Athens, him working remotely and travelling fairly often. The road to Columbus is fine once or twice a week to commute to the airport, but daily is not a possibility.

So, now, we are back to wondering if we'll have to live somewhere between here and Columbus. And we had our FOURTH contingency offer on the house yesterday, which we rejected. Well, the house has been on the market for 9 weeks now, that is certainly not a long time. But I keep hoping the house will sell fast, and Steven can just move up here and take some time off while he looks. That would be excellent.

Little Rock, Big Rain

Did I mention how much i love this new MacBook. The good ole bluetooth pics up on wifi hotspots, wherever they may exist (have I exposed myself? I don't know what i'm talking about).

It has been raining all day yesterday and today in LR, but I think maybe it has stopped. Of course, i'm unprepared, no raincoat...but at least i remembered to bring a hat. And also, it hasn't been a steady downpour. But i've been worried about getting my new baby wet in the bag on my back. Seems fine so far. I have this cool tiny scanner from the office that I'll use all day tomorrow, pretending that I know how to conduct research.

Melanie and I found a great old intown neighborhood with some life, called Hillcrest (doesn't that sound like an old phone number exchange from before our time? Gladys, connect me with HIllcrest 6 500 right away please). I finally had a good meal here, at a little place called Vieux Carre. This hotel is nice, but i can't eat breakfast here anymore..today the scrambled eggs were not only cold, but it seemed like they had been on ice or something they were so cold. I ran on the treadmill in the gym here for about 45 minutes before dinner, and the whole time it seemed like it might meltdown. Clanging around and wobbling a little...I guess this place is a little run down, but I much prefer that to too new. With a hotel, that can be a bad thing. And it does have wifi allowing me to spew my beam all around.

Steven has had some good news from IBM (several times over from a few different divisions...even one that is based in Canada!), and if all works out with that, we'll be able to live anywhere, as he will be able to work from home and travel a bit. Well, we can live anywhere that we can get DSL, which means we'll be able to settle in Athens. I'm very happy about that; it's a cool place and I'd love to not be in the middle of nowhere between Athens and Columbus (which seemed it might be the case if he found a job in Columbus he'd have to commute to everyday).

Still don't have an offer that 's a go on the house, but we've had 2 contingency offers for full price that we passed on. Well, we've had a bunch of people come through there, many more than once, so hopefully something will happen soon. More to come. Gotta snooze. Ciao.

Hardly Working?

Allegedly, i'm home this weekend to work on the house and get the last few things done before our agent's open house tomorrow from 2 till 4. 2 of 3 sliding doors need replacement screens (thanks to Sir Trots Alot), 3 more doors still need paint...but here i sit "blogging" at almost noon. I'm posting this pic that i paid $9.99 for a year ago, to have Steven's pic converted to an ipod ad. Since he is outside doing all the work right now: raking leaves, fixing the gutter guards, replinishing the moth ball caches on the roof to repel demented squirrels...in general, doing all the hard work. I told my new coworker John yesterday that basically, I'm coming back for the long weekend to paint 4 doors, because I don't trust Steven enough to be carefull with the paint job. Pathetic. OH geez, there goes the vacuum cleaner. So many chores, so little motivation! Oh, we need to go to the farmer's market to get some artsy fartsy flowers for the frog on the table! I can handle that.

Just Look at this FABULOUS House, Would You?

Well, our house is finally on the market, and it looks good. I'd sure buy it, if I could find it in Ohio! To see more, go to www.harrynorman.com and enter 3200016 in the "listing number" field of the quick search at the bottom right. You can see more pictures there. These pics were taken before the bar solid surface counter was installed yesterday, but I guess that's ok. All week in Ohio, I've been thinking the tiny-roomed 1941 Colonial Crackerbox i've rented for six months was just fine. Until last night when i came home. There is really something depressing about the combination of a small room with flat, 8 foot ceilings (Ohio). It's not like this house in Atlanta is gigantic or anything--it's actually quite small--but the high, open ceilings, and the skylights, really make you feel like you are still outside and part of the environment...and even on a cold windy day like today, that's a good place to be.

Someone Schedule an Intervention, please.

It's official, I have hoarder's syndrome. I'm so done with packing stuff up...and we've been throwing MOUNTAINS of it away. We couldn't even be bothered with a garage sale or Goodwill. The workers at the renovation site next door have been poring through the various mountains, in the mornings usually, for the past few days, making off with dusty, broken, or stained booty. I'm sure our neighbors will be glad when we are done with the purge, and the mountains of ephemera stop appearing on the curb.

Well, I just have to draw the line somewhere, and that line, apparently, is books. I just can't part with them. "Oh, I read that in 1974, can't throw away!" or "that's from your past stockbroker life, Steven; do you really want to lose all memory of that?!" are my usual refrains. This lovely pic is some textbook from Steven's college in Wuhan, and the gold embossed IBM/fortran embossed artwork makes this one a keeper. I have such low standards. Does anyone know what those kind of early computers are called? I know they have some clever name, but it escapes me... 

Hello loverly new oven...

It's shiny. It's digital. It's stainless. 

clean Clean CLEAN!

Swanky new dishwasher is all installed now. I love those old cool pine cabinets. 

more bourgeois materialism

Bye bye lovely mod house. I'm going to miss this house. I know it's not good to get attached to things...but this place embodies my attachment to some very important people, Steven chief among them. And lots of memories of dinners, parties, time by the fire, friends and family and neighbors. I hope we'll find something mod in Athens, though not much seems to have been built in the heyday of mid-century craziness. 

more bourgeois materialism

I know i can't worship an oven, but isn't it beautiful? Will be installed tomorrow. 

Moving's a bummer :(

Why oh why didn't we replace our crippled 20 year old dishwasher years ago? Feast your eyes on crap we're doing because Miss Jackson (our real estate agent) is cracking the whip! Well, not really...we're happy to finally make our kitchen fully updated, all stainless appliances, solid surface counters, lovely track lighting...and we're happy to have the objective advice of our agent. This beauty will be installed on Thursday, along with a new wall oven, by Bob Carroll's Neighborhood Appliance Store of Decatur GA in 2 days. 

More on selling the house

I just have to post this pic of the hot new frames i'v installed around the bathroom mirrors. This took care of a mulitude of little nagging problems my inner Martha relentlessly messaged me on: silvering wearing away around the edges, especially where water splashes at the bottom, lovely little sixties plastic stars at the corners NOT holding it all together on the wall, etc. I hope some new owner is going to like our crazy stripes, cause we ain't about to get rid of them. Besides, Liberace called and told us we'd redefined the concept of "eye candy." Originally, the stripes were our clever, skillfull way of making our canary and robin's egg blue 1963 bathrooms feel a little more up-to-date, without obliterating them. It worked--noone even notices the yellow toilet or the brite blue toilet anymore in a bathroom of these stripes.

Why do I continue to believe I am Susiehomaker?

Getting our house in the ATL is wearing girlfriend out. My back hurts, my nails look like hell, and the checklist keeps getting longer. Well, it is definitely worth it to bust a move getting everything perfect before we go on the market. 2 weeks to go...hope i get it all done. Good thing i now have this blog to keep me occupied while I let the paint dry on the roller.