Selling our house (part 2)...blood, sweat, and tears

We decided to sell the house after all. We did the math and it made the most sense. Even if we were staying in the U.S., at this point, we would be selling our little house. It's a great time to sell in Austin, better than probably anywhere else in the nation, we are fortunate in this way.

We spent this past weekend moving everything out, which is still in progress, but mostly done. And now we are fixing up. Pretty much everything in our house will be new. New floors, new paint, new roof, new dishwasher. New, new, new. Can you tell I'm excited?

old dishwasher. a workhorse for over 12 years, served us well for 5 of those. 

Old.

New! Don't have a shot of it completely done because by the time they finally got it in there my camera was packed up. (again, notice my ingenious baby-proofing on the cabinet to the right.)

Our furniture on it's way to my brother's house.

Testing paint for the walls. Neither of these colors is going to do. Back to Lowe's tonight!

Tearing up the old vinyl laminate to make way for fancy tile.

In my youth my father would sometimes come home during a rough patch at work (he owns his own company) and would say, "Sheri (that's my mom), we're bleeding money, Sheri!" Didn't quite understand what that meant at the time, but it didn't sound good. I understand now, and it sounds even worse. (Although if we literally bled money, we could quite quickly weed out all the greedy people in the world, don't ya think)?

We are bleeding money right now. And that's just what happens when you move your family, across the street or across the world. It happens. I'm not happy about it. I'm not happy about the idea that we have to put so much money into a house where every person around me is saying that people will line up to buy it regardless of how it looks inside, the market is that "hot." But we're doing it anyway, because that's just what you do. Apparently. It's not leaving a great taste in my mouth. I also don't like the idea that we are spending our last days here in America on this dang house. In fact, I can't stand that part of it at all. But Martin didn't want to do it sooner. So here we are.

I've hardly had a chance to really wrap my head around the fact that we are leaving in 9 days. 9 days is nothing. If I stop and think about it long enough it feels like the ascent up the roller coaster. Where you still haven't fully confronted what is about to happen, because you don't have to. You haven't reached the top yet and every second that you aren't free falling, is one more second where you don't have to fear it. So, that's where we are. That's where I am. Strapped in tight. Taking care of kids while Martin paints the house. Taking care of kids and re-packing everything to make it fit into 7 suitcases, while Martin paints the house. Taking care of kids and trying to make the most of our little time left here for at least a  couple years, while Martin paints the house.

The tone of this post, if it can even be called that, is exactly how I am feeling right now. Ugh. I wanted to write a better post. Something fun, inspirational, but I'm not really feeling either of those things right now. I'm not depressed or sad either. I'm a bit tired. And a bit numb.


P.S. speaking of numb... Martin managed to injure himself late Saturday night with a sharp blade used to tear up the floor you see above. A trip to the E.R., 2.5 hours, and a few stitches later, and he's as good as new. Sort of. He'll live, but it does make it harder to paint...