“Busy!”
The house stager arrived on Monday. After asking us to remove the “clutter”, the stager replaced it with a different kind of clutter that didn’t appeal to me at all. I weeded some of that out and we’ll live with it. Diana would have had a fit if she was here.
In addition, the window washer arrived and spent several hours making all the panes shiny inside and out. The window replacement guys also replaced two foggy windows in the bathroom. Lots of coming and going for me to coordinate while working.
I received this picture from colleagues in Guatemala. Upside down lighting from a volcano close to Antigua – the one that is usually spouting every ten mins or so when we visit.
Here’s an article that explains the phenomenon:
The pictures for the various home selling websites and flyers were taken on Tuesday. The guy seemed to know what he was doing and was very thorough.
Wednesday was attacked by nature day. One of those ridiculous doves flew head first into a living room window – not used to them being so clean and shiny. Then I had to kill a wasp nest on the arbor – amazing how quickly they construct their homes.
The house went live on the listing services on Friday evening, and I quickly received two requests to show it on Saturday – the first at 10am.
Kenny teased me with this video of the Saturday night happenings at Le Bon Temps Rouler. Hopefully we’ll be there very soon.
There was an Open House for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon, so I had to vacate the premises again. There were three cars parked outside before the doors even opened, and a lot of interest.
I picked up Diana and Alicia at the airport on Monday, and we quickly received some good news – an offer at above asking price, with no contingencies, and full pre-approval on the buyer’s mortgage. “We’ll take it.”
The inspector arrived and the only thing they wanted fixed was the pool heater – we haven’t used it in several years and had no idea it wasn’t working. First folks who looked at the house are now all set to buy it – closing on August 9th.
With all this good news in hand, I decided to make a trip to New Orleans to look for a new home. I looked at five houses and thought two were good possibilities. I treated myself to this amazing po’boy sandwich at the New Orleans airport. Mopho has an outpost there. Yum!
We submitted offers on those two homes the next day. The counter offers were disappointing, and so we decided to do nothing further until Diana could look with me. We planned that for the following Tuesday – driving down and then looking at places on Wednesday.
Diana’s mom had some significant health challenges over the weekend that had us very focused on making sure she got the care and support needed. In between dealing with that, we were working the logistics of what to take down and leave in New Orleans, and what to leave home, given that we’ll be homeless soon. Valuables were organized to go in a safety deposit box in a bank vault in New Orleans on arrival.
What a whirlwind, but I don’t think it gets much easier than that when it comes to selling a home.
My book this week was “The Door to Door Bookstore” by Carsten Henn. What an excellent read. Just a beautiful book all around. I don’t have it with me as I write this post, so can’t share some of the quotes that I dog-eared. You should read this right away! Here’s the online summary:
“Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff delivers his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the picturesque alleys of the city. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world.
When Kollhoff unexpectedly loses his job, it takes the power of books and a nine-year-old girl to make them all find the courage to rebuild their bonds with each other.
A bestselling phenomenon internationally, Carsten Henn’s The Door-to-Door Bookstore is a feel-good novel about books and friendship.”
Here’s something quite different. Oryema was a Ugandan musician who had to escape during the height of the Amin rule. He became part of Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD tour and his first three albums were published on Gabriel’s label.
And here’s a classic from the wonderful Joan Armatrading:
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion for all!