It HAS to go up from here…

Today we had our first showing.

Hooray!

But there was so much work to be done.  I know you think that it was already beautiful since you saw all of those fabulous pictures last week.  But there was still miles of trim to paint (either trim that was still off white and needed to be white, or trim that now had wall-paint on it and needed to be repainted, or trim that someone’s messy kids had touched with dirty fingers that needed to be washed and then repainted), still a bunch of boxes to pack, and a handful of other projects.

I have worked almost all day every day this week.  I did escape to the grocery store for a few minutes one day, and helped my awesome home teachers take a huge van-load of boxes to our new storage unit last night.  But then I came back home and started working again.  I even worked (washing shelves) while I skyped with Russ last night.  At midnight I gave up, but I set the alarm and was working by 8AM again this morning.

The kids and I worked ALL morning.  Seriously—this is like the project that never ends.  It feels like the more we do, the more there is to do.  Anyway, we worked and worked and worked.  Our friend Erin came over around 11:30 and she (new hip and all) worked too. 

Then right at 12:00 noon on the dot I got a tickle in my throat.  It was bad.  I coughed and coughed and coughed.  I couldn’t stop.  I tried to drink some water but I couldn’t stop coughing.  I couldn’t even get a cough drop into my mouth because I was coughing so much.  After a few minutes I could fell my gag reflex kicking in and so I took my poor (still coughing) self into the bathroom.  Sure enough, (sorry for gross detail but this is my life history—my posterity need to know these things!) I coughed so hard that I would have thrown up if I’d had anything in my stomach.  And still I coughed and coughed.  It didn’t start to calm down for 15 minutes.  So at 12:15 I finally left the bathroom, glancing into the mirror first.  I was a wreck.  My hair was all disheveled from all of the coughing, my eyes red and runny, and my face was bright red. 

I checked the clock and realized that I had only 15 minutes to finish whatever was going to be done before the people came to look at the house.  I walked to the top of the stairs where I had all of the bits of my last project (air compressor, molding, paint, etc) and much to my surprise I saw people on my front walk!!   15 minutes early!!!

I shooed the kids out the back door to the neighbor’s house, where we’d already arranged to spend our time.  Then I answered the front door as calmly as I could (in all of my red eyed, red faced, messy haired glory), laughed with the realtor when she apologized for being early, apologized myself for the air compressor at the top of the stairs, and then took myself and my magazine to the screened in porch next door. 

Russ & I probably looked at 40 houses the week I was in Oregon.  I think I have a pretty good feel for how long people look at different types of houses.  We spent less than 5 minutes in some houses, and as many as 15 minutes in others.

These people were in the house today for almost half an hour.  Maybe it’s a good sign?

Or maybe they were just checking out the awesome air compressor…

 

Here’s hoping that the next time we show the house A)there is no coughing/vomiting before hand, and B)we actually get out before they get here!