I've been away from the blog for nearly two months and I have made much progress!!
In March, we met with a realtor and decided to put our house on the market. The realtor has been amazing! Every step of the way I felt so nervous and stressed, tons of stress eating going on. First it was a lot of purging of the excess that seems to inevitably accumulate in my basement especially, a lot went to our storage unit for later evaluation. Once the house was cleared, we moved on to phase 2 staging. Our realtor hired a stager. The stager came over and told me what else needed to be taken away from the space, as well as what repairs needed to be made. Probably the best thing she did was suggest painting our kitchen and choosing the color. The color she chose was perfect. She also evaluated our style and went shopping for finishing touch pieces. Next, I hired the handyman the stager and realtor recommended to paint the kitchen and do various small things around the house. Once that was complete, the stager came back with her finishing touches. In the midst of all this we had to decide on a price based on the realtor's range. This whole process took about four weeks.
In early April, we actually put the house on the market. I whisked the kids away to my mom's (luckily they were off that week from school). I breathed a sigh of relief. That feeling of relief lasted maybe 48 hours. Then I started to hear from my realtor about all the "traffic" coming through the house. It was great to hear there was so much interest! Then on the third day all the anxiety creeped back into my mind. Forty plus people going through my house several days in a row, even looking in our closets!! Thankfully after the weekend we headed home and seemed to miss the worst of it all. Disappearing during the week was not so bad for the random during the week appointments. By Thursday, a mere one week on the market, we had two great offers! I am so lucky and blessed that at least that part of the process was minimally stressful.
Once we accepted a bid, we moved on to looking for our next house. A brand new house that we had seen months ago was still on the market and the price was coming down a little bit. We put in a bid and after a second round of "best and final" we got the house! Its lovely! It has four bedrooms, a muck area, front porch, great walk-ability and is only 4 blocks from my mother's house! So we DECIDED to stay in New Jersey, be close to family and visit warmer destinations for vacations with money we save (excited that our savings will not be going towards house stuff all the time).
This month, we've had two home inspections. I'm in the thick of making arrangements for this one to be repaired and asking for things in the new one. I am so busy with random appointments. Yesterday, I picked out cabinet hardware for the new house and today I am getting exterminator estimates for this one. It could get tedious if I wasn't so CRAZY excited about MY NEW JOB!!!
I GOT A JOB!! I am so proud of myself. I have to just say it! I have not had a paid job in SIX years and I'm making a career change. It would have been very easy to delay going back to school another year, especially with all this moving stuff going on. Tempting as it was, I want to get going on becoming a teacher. I managed to send my application in just before the deadline. After my interview, I was accepted to the Montessori teaching program. Next was finding an internship site. Luckily I have a good relationship with my children's school and my kids' teachers. My children's teachers were so encouraging of my becoming a teacher. One teacher wrote me a letter of recommendation another helped me get my internship at the school! It is a good reminder to me to be the best I can be every day because people notice. Sometimes it helps me and other times it inspires others. These women who work so well with my kids have inspired me to go down this path. I'm thrilled that they see the teacher potential in me too!
I'm feeling very Montessori. Work and learning are supposed to be your joy. I have never been so excited to go to school and to get a job.
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