One Condo For Sale! (Do I hear a dollar? A nickel? A penny?)

All right, people. Just so you don't think I have both neglected and forgotten this blog, here is a list of post ideas I began writing in my head, but never got around to typing:

- The plumber seems confident that our bathroom fix-up will be super quick! Maybe we won't need a hole in the wall!

- There is a hole in our wall, and the kitchen cabinets are on the floor.

- How hot is it that the husband knows how to use dry-wall, and did so, rather than heeding my suggestion to call a hole-fixer-person?

- Please buy our condo!

- No, really, please buy our condo! There are no holes in its walls any more, I promise.

So you see, I have only neglected the blog, not forgotten it.

To bring you all up to speed, the condo is on the market, my last day of work is next Friday, and we don't know anything about where we will live or where I will work in the summer or beyond.

The thing that is stressing us out and taking over our lives is the condo. We have re-caulked the tub, re-grouted the kitchen tiles, re-dry-walled the giant hole in the wall left by the plumber, and re-painted the kitchen to be less salmon and more limey-lemon. We have learned that selling your home is a process designed to make you feel that everything about your day-to-day life is abject and worth hiding. "You hang your clean laundry to dry in your bathroom? Gross!" You leave your dishes in a plastic rack to air-dry? Ew!" "You own a knife block? Don't let anyone see!" And, best of all, "Half of your windows are exposed to the outdoors? Oh my god, you guys, what's wrong with you?"

Before this, the concept of cleaning windows was an abstract one. I thought of it a bit like I think of bikini waxes - I understand that there are people who do that type of thing, and I have nothing but respect for their desire to keep a tidy appearance, but I never thought I would be someone who would spend my time in that particular manner. Our realtor had other plans. The windows were pretty much the first thing she mentioned. (My bikini area has yet to be commented on, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was on her list somewhere.) And since the husband did all of the kitchen-painting, I got to clean windows.

We are lucky to have windows that you can pull forward out of the frame to clean the outside, so it really wasn't that bad. In fact, the worst part is that since there is no screen on the top half of the window, when you pull that top half into the room, there is nothing between you and the outdoors. I spent my cleaning time humming loudly, talking to myself and occasionally yelling to try to scare off any birds who might be contemplating a visit to our condo. In the process, I think I managed to scare off any neighbors who might be contemplating a polite greeting the next time I walk by their home, but really, I didn't want to talk to them anyway.

So that's where we stand. Now that we are leaving it, our home is cleaner than it has ever been before. Every day before we leave, we hide anything that might cause a potential buyer to think we are dirty people. We also hide the knife block, which, in fairness to the realtor, I will admit is done so that weirdos can't use its knives as weapons. I would say that that's a sad commentary on our times, but let's face it, there were probably people in the '50s who would jump at the chance to attack a realtor. It's probably better that it's hidden anyway. If the realtor asks us to clean or fix one more thing, I might be tempted to do some (non-fatal) attacking - of myself, if nothing else.