Surprise!!

Just when you think it's safe to come out of the bathroom, bend over to pick something up or turn the corner.

Surprise!!!

Either Zero or Isabella will be face to face with you.

Mr. P and I have been playing on this joke with each other for quite some time. To adequately surprise Mr. P, you have to wait until the toilet flushes and he is washing his hands so he can't hear you running around the apartment trying to find the cat or the dog. Then you hoist them up to his eye level, he opens the door and ahhhh!!..haha! The best way to get me is to call me into the room and hide around the corner.

The cat and dog don't appreciate being part of this amusement. They would rather lay on the couch with us than have one of their humans scream in their faces but it's all in good fun. We know how to entertain ourselves!

The Census Stalker

I could not wait to receive my census in the mail this year. The commercials on TV and the letter I received stating that the census would be arriving in my mailbox soon, I thought was so exciting.

About a week after I received the first letter, the census arrived! I opened it and quickly ran through the questions. I thought they were going to want to know a lot more info. During the last census I thought one of the questions was how many toilets do you have in your house? Guess not?

I really dislike how the government dumbs things down for people:
Question 1: How many people live in your house?
Question 2: How many people live in your house that you forgot to include in question one.?

Seriously? Is anyone really that dumb?

So, I called up Mr. P to discuss the dumb questions and he told me he filed his census IN THE GARBAGE! Something I was so excited about, he threw away, didn't even open it. Oh well!

I filled mine out and mailed it the next day.

On a Sunday about three weeks ago, after one of our many open houses we are just sitting down for dinner and the doorbell rings. Could it be someone for our open house that ended 90 minutes ago? I seriously wish it was at this point. No, it's Zinthara (aka the Census Stalker) from the US Census Bureau who claims I never filled out my census. WHAT?!? I told her I did, recheck your records and go away - but nicer.

The Census Stalker has now shown up at my house almost every day for the past three weeks. She even came on Mother's Day! For the first week I told her to go away, I filled out the census. Now I'm done with the census and The Census Stalker! Sometimes when she comes I'm not home but when I am I don't answer the bell. And, one of my neighbors (they better not let me find out who they are) has been buzzing her in so she comes all the way upstairs. As punishment to my neighbors while I continue to do whatever it is that I'm doing I let the dog ferociously bark and growl for 20 minutes until he realizes that she is gone.

Mr. P has not received a follow up letter, phone call, email, notice on his door, stalker visit, NOTHING. All he can say is, "I told you not to fill that thing out!"

Lesson learned, in 2020 you can count us out.

Dating Again

I've been living in my condo for 8 years. Last year when the economy came crashing down and we got engaged, I decided to sell it. I used a realtor and definitely learned a lot from the six long months my house was listed with that realtor.

First of all, I was a nervous wreck, the day I signed the contract I woke up at 3:00 am and got sick. But, within the first month of my place being listed, I got two pretty decent offers, the first backed out, the second disappeared in the wind. And then...nothing for five months.

So after the holidays we decided to list for sale by owner, we could be really negotiable with the price since I bought so low and we can save a ton on the commission (we are offering 2% to agents instead of 6%). Plus, I can list it everywhere the realtors can by paying one flat rate.

I feel like I'm single all over again. My profile is up on every real estate website and craigslist with pictures, I have open houses every weekend, I check my phone for messages 3,000 times a day, I check my email constantly, I get excited when the phone rings and then disappointed when it's one of my friends or my mom.

It's like being back on match.com and Mr. P is the best friend I confide in when people want to "date me". We had a guy come to check out my place four times, four times!! Weeks later he still couldn't make a decision. If we were dating and we went out four dates, and he couldn't figure out if he wanted to continue dating, I'd kick you to the curb but instead I find myself being patient and polite to indecisive people and it's driving me slightly crazy.

It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it didn't sell right now, we have a backup plan of Mr. P moving in with me and I've rearranged my furniture in my head. One day it will sell, for now I'll try to focus on just starting our lives together. We are really lucky, we are both healthy, have jobs and we'll have a roof over our heads when we do get married. Where that roof is, is another story...

And So It Begins.....

Throughout my life I've written in journals and tried my best to hold onto memories. I have saved every card I've ever received and I have the rose petals from the first bouquet Mr. P gave me, they are in the same box with the rose petals from the night he proposed.

I learned how to type over 60 wpm in high school and over the years my journals have been forgotten about since I get a hand cramp after I write a sentence.

So the purpose of this blog is to keep track of our new beginnings so I don't forget anything. Within the next seven months we will be selling a condo, planning a wedding, getting married, moving in together, (with our pets, a cat she belongs to Mr. P and a dog, he's all mine!), hopefully we'll get to live in the town we want, which will be new for both of us, maybe buying a house and having fun along the way...here we go!