So Bobby and I are going through that homeowner heaven-hell paradox known as “refinancing”. It’s heaven because we are shortening the length of our loan by 4 years at a reedonkulously low interest rate that will save us approximately 50 bajillion dollars (now all THREE kids can to college instead of us having to draw names for two lucky ones). It’s hell because OH MY GOSH AN APPRAISAL! WE HAD TO HAVE AN APPRAISAL! Translation: you better get rid of all the crap you’ve been hoarding for 11 years so there’s room for someone to walk through your house and tell you how much it’s worth.
We didn’t find out the date of our appraisal until six days before the blessed event, so we worked our butts off de-cluttering, hauling crap to the dump and Goodwill, and organizing the crap that had to stay. Then, Monday, we paid our 18-year-old friend and babysitter Krisha to clean the house from top to bottom for us. Because I came to the realization that you CANNOT clean your house from top to bottom with a two-year-old attached to your limbs. So it was either pay Krisha to babysit Jonah while I cleaned, or…pay Krisha to CLEAN while I played with my son at an alternate location. Let me think about it…hmmm…I’ll take option B.
So, after a week of de-cluttering and carpet cleaning by us and deep cleaning by Krisha, our house looked pretty awesome this morning when the appraiser came.
(Although what impressed her the most? Was the large shelving with hundreds of Bobby’s perfectly-folded t-shirts in our laundry area. She even asked if she could pick one up to “see how he does it”. Because my husband is like a t-shirt folding sensei and I will admit, it is pretty impressive. I hope it somehow adds to the value of our home.)
I should’ve taken pictures. Of course I did not.
Eight hours after the appraiser left, it looked like this:
I am SO GLAD this appraisal is over. I hope to build on Krisha’s great cleaning job and our de-cluttering and what not and do a better job keeping things clean this year. But for now, I am going to sit back and enjoy the rest of the lemon butter cream frosting I made tonight to go with my lemon gluten free cookies I made earlier (because Sophie said, “I want to bake something!”) and wash it back with the GIANT Mountain Dew my darling husband brought me when he got home from work.
Remember when I said I was gonna give up pop at New Year’s? Well it’s January 15th and this is only my SECOND one! I think that’s pretty good for someone who used to have two a day. And let me tell ya, I earned it. But tomorrow it’s back to being a good girl. (Which is why I HAD to eat the rest of that icing…eliminating temptation, right??)
Oh, and also, please join me in giving thanks to God that the appraiser didn’t want to look inside my bedroom closet. Seriously large bullets were dodged there!
