Moving forward

The real estate agent, Sherry, thought the house was "adorable," but because of the horrible housing market and the number of foreclosures and short sales, it's going to be offered at something less than what we paid for it in 2000, when it was butt-ugly, before Jerry made it beautiful.  Which makes me furious and sad, but there's nothing to be done, and, as so many people have said to me, the important thing is to move forward with my life, and selling the house has to be part of that process.  Assuming it is going to sell.

Sherry also wants 90% of what's in the house out of it before it's shown.  Yikes.  This will mean getting a storage unit, since she wants a minimalist look that includes removing most of the furniture.  This will mean getting rid of stuff, which right now seems to me logistically impossible - how do you get rid of stuff?  I'm hesitant to list things on Craigslist or Freecycle because it means having people come to the house to pick it up, and I'm nervous about doing that with me being on my own.  Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out.  My old buddy Steve the Contractor is coming over tomorrow, and I'll ask him about the three things Sherry specifically wants done: deal with the mold in the basement, fill some holes in the private dirt road the house is on (she says realtors might not want to show it if their cars are going to sink into potholes... I guess that's a fair point!), and paint a corner of the house exterior where there was a leak before I had a dormer repaired last year and the paint is peeling.

Yesterday I got some cardboard boxes and bubble wrap at a Home Depot ("the Despot," Jerry called it). There was a strong wind blowing as I wheeled them in a shopping cart across the parking lot to my car, and, despite my best efforts to hold on, three or four of the flattened boxes took off and flew over several parking rows.  I wonder if anyone was watching as I ran here and there to retrieve them and wrestle them against the wind back to my car.  Highly entertaining, I'm sure.  If I show up on America's Funniest Home Videos, do let me know.

Today I spent 2 1/2 hours going through boxes and drawers and shelves in the bedroom Jerry used as an office.  Lots of paper.  Lots of paper there was no reason to keep in the first place, Sweetie - you never were very good at throwing things out.  Some I kept, though: some copies of our homemade wedding announcement (a photo of us on the front, inside a photo of our marriage certificate and the phrase "What we did on St. Patrick's Day..."), the stub from Jerry's ticket on Aer Lingus when we had our three-years-later honeymoon trip to Ireland, a slip of paper on which he'd written, in his tiny tiny little handwriting, my New York address and phone number, back when we'd first met.  I suppose the fact that I didn't cry at all, that I haven't cried in days now, is thanks to the Zoloft: I feel mostly kind of tired and numb rather than despondent, which I suppose is useful in getting things done.  Especially since we're (sort of?) aiming to get the house on the market before I leave for my next trip to NY on April 18.  Again... yikes.

Anyway.  What would have been our 12th wedding anniversary is coming up on Saturday.  I'm going to spend it with 20,000 of my closest friends (I may have used this line already), many of whom will no doubt be the better or the worse for St. Patrick's Day celebrating, watching my Bulls take on the 76ers and my boyfriend Benny the Bull being his big red furry self.