Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for Uncategorized
Sold
Just as quickly as we bought our new house, we sold our current one. Last night a realtor called and asked if she could come show the house to her client who has been looking at houses all week. This client is relocating from Pittsburgh and had to find a home this week. Dave and I decided that even though we weren’t thrilled with the idea of paying the 3% commission to a realtor, getting someone in the door was a good thing. So we said yes.
They came this morning at 10:30. It was weird having people mill around the house while I was sitting on the porch, but it didn’t take them too long, so I handled it ok. When the woman, who was there with her three boys and her in-laws, came out of the house, she was very complimentary . She told me that she had seen a lot of houses in the last week, and it was obvious that ours was very well maintained and the exact word she used was “lovely”. That really felt good to hear. We’ve worked hard to make our house look good over the years, so I’m glad it was noticed.
After they left I went over to the neighbors to pick up the kids (they were playing over there while the showing took place) and we came home to get some lunch. I was just starting to make it when my phone rang and it was the realtor asking if they could come back to see it again at 1:00. I was thrilled, because to me this seemed like a really good sign. I quickly threw everything back in the fridge and called another friend to see if the kids could come there. Thankfully, because I have some of the greatest friends ever, one of them was willing to take our kids with them to the pool. This was a huge relief off my mind. I ran through a drive through for some lunch for them and dropped them off at the friend’s house just in time to get back home to put a few things away again and make sure that the house was still in tip-top shape.
When the people came back to look at the place they took a lot longer this time. Again, I thought this was a good sign, but I was also trying not get my hopes up too much. They left and I tried to get it out of my mind. I mowed, went to pick up the kids, and then the three of us ran to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things. As I was trying to wrangle both kids, who were literally running around like wild animals, and go through the self checkout, my phone rang and it was the realtor saying she had an offer for us. I was thrilled.
By 5:15 she was at our house, and after a relatively short negotiation, we were signing papers and had sold our house. I’m not sure that it’s sunk in totally yet, but I do know that we’re thrilled with the news. Since the buyers are relocating, they want to be in by the time school starts so they set the closing for August 12th. We instantly contacted our realtor to see if it would be possible to move the closing on our new house up to August 5th. Yeah, the week between those two dates is one of the busiest for me with registration going on, but oh well…we’ll make do with any situation to ensure that we don’t have to pay two mortgages.
Thanks for all the good thoughts for a quick sale. They obviously worked. 
The Daddy story
With the tradition of the Daddy’s Night festivities at Tomorrow’s Promise comes the other tradition of the Daddy stories. Ben’s was as follows:
My daddy’s name is David…I call him Daddy. Mom calls him Dave. He is about the same age as my mommy. He is taller than Mom. He has a little beard on this chin…cause that’s where all beards are! He has black hair and I think he has yellow eyes. He works at State Farm. He helps people buy stuff…like T.V.s or snowblowers. I think he eats there, too.
His favorite place to go out to eat is Joe’s. He likes the pig’s wings there. He helps mommy wash dishes and he helps her around the house.
He likes to watch football and basketball on T.V. and lots of games. His favorite team is the Illini.
I like building things with him like…fixing my wagon…and building Tinker Toys.
He’s the best because he does a lot of stuff with us and he helps mommy.
This year he got things way more accurate. Dave does have a little beard on his chin, and he does love Joe’s pig’s wings. However, I’m pretty sure that his job doesn’t involve helping people buy snowblowers, but is it pretty hard to understand replacement service when you’re five.
Fundamentally, though, he gets it…he knows that he has the best Daddy ever. Period,
A quick trip to Chambana
This afternoon I dropped the kids off at Aunt Theresa’s house, picked up Dave from work, and we hopped on 74 headed for Champaign. Dave is looking for a new winter coat and he wanted to go shop at his very favorite store in the whole world, Champaign Surplus. CS has just about every camping supply and/or accessory you can possibly imagine. They also have all kinds of clothes and shoes from the big name “outdoorsy” type brands…North Face, Columbia, SmartWool, Keen, UGG, etc. I can appreciate the place, but Dave absolutely loves it. He told me more than once as we were browsing around, “Honey, if I were still single, I’d be BROKE right now!” I think the first time he said this was when he was trying on a $65 pair of gloves. I know, right? $65 for gloves? This is why we basically browsed instead of buying anything in there!
Although our quest for a coat was unsuccessful, our trip was not because we got to eat dinner at Papa Del’s, our very favorite pizza place in the whole world. We had a great dinner, and it was very nice to catch up with each other. Things have been so crazy in the last month or so I feel like this was the first time that we had a chance to actually sit and talk to each other without being interrupted. And when that opportunity just happens to be at Pop’s, it’s even better.
It’s always great to spend time alone with Dave. Even though we didn’t find a coat and we drove about 100 miles just to go for pizza, I’m glad we did it.
’86 girls night
I am still very close with several of my high school friends. I’m sure that the fact that we only had about 12 girls total in our class had something to do with it…you can’t really switch friends too much when there are no other girls to be friends with! But seriously, there are six of us who have remained good friends. Last night, five of us got together for a much-needed visit, and we had a great time.
It was funny because we planned this get-together at my parents’ house in Sycamore…because it is sitting empty while my parents are in Florida for the winter. We all joked that it was just like high school all over again…planning a party at someone’s house while their parents are gone. But really it was the best option. It is relatively central to all of us, it’s an entire house sitting empty, and it’s free!
Sandi was the first to arrive and we had almost an hour before Patty came, and then another half hour until Lisa got there. We knew that Debbi, the fifth musketeer, wouldn’t be able to get there until much later, as she had a previous engagement, so the four of us headed out to dinner. At my request, we went to Pizza Villa, a restaurant that is truly a DeKalb tradition. I wanted to go there for one reason only; beer nuggets. Beer nuggets are these fried dough nuggets that are just delicious. For some reason, they seem to be DeKalb specific, so I wanted some. I don’t think that I had tasted one in probably six to seven years. I was long overdue.
After dinner we stopped to get some wine, and then headed back to my parents’ house. Debbi finally arrived a short time later, and then we just talked, and talked, and talked some more. I enjoyed myself so much…you just can’t beat hanging out with friends who know you so well and who know most of your history. It was incredibly easy for all of us to pick up right where we left off last time…even though it had been so long. Leese and Patty had to go home, but Sandi and Deb stayed over with me. The three of us stayed up until three am talking! We couldn’t believe how quickly time passed.
Sure, I’m paying for it tonight. I’m sooooo tired right now that I think I’ll be heading to bed soon. But it was totally and completely worth it. It was a refreshing and rejuvenating night, and I hope that we can do it again soon.
Ahhhh…
Today was seriously one of the laziest, most relaxing days we’ve had in a very long time, and I enjoyed it very much. Since we set the clocks back an hour last night, the kids were of course up super early, but we all laid around in bed watching cartoons for about 45 minutes before technically starting our day by getting up and ready for church.
After church, we came home and did very little the rest of the day. Both of the kids had a lot of fun working in their new Halloween coloring books from Aunt Theresa, and Ben worked especially hard on some sticker puzzles she gave him. Emma had a three-hour nap, which was desperately needed, and Daddy got a short nap in for himself, too. I enjoyed watching the Bears game without interruption for once. It was great, and they even looked good and won! We had a couple of battles over wanting more candy, but Ben didn’t beg for it too much, so I was happy with that.
It was one of those days where Dave and I look at each other, smile and say, “This is the good stuff, Honey.” The kids were in good moods and had fun playing with each other. The crying was at an all-time low, I think. Ok, sure, Emma did fall off the back of the couch downstairs, got a big lump on her head and cried really hard for a few minutes, but hey, no day is completely perfect, right? Overall, there wasn’t a ton of chaos in the house, and we all spent some really enjoyable time just chillin’ out together.
