House off the market

Our six-month contract with the realtor expired on Monday and he came this morning to pick up his sign. He worked really hard for us but there are so many problems with the market right now.

We've made a lot of adjustments in our already tight budget and have identified some financial/budget patterns. Our kids still have a roof over their heads and that is all we are worried about, so the current plan is to keep doing like we are doing. We would still like to sell and are most likely going to list it for sale by owner for now.

Back to school and work!

The kids have been out of school since last Wednesday and their dad has been off work since last Friday, but they all had to get back to normal today. They were all slightly reluctant but went to their destinations without much complaint!

My husband spent most of this short vacation working on our vehicles. He still has some more work to do and one more vacation day next week.

Another school break coming up

The kids just finished up winter break and here comes another one! They are out of school Monday (Jan. 19) for the holiday and the school has teacher workshops tomorrow and Friday, so they are now officially out of school "on break" until Tuesday.

I didn't check the school calendar so I wasn't aware of these two days they have out this week until they went back to school after winter break. If I had realized they had these two days plus the holiday after the weekend I could have tried to help my husband coordinate his time off work. He just took a vacation last Thursday and Friday plus this past Monday, the same days the kids are out of school except for a week ahead. He does have this Monday off on vacation so they'll all have one day off at the same time.

Update on the house-selling situation

Just as suddenly as our house became popular on the house-showing circuit, its popularity died down! After that rash of house showings a couple of weeks ago we haven't heard anything on interest or more showings.

Our realty contract is up this coming Monday; we've heard from the realtor and he'll be coming to pick the sign up. We have a "For Sale" sign with our phone number on it left over from the last house we sold that we'll most likely put up in its place. I'm looking into a few FSBO (for sale by owner) websites for possible listings. On a few of them you can list your house and put up a photo for free; for a really reasonable fee you can list the house for a year with up to 20 photos, plus they send you yard signs. We are talking about doing the one with the 20 photos and yard signs, and I'll probably look into some other avenues of low cost advertising.

We're still talking about what to do; right now the plan is to keep doing like we are doing and be patient.

As usual, my husband is making home improvement plans. ;)

Winter break almost over

The kids' winter break from school is almost over. It was actually quite pleasant as two weeks with a house full of kids is much easier to manage than two months. We had fun sleeping late, eating homemade pancakes (from scratch, Ma's recipe!) at noon, and playing outside.

The kids had a list of things they wanted to do (visiting family mostly) and it looked like it would all get done this weekend until a few relatives turned up sick. :( We hope everyone gets better soon and we'll try to visit everyone after they start feeling better.

My husband tried to take some time off work while the kids were on break but it didn't work out. That would have been great if they could have spent more time together. He was off two days during their break and we did enjoy some quiet family time together. He has a day off work in January that corresponds with a day out of school. Some days off work while they are in school means he can visit them at school, which they always love!

More house showings!

Suddenly our house is so popular. Hmmm ...

The preparation work for Monday night's showing went really well. I got the house clean Sunday night and the next morning I got the kids up early and took everyone over to my SIL's house before one dish could be dirtied or one toy pulled out of place! Other than it being a long day (the showing was set for 5-6:30 p.m.), it worked out wonderfully.

The next day we had not one but TWO showings! The realtor called my husband, who in turned called me at about 9 a.m. to let me know about the 1 p.m. showing. I had the kids be as un-messy as possible while I fed them and supervised them getting ready. My husband came from work to pick us up at 11:30 a.m. and we went with him to run errands. He treated us all to lunch at Burger King for our trouble. We were returning him to work at around 1:15 p.m. when the realty appointment office called to schedule an appointment for 4:45 p.m. that same day. Of course that was fine. That just meant that we would need to stay at my SIL's house a little longer, until it was time to pick my husband up from work.

We haven't heard back on the Tuesday showings, but we did hear Monday night that the person looking at the house decided against it. No word usually means the same thing.

Since then we haven't had any more requests but we are (read: I am) trying hard to keep things to where I can straighten up quickly and gather kids and leave quickly, just in case.

Our realty contract expires mid-January; we are still discussing the options.