The Best Black Friday

I can only think of one time that I have participated in Black Friday shopping and I didn't particularly enjoy it. To be honest, shopping of any kind, but especially shopping with the masses gives me a bit of a panic attack. Daniel will occasionally get up really early to brave the crowds for a good deal on select items then come back home and go to bed, but I am happy to sleep in.

The week before Thanksgiving (after many weeks of cleaning and prepping and decluttering) we finally put our house on the market with a local real estate agent. We got off on a bit of the wrong foot and were feeling frustrated with the process... the realtor listed it on MLS with the wrong square footage (too low) and it took an additional three days for her to put pictures online. We would have preferred that she didn't list it until she had all of her ducks in a row. 

Since it was Thanksgiving I tried to put the frustration with our realtor out of my mind and resign myself to the fact that it was going to take a long time to sell the house. Seriously... who would really want a house in Hollywood, Alabama right before the holidays?

For the first time in over five months (when Daniel was first restationed to Tennessee), I didn't worry about the house. It was so far out of our control, that I just let it all go.

That being said, it was a bit of a shock to receive a call from our realtor (on Tuesday as I was packing up to go to Nashville to celebrate Thanksgiving). She had someone who wanted to come look at the house the next day. I said that was fine and then proceeded to not only pack for my trip but also clean my entire house. I did both of those things with a toddler and a dog underfoot since Daniel was working in Tennessee for the week.

I was nervous, but also starting to feel a glimmer of hope about selling our house.

During the time of the showing, I busied myself to keep from staring at the clock or my phone. Halfway through the showing, our realtor texted me a couple of questions and I tried not to get too anxious. After the showing, she texted to say that the buyer was interested and that she would be in touch.

After that last text, I waited for Daniel to arrive at my sister's so that we could fully enjoy celebrating Thanksgiving. We both tried not to get our hopes up too much.

On Black Friday, I offered to help watch my sister's kids so she and her husband could go shopping. We were busy playing when our realtor called. My mom kept watching the kids while I raced upstairs so that Daniel could be there to hear whatever we were going to hear.

The first thing our realtor said was, "Happy Black Friday" and I questioned if it was going to be a good Black Friday for us. Indeed it was.

The buyer had placed an offer (before his wife even saw the property!). They would be returning that afternoon together to look at the house. Additionally, they wanted to close in 3 weeks.

What!?!??! Less than a week on the market (and without pictures for part of the time) and we already had a good offer! We are still in shock.

This past Monday we countered the offer and proceeded with signing papers and getting this process started. We are scrambling to find temporary housing until we can find a house to buy. We are moving out on the 18th of the month. I'm a bit sad that we don't really have time to make the effort with our Christmas decorations, but it is such good news that it doesn't matter. 

For the first time in five months, God answered our prayers in less than a week, without me worrying about it. It was the best Black Friday deal ever. Though now we are homeless until we can find a new house...

Thursday Things

1. I celebrated my 33rd birthday this past Monday. 

2.  Daniel and I went on an ACTUAL DATE on said birthday.

3. Jack had a blast hanging out with our friend's kids while we went on said date.

4. Our house will be on the market soon.

5. Once upon a time, we naively thought it would be nice to be able to make an offer on a new house by my birthday.

6. Obviously that didn't happen. Not even close.

7. We haven't even started looking yet. Not really, anyway.

8. We need to find a semi-permanent place to live in the Chattanooga area by first of the year. gulp.

9. We have even discussed living in a camper again. It's definitely not off of the list.

10. I think we should live on a houseboat. That would be awesome.

11. Daniel is too frugal and thinks boat slips are too expensive.

12. We finally stopped using our cloth diapers. Staying in a hotel and carting dirty diapers home every weekend was too much of a hassle. 

13. Now if only we had the time to get a certain little toddler potty trained.

14. I have lost track of how many words Jack knows. He pretty much parrots anything we say. Recently he has begun to add an "s" on to many words. He wants to drink "waters" and eat his "yogurts." It is incredibly adorable.

15. Speaking of Jack, he turns two on Monday. TWO! We are planning to have a party the Saturday after his birthday. I'm a bad mommy and haven't found time to get the invitations done yet. 

Vacation Rental House vs. Extended Stay Hotel

After three straight weeks staying in an extended stay hotel (Sun-Thurs), this week we were back at a vacation rental property. There are some pros and cons to each place, but overall we are fans of being in a house when possible. Here are some of our comparisons.

 

1) In the hotel there was a complimentary hot breakfast every morning. Also, Tuesday-Thursday nights the hotel had complimentary appetizers in the lobby (which was pretty much a meal for us). The pro is that I didn't have to cook and we saved a ton of money with all of this free food. The con was that I didn't have to cook and none of the food we ate was particularly healthy. 

2) In the rental house I actually cook at least one meal each week. This means we eat better and Daniel has better options for lunch since I typically have leftovers. Last week I tried cooking at the hotel and it was a flop.

3) Since we have a dog, staying in the hotel means multiple daily walks. Again, this is a pro and a con. Exercise is always a plus (I was walking an additional 2-4 miles per day) but it also takes time and if I didn't feel like walking or was tired or it was raining, I couldn't skip.

On the flip side, the house we stayed at this week is on 3 acres and we could just open the door and let Sophie roam to her heart's content.

 

4) The hotel suite was two rooms (a living room/kitchenette and a bedroom/bathroom). Once Jack went to sleep (for naps or the night) we were pretty much stuck in the bedroom part. We watched a lot of TV. In the rental house, there is much more room and once Jack was down for the night we weren't stuck in one room. Interestingly enough, we rarely watch TV when we stay in a rental house.

5) The hotel is a little further of a drive for Daniel so we never did anything fun during the week when we stayed downtown. Our evenings seemed to consist of going out to eat and then collapsing into bed.

This week, we squeezed in a mini hike at the Three Gorges part of the Cumberland Trail in Soddy Daisy. It was 5 minutes from our rental house and we will definitely be going back. 

6) Regardless of where we stay, I have been thankful to take advantage of the local YMCA's and their free childcare. This gives me a break and some time for myself.

On Wednesday I took Jack to a story hour at the Hixson library. Afterward I had planned to go to the Hixson Y to do a Kettle Bell workout. Unfortunately when I got to my car I realized I had left my tennis shoes at this house. So I did a quick about face and went to the downtown Y instead where I could take a Yoga class. It has been great to be in a city again where we have so many options!

Overall we have been making our transitional lifestyle work for us (whether we are in a hotel or a house). I know we will both be thankful to be back in a home of our own full time. We have been spending the last several weekends working on our house and hope to have it listed for sale by the end of the month.

Our Week in Food, and other things.

This week was our third to spend in an extended stay hotel. We are getting much faster at the weekly pack up our lives/live in a hotel thing. I'm pretty sure that Jack's favorite part is getting to ride the luggage cart.

Last weekend we rented a rather large lift so that Daniel could fix a couple of spots on our roof and do some pressure washing to the side of our house. We need to get things in tip top shape before we list our home. I'm pretty sure that while it was a hard day's work for Daniel, he enjoyed getting to operate big equipment. As I mentioned on Facebook, he even took me up in the lift after Jack was in bed so that we could gaze at the stars from above our roof line, a good 40 feet in the air. It was a pretty sweet experience.

Over the weekend I also had the chance to work on a chair recovering project. I inherited this chair from my grandmother. My dad says it was his grandfathers from the early 1900s. I have found evidence of at least 4 kinds of fabric as I have removed the current fabric. I even remember some iterations of the older fabrics, so it has been a little walk down memory lane.

Sunday night we ate at Lupi's Pizza Pies in Chattanooga and discovered that you should never park your car under trees that are full of birds – even if it is a good parking spot.

Monday I attempted to cook in the hotel. It was a bit of a flop. The cooktops in the hotel are tiny and the burners are small. The pan I used (that was included with our kitchen) was not flat so it didn't heat evenly. It took well over an hour for my rice to cook. And even then there were occasional hard bits of rice.

Tuesday we ate at Cheeburger Cheeburger. I had been interested in eating here for some time. They make their burgers to order and Daniel and I both agreed our burgers tasted better than Five Guys (one of our favorites). We split a basket of onion rings and fries. The onion rings were way too greasy without much flavor while the fries were decent, though we prefer Five Guys fries. Finally we split a chocolate peanut butter shake. Daniel loved it while I thought the flavors were good, but a bit too intense. Overall it was a good experience. We sat outside on the street since the weather was nice. It was a bit too close to the road for me (especially with a toddler). We had to keep a firm hold on Jack and not let him get down from the table. While we waited for our food, Daniel and Jack took a long walk. Our waitress was a bit slow in checking in with us, but that is somewhat to be expected when you sit outside.

Wednesday night we opted to eat the burgers and salad offered by our hotel. They were pretty good. We have been impressed by the complimentary offerings at the Staybridge Inn and Suites.

 

We have decided to chill out on finding a place to rent (as you might remember, last week I mentioned that we were a bit stressed about this process). The last two weeks of rental house hunting were frustrating. 

Thankfully we realized that we were straying from some of our original housing goals that we had agreed to when we started this whole challenge of traveling during the week. 

We are in the process of regrouping so that we can make the best decision about where to live. In the meantime we are focusing more on getting our house ready to put on the market. 

Thursday Things {Random, September 2013}

1. It has been a really trying couple of weeks. It might have to do with the fact that we have been in a hotel for 8 out of the last 11 days. It could have to do with the knowledge that Daniel is probably going to get busier at work very soon and we are trying like mad to find a livable place to rent (for cheap). Or it is knowing that we still have to sell a house in Hollywood (one that we have yet to put on the market). There are still so many unknowns and we are trying to make good decisions by basically guessing. We are stressed to the max.

2. My brother came to visit us last week for two days. He cooked for us and just hung out. He helped me pull staples out of a chair that I am recovering. He told me that I was being too picky about the rental house thing. I'm trying to take his advice. You can do anything/live anywhere for a few months, right? We have a lot on our plates right now but I enjoyed hanging out with my little bro and I'm thankful that he came for a visit.

3. I removed the blog RocketCityMom from my Feedly reader. It makes me a little sad, but we really aren't spending much time in Huntsville at this point, so it seemed silly to be in the know about kids activities that we can't attend. If you live in the Huntsville area, and have kids, I would highly recommend this blog as a resource.

4. Jack's newest phrase is: Oh my goodness. It's exactly how I feel about the news. I just can't watch or read it any more. Is it just me or is our world getting worse and worse. What is wrong with people?

5. I tried a new (to me) Bootcamp class at the Hixson Y this week. The ladies working out were all really friendly. Several of them have 2-year-olds so I am in good company.

6. I'm finding that most of my conversations are pretty awkward these days.

Make sure you come back for the Thursday bootcamp class.
I would love to, but... 
I'm not here on Thursdays.
I don't live here.
My life is kind of crazy.

Where do you live?
Ummm... 
in a hotel.
in a vacation house rental.
in Hollywood, Alabama.

If you bought a Y pass you would probably exercise more.
Well, that is true, but... 
I'm only here 3 full days a week.
my child is in the midst of a big transition and I can't always show up at stuff.
I don't actually live here.

Can we hang out on X day?
I would love to, but I will be in Chattanooga then.
I would love to, but I will be in Alabama then.

See you in church on Sunday/Wednesday!
We wish we could, but unfortunately we will be in Huntsville on Sunday.
We wish we could, but unfortunately we will be in Chattanooga on Wednesday.

What are your plans/when are you moving?
...crickets...

It's hard when you are neither here nor there. Not fully anyways.

7. Yesterday I took Jack to a toddler story hour at one of the Chattanooga libraries. It was geared towards 18-36 month olds. At 22 months, Jack was a little on the young side of this spectrum. They had little squares of remnant carpet set up in a semi-circle. Each child was to sit on their square with a parent behind them. This proved to be a difficult task for my little one. He wanted to lay down or stand up or roll around. He thought it was great fun to stand and fall backward into my lap or to try to inch his way toward the reader. I am sure that it was a good experience for him and we will go back, but as a mama I found it to be incredibly stressful. I wanted him to sit like the other kids were. I had to keep reminding myself that he is a) younger than most of the other kids and b) this was his first time and the other kids have had lots of practice and time to be taught how to do it properly.