5.14.12
Because we were expecting a lot of traffic the first weekend the house was on the market, we made plans to be out of the house all day on both Saturday and Sunday, boarding the cats for the day and planning outings to keep Will occupied.

Saturday we had five showings, which we thought was a pretty good number considering that the house had only been listed the day before. We left the house just before the first showing at 10, ran a couple of errands, and then took Will into Baltimore for lunch and a walk around Hampden. It was only about 1:30 when we finished with that, and he was getting pretty cranky, so we decided to drive back towards home and hope that he fell asleep in the car. He did just that, so we ended up driving around for a couple of hours to let him get some rest, and then we took him for ice cream and to Walmart to look at the fish.

The final showing of the day was from 5-6, but we were hoping they might finish early. But when we drove past our house around 5:20, there was still a car in the driveway, so we took Will on one last littel adventure to a local park, where he spent half the time going down a corkscrew slide and the other half flirting with an 11 month old girl and her mom.

As of Saturday night we only had one confirmed appointment for Sunday, but we were still planning to spend the day out of the house just in case. We figured showings might be lower than normal for a Sunday because of Mother's Day, but we were hoping we'd get at least a few. As it turned out, however, no one else booked a showing, and the one that was scheduled from 1:30-2:30 canceled in the morning for a "family emergency" (which we assume was code for "we forgot it was Mother's Day").

Still, we had a pretty fun day with Will—we went into Baltimore again to visit the aquarium and then came home early in the afternoon to crash and catch up on some sleep after an exhausting couple of days.

No word yet on whether any of the people who saw the house on Saturday are interested enough to make an offer, but we're optimistic that we'll get something in the next week or so. Without a holiday, next Saturday and Sunday should be packed with showings, and I don't think it will take long for the right person to find the house. Ideally we will have it under contract before we leave for Atlanta, but if not, I don't think it will be on the market for too long. Fingers crossed.

5.11.12
We're listing our house today. Should be an interesting weekend...

5.10.12
There are far too many people who don't seem to realize that I'm not going to be at my job three weeks from now who are involving me in far too many discussions that it's no longer appropriate to make me the point person for. I'm not intending to sit around doing nothing for my final weeks here, but I'm also not intending to do the work that I would have done over the next three to four months over that time, either.

5.9.12
This might be the worst season of Deadliest Catch yet. I've long been a fan of this show, but this season it just doesn't feel like the same program. They're spending virtually no time with the two best boats (and the two that have been with the series from the beginning), the Northwestern and the Time Bandit, even though both of those boats have the best stories this year in terms of the history of the show—each of these boats took one of the sons of the captain who died two seasons ago, and whose boat was the only other consistent boat from the beginning of the show.

Instead, producers are spending far too much time focusing on two boats and captains who were just introduced last season, and neither of whom is very likable or has any compelling storylines. Perhaps this is fallout from a couple of seasons ago when the veteran captains threatened to boycott the show after a contract dustup between the network and the Time Bandit owners for a spinoff show, but whatever the cause, it's a mistake.

The Northwestern, the Time Bandit, and the Cornelia Marie (the boat run by the captain who died two years ago) are the reasons that this show became popular in the first place, and the emotional connection that fans have to those crews should continue to be what drives the producers. I couldn't care less about these new crews, and their overexposure relative the the boats that I've followed for years is turning me off.

5.8.12
I think today might be the first time that my entire team has been physically present in the building at the same time in over a month. A lot of that is my fault—I've been working from home, sick, and taking vacation to do stuff related to selling the house a lot in the past few weeks—but I've got two other team members who have been out pretty frequently as well.

With all the things that I'm aware of on the calendar in the next month and my intution about other things that might cause unscheduled absences, I'm guessing that there will maybe be five more days when all five of us are here on the same day before my last day of work.

5.7.12
I'm working at home today even though I'm feeling better than I have in a couple of weeks. Yesterday wasn't great, but I rested a lot and I think it finally made a difference. Saving time on the commute today will help me get a few last details wrapped up with the house before we have our real estate agent take one more look at the house so he can schedule a photographer in preparation for listing the house later this week.

Today will probably be the last time I ever mow the lawn at this house, which is just another one of the million little things I've had to do in the past six weeks that has made me overly emotional about our decision to leave Baltimore and head south. I know it's the right thing to do, but it's scary going into the unknown and leaving behind a life that has been pretty happy for us in Maryland, especially over the past few years as we've gotten more recognition in our jobs and we were finally able to add a little one to our family.

Intellectually I have all confidence that I will become just as important and knowledgeable in my new job as I am in my current one, and I know that we can make a nice life for ourselves in Atlanta, too, but the emotional reptillian response is fear and doubt. I'm not really ready to leave this place even though I know that it's time. I'm already missing it more than I ever thought possible—my friends, my coworkers, the landscape, the places we go, all of it. I guess I was finally feeling like I actually belonged here, and now I have to go and figure out how to belong somewhere else.

5.4.12
Our house looks better, inside and out, than it ever has in the twelve years that we've owned it, but it already doesn't feel like it's our home anymore. We've tried to keep things as stable as we can for Will, although he's pretty adaptable—his room is the one room we haven't touched at all, other than to clean the carpets. We still have some work left to do to get the house ready to list, but we should be able to do it by mid-next week at the latest, which means we should have two full weekends to show it off to buyers before we have to pack up the rest of our furniture.

It would be nice to get a quick offer or two and have it under contract by the time we leave for Atlanta, but with no furniture and no occupants, the only thing we should have to worry about managing remotely is the lawn service to keep the grass cut and the flower beds free of weeds. And we have neighbors who will keep an eye on the place for us, even though there won't be anything inside worth stealing at that point. But it would still ease our minds to have the house under contract by the time we vacate the premises at the end of the month.

5.3.12
Still haven't watched a single episode of the new season of Mad Men yet. I think it's the two hour premiere that I can't get past—I really like to ingest these episodes as whole chunks, but I don't have the time or the mental focus to sit for an hour and a half (the actual content of the episode once you take out the commercials) and work my way through it.

5.2.12
I'm feeling halfway human again for the first time in about a week, although I can tell that it's still going to be a few days until I'm fully recovered. This was a nasty bug—fever, nausea, and a severe cough that was probably the worst symptom of all because it kept me awake for hours and deprived me of much needed sleep. I even resorted to taking cough medicine, which I don't think I've done since I was a kid, and it was just as horrible-tasting as I remember it. It helped a couple of times, but there were also a couple of times when it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

It's an odd time of year to be getting sick with something like this, but I think it must be going around—several of my colleagues at work also seem to have been afflicted by it. I'm guessing that all the stress with moving and starting a new job didn't help much, either. But hopefully it's behind me now and I can get back to tying off all the loose ends at work before I leave at the end of the month.

5.1.12
The weekend was kind of a blur for me, especially because I was really not feeling well, but most of our non-essential stuff got packed into boxes and then moved into our first Pod. We initially thought we would move everything into the Pod ourselves, but when we realized that we would have around 150 boxes plus some random furniture, we figured it would be worth it to hire some movers to do that part for us.

They showed up on Sunday morning, and two hours later our house, which had been completely stuffed to the gills with boxes and clutter, was suddenly very empty. The Pod was almost completely full floor to ceiling, and we felt a like we'd taken a big step in getting the house ready to sell. We're using the same company to do our final move a month from now—they were fast, efficient, and relatively cheap.

My parents came to watch Will while we focused on the moving stuff, and because of my illness I don't really feel like I got to see them at all—whenever I was feeling well enough to be out of bed, I was packing and getting all the stuff for the first Pod arranged for the movers. But Will had a great time with them, and knowing that he was being taken care of allowed Julie to focus on the move stuff.

The only big things we have left to do before we put the house up for sale are to get the carpets professionally cleaned, arrange the remaining furniture so that it's as inviting as possible, and get a handyman to take care of a few little nagging things. All of that is scheduled for this week, so we're hoping that a week from now our house will be on the market. The constant parade of potential buyers will be its own special little hell, but we're hoping we've done all the right things and are going to pick a price point where we'll get some serious offers quickly.