Selling a House - ADHD style

So two of the members of our household have been officially diagnosed as ADHD. At least one other member could be ADD (No Hyper). The 7 YO does not seem to have these types of difficulties. For the most part we are all "out of site, out of mind" people. We are pilers.

All of this is a great disadvantage when trying to sell a house. All of the the information about staging a house says

• get rid of clutter
• clear off the counters so people can see how much space there is.
• Remove excess furniture (but where to we put stuff)
• Keep everything cleaned up.

Boy is this hard. Fortunately I was raised by a Mom who might be a tad OCD about clean houses and stuff out of site. So I can do it. I know what to look for. But when Hubby rolls his eyes at me when I told him I took his Pajamas off the hook in the batheroom and put them under his pillow. He does not see what difference putting the pajamas out of site makes.

Or drying the stainless steel sink, or hiding the change he pulls out of his pockets everynight. ..

Since today is Friday and Hubby only has to work a half a day. He sleeps in uh, allows me to start work at 7 AM. I am worried he did not make sure the kitchen towels were placed on the holder in the cabinets, the table was wiped off from breakfast and the toothpaste was rinsed out of the bathroom sink - wait, he often forgets to make the boys brush their teeth in the morning...

My front yard...

It's about the crumbling driveway... But we are on the market.

Book Give away

Overwhelmed with Joy , one of the ten or so people who read my blog, wrote a reivew on a couple of books for kids written by Randy Alcorn. The first is Wait Until Then and the Second is Heaven for Kids. They sound pretty interesting.

Sign up for it.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday (Baseball Practice)- Pot roast _ put it int he crockpot Saturday for after baseball, but the boys finally won after getting beat twice. So it was off for Chicken wings.

Tuesday (6:00 Baseball game) - Beef tip roast in crockpot eaten on sandwiches

Wednesday (Realtor coming) - Not-sagna - from Rachael Ray. My son wanted Lasagna. Rachels is a 30 minute meal.

Thursday (6:00 Baseball game) - Leftover beef tip roast sandwiches

Friday - Mom goes to Girls night out (appetizers and desserts) Dad and boys are on their own.

Works For Me Wednesday

It's been a while since I've played along, but I came across soemthing I do that is helpful to me. I have been preparing my house to sell and move. So I have been purging a lot. Actually, I am on the calling lists of both the local AMVETS and Vietnam Veterans organizations that do pickups. So about ever 4-6 weeks I get a call. I keep a box in my basement utility room, right inside the boor that is my donations box. Anytime I come across something in good condition that I no longer have a use for, it goes int he donate pile or donate box. Then when I get a call, I make the pick-up date on my calendar. On the appropriate day I set the donate box on the front porch.

A pile for my donations works for me. Visit Shannon for more great tips and ideas.

It's all in the name...

So my oldest turned 12 last week. He has a nice strong male name. His first name is my father's, his middle name is Hubby's fathers (Along with Hubby's middle name, along with our 7 YO's Middle name). But the point of this is his first name. We can him by a common nickname, I believe they call it the diminutive. (You know, where you add a Y, like Jimmy, Billy, Tommy, Bobby). But since his birthday, I have been dropping the Y (Jim, Bill, Tom, Bob). It's like in my mind, he tunrned 12 and it is time his name sound more grown up.

I am anxious to see who he will decide to be when he goes to a new school next Fall.

Of course, I completely change my name when I went to High School. I am Margaret, after my Grandmother, but growing up, my nickname was Missy. I was proud of my "real" name and wanted a nick name to reflect that.

VA Tech tragedy

So it's almost the end of my day and scanning my Bloglines I see a lot of blogs I follow have put up posts praying for the victims of the rampage. My prayers certainly join them.

But earlier today I had to deal with the tragedy in a different way. What if this happened on our campus? VA Tech was sending emails to their students. There website was up and down. What if something similar happened here? Could the email system that I manage handle the traffic? Could students get the message to stay inside, not come to campus. Could students communicate with paretns and friends that they were ok?

Scary Day.

Menu Plan Monday

Mon - Baseball game - Hot Dogs

Tues - Baseball Game - Something with Ground beef

Wed - Science fair - Chicken and noodles

Thurs - Beef in crockpot

Fri - Homemade Pizza

It's a busy week, We'll see how this menu holds up. But there is food in the freezer.

Check Out Org Junkie for more great menus.

Anybody seen my keys?

First of all, Happy 12th Birthday to my son B. Wow he's getting big and independent.

I was getting ready and the 7 YO was eating breakfast. The new 12 YO was not yet up. I went to grab my keys to go out to my car and get a gift, wrap it and leave it sitting out to torture him all day. Where are my keys. -- First of all, we have a cute little rack of hooks just for keys inside out back door. I am not always the greatest about putting my keys there. I blame the ADD. - If my keys are not on the key holder, then they are usually on the table, the dishwasher or the counter by the phone. or in my pocket. Not on the hook. Not on the table. Not on the dishwasher. Not on the counter. Not in the pocket of my raincoat. Not int he pocket of the blazer I wore yesterday.

Ok think. I stopped at Friendly's and got an Ice cream cake for the birthday boy. I remember walking in balancing my purse, lunchbag, tote bag and the cake and pressing the lock button on my car's remote. Did I leave them by the freezer? Not on the dryer. Not on the ironing board. I start pulling boxes out of the freezer. No frozen keys.

I checked my bedroom. I have removed most flat surfaces from the Living room to have put them down on. No Keys!

However, when the 7 yo got up, he said "Look what I found, Dad's Cell phone in my bed." Huh Ok like CSI the flashback is that Dad went into his room to give him a hug and kiss, the phone was in his shirt pocket and it slipped out when he bent over." ( And dang am I good).

What time is it? almost 7 AM. Is Hubby at his office, (because he won't get the call on his cell)? Did he pick up 2 sets of keys? I call, Oh no! Voice Mail. I leave a message and continue the search.

Phone rings 2 minutes later. Caller ID says unavailable. This is how his phone calls form Hubby's offcie show up. "I have your keys. We need to find another system so I don't grab your keys off the hook." And of course he asks if I have to go to work today. He has a pressing assignment. I have a meeting at 3:30.

By the time he finished his pressing work and drove the 30 miles home, he handed me my keys with a sheeping "I'm sorry. I left my keys in my pocket and rushed out of the house and grabbed yours off the hook. "

And I am the ADHD one. The process is not broke, just the follow through.

Now I need to find something big and pink to attache to my key ring so that it is significatnly different than his.

Painting a staircase

So I spent another weekend working on the house. It was a long weekend too since I took off Friday. Hubby got new tiles put on the kitchen floor. I got a lot of cleaning done. My parents came in and my Mom scrubbed the bathroom in the basement.

We had a nice relaxing Easter Sunday, even though the 7 YO was not feeling well. But I took off Monday to stay home with the sick boy. So it was time to paint the staircase going into the basement. Our house is 50 years old. There were 3 layers of pain on the stairs, (Gray, brown and green). We had gone to the paint store and got a gallon of primer and a gallon of paint - both Latex. So how to go about this. My dad siad to paint the sides and trim of each step going down, leaving just and area to step on and then go back up the steps and reash down with a roller and get the rest of the step. Miss Gracefull here would have gone tumbling donw the steps. So I remembered a trick I had read somewhere, Paint every other step. I primed it all at once becasue the can said it should dry in 1 hour. But the top coat they wanted you to wait 16 hours. So one coat went on Monday, a second coat went on last night. Tonight I plan to put the first coat on the opposite tread and a second coat tomorrow.

Friday I am going to caulk. Hubby won't let me paint the kitchen cabinets, or drill holes for the door knob on the kitchen cabinets and I don't want to install the last set of closet doors in our bedroom. However, since he has not had the time to do much since Saturday, I may create access panels to cover the holes int he basement (drywall) ceiling. Dad suggested using 1/4 inch plywood. Hubby is worried about it being too heavy. Aha, another idea. I got 3 sheets of foam core board from Hobby lobby. I can use 2 drywall screws to attach it to the ceiling, we don't ahve to worry about studs and we will paint it witht he same paint we used on the ceiling.

Workday tomorrow

Since Hubby is off work tomorrow and the boys are out of school, I decided to take one of my 22 vacation days. We are having about 30+ people over for Easter. So we need to prepare. Hubby is going to replace the kitchen floor. We need to put the rooms that got painted last week, together again. We are almost there with the inside of the house. The big tasks include painting the basement steps, re-doing the bottom kitchen cupboards, somethign about the basement bathroom and some general cleaning and organizing.

Then there is the outsdie. But it has to get above 35 degrees for that.

Where did St. Joseph go to?

My Father in law spent years lovingly caring for his mother when she developed Alzheimer's disease. Grandma passed away in March 2006. So Dad has had her house on the market. I was lucky enough to lister to her tell sotries of moving into it. At the time it was way out in the boonies (now it is a bustling neighborhood in the NW side of Chicago - within the city limits). Her Mother in law insisted they get a 2 flat for the income. She talked about how she and grandpa redid the whole house. How she had to shovel coal to warm the house in the mornings. How she raised 5 boys and her mother lived with them. Grandma really wanted a bungalow.

Dad has had this house on the market since about last August. Being the devout Catholic he is, he got a statue of St. Joseph and buried it in the backyard (upside down) so that St. Joseph would interceded on his behalf and assist in getting the house sold.

Part of the process of burying St. Joseph is that once the house is sold, you dig St. Joe back up and you give his statue a prominent place in your new home. Well, there is a contract on the house. Dad will move by the end of the month. He has not found the statue of St. Joseph yet. He's dug in the area he buried it, but no St. Joe. He has asked St. Joseph in prayer where he is hiding. He has asked St. Anthony to provide some asistance. So I'll add my voice. Let's ask St. Jude to join the party too. If you Gentleman would intercede on behalf of my Father in law to find St. Joseph. He's a good man. But thanks for letting me tease Dad a bit about losing St. Joseph. LOL! And I'd appreciate help in convincing Dad that close to us would be a great place for him to retire to.

House work update

So this Sunday was anotehr work day. My wonerful SIL had told me that she'd be happy to help us with painting. Well, Sunday was painting day. I dropped E an email stating that Sunday was painting day and she would like to join us that we would welcome her help. Well, with her coming, that was enough to kick us into gear with preparations. So we were taping B's bedroom when she arrived. She started painting that room. I painted the Bathroom. When I was done, I started taping A's bedroom. Meanwhile Hubby is working ont he upper kitchen cabinet doors. At the post-Church trip to the Big Box Home Improvement store (the blue one this time, we had been giving a lot of money to the Orange one but Hubby felt like he needed to share his welath LOL!) we acquired paint, more brushes, another drop cloth as well as hinges and closet doors.

Tonight we need to put the rooms back together - I got the bath most of the way this AM. Hubby needs to put up the towel rack. Hubby will mow the lawn and get the doors back up.

We are both off Friday. We are having Easter for about 30 people at our house, but I would like to see new tiles ont he kitchen floor, moulding under the base cabinets. Possibly the lower cabinets repainted.

Menu Plan Monday

Menu Plan Monday is hosted by Org Junkie. Check out her site for more menus.

Monday - Ground Beef night - Cheeseburger sloppy joes

Tuesday - 6 PM Baseball Practice - Stuffed shells. I have 2 more containers of them in the freezer. The 11 yo can put them in the oven ready when Dad breezes in with the 7 YO.

Wednesday - Chicken and rice

Thursday - 6 Pm Baseball practice - Beef round roast in the crockpot - Did not get to it last week.

Friday - Not sure - my parents may be in. There is salmon in the freezer. My kids and hubby would be happy with grilled cheese sandwiches.