The Trip - Lingering in California

Sunday afternoon I opened the refrigerator to get out the creamer for my tea, and I saw our nighttime dessert (chocolate-covered fruit from Trader Joe's--the red and blue ones are already gone), and I wanted some right then. Bad sign.

I shut the door and told my mom that I'm stressed.

Saturday, I'd signed up with a realtor. I had talked to two of them. The first guy, recommended by the association management, turned out to be a newbie who didn't look at the house much, talked too much about himself (non-real-estate related), worked for a company that I'd heard bad things about (but I'd heard them from a cranky person, so I was giving him the benefit of the doubt), and wanted me to set the price I wanted to get so he could add his commission on top of that. Okaaaayyy....

The second one looked at all the rooms, looked around the outside, showed me comps, talked about percentage commissions like a normal realtor, and generally came across as a professional. Silly me, but I liked that, so I signed with him. But we agreed the house wasn't ready to hit the market yet. I still had repairs to get done and stuff to move into the storage unit and curtains to hang--all the stuff I didn't get finished when I left for Texas in June. He said he'd refrain from putting the house in the MLS or putting on the lockbox and the sign out front until I gave him the go-ahead, and he'd help out any way he could.

Then, over the weekend, I got an email from my Medical Terminology instructor saying she hadn't noticed earlier which date I had scheduled for proctoring my final exam, but August 6th was too late and I would have to reschedule for around August 1st. And that meant I needed to finish up my remaining chapters more quickly.

And we were scheduled to leave Monday to head up the coast. I kept trying to figure out how I'd get everything done at the house when we were out of town, but I wasn't coming up with any answers. The need to do the impossible was more than I was ready for, and it triggered that particular brand of wanting to eat snacks that makes me feel it in my muscles like the tightness from making a fist.

By now I know how to recognize it, which is why I told my mom I'm stressed. She asked me some questions, like my dad would have, and when I answered her, she suggested that we stay here and finish getting the house ready for the sign to go up. That thought hadn't occurred to me.

I spent Sunday afternoon and evening working on Medical Terminology, then yesterday some friends from church with a minivan helped me take the bigger stuff I can't fit in my car over to storage, and we got started spiffing up the house.

There's still more to do, the biggest of which is to get a handyman to call me back and come over to replace the shower door and bathroom light fixtures. I can manage all the rest.

My Medical Terminology is rescheduled for July 30th, so we have to leave town in time to get to Kalispell, Montana by the day before. That's our deadline, and it means replanning the trip around the West. We'll head up the I-15 for Montana, stopping to see my ex-husband's dad and stepmom in Las Vegas and my ex's youngest sister in Idaho on the way. Then in between my final and my mom's high school reunion on August 11th, we can visit Montana friends and one of my mom's friends just over the border in North Dakota. And go to Glacier National Park.

After the reunion, we'll go to Spokane (visit more friends) and the Seattle area (plus Victoria, in Canada), and come down the coast.

That's the plan right now. I like it, because I'm not tempted to eat my desserts at the wrong time of the day.