Marathon effort

The house isn't even on the market yet and we have had potential buyers through already.

Got a call from our chosen realtor late last night, informing us that he had a group of out of towners, who were here for a very short time. They were looking at real estate, but wouldn't be ready to buy anything until September, when they officially move over - which happens to be right when we were planning to put 'er on the market. The realtor asked if he might be able to show our place to his people at 10 am the next morning...."I am sure we can come to such an arrangement", I blindly agreed before lowering the phone with that glazed look in my eye that tends to send the dogs dashing for cover under the bed.

Now while we are technically ready to roll, the place wasn't exactly in pristine show case shape. Last summer we had unsuccessfully attempted to establish a lawn from rolled out sod. When the moving panic stations set in around March this year, we gazed upon the patchy disaster out back, declared "war", and laid down fresh soil prior to spreading seed with our fingers firmly crossed in the hope that we weren't Canada's biggest lawn growing failures.

On the 14th day, after some praying and hoping and a few curse words flouted on the 13th day, green needle like spouts emerged - hallelujah!

Unfortunately, in his mad scientist like frenzy, Ashley, who admitted to dousing the designated area with three times the recommended amount of seed, had scattered lawn seeds everywhere, and these, of course, had taken off; flourishing in similarly annoying ways as the stray hairs that create the dreaded monobrow....and while I HAD been meaning to get to pulling out the offending areas of rogue lawn growth, I was a long way from finishing the job.

Seeing no end in sight, not to mention the 10am deadline looming in front of me like the bomb countdown clock scene in one of those cheesy suspense thrillers, I rang Ashley to suggest he return home NOOOOOOW! Before he arrived home I had managed to mow front and back lawns; I had only mowed it a week ago, but grass grows quickly here, and I almost cursed that lawn we had so painstakingly nurtured with our own bare hands - it took me an hour to finished the job.

Ashley arrived home just in time to start the weeding - bwah ha ha ha (evil laugh). I had to fix diner, get the kids bathed and into bed and then get that place sparkling clean and staged to perfection.

We don't have an abundance of stuff. In fact we have a large L-shaped lounge room with only a lounge suite and a bookcase in it....the room even echoes! The Realtor suggested we might like to "do something" with the "space" to make it look "errr....useful". No time for that, but I did manage to hastily scavenge some things out from the forgotten corners of a couple of cupboards and shelves to spruce 'er up a little.

At 2:30 this morning we declared that we had "kicked 'er in the guts", the house was looking smashing and smelled as fresh as Pine-Sol can.

When I awoke, some 4 hours later, I only had the carpet to vacuum and the beds to make, so I got out my best snarling beast face and growled at the kids to not touch ANYTHING, which must have gotten lost in translation somehow, because they apparently heard, "dump your toys into a pile before pouring your apple juice on the freshly mopped floor, then laugh about it". Needless to say, I was "not happy, Jan", but we did manage to evacuate the building with yappy dogs in tow, well before the 10am deadline.

Basking in the aftermath of a cleaning marathon enough to make even Mr Sheen beam with pride; I am officially stuffed. I have no idea how the actual inspection went with said people - they did eat the cookies I left out on the table, so I guess they didn't run away terrorised and screaming upon entering the door. I don't have any particularly special vibe about this first very early preview of our place; our official on-sale date isn't until late August, but I am keen to hear any feedback the Realtor might have for us for next time around.

UPDATE **** Realtor was happy with our efforts. Said group of out-of-towners are apparently "thinking about it", which I read as "attempting to book the next plane out ASAP, preferably under the cloak of darkness". Each to their own I guess.