08/15/2012

1.  Today was all about trying to get some decent pictures of our house for our rental listing.  Gosh, it's really better to take pictures AFTER all your stuff is moved out.  As it was, the boys helped me to move stuff out of one room to take pictures, then out of another for another set of pictures, etc.  When Ben came home in the evening, he and the boys moved a bunch of stuff off the back patio so I could get some shots of the back of the house.  I still didn't get pictures of Brigham's room or the master bedroom.  I have some old pictures of the master bedroom before it got crowded with things like Ben's desk and the organ.  It's really quite ridiculous.  Anyway, they will have to do.

Here are a few of the ones I took today:

front

back

back

back

kitchen

kitchen

 See how the doors to the dining room/playroom are closed?  That's because the boys helped move all the stuff on the kitchen counters back into the playroom, where, incidentally, they still are.  I'm just hoping Chrissy doesn't figure out that Mr. Goldfish is swimming in his bowl ON THE FLOOR in the playroom.  :-)

kitchen

Living room

living room

master bathroom

I don't think I ever posted a picture of the master bathroom.  Oh, so much better than the brown floral wallpaper and the sea-shell molded sinks!

Joseph's room

 Joseph spent quite a while on his room.  I was really proud of him.

Mosey spent a lot of time on his room, too, but he just has too much stuff in there.  Half the playroom is sitting on top of his desk or dresser or top bunk.  But I love how meticulously he made his beds.

Mosey's room

 And I don't think I ever posted a picture of the re-done upstairs bathroom, either.  Believe me, it's a big improvement from the 1980's wallpaper that was there before.

boys' bathroom

Brigham is very conscientious about his room, and he keeps his stuff picked up nicely.  However, through no fault of his own, his room upstairs (which is huge-- lots bigger than the master bedroom) is currently the repository of all the books/furniture/sports equipment/flotsam/jetsam that no one can figure out what to do with, so it wasn't photo-worthy this afternoon.

Anyway, the wide angle lens is lots of fun.  I want one!  I'm not sure I want one for $700, though.  I got some funny pictures of the boys.

 Like Joseph's long alien fingers here?  :-)

Brigham evaded my camera again.  I'll get him tomorrow before I have to take the lens back.

So I updated our zillow listing with the pictures, and I hope we'll get some bites soon.  We had one renter ready to sign a contract, but when he went to his apartment managers to tell them he was leaving, they gave him a super good deal he couldn't turn down.  And then another family was very interested-- they're moving here from out of state, but a family emergency has changed their plans.  That's how it goes I guess.  Still, two good leads without even any pictures on the listing?  Not too terrible.

2.  As I was going from room to room taking pictures, it did occur to me that Ben may find this moving business a little more complicated than he anticipates.  We shall see!  Our deal is that I let him handle all the moving-out stuff (fine with me!!), and then I can direct the moving-in stuff.  Meanwhile I get to remain calm, cool, and collected while Ben handles all the hard stuff.  That's a deal I can get behind!  Ben's pretty sure the move is not going to pose any trouble at all for him (he does have lots of experience being the Elders Quorum Moving Company President, after all), and I hope he's right!  But gosh, we have a lot of stuff.  And a lot of stuff that needs to be sorted and thrown away or given to Goodwill.

3.  School went pretty well today.  Chores got done fairly willingly.  Although at one point when one of my boys was sort of standing around randomly moving the vacuum around on the ground, I told him, "Be systematic!  If you're not going to vacuum, turn it off so you don't run down the battery."  Well, he did NOT appreciate my comments, turned the vacuum off, and stomped off to my room saying, "If you're going to say stuff like that, I'm not going to vacuum!!"  Oh, excuse me!  I admit I got a little cross with that.  It's one of those things that I can't imagine myself saying to my mom when I was a kid, and I don't think it's OK for him to talk to me like that.  But what do I do?  Spank him?  Send him to his room?  I think he'd like that-- he'd get out of vacuuming!  As it was, I got mad and yelled a little and he did get back out and did a good job with the rest of the vacuuming.  Oh, it's hard to know.  Is he just blowing off steam?  Or is it a manifestation of a deep-seated lack of respect for authority that's going to end with him in jail before he's 18?  OK, probably not that, but that's what I worry about.  I don't mind the blowing off of steam, I understand that.  But I DO mind the attitude of "I'll say anything I want any time I want and no one can stop me because I'm the center of the universe!"  But, I let it go, after doing my own bit of tantruming, and he did the rest of his chore without anymore trouble.  And he and the rest of the boys were very good about the rest of their lessons, and were very good about helping out with moving stuff around the house and yard, etc., so maybe I should just relax.