St. Joseph

Here's the picture I promised this morning.
Prett huge, huh?


He's been sitting in the window for about a day now and it's starting to creep me out. We have him facing out the window and the way his head is tilted down makes it look like he's staring at something.



See?! Super creepy, but I hope he brings us some luck!

-Mrs. B

Welcome, Spring...

...or is it Summer? The weather in NJ the past few days was nothing short of bazaar. 90 degrees in April...crazy, huh? Unfortunately, with that gorgeous weather came pollen. Tons and tons of pollen and guess who's allergic to pollen? :::points finger at self::: THIS GIRL. Lovely.

I have never been so miserable due to allegies in my life. I swear, each year the news says, "this year will be worse than the last". How is that possible? I spent most of last night lying on the couch with my eyes closed because if I got up, I got dizzy and saw spots and if I opened my eyes they burned. I sneezed at least 50 times yesterday and my poor nose has the telltale redness to prove it. I better be ok for Jamaica or I'm gonna freak out.

In other news, my aunt found a statue of St. Joseph for me and I promptly put him in our window. Supposedly, if you bury St. Joseph he will help you sell your house. Sounds kind of like a superstition to me, but what the heck...I'll give it a try. The only thing with my aunt's statue is that it's massive; over a foot tall. There's no way I'm going to dig a 2" deep hole in the ground, put this thing in and not get reported to our condo association by some nosey, bored neighbor. I'll take a pic and upload it when I get home. We're doing an open house on Saturday because we have plans Sunday, so I really hope this does the trick.


- Mrs. B

It's been awhile...

Work and school have kept me pretty occupied lately and I haven't had much time to do anything else. We had an impromptu showing 2 weeks ago, but nothing came of it. Since then we haven't had any showings or open houses.

Mr.B and I just booked a last minute vacation to Jamaica. I can't wait to sit in the sun by the ocean sipping some cold tropical drinks. We haven't had a vacation since last May and I honestly can't even concentrate at work. I hope the weather is nice and we get good rooms and good service. I'll be sure to post pics and reviews when we return.

Since yesterday we've been eating really clean and I'm finding that hard to do with all the Easter candy in work. We also revamped our workout plan for the next 2 weeks to get us in the best bathing suit shape possible before we go. Right now I'm craving chocolate something fierce and this sugar free gum is not quite cutting it.

Last night I had to restrain myself from going to Sonic and getting a lime real fruit slush (my favorite!) or to the local ice cream place for a vanilla and orange sherbert twist. Ugh...they are both so delicious and this hot weather in NJ makes me want something cool and refreshing like that even more. I went and looked at the calories on line and that kept me from going. I've already lost 4 lbs since January and I'm trying so hard not to break my momentum. Eating well is hard, especially when the majority of the people around you eat junk.

I have to admit that I did go a little overboard with the eating on Easter, but it really could have been worse. My family gets babka once or twice a year and this year we found an amazing babka to replace the bakery that closed about 5 years ago. L&M Bakery's babka tastes pretty much the same as Village Bakery's babka before it closed. I'm pretty sure I ate at least half of one by myself. Completely divine and delicious. My mom asked if I wanted to take some home and it pained me to say no, but I knew I'd scarf it down if I took some home.

Once again I got roped into doing the Easter egg hunt but I justified it by saying that all the money I got would pay for stuff in our Jamaica trip. I gave all the candy to my little cousin to keep me from eating it. I have a feeling I'm going to be guilted into doing the egg hunt until we have kids of our own. There's already been things I said I'd stop doing once I got married, but that hasn't stopped my family from making me do them. Ah, families...aren't they great at guilt trips?



- Mrs. B

Updates

I'm on the train to DC with about an hour left till I get there so I have plenty of time for updates. We haven't had any more calls for showings since this past weekend, but I'm hoping that we'll hear something soon. I took off work tomorrow as a little reward to myself for all the work I've been doing for my work project...the one I'm presenting today. I plan on getting some good sleep, catching up on my DVR, and doing some cleaning. The house is looking a little dirty right now because I haven't had a spare second this week.

Mr. B's dad stayed with us this weekend and we finally ended up going to Moore Brothers Wine Shop. They had such a great selection of wines and they were pretty cheap too! The staff was super helpful and we'll definitely be going back. In fact, we took a bottle of wine to a byob last night that we got from there and it was really good. It was much different than we're used to, but the change was good.

Here comes the usual train headache that I get, so off I go to study my slides.


- Mrs. B

Showing #1 Tonight!

Tonight is our very first showing. I'm super excited and nervous at the same time. I just hope they show up!

I got the call last night from a realtor. His client saw our new listing and wanted to see it right away. Of course he didn't call until almost 9 last night and our house wasn't in showing condition. An hour and a half later I had ripped through the house like a tornado leaving everything spotless instead of destroyed. Note to self: keep house tidy at all times. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning. Hopefully the client will be interested. He's a renter whose lease is expiring at the end of April. It would be a quick move and settlement, but I think we could do it.

Wish us luck!


- Mrs. B

Open House #3

We had our third open house yesterday and the turn out was decent but not what we were expecting with the sudden warm weather. We had three groups, a realtor, and a neighbor stop by to see the place. None of the people that came seemed truly interested, which was disappointing.

The neighbor that came over is strange. I don't think he expected me to be home. He walked in the door and just kind if stood there. I got a really strange vibe from him and I'm just glad I had my phone in my hand if you know what I mean. Creepy is a good word to describe him. The whole encounter was awkward.

A younger girl came in with her parents and her dad seemed impressed with the work we had done. The daughter seemed like a little bratt and opened up every possible door, cabinet, etc in the place without even really looking and then complained about the popcorn ceilings. Sorry, I'm not going to scrape over 1,000 sq ft of popcorn off of the ceiling and make a huge mess when it's not going to give me any return. Not to mention the 14' ceilings would be a bitch to scrape.

Mr. B and I are discussing the next step to take. We most likely won't have another open house for at least 2 weeks becuase we're super busy. We'll most likely pay to put it on realtor.com because we're not ready for a realtor just yet.

Stay tuned!


- Mrs. B

Open House #2 Results

After I finished my post yesterday about going to take pictures, I went to get my camera and the batterry was dead. Figures. I played some games on my phone, stalked the neighbors from the front window and before I knew it, it was 10 till 2 and Mr. B was calling me. He was stopping at Cosi for some eats and wanted to know if I wanted anything. He said he'd be home in a few minutes.

At this point, no one had come and I was beginning to think no one would. I even put a fake name on the sign in sheet to make myself feel better and to somehow make the people that may come think that people were really interested in our place and they should act fast. Lame, I know.

A couple of minutes after I got off the phone with Mr. B, a car drove by slowly and I could see the people in it looking at the sign. They turned around and parked and I ran frantically from room to room turnig on lights and making sure everything was perfect. The couple that came in were really nice. They just moved to the area and are living in the apartment complex that's within waking distance to our place. They seemed to really like it and ask alot of questions. I sent Mr. B a quick text to let him know not to come inside.

They left and Mr. B was already on his way up with the food. I told the whole story while stuffing my face with my delicious Cosi sandwich and keeping a look out for more people. I had just decided to leave and let Mr. B start his shift alone when I saw 2 cars pull up. One appeared to be a realtor and one looked to be a daughter and her parents. I quickly made my way downstairs and made sure to give a nice friendly 'hello!' to the girl and I walked past her. I then watched as they all looked at our sign and then up at the condo and continued to the middle section of the building. Eff! My guess was that they had a scheduled showing at the place that's for sale next door. It's a middle unit with pretty much zero upgrades. Blah if you ask me.

I called Mr. B and gave him a quick rundown of what to say because they were most likely going to come by afterwards. And they did. Mr. B said they loved the place (which I was pretty sure of compared to that nasty middle unit) and that they loved my cookies. I'd like to think that's a great sign, because no one else has taken any cookies at either open house. The Nestle swirls chocolate chip cookies always come out tasting amazing.

So yesterday went really well. We now have 3 realtors that are willing to work with us and the weather for next weekend looks amazing. 50 and sunny, which should mean more people out and about and more people looking for houses.

- Mrs. B

Open House #2

I've taken up the same position in the bay window seat I had during the last open house, but I'm minus a copilot. Mr. B and I decided that it would be alot less intimidating to prospective buyers if we took shifts and only one of us were in the house at one time. I totally agreed and now I'm bored. I got first shift and it's inky been 15 minutes since he left. Totally,utterly bored. I don't know how realtors do it. I'm such an inpatient person and I don't do well waiting.

I assume that I could go take some updated pictures for flyers and ads. My luck someone would come in just as I was pulling out my camera. At least my shift is only an hour long. In the meantime, Mr. B is going to search out some open houses for us and make a run to Wegman's for some bulk goods.

Not an interested person in sight yet, but I'll let you know how the rest of the open house goes!