Black Belt Mama

Up to the Saints

Although I spent a ridiculous amount of time at Tequila Con trying to convince Dustin to buy my house instead of searching on the west coast where things are overpriced, somehow I don't think he was buying.  At one point I'm fairly certain I even offered to shoot him the MLS listing for my house.  I may have even thrown out the words: "two gas fireplaces" and "hardwood floors" in between drinks and tater tots. I met lots of cool people at Tequila Con, but sadly, I could not sell my home while there.

So, I did what every desperate home seller does these days.  We loaded the entire BBM family into the van and headed to the Christian bookstore across town to buy a statue of Saint Joseph to bury him in our front yard (Don't believe it works? Click and learn).  The entire drive home, Big I kept telling us it wasn't going to work until I read her the instructions:

1.  Ask St. Joseph for help.

2.  Believe that he will help.

3.  Now place him on your property and stop stressing the hell out already.

(O.k., Step 3 is slightly embellished but you get the idea.)  As we drove up our street, she agreed to believe and we started chanting, "I do believe in St. Joseph, I do! I do!" Peter Pan style. We said our prayers out on the sidewalk and Big I even offered to help bury him out there.  Once the house sells, you're supposed to dig him up and place him inside the new home in a place of honor. 

If this works I will build that little guy a shrine, and I don't even know how to build.

Somehow I'm wondering if threatening to bury your realtor upside down on his head wouldn't have the same effect on getting your house sold?  I'm just wondering.

What's the what's the what's the scenario?

The agent who showed our home for the third time on Monday night has yet to make contact with our realtor.  Despite it being their third time here, and taking pictures galore, nothing, still.  My agent called today and he sounds as baffled and frustrated as we do.  So in the interest of keeping my sanity, I've come up with some possible scenarios:

1.  The buyers came and were disappointed by the brand new flooring in the kitchen and the new carpet.  Apparently they like the "rustic" look of faded linoleum and 16-year old worn pink carpet was just what they were looking for.  They also planned on making Lil C's blue ocean room into an in-house beach so they were disappointed to see it painted so neutral and non-ocean-like.  Because they must realize the work that we put into the place, they are trying to figure out a way they can ask us to retrieve the pink carpet from some landfill somewhere and put it back.  They're also trying to figure out how they can get us to repaint the ocean room. 

Scenario result: Mr. BBM and I will launch empty paint cans at them from afar and tell them to kiss it.

2.  The buyers are psychologists and/or have studied the psychology of buying a house.  They want our house badly but they are being careful not to appear too eager.  Instead they will wait and wait and wait to appear "neutral."  Their agent has asked our agent to call him if another offer might be forthcoming so they are going to just wait it out until that happens hoping we might drop our price and they might get our place for a steal (which it totally already is losers).

Scenario result:  This "psychology" is really starting to tick us off.  So much so, that any offer that's not full price and without contingencies will probably be scoffed at by the BBM family.  Psychology doesn't work on people like us.  In fact, no psychologist would even attempt to try to figure us out. We're just that weird. End result?  We will probably tell the buyers to kiss it.  Are you sensing a theme here?

3.  The buyers were on their way to the office to write up an offer when a gigantic T-rex came storming out of the forest and devoured them whole, agent and all.

Scenario result:  The BBM family will probably still talk badly about potential buyers because they should have written up an offer a long time ago, which would have helped them avoid the night of the dreaded T-rex.

4.  The buyers are working on getting a pre-approval and haven't had time to sit down and write up the offer because they are busy, busy people.

Scenario result: Waiting makes BBM's unhappy so we will probably counter offer 10K above asking, just for stressing us out.  Jerks.

5.  Like in "Lost", the buyers and their agent have been whisked away to some planet that looks like Earth and feels like Earth, but it's totally not.  Perhaps in that world, they've already made an offer and our alternate selves have accepted it and they're already moving in, so there's no need to come back to this Earth and go through the whole process.

Scenario result: Locke is totally going to take one of them out and the surviving one will come crawling back to this Earth to try to get our house. We'll be so sick of waiting that we'll probably tell them to kiss it anyway.

Why can't some other buyer come in and make us an offer we can't refuse?  I'm sick of dealing with these people and their lousy communication skills.  Please take the afternoon off from crossing everything for us.  At this point, I think it's more likely that a T-Rex will buy our house. 

Children's Day

My sister always moans and groans when she hears my answer to the question, "What do you want for your birthday/Christmas?"  I always tell her the same thing:  "Get me an Ann Taylor Loft gift card."  I love Ann Taylor Loft.  Whatever size you are in real life, you're a size smaller in Ann Taylor's world.  It's a wonderful ego boosting thing.  Plus, their sleeves are long enough, their pants are long enough, and it's stylish but not hoochie-mama like most of the local mall is becoming.  Seriously, my mall is now catering to a median age of 14, and 14 is not what it used to be when I was a kid.  I shudder to think what it will be like when my girls are old enough to shop at some of those stores.  I think I'll take up sewing and hope that M.C. Hammer pants are still very much out.

My sister hates getting me the same old thing all the time, but that is what I truly appreciate.  Aside from the fact that I love that store, it's a store that doesn't contain a single item for children. This year, for my birthday, my sister gave me a gift card and jewelry catalog.  Her friend recently started selling Amway and convinced her it was a gift I would love.  I'm not much of a jewelry person.  I like it simple, and real (i.e. expensive), but it works because I really wear the jewelry I do have. 

It took me weeks to finally decide what the lesser of two evils would be in the catalog and I ordered my gift.  A few days later it arrived in the mail.  If I wear it, you can and will call me "Mr. T".  I'm not kidding; it really is that bad.  I know because Mr. BBM laughed so hard I thought he would die from lack of oxygen, and when he caught his breath he kept repeating, "I pity the fool who. . . [insert whatever]".  Next time, she can get me a Loft gift card; because now I have to call the number on the catalog (that I already threw away) and try to get them to send me the money.  Yeah, that's going to happen.

Another reason, I just want a Loft gift card. . . Tonight, I spent my Borders gift card (from my birthday) on Big I.  I also spent my entire mall gift certificate (Christmas present from my Grammom) on Big I. 

As we were checking out of the final store with colorful organizing baskets in hand for her closet, I jokingly told her that she owes me on Mother's Day. 

"Why is 'Mother's Day' a holiday?" Big I asked.

"Because every other day of the year is Children's Day" I told her. 

"Oh," she said.

I think she got it loud and clear.  So, to those out there who might decide to buy me a gift card.  Let me repeat it so it's clear: ANN TAYLOR LOFT.

If it kills you to do the same old thing, then change it up with Pier 1 or IKEA.  I beg of you though, no more Mr. T jewelry and no more gift cards to places that carry things I can buy for the girls. 

Talky Talky

Today, I will be a guest on Karl's Blog Talk Radio show.  If you would like to tune in and listen, you can go directly to the show here.  All you need is a computer with volume.  If you'd like to call in and ask some questions (remember, like I said, nothing too personal or annoying or else!) you can do so at this number: 646-716-9370.  There's also a live chat, so you can log in and ask questions that way too.  I hope you'll tune in and listen!

HGTVetoed

I am always on the look out for opportunities to get on TV.  I'm not interested in eating bugs Survivor-style and I certainly never wanted to be vying for the attention of one guy along with 24 other women.  That's desperate and not at all my style.  But getting on a makeover show like "What Not to Wear," or an HGTV room redo has been a dream for a long time. 

My family says I dress too nicely to get on WNTW.  I beg to differ, but no one's going to be nominating me.  There's just really no one else besides Lil C around me all day to see that I rarely exit pajamas until about 1 or 2 p.m.  Her camcorder skills are still sort of. . . developing.

So, when I saw an opportunity to get on an HGTV show this summer, I jumped at it.  The show is called "Summer Showdown" and I was ecstatic to see that you didn't have to live in LA or Chicago to apply.  The show is looking for the worst living room, bedroom, kitchen and backyard in America.  Then they have a designer showdown and you get your room completely made over. 

I submitted our bedroom, which boasts pink carpet, brown sponge-painted walls (neither of those my doing) and a blue bedspread.  My parents kept telling me we would never get picked because our room isn't that bad, but I knew it was and then some. 

I told them about how I've never had a headboard on my bed, unless you count the time that I bought a piece of fence for $10 at Home Depot and painted it and stuck it behind my bed.  I told them that my dressers are falling apart thanks to my Dad loading the drawers with hand weights and then trying to slide the dresser around by himself when we moved into this house.  I told them that everything I try to do to make the room better, only seems to make it worse.  I told them I would get over my fear of long flights and get on a plane to LA for the season finale in May.

Less than 24 hours after filling out the online application, I got a call from the producer of the show, confirming that my bedroom pretty much sucks.  She called my home phone; she called my cell phone and she emailed me at both of my email addresses.  She told me she was throwing our room into the final mix and that they were "really really interested in our room."  She asked me to make a video of the room and our family and submit it to their uploading website asap. 

Mr. BBM and I spent three nights making that video.  We planned it out, were creative as we could be, and made something that I think rivals my debut Carrie Underwood lip sync. We stayed up until 2 a.m. several nights in a row creating, editing and getting excited about it. 

When we uploaded the video, there was only one other video in the bedroom submissions folder.  Mr. BBM clicked on it and we watched our competition.  (I know, totally shouldn't have but we did anyway.)  We figured we had it in the bag. 

Last week, the producer emailed me and said they were still "up in the air" and that she would be in touch soon.  Last night, I got the bad news.  We didn't get picked.  I figured that if we did, our house would be as good as sold.  My realtor was excited too, waiting for word.  I also figured that even if they made my room so fantastic that I didn't want to leave it, I could still take any new furniture and accessories with me and then mimic the paint color and flooring in my new house.  I was so excited. 

So, the bad news is that I won't be appearing on HGTV.  The good news is that I guess I only have the second worst bedroom in America.  That is definitely a selling point. 

No Words

There are no words to describe what it felt like to paint "summer moon" over top of Big I's princess room and Lil C's ocean room this past weekend.  We made sure to get a photo shoot before we started painting so the girls would always remember their rooms.  O.k., it was probably more for me than for them. . .

When the shoot was finished, Big I seemed at ease with the transition.  Me on the other hand. . .

Then it was time for Lil C's shoot. 

Well, maybe there are a few words to describe it. . .

Can't read it?  "This Sucks" and "Buyers who don't like kids rooms can KISS MY. . ."

All you really need to know is this.  Big I now loves her room.  Lil C has told me to "take that paint off acause I miss my blue room."  You should also know that I sobbed as we painted Lil C's room; but Mr. BBM helped to make it all better with Nachos Belle Grande and some Miller Light.

("After" pictures to follow later this week after new carpet is installed and my emotions aren't so raw.)

Psycho Detection Skills Required

As I was taking a box out to the garage today, a man pulled up in front of our house, got out of his car and took a flier from our "for sale" sign.  As I walked back from the garage, the man stood in front of my house reading the flier.  When I got closer, he asked me if I was the owner of the home.  I said that I was.  He asked me a couple questions about our garage and parking spaces.  He asked me if he was parked in one of our spaces and I told him that he was in our neighbor's spot.

He then said, "So I should probably move my car up to the visitor parking area before you show me your house."  He stared at me waiting for a response.

After painting for 12 hours this weekend (more to come on this tomorrow), I was completely exhausted and probably lacking any form of poker face.  All I could think of as I stood there looking at this middle-aged single man who was by himself was, "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."

I quickly told him he should call his realtor or call the number on our sign and speak with our realtor so that he can make an appointment. 

"Oh," he said, "well, then I'll just take this" he said as he gestured at his flier.  He seemed a bit put-off by my very polite response.  I went inside, locked both the locks on my door and considered turning my security system on.   My realtor warned me about people like that, but I didn't ever really think I'd encounter one.

As I sit here many hours later, I find it interesting that we didn't later get a call from the showing center.  If he was in such a hurry to see our property today, then why didn't he make an appointment to come back?  Something tells me that my psycho killer detection skills were spot-on.

Designed to Hurt

Last night Mr. BBM and I were up until after 2 a.m. putting in a new kitchen floor.  We started around 9 p.m., once the girls were fast asleep, and we're still not finished.  I ordered two books last week: "The Idiot's Guide to Staging a Home for a Quick Sale" and "Designed to Sell."  Five of our rooms got completely reworked in the form of new bedding, different curtain scenarios and rearrangement of furniture this weekend.  Then we got cocky and decided we could bang out a new floor in just a couple of hours.

Can I tell you how much I hate the person who built my current house?  I seriously think he must have failed geometry class and has no business being a builder.  Either that or he came to work seriously lit. There is not a wall in my house that is square.  We found out the hard way last night. 

Since I couldn't be on my hands and knees to painstakingly place each tile, I spent the night scooting around on my butt which has brought a whole host of aches and pains today.  I'm fairly certain I've pulled my butt muscle.  My back hurts every time I blink and the back of my thighs feel like they're under attack.  I also seriously broke a nail.  It's the kind of break that takes some of the skin along with it and looks like total crap for a good week or two. 

Mr. BBM isn't in much better shape.  His knees are swollen.  His back is aching from lifting up the refrigerator while I tried to quickly and carefully wiggle tiles into place (Note: quickly and carefully have no business being used in the same sentence).  Also note that I strongly suggested cutting the tiles since who looks under the fridge anyway, but Mr. BBM was in much too much of a determined and exhausted mood to be told he didn't have to act like the Incredible Hulk by lifting a refrigerator he had no business lifting all by himself.  He eventually saw the error of his ways and believe it or not, my idea to cut the tiles worked just fine and nobody had to break their back.  I did it while Mr. BBM sprawled out on the floor proclaiming he might be dying.

At 9:40 p.m. last night Mr. BBM said that we were going to have a ton of tiles leftover.  It was going that well.  Today, we have six tiles, and I am betting that we'll need about 20 just to get the stupid angle right where the kitchen floor meets the hardwood floors of the entranceway.  We'll have also created about 60 new ways to swear during that process.  Mr. BBM and I wrecked about six tiles last night trying to fit one into a single spot; and I have never heard Mr. BBM swear so much.  His swearing and the fact that he was wandering aimlessly around the kitchen with cut up tiles stuck to his pants made me so silly I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard.   

We're also getting a quote this week on new neutral carpeting to replace all of the pink carpet in each of the three bedrooms, hallway and stairs.  We figure that if it doesn't sell, we'll at least have new flooring.  New flooring we can live with; painting the girls' rooms when we might have to end up staying here anyway?  Not gonna happen.  We're standing firm on that.  Yes, that's my final answer Regis, Meredith and Mr. Realtor. 

We did however, remove Big I's full sized loft bed from her room this weekend and replaced it with a twin day bed on loan from my sister.  It's opened up the room so much and despite her original protests, I think Big I is fairly happy with her new digs. 

I read in one of my books that you should invest 1-3% of the asking price of your house in improvements and then you can plan to get it all back and then some.  By removing the objectionable pink carpet and old kitchen floor, we're hoping to do just that.  Of course, we should probably figure some chiropractor bills into that equation, and possibly a massage therapist. . .   

   

PT for Everyone!

I once had to take the girls with me to PT, but it was only for about 10 minutes.  Mr. BBM showed up and took them home before they had the chance to do any serious damage.  Since then, they've asked if they could go along with me from time to time.  It's like they think they serve ice cream there or something.  Yesterday, they had to go for the full almost two hours.  It was as if I brought live entertainment to the PT room. 

When we arrived, it was packed.  Spring must be surgery season.  Four tables were filled up leaving one for me.  Several people were also circuiting through their exercise routines.  I set the girls up on a low padded table that no one ever uses.  Mickey Mouse Park came out of Lil C's bag along with all of her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters.  Big I got to work on her homework. 

Lil C felt it necessary to unpack her entire entertainment bag so in no time at all the rather large table was littered with Dora diapers, Mickey characters and a random Teddy Graham or eight.  Like the angel that she is, Big I was quiet and completed her homework without making a peep.  Then there was Lil C. 

Always needing to be the center of attention, she started talking and loudly right away.  She had to confirm everything that was happening to Mommy's knee.  "You laying down now Mommy?";  "You putting heat on your knee Mommy?";  "You all done yet Mommy?" she asked me every 10 minutes or so.  The other patients smiled with amusement at her boisterous and talkative manner.  When my PT asked me if I wanted some reading material, I refused.  "I left it at home for a reason," I told him.  "She could turn into a little devil in no time at all."

Things got entertaining when Big I finished up her homework and got out her two new library books.  One of them was a dinosaur book.  Big I began turning the pages and showing the pictures to Lil C.  It was super quiet at the time so Lil C's very loud, "Oh Wow!  Look at the Dio-Whore" echoed around the room.  Everyone sort of stopped what they were doing and looked at her and then at me.

"Yes," I confirmed from the floor where I was doing some stretching, "she said 'dio-whore'.  That's what she calls them."  An eruption of laughter took hold of the room and even the poor guy fresh from surgery laughed until he almost cried.  Realizing she was a "hit," Lil C continued to talk about "dio-whores" for the next 15 minutes. 

Then she made friends.  One of my PT buddies came in with her older daughter and they made the mistake of engaging Lil C in conversation.  She spent the next hour talking to them loudly, telling them all about her Mickey guys, sharing the fact that she had burped with them, and even going so far as to make her Mickey characters use the one woman's head as a sliding board. 

She also played some April Fool's jokes which she learned like a pro from her sister earlier in the week and told several people "you have a bunch of bugs on your head."  She was a real hit.

With 15 minutes left in my routine, she decided she was bored and ready to go home.  She packed the important things up into her bag, leaving behind her diapers and random Teddy Grahams and dragged her filled up bag towards the door.

"I am going home," she announced with a pout on her face.  She spent the last 10 minutes of our visit to PT glaring at me as I walked backwards on the treadmill. When I was finally done, there was Teddy Graham carnage to be cleaned from the table, and two very bored kids. I highly doubt there will be much interest in accompanying me back to PT anytime soon.  It's certainly lost its allure for them.

It hasn't for me though.  I hit 154 degrees yesterday.  Only one more to go.

The Truth about Working from Home

As I emailed a fee agreement to a potential new client this morning, Lil C whined in her booster seat that she had cinnamon on her jammies, that she wanted more cereal (even though she still had a bowl full), and that she was "sirsty" having just downed her cup of milk.  When I asked her if she could just wait one minute for Mommy to finish emailing something for work, she yelled "NO!" at the top of her lungs and continued to whine.  For all I know, I may have sent an email that says, "Attached please find the fee agreement as requested.  Now sit down and finish your cereal!"  It's entirely possible.

I started working from home as a recruiter when Big I was about two years old.  It was challenging.  Although I made my own hours, I was learning a new industry from scratch.  The fact that the job was commission only made it even more challenging.  After five months of busting my butt and begging Big I to please watch a movie so Mommy could call a candidate quick, I got my first placement and paycheck.  I was hooked. 

For a stay at home Mom, recruiting was great money. . . if you had the time and effort to put into it. With one child, it was challenging; with two it's downright impossible sometimes.  However, the money that can be made with only a placement or two a year is much better than if I had a part time job out of the house.  So, I do it.  I work on my laptop from home, frequently with the Disney Channel as my background music.  Instead of coffee breaks, we have diaper changing breaks and time to pick Big I up from school breaks. 

This week, Mr. BBM has been away on business and it has been rough.  I used to be accustomed to him traveling all the time.  Now big trips throw us for a major loop.  Mr. BBM takes care of getting the girls their baths and into bed each night.  That's my work time.  When he's not here, work doesn't happen.  This week, I have four new job orders to fill and a potential new client to make happy as well. Instead I've been falling asleep in cribs and just trying to keep up with the colossal mess that little girls make faster than you can say "fairy princess." 

In the past few years, I have negotiated fee agreements in my bathroom with a locked door, knowing that might be the only peaceful place in the whole house that wouldn't erupt in a temper tantrum at some point.  Sometimes, one or both of the girls would bang on the door of my hideout and I'd have to negotiate faster.  I've placed candidates with cats and kids on my lap.  When people talk about their office jobs and the "distractions" that happen during the day, I don't have much sympathy.  Truly, they have no idea.  I highly doubt they have a cat doing his daily duty in a litter box beside the desk, or a girl fight to break up over a Barbie doll.  All par for the course with me and my daily life. 

Mr. BBM works from home two days a week so that I can go to PT without the girls  (I have to take them with me today which should be great fun).  Often, when I arrive home, his hair is sticking straight up in the hair from rubbing his hands through his hair in frustration that the girls: can't get along, can't be quiet, can't stop screaming, won't leave him make a phone call, won't let him get anything done etc.  He gets just a small taste of why my job is extremely part time.

No office job has a demanding two-year old asking you to find her Donald Duck.  There are no interruptions for french braids, Dora yogurts, or knock down all out temper-tantrums.   So for all those who think that working from home is a cake-walk, I'm here to tell you it's quite the opposite.

***The latest review is up at The BBM Review.  Today is your last chance to enter to win a Turtle Press Ultimate Flexibility DVD or book.  Just leave a comment at The BBM Review.  Drawing takes place tomorrow night!