How NOT to Sell a House

I love being a home renter. The thought of my father-in-law coming to town to help us "fix" SOMEONE ELSE'S house is benefit enough (seriously love that man). But then there's the fact that we don't have to deal with pesky problems like property taxes, homeowner's associations, country club memberships, resale value, and keeping up with "The Joneses." Because, let's be honest, we'll only be here a few years and really don't care to meet the Joneses. But home ownership does have something more appealing than home rentership - and that's security. To know for certain that no one will come along and kick you out because they want their house back is very reassuring. Unless you're terribly indebted to your bank…but that's another situation all together.

l'm so thankful we no longer have to worry that our landlord will kick us out before the Air Force decides to move us back to America. We're no longer in that "danger zone" where we think we may have to live in a hotel our last several months in England - with a toddler and a baby nonetheless. So, when the real estate agent calls the house to schedule a viewing of potential buyers, I no longer dodge their calls or try to make the house seem intentionally unappealing (you'd be surprised how gifted I can be in this department).

We had a couple come by last week to take a look at "our" house, and I was more than accommodating. In fact, the house was as clean as it had been in weeks. The kitchen was clean and inviting with no decibel-piercing spin cycles coming from the washing machine. I had some candles burning rather than a trash can full of dirty diapers. And, I even went ON AND ON about what a great house it has been for entertaining. In fact, when they came upstairs to take a look, I engaged the husband in further discussion about how much we have loved this house.

I said to him, "We're really going to miss this place! That kitchen was really the selling point for me. I've thoroughly enjoyed it!" To which the husband replied, "Yes, the kitchen is where we spend most of our time! I can imagine you spent most of your time there as well."

And then I said something so unintentionally idiotic I still can't believe I said it.

"Well, honestly, I've spent most of my time here in this bedroom." And, as if that comment wasn't suggestive enough, I pointed to my enormously pregnant belly.

Insert long...painfully awkward silence.

Then this poor man slowly backed out of our master bedroom and rejoined his wife who had moved on to the guest bedroom.

I was mortified. Did I SERIOUSLY just say that? Of course, I meant to suggest that I've spent most of my time SLEEPING since my husband was deployed and I have a toddler. What it probably sounded like to him is that with a toddler, my blatant pregnancy, and my obvious lack of tact and/or judgment, I probably spend most of my time here entertaining men. But it was too late to backtrack and explain myself to this poor man. I had already made him as uncomfortable as humanly possible.

On a positive note, we've not received nearly as many calls to show potential buyers around the house.

Burning Questions

It's a funny thing this writing business (if you want to call The Morgan Trail a business). Sometimes I can churn out three posts a day. Other times, I hardly write one a month. A good friend of ours, Bo, has expressed a similar frustration on his blog. He calls it Paralyzing Perfectionism. Add it to my list of disorders.

Writing is an activity I tend to gravitate toward when I'm feeling "up." After all, who wants to read the incoherent ramblings of a depressed, stay-at-home-mom as she invites you to join her pity party of self-loathing? There's enough negative smut on the Internet that I try not to contribute to it when I'm feeling "down" or depressed. On the other hand, there are few things that irritate me more than reading all about someone's "perfect" life as they gush about it on Facebook or their blog. It's nauseating to read about their perfect life with their perfect husbands who have a perfect job to support their perfect kids. Then they post their perfect pictures from their perfect second honeymoon while their perfect parents watched their perfect kids for three PERFECT weeks. It makes me want to egg their perfect house.

So, I guess you could say I try to write somewhere in the middle. Where most of us reside. That place where we are comfortable enough with ourselves to admit that we DON'T have it all figured out. (By the way, I just washed an entire load of white clothes with a fluorescent yellow scarf. Epic housewife fail.) I've had lots of people express appreciation for the fact that I do open up about my struggles with depression or bipolar or whatever you want to call it. I've had friends and complete strangers thank me for writing from an honest place. And that's when I start to get excited. Like maybe this is something God has created me to do - to put words together on a blank page that will one day encourage others to live for His glory. And, of course, to learn to laugh at ourselves in the process.

Sometimes it just takes a little nudge. A little encouragement to get started. That's what Bo's blog post did for me this morning. I needed that reassurance that not everything I write or create has to be a masterpiece. Sometimes the most important thing is just to start.

And this all brings me to the point of this particular blog post. I get excited when I look at the statistics for our website and realize that, lo and behold, there are people out there who actually read this stuff. And, believe it or not, there are people who actually come across our site through search engines. But, when I looked a little bit further to see what top keywords people searched that led them to our site, this is what I discovered:

Tom Cruise hates psychotherapy

Okay, so I completely deserve that one. Next?

Pictures for enormous bums

What, exactly, have I written that would point a search engine to our site to give people more information on enormous bums? Is this supposed to be a pregnancy joke or something? 'Cause I'm not laughing!

If your pee is bubbly does this mean something bad?

Bubbly pee? Really? First of all, call your doctor. Or maybe your plumber. Second of all, why does a search engine point them to our blog? Is it because I'm obsessed with WebMD? I bet it is. Great, now we're going to get lots of people coming here who are searching for answers to their most "burning" (pun intended) medical questions.

Now I'm going to put it back to you, my dear readers. What are your favorite kinds of stories/articles to read? Or, better yet, what are some of your favorite blogs, websites, magazines out there that you read on a regular basis? (One of my absolute favorites is The Pioneer Woman.) Do you have any "burning questions" that I (or WebMD) could answer for you? I'd love to write more about the things that interest YOU!

Bird Talk

Saw these two love birds on our garage today and had to tell you about their conversation:

He-Bird:  Come on, baby, I thought you liked it when I kiss your neck!

She-Bird:  I said, NOT RIGHT NOW! I'm not in the mood. Not after working around the nest all day.

He-Bird:  I bet if you stop talking and let me kiss your neck some more, you'll FIND the mood!

She-Bird:  Honestly! You're so insensitive sometimes! I said I'm not in the mood, and you just keep after me. Maybe instead of using all your energy to make out with me, you can put some work into making our nest a decent place to live. I work my little beak to the bone...

She-Bird:  Did you hear me?!?!?

She-Bird:  Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you! This is EXACTLY why I'm not in the mood sometimes. You come home expecting me to drop everything and tend to your needs. WELL, WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS?

He-Bird:  (Mumbling) I couldn't meet YOUR needs if I had all the time in the world. My needs take two minutes...MAYBE three.

She-Bird:  I can't even look at you right now! Maybe you could meet my needs a little better if you took the time to actually LISTEN to them! Instead, you come home barking orders like, "Where's my worm, woman?" Well, GO FIND YOUR OWN WORMS! I'm tired of being your slave. I'm going to sleep at my sister's tonight.

He-Bird:  (Doesn't realize she's gone.) That's fine. Just make sure you leave enough worms for me and the kids. You know I don't like to have to go hunting after a long day at the... (Realizes she's gone.) Kids! Do you know where your mom keeps the worms?

These two need therapy!

How to Juice a Zucchini

Did I ever tell you about my superpower? I know, I know...which one, right? (Heavy sarcasm intended.) Well, it's not my ability to spot a grammatical error from a thousand yards (except in my own writing, naturally). Nor is it my ability to visually express with my face every single thought that comes into my head. This, obviously, is NOT a superpower during a job interview or at family reunions. "Sure, Great Uncle Milford, I'd looooove to hear your war stories...again. Oh, no, I wasn't rolling my eyes. I thought there was something on the ceiling."

This superpower was developed over many years of planning a weekly menu, grocery shopping for said menu, placing menu items into the fridge, and then forgetting about the menu AND the items until there is literally zucchini juice dripping down the shelves of the fridge. This superpower has only intensified since my pregnant cravings for fresh fruits and vegetables have overridden my shopping sensibilities. (Yes, mother, I just used shopping and sensibilities in the same sentence.)

How many bananas, apples, plums, nectarines, peaches, grapes, cherries, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, celery stalks, carrots, and heads of lettuce can a family possibly consume by the time they're molded or - in our case - asking for a haircut? We're still trying to figure that out. By the way, those items I just mentioned were all items I purchased this weekend. I kid you not.

It's shameful how much produce I have to discard on a weekly basis (correction: ...how much produce my husband has to discard. The smell, you know?), but I promise I really do believe while I'm grocery shopping that I am able to survive on nothing but fruits and vegetables. And then my French fry craving kicks in, and it's all over after that.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate our nation's military allies, but dang you, France! You and your fries, and your toast, and your baguettes...

In protest, I will continue to enjoy my evening snack of Pepsi (I know...I'm pregnant! And I'm from Atlanta!) and Hot Fries which are NOT French.

This is kind of a side note, but I have an idea I must share. I think commissaries worldwide should have personal shoppers the same way fancy clothing stores do. Only, instead of a personal shopper who discourages me from buying a dress that's three sizes too small, a personal commissary shopper (or PCS) could persuade me to buy a quantity of food that appropriate for an average-sized pregnant woman, her husband and one-year-old son instead of, say, a herd of elephants. And then maybe this PCS could bring it all to my house and cook it for me.

Cross-posted at www.spousebuzz.com

Phone Date

I'll admit it. I'm addicted to the Internet. I can't go very long without it. I realized this yesterday when our Internet service went out twice -- for hours. It was like DEFCON 1 over here. I was ready to go to war on our Internet provider with guns emails phone calls blazing.

I grabbed the phone out of my holster the cradle and rang up our ISP (that's Internet Service Provider, mom) faster than you can say..."Where the heck is the phone number? Honey? Do you know where we put that number? No, I CAN'T look it up online because I HAVE NO INTERNET! Sure, I guess I could use the Internet on my iPad or my cell phone to find it."

I finally found the number and got through to a lovely chap whose name I forgot 0.02 seconds after he told me. He had the greatest Northern Irish accent, so I giggled like an idiot at everything he said. We discussed politics, military life, married life, the cows behind our house, travel -- I'm SERIOUSLY not making this up -- the complete morons who call customer service, why so many Americans who call his company have Mac computers, why so many Americans call his company, etc. While he was "working on the problem," he literally exhausted me of all my small talk. And that is NOT easily done.

At last -- after hitting the reset button, relocating the router (pronounced by him as "rooter"), typing in thousands of number and letter sequences, standing on my head, barking like a dog, and hours of small talk -- we were back in business! Of course, I was so happy to see that first webpage after hours of no connectivity. So, it didn't seem unnatural for me to say, "Thanks for your help! I enjoyed talking to you!"

And then he did it. He crossed that line that no dude-who-works-at-a-job-where-they-record-every-word-you-say should do.

He said, "Me to! Um...(insert nervous giggle)...should we talk some more?"

AWK-WARD!

Bless him. I bet that was hard for him to do. Almost as hard as asking a girl out on a text. Or breaking up with one.

Since I'm not too quick on my feet, I managed to stammer out, "Um...well, thanks again! BYE!" Click.

So, if you're a single lady in the UK area who is interested in a phone date with a chatty guy who has a fun, Irish accent and plenty of Internet savvy, I've got a number for you to call. But you'll have to ask them to review the tapes, because I don't remember his name.

I'd like to give a shout-out to the best father this side of Heaven! Daddy, you are and always have been my hero. Happy birthday, and I pray you'll have many, many more!!!