A Beautiful Mind

My daughter is smart. My son is smart too, but I am only realizing now just how smart my daughter is. Since J was always advanced, and S is three years younger, it seemed natural that she was always a little behind him. But now that she is 7 and reading - nay, DEVOURING- books on her own, it is easy to see just how intelligent she is. And I'm so proud.

Of course, I was smart once too. I got told constantly, through elementary school, how smart I was. Back then I was always jockeying for position of "smartest" with a boy, Tony, who was my friend and rival... but I knew I was smart. I loved to read (still do) and was a fast reader (still am). I got 100s on my tests. I got honors. I won the spelling bee (though not the science fair - never liked science).

And then I went to Junior High. I was still smart, but there were other smart kids. And I got lazy. And in High School I discovered friends, and hanging out, and music videos... and I was still smart, but I was too cool to let people know. I got good grades when I wanted to, and bad grades when I didn't. I slacked off, but managed to ace my standardized tests (Regents, PSATs, SATs). I went to a great school but did not get into my top choice. In college I was happy, I loved my friends and classes, but I got lazy in pursuing a career.

And here I am today. I'm in a mediocre job, where I'm not even important enough to be kept on the payroll full time. I still love to read but I'm not doing the great things that I'd guess my mom & dad expected from me as a child. And I wonder how to keep my son & daughter (and the tiny terror, when it's time) from falling into the same trap.

The beginning-

Hi everyone (anyone?)

Well, I've done it. I've finally taken the big step and started the process of putting 409 on the market. It's a little sad to me. I loved the apartment so much when we moved in, in early 2002. Back then it was just me, the husband, and our son, who had just turned 2. We were living in a 1-bedroom rental and we bought an apartment in the same complex, just across the street. We had moved a bunch of stuff over a little at a time, before the "big moving day" and when we took J over to see his new room, he ran around, happily exclaiming, "All my Toys are 'eere!!!" Of course, now it's seven years later, and we have THREE kids (and two turtles, and a crawfish, and a frog) and all the stuff that goes with them, plus my husband and my own's packrat tendencies. But that is all about to change.

I was stalling and stalling about calling a broker. I felt like I needed our place to be in tiptop shape before I would let a stranger in to assess, analyze and judge it. It slowly dawned on me that the place would never be in tiptop shape. (If it were, there would be no need for this blog, not that I've really kept up with the blog, but you know what I mean.) I also realized that telling my kids (and, let's face it, my husband... and really, ok, me too) that "we need to clean up so that when we put it on the market, it looks nice" really meant nothing to them (us) because it was somewhere in the future... Until it is really on the line, it is just not real. (Yes, I admit to being a procrastinator... was there really a doubt?)

Even after realizing this, I dragged my feet. How do I pick a broker? How do I know if it's the right broker? Can I get a storage unit to temporarily store some of my mess? What do I do first?

Finally I broke down (HEH. I first typed "broker down") and called JN at my building's management company. She is the dedicated broker for my building so I figured I'd start with her. I had Friday off and spent a lot of time straightening up... we were out all day Saturday, and the plan was for her to come Sunday at 1:45 after my girl's tee-ball game. She actually pushed it to 4:30 which gave me more time to straighten and (gasp!) mop the floors and (swoon!) clear the dining room table (again).

Her visit was nothing like I imagined. As I said, she is the dedicated broker for the building, so she already knew the apartment and the line very well. She took mostly a cursory look around. Her assessment: hey, it is what it is. It hasn't been updated, it's not in great condition. Someone is going to buy it looking for a bargain and knowing they have to put some money into fixing it up. The price point she suggested was lower than I'd hoped, but in line with what I expected. It will still give us enough money to pay off the mortgage, pay off the credit cards, and have a down payment for the next place.

My biggest surprises? Two:

• I asked when we start looking for OUR new place, and she said, "When you have a signed contract for someone to buy this one." I figured we would be looking as soon as our place is on the market.
  
• I asked what I should do to get it ready, and was surprised to find that there's not much I can do. Cleaning up the clutter in the entryway might make for a faster sale, but not necessarily get us more money. Painting? Would be nice, but not necessary. "You have three kids, are you really going to be able to paint?"

JN was honest about everything, which is why I liked her. She showed us the scuffed up floors in the entryway that may need to be replaced... mentioned the lack of dishwasher... but she also reminded us of the great selling points - large size, great view, lots of light, utilities included... she thinks it will go fast if we use her price point.

She didn't ask us to sign anything... she said we could get some pictures taken and get it up on the market ASAP. I guess I will get back in touch with her in the next few days... I think we are going to go for it...

Something New?

Maybe I'm just not meant to write a blog on decluttering. After all, I'm not very good at it.

Clearing a path

Sorry I have not posted. Believe it or not, I have gotten a lot done at home. I can see the differences, here and there, though I think a stranger walking in would still be a little overwhelmed by the clutter.

I actually got inspired by taking out "Organizing from the Inside Out" at my local library - and then proceeded to ignore most of the instructions and planning stages, in favor of jumping right in (which the author specifically said NOT to do). The book actually makes a lot of sense and has already helped my thought processes somewhat. I loved the idea of making a space easy to use, so you use it more often. Case in point, my filing. I do tend to keep a lot of papers (mainly paid bills and medical claims) but my filing tends to pile up, because my file box is in an inconvenient place. I keep it on the shelf under the computer which is a)dark, b)hard to get to, especially when someone is on the computer, and c)distracting, because I usually end up jumping online "just for a second" and stay online until I get called away, usually before I actually do any filing.

So, I bought a new file box (to replace the shabby A-Z file folder currently housed inside a milk crate) and I put the file box in the kitchen - next to the mail slot where I usually end up sticking the stuff to be filed. VOILA!!! File this under "why didn't I think of that?"

In the process of being excited about filing (and also thinking about getting my tax stuff ready), I also threw out a ton of paperwork. Like I said, I save a lot of papers. I don't think I'm obsessive as some people, but I realized there was plenty I could throw away, including

• Medical claims and paid bills from 1997-2001 (I kept the last few years though)
  
• Bank statements and paid credit card bills from 1997 to maybe 2002 or 2003
  
• All the paperwork on my student loans, which were paid off in 2003 (I kept the final statements for each)
  
• Paid parking tickets from over the last 10 years. There must have been 20 or 30. I only kept the most recent ones.

Probably some other stuff went out too. I didn't weigh everything but I'd guess there were 50 to 100 lbs of paper. Amazing! In doing this I cleared a whole shelf on my printer stand and fit all the rest into another file box (it's mainly tax stuff going back 6 years and the bank statements & credit card bills from those years). That's also in the kitchen now, underneath the active files. Of course, the newly cleared shelf is already filled with stuff again, but that's temporary -- it's mainly stuff I want to put on ebay, Craigslist or Freecycle and haven't had a chance.

Best of all, it's easy and quick to file now, and I've cut out the step of shoving everything in my mail slot until I feel like filing, and I no longer have to sort through it again and again when looking for other important stuff in the mail slot.

There's more... but it will have to wait.




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