There is a reality to my situation. The reality is that I have five children ages 7 and under. So I have realized that because of this reality I cannot maintain a sparkly house all by myself. My realtor told me that she wants to see my house sparkle before she puts it on the market. I purposely chose a realtor who is a "shark" as my mom would call her. She is highly ambitious and a go-getter. She set a high price for my house but in turn she is expecting a lot out of me. At first I was real gung-ho and I knew it was going to be tough, but I was going to make cleaning and prepping the house my first priority. Now reality has set in though. I have five children, the majority being still small, I am a slow cleaner, and my husband (the fast cleaner) is getting ready to graduate from dental school, so he has not been around much to help me. He has not gotten home before nine this week and one night it was midnight. So Asher is stressed worrying about whether or not he will graduate on time (I am sure he will, most dental students go through this), and I was overly anxious about getting my house ready to sell.

I was completely wearing myself out trying to get as much done as possible in a very short amount of time. I was grouchy with my children and our diet was suffering horribly. I did not want to make a mess in my kitchen or reserve the time it would take to make something healthy so I was resorting to eating out almost every day. Then I asked myself, "Why am I doing this?" Answer, to possibly have a buyer before we move. I decided that it is not worth it. Judy, my realtor mentioned in passing that the first little while that a house first comes on the market is the most important. So I want those few days to be when our house is empty. That we can paint with the furniture gone and we can have the new carpet already installed. When I was looking at houses I looked a quite a few of them and only one had the furniture still inside. So I am sure it will be fine. One other reason that I wanted to put it on the market early was because somebody told me that houses sell faster when the furniture is still there because it makes it easier for buyers to envision their own stuff in the house. But I will have to have buyers with creativity and vision.

Today was the first day that I have had the idea of waiting solidly in place and it has been so much more peaceful. I have a better attitude and I can focus on being kind to my children and having consistent discipline with Bethany.

The great thing though is that I have gotten alot of my work already out of the way.