Guest blogger Lucie Amundsen finds herself on the move….with baggage…

When we moved into the “beige rambler of my dreams” five years ago, this was the house. Meaning the house to raise the children in - the house that needed lots of work, but had good bones -the house that was a safe bet to pour our efforts, money, and hearts into because it was home.

Want to make God laugh? Make a plan.

After years of struggling to pay our own health insurance as freelancers, my husband was recruited for a job in Duluth. They laid a trail of benefit breadcrumbs from the Twin Cities all the way up to the Twin Ports to entice us. He started on January 2nd.

But this career move is different. I’m no longer “That Girl” throwing a stripped mini-dress into my bag for another big adventure. There are little people to consider– two to be exact. My daughter, Belle, is a first grader and her brother Milo is finishing up pre-school and will be entering Kindergarten in the fall …somewhere. And that I don’t know where breaks my heart. Not only are we facing the sadness of leaving all that we know - we’re walking into the great unknown.

When PBS’s Reading Rainbow held their annual “Young Writers and Illustrators” contest this spring, I took it as a chance to really listen to my older child about the move. I was relieved that the pages of her book called, “I’m Moving!” seems more excited than fearful and describes our nebulous future as a fantastic “secret behind a door.”

And until we’ve sold our house, that future will remain a secret. We don’t want to buy another place before selling this one, so we’re at the caprice of the marketplace – and it’s a tough spot to be.

You may have heard that it’s a buyer’s market. Sellers can’t just throw properties onto the MLS with dirty shag carpet and three layers of wallpaper and see multiple offers anymore – like the house we bought back in ’03. So we’ve put all our spare time (and credit) doing all the little projects we’ve been denying ourselves - including tiling and painting, then spent several weekends cleaning, de-cluttering and staging.

It’s beautiful. And finally on the market. My children will tell you that “the market” is located somewhere deep in the land of “NO” - the home of the untouchables. Even the toys in the playroom have been arranged in a pleasing manner to suggest child’s play – not accommodate it. “No painting, no, no messy crafts – no, not THAT game with all the pieces no and no.” And while I’ve previously allowed my kids to watch one measly half hour of TV a day, I find myself saying, “Hey! How about a watching a video; that would be tidy.”

As a parent, I’ve yearned for the Zen experience of clean, clutter-free dwellings pimped out on magazine covers. Be careful for what you wish for. Living in an immaculate space with two young children, a 70lb Rottweiller and an out-of-town husband isn’t the meditative experience I thought it would be.

Last Sunday we had to vacate our home by 10:00 a.m. for nearly six hours of showing. We cleaned like it was a crime scene. I artfully arranged what my 4-year-old calls the “real estate” towels in the bathroom. Then I hit the bed, now a 20-minute chore of primping eight pillows to the splendor of a Bed, Bath & Beyond circular. Combing out the last of the rug tassels on my hands and knees, it struck me that there is medication for just this behavior.

Gathering up the dog and kids, I wiped the tiles clean as we backed out the door. I said over my shoulder, “Doesn’t it look great?” And Belle replied, “Yeah, it’s so pretty it doesn’t even feel like our house.”

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Lucie B. Amundsen is a shelter writer in the Twin Cities. Some portions of this post have been excerpted from Lucie’s blog on www.webdigsblog.com, which she is writing for Webdigs.com in exchange for Realtor representation.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 11:04 am and is filed under Family Life, Guest Bloggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.