Jaminfrog

A few weeks back, Chel and I got to thinking that we should go ahead and speed up the Big Master Plan we had for our lives — which involved waiting until after I finished law school to move to a bigger house by a lake and start a family. There’s no time like the present, we figure.

So disregarding all that negative press about the worst housing market in generations, we’re preparing to put our house on the market. The other day, we invited a couple of rockstar real estate agents, Kathy and Steve, over to our house to tell us what they thought we could list it for.

Kathy and Steve are the Real Estate Mafia of North Oak Cliff. Almost every “for sale” sign in our neighborhood has their pictures on it. The first thing Kathy told us when she walked through our front door is that she’s sold our house before. Twice. She once lived next door. And she was very concerned about our neighbor Virginia when she saw that we had erected a massive wood fence between our yards.

Kathy and Steve proceeded room by room through our home, taking notes. “This shows nicely.” “Fix this.” “Paint that.” Room by room of minor little stuff that could make a big difference.

“I feel like I’m on Designed to Sell,” I told them. “Except you’re not about to come back with a crew to do all this work for us, are you?”

“Nope!”

So we’re slowly but surely working through Kathy and Steve’s little list. Although all this stuff takes longer than HGTV would lead you to believe, in a week or two we’ll put our home out there in the hope of moving our Big Master Plan ahead.

While I was out studying for finals this weekend, Chel started getting the house summer-fied. She took Little Mom and Dan flower-shopping at Farmer’s Market and found some beautiful flowers. Today she planted the flowers and also hung a cool Texas star that Little Mom gave us for Christmas. Check out the blurry cell-phone photos!

Calling all experienced gardeners: A particular patch in our backyard has refused to grow grass this spring. As best I can tell, the sprinklers are hitting it, plus we’ve had a lot of rain lately. The yard guys fertilized, too. A little of it has come back, but now the patches seem to be hopping around a bit. Our yard and I would appreciate any suggestions!

We went to a benefit dinner for Easter Seals last night, courtesy of Chel’s company, and one of the ways they raised money was through a silent auction. It wasn’t entirely a silent auction, because there was a little chimenea sitting in one corner of the room that was definitely calling Chelsea’s name. One bid later, we were the proud owners of a chimenea.

The hotel sent a bellman with a luggage cart to help us get it to the Jetta, and we were on our way. When we got in the elevator, one of the other benefit-goers commented on our purchase.

“Oh, a chimenea! I just love those. We have one.”

“Do you ever use it?” Chelsea asked.

“No, I don’t think we’ve ever actually used it.”

So the chimenea that may or may not be used has taken its place of honor on our deck. We may never make a fire in it, but it sure is cute.

We learned another important lesson about home ownership this month, when Chelsea decided to become a bonsai artist on all our trees. (I know, I need to post pics of her work, but the poor trees are a little embarrassed and have refused to let me take their pictures so far.)

The lesson is: The fine folks from the City of Dallas come by but once a month to pick up any large brush or trash that won’t fit in your trash can. So if you’re going to trim trees, be sure to do it right before Bulky Trash Pickup Day.

We happened to do our tree-trimming the week after last month’s Bulky Trash Pickup Day, so our driveway became a staging area for the aftermath of our tree-trimming work — until yesterday, when Bulky Trash Pickup Week came along again and we were permitted to move our stick collection to the street.

You can tell from the pic how much Chel really enjoyed the tree-trimming shears that Mom and Dad contributed to as our housewarming gift. Chel is 4-foot-8 and a half, and the branches almost pile as high as she is tall.

Many thanks to Dan Wells, our resident landscape consultant, for his hard work in our backyard. I was going to put off mowing until Sunday morning before church, but Dan stopped by and made it happen today. He even got Chel into the act, pulling weeds and planting new lantana plants in the flowerbeds next to the Man Room. Dan made our backyard a better place today.

I think I’ve figured out a good way to lose weight — work outside most of the day in 90-degree plus weather!

Chel and I painted the trim on the front two windows this weekend. This was by far the toughest of our painting projects, because it required true artistic ability. Painting those little window panes took patience, precision and really tiny paintbrushes.

It looks quite charming, if I do say so myself, and I think I lost a pound or two in the process!

As new homeowners, Chel and I have officially found a new favorite store.

It’s The Home Depot.

In the two months we’ve been in the house, we’ve spent big bucks on lawn equipment, paint and supplies…everything but the kitchen sink. (Although I’ve heard they have those, too.) Today’s Home Depot shopping spree was for more lawn tools: a trimmer/edger that our lawn desperately needed, a hedge trimmer, and a nice little set of pruning sheers. (Chel has gone crazy with the pruners today and turned a couple of our trees into bonsais, but that’s another story.)

I think I need to buy some stock in the place. Or maybe start working there part-time on the weekends, so we can get a discount or something.

We had a great open house with about 45 people stopping by. The margarita machine was a hit, as was The Man Room and the pool table. Someone suggested that The Man Room be renamed The Esquire Room, but I think The Man Room sums up its essence much more effectively.

So we overbought on alcohol a little bit, and we have about 50 beers too many waiting in The Man Room. My good friend Dan from the Oak Cliff Frog Blog tells me the beer will go bad if left in this condition for too long.

We don’t have the fridge space to keep it cold, and at our rate of 1 beer a week it would be here through next April, so what else can we do with it?

My sister Kathryn has a beer bread recipe she would like to try, but that’s a heck of a lot of beer bread. Please share any other great ideas you have about what to do with leftover beer.

One cool thing about getting your first home is that, since you don’t have a ton of money anymore to go out and do things, you realize that you can go on a date in and around your new home that’s just as nice as going out on the town.

Take last night, for example. Our evening began in The Man Room, where we enjoyed a couple of games of billiards (I won both) as we split one of the 56 bottles of beer left over from our open house.

Then we moved on to dinner, which consisted of open house leftovers followed by a stop at the drive through Luby’s for some macaroni and cheese.

Next, since we don’t yet have a pool or spa in the backyard, we proceeded to visit a nearby apartment complex and make use of their fine facilities.

We capped the evening off by returning to home and swinging in the hammock as the sun went down. And to make it seem like we were staying in a fine hotel, we slept in the guest bedroom.

All in all, it was a perfect date. Tonight, I think we may have a date in the living room.