What Ana Does

In accordance with our relo package, we need two appraisals and a thorough home inspection. Two guys arrived today, at about the same time, to accomplish these goals. Strange to sit on my sofa as two strangers poked their noses into every corner of the house, measuring and making notes. And made me a bit nervous, as their reports will determine how much our buy-out will be if we don't find a buyer. I tried to smile and offered each beverages and popcorn. Beer, too. Both declined. I hope my hostess skills are noted in their final report.

MY DESIGN BLUEPRINT Step 1: Put offer on House YES! We're going to do it. Timing-wise, we just need to seal the deal or we'll be in this limbo for longer than we need to be. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!!! Tally ho!  Step 2: DECORATE OK, it's not the correct step 2 but seriously, I'm so excited because I've decided to go into a new design direction -- Hello Mid-Century Modern, with an eclectic Scandinavian twist. Which so happens to fit the look of the new house to a T. According to my personal style guru Holly at Decor8  I should create a "mood board" for each room with stuff I like out of magazines and books. Now that's a FUN project during all this waiting -- it's like I'm giving birth again! Yuck! But I can share those mood boards here. Step 3: Sell the House, Pack My Stuff, Move Away Well, these might be more than one step and will take weeks, but I'm chunking them all together because they're not as fun as Step 2.

It's big and blue and in front of an absolutely awesome house -- come and buy my house. You won't be sorry! And there's even a cute kid available for pictures and tours. Icing on the cake! VANNA WHITE, WATCH YOUR BACK! By the way ... that's what she wore for school picture day, today. Adorable, no?

Sure, we found this great house in a lovely neighborhood at the lower-than-right price. So now what do we do? It's a gamble with risks every direction we look. We don't do well with risk. Ugh. We continue to talk to the team of lenders, realtors and relocation folks we have the phone numbers for. A decision will shake out at some point. Vegas, baby!

Now that I've decided to give myself a few days off from staging/home improvements, I thought I'd gather a list of a few things I've done and saw a major difference. It's quick, painless and I think "WOW, I should have done that a year ago!" Retouch paint -- on walls and trim. I found a half-full can of yellow paint (called Mellow Yellow) in the basement and went over some frame nicks and nail holes in the dining room. I've also taken some white trim paint and fixed up areas where the turquoise trim is starting to show through again. I'm haunted by the turquoise!  Old English on the cabinets in the kitchen -- a little rubbing of that magic goo on the wood and my old cabinets are simply glowing!  Wash the windows - - huge difference. YES, I've washed my windows many times but I always forget the impact it has on the room.  Remove extraneous furniture and fixtures -- "we all live like this" as my realtor says but once you peel back a

Doesn't matter that the day was a success, we needed wine and delicious Italian food to recover from the fatigue of seeing 9 houses! And this certainly helped ...

FANCY BROCHURES I got the house to absolutely sparkle this morning (after losing sleep from stressing) and dashed out for a playdate -- but not before receiving kudos from my realtor for job well-done.  Hooray me! MY VISITORS The playdate was a lot of fun, so I didn't think once about the parade of strangers trudging through my house, peeking into my closets and assessing the house's worth. (Though, now I am. Yikes!) When we returned there was a pile of 24 realtor business cards on my dining room table and the dining room buffet was stacked with info about my lovely house -- including a stack of glossy ads with my house on it. Fancy! Now let's hope all these realtors have clients DYING for a house just like mine and my phone rings off the hook arranging viewings for the next few weeks. Fingers crossed!

ROOM WAS CLEAN 5 MINUTES BEFORE THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN It SO goes around.... It's super important to keep the house clean for the open house tomorrow so what does my three-year-old say? "I don't like clean! I like messy!" Oh Mom, revenge is a dish best served a few decades later, no?

I spend a lot of time thinking about what a buyer would think when they walk through the house. I stop at different spots in the house, put my hands on my hips and survey my surroundings. I pretend I haven't spent the last five years in this room -- cleaning it, decorating it, chasing kids in it. And can't remember what it looked like when we first moved in (which was a 1960's disaster - see past the paint, people!). Then I make changes to the way furniture is arranged, move clutter to the basement or reorder books. If I get really desperate, I might have a future as a home stylist on HGTV. I'm getting pretty good.

The realtor open house -- aka Deadline Day -- is two days away. I think I have a little more work to do. CLUTTER CAPTIAL CLUTTER CAPITAL'S EURO SISTER CITY

While Mom toils on house projects, the girls catch up on Nick Jr shows. So I won't win Mother of the Year, but I'll get them into a nice, new house at the end of all this. That's not so bad. MAX AND RUBY!

Here's the "fun" thing about putting your house on the market: all those weekend projects you've been putting off needs to get done ... NOW! Today, I'm tackling the white trim on the porch. It's a project I had planned to do after painting the floor red. That was two years ago. BEFORE About two hours later and it's a HUGE improvement. I think a buyer won't even notice the trim and look right out into my newly-picked up backyard. (That reminds me, I gotta get to the landscape store for some closeout perennials.) I did have some little hands offer help. But, once they were given the paint brush, they got bored of it pretty quickly.  AFTER

This door has also stuck but now I see it as a potential buyer might see it ... As a bad first impression. I've been outside sanding the edges but have gotten nowhere. I wonder if any of my nieghbors have a planer. Or some dynamite.

Consists of this bucket... Mostly.

Here's one lesson I learned -- I should have started collecting my trash from around the house weeks ago. But vacations, drinks with coworkers and spending quality time with the kiddies always took priority. Next move, I'll be starting months in advance! Big love to my trash men if they make all this garbage disappear! NINE BAGS OF TRASH - AND A CHAIR

It was about time we retired the old fence around our backyard. We left the posts so the next owner can easily install a shiny new one. Thinking of checking out the discounted perennials at the landscape shop this weekend to fancy it up.

We've been living on this block for almost five years, and with the exception of a holiday party four years ago, I've had no reason to get to know my neighbors. Going at the speed of two working parents, there's simply not time to pause and have friendly conversation on the front stoop. But last week, with my twice-daily walk to elementary school, there's more time to say hello to neighbors out and about. A three-year-old provides endless ice-breakers to say hello, wave to a puppy or comment on the weather. In a way, these neighbors are my new office buddies. A neighborhood walk is sorely undervalued. Of course, the timing isn't great, as we're gearing up to move away. But, it will be nice while it lasts.

Liza and Eric invited us to spend the weekend at their camp in the Berkshires. We spent as much time possible in the secluded lake -- swimming, paddling around in the boats and jumping off "the Blob." I even came out of retirement to run around on the soccer field; which taught me an painful lesson that though your head remembers what to do with a soccer ball, your body might not want to go along anymore. Kickboard skills in the lake! The camp starts in full force next year and I'm already jealous of those girls. Soccer, swimming, canoeing and hanging out at the dining hall. Just a few years and Leah will be one of them! In our continuing quest to declutter, we donated a box of DVDs for movie nights, games and books. My goal is to donate enough books were I get a plaque: Library Made Possible By the Generous Donation of Jessica." But, I have to give up a few hundred more books for that to happen, I think. It's a goal. Now we're back at the house and I