We Are Moving to Atlanta

So, I've been talking about leaving Cartersville since shortly after we moved here. Lately, I discuss the topic with more conviction, saying something more definite along the lines of, "we are moving to Atlanta." This usually gets a response like, "Oh, I didn't know your house was for sale." Its a little embarrassing to have to admit that we haven't gotten as far as actually putting it on the market.

I appreciate everyone's advice to just put a sign in the yard and see how goes, but you really don't understand that there are some things we really must do first:

1. Paint overhangs and front/back patio. Believe me, it looks terrible. Plus, our house will probably rot between now and when it actually sells if we don't address this soon. Same goes for our bedroom window sill.
   
2. Fill nail holes in walls and paint living room, stairway and halls. Did you think we just have a unique way of arranging art on the walls? We just hung stuff where anchors already existed when we moved in five years ago. I don't think this will work well for staging our house for a sale. Plus, you need to turn lots of lights on when agents show your home and this will make the spot in the stairwell that is painted just slightly a different color really stand out. (No, we are not just creating ambiance when you came over.)
   
3. Repair bedroom door and door trim that Abby has gouged with her nails. She is not a ferocious beast; she is just scared of flies and did this in a desperate attempt to hide under the bed when we had one in the house. Regardless, handscraped doorways aren't really in style here, so this has to be fixed.

There is a whole other list of things that we will likely do, but this is the critical stuff.

We arranged for a contractor to come out this morning at 8:30am to give us a quote on our punch list of items. Jay waited until around 9am then finally called to see where he was. Oh, he overslept. Yeah, overslept. Something about his wife leaving early and not setting an alarm. And now I am supposed to trust this guy to repair my home? When he can't even get up in the morning to meet a client? If this wasn't the same scenario we find ourselves in every time we try to get someone to mow the lawn/fix the cable/etc. then I would probably try to find someone else. Instead, we'll just wait again on Friday when he is scheduled to come back.

The good news is that now my excuse for not getting the house on the market doesn't have to be my own laziness. Its the now the contractor's fault.

Update: The contractor finally came and the quote he gave us for our list of repairs was awesome. It will cost us about 1/2 what we thought.  We plan to get started in the next few weeks. Yay!