I'm Here, I'm Here!

I know, I wasn't gone from posting that long, but my brain is so full I couldn't even handle offloading anything yesterday. Let's see if I'm any closer to coherence today.

As I mentioned briefly Friday night, I met with the realtor to discuss readiness, mine, condo-selling. I haven't had any panic attacks about it yet--well, other than yesterday morning, when I started work to learn that I had to tackle a whole different kind of report, which had my brain crying, "No! Nothing new! Out of processing space!" but it worked out okay in the end--and I am facing things slowly. Slow but steady wins the race.

The realtor and I walked around and she told me what would need to be done before getting ready to list. Almost all of it was small, surface stuff, things that I've been working on and didn't think I was done with, so nothing upsetting there. And some of it was just realty quirks, like moving items from the bathroom to the linen closet, because although I think of the linen closet as a nice selling feature, apparently it just has to look reasonably tidy, not gorgeous, while you don't want the bathroom to feel cluttered. Works for me, even if I'm not sure why we have to pretend that I don't keep a trash can in the bathroom.

I also have a few things that I need to get people to take care of for me, and I'm on the road to getting those done. This includes:

• The plumber, since I had some small but annoying issues with the bathroom sink and toilet. I called him yesterday, he came by today, and it's all done.
• An electrician, to replace the smoke alarms so that I am up to code and will pass the fire marshal's test. The realtor had a guy to recommend, a firefighter in town who's also a licensed electrician (I was telling this to a friend and she said, "They all are," which I didn't know, but it does make sense). I called him yesterday; he came by today to look things over, and he is coming tomorrow to take care of it. Almost done!
• A contractor/handyman that the realtor recommended to fix up a little water damage to the walls by the shower. I called him yesterday, and he came by tonight to take a look at it. I need to look in the basement to see if there's any of the paint left over from the original job, but in all events, it doesn't sound like he'll have trouble getting the job done. Progress!
• I need someone who knows old windows to come and replace the sash ropes/cords in the two old windows I have. One of the ropes broke last year, so I just want to replace all the cords at once. I stopped in my local hardware store and they told me their guy could do that, and took my name and number for him to call me, but that was over two weeks ago and he hasn't. I checked back with them; see the full story below (it's too long for the bullet). 
• A cleaner or cleaning service. I absolutely want to pay to have the whole place rigorously cleaned, as close to when the photography happens as possible. I asked the realtor and she did have someone to recommend, so I will call them soon. But not today.

If you look at that list, that's three phone calls I made yesterday. I'm so proud of myself, because I hate making phone calls. And, all three of them called me back! It's like a little homeowner's miracle.

So: the hardware store: I went in after work tonight, and asked about the handyman. The kid young man checked the list, and said that there were only two jobs ahead of me, so it should be soon. He appealed to an older man who was working, who agreed that it wouldn't be long, then asked what the job was. The kid young man told him, and he sort of sucked in a breath and shook his head, saying that he didn't think their guy "does that anymore." He explained that it's a hard job, it takes time, then he looked thoughtfully at the floor and said, "Do you know anyone else who might be able to do it?" I thought he was asking the kid young man, and that seemed odd to me, but he was asking ME! Uh, hi, I came in here in the first place to see if you knew anyone who could do it. If I knew anyone, I wouldn't be here! So very odd.

Anyway, I was telling this to the bathroom-paint-repair guy, and he said that if I can't find anyone else to do it, he can. So I'll let him get the bathroom done first, then unless I've heard from the hardware store guy, I will have him do it. Sheesh.