Life is a story, told by an idiot--noisy, wild, and meaning nothing.

Nothing to report. We've had a couple interested parties here, but they all need to put their current place on the market before they can think about giving us an offer.

My husband sez, and I agree, that the minute the leaves are on the trees, this place will sell. The view down Hixon Place from our front porch is so lovely then, and our backyard becomes so private and intimate when the leaves come.

Still, it doesn't mean we aren't freaking the funk out.

I led our Cub Scout den today in the Good Manners belt loop. It was like teaching a pack of wild ocelots how to do the Virginia Reel. Three hours later, Evan and I are watching RED (two thumbs up, although I want to see more Cully Hammer in the production design) and Oscar is still up, working on the origin of Bomb Man and Wolf Man, his comic book creations. God help us, we just can't send him to bed when he's having this kind of a creative spurt.

I've been spending a lot of time on Craigslist LA. Since the rental market (not to mention the sales!) has bottomed out there, it looks like we can find a 3br apartment or house in a decent elementary school district for $2200 or less. That means that maybe I can stay home for at least a year (hopefully two, until Lucy enrolls in kindergarten), do my freelance work, and seek out a great neighborhood for us to settle in. We will have two years before our capital gains taxes kick in. I have to say, I am really looking forward to having a landlord to fix everything, a house that isn't 100 years old, and fruit and avocado trees in the backyard.

The casting in RED is top notch.

I've been thinking about the family we bought the house from lately. It was flipped by a family that lived here, and they did the bare minimum. (They also cleaned out their fridge by dumping all their plastic and glass straight into the recycling -- full of mustard, jelly, and what have you. I spent my first recycling day rinsing out literally 50 moldy jars.) We've spent a lot of money fixing their mistakes, and then even more money getting the house to a level that we wanted. It makes me both sad and proud to sell this house. Everything we've done has been at the quality that we expected would hold us for the next 20 years here. I don't feel like I need to hide anything from potential buyers, and for that, I am proud of both our house and the work that we have done here.