The Moving Process Begins...

We have officially gotten the ball rolling on the physical move to Omaha (and we thought it was a lot of work to move from the townhouse to this one - HA!) We met with two different realtors this weekend that could potentially help us sell this house. As everyone knows, it is not the greatest market to try to sell a house, but so it goes - we sort of don't have a choice, so we'll make the best of it. The two realtors that we met with were pretty different - we think we know who we are going to go with, but who knows if it's going to be the right decision (any realtor we have ever chosen in the past has proven to be basically worthless, so we don't have a lot of confidence in our choosing abilities).

Another thing that our realtor meetings produced was a lot of "to do"s -- they each had a list of gripes about our house. Frank spent some time and money at Home Depot this weekend. He put a new faucet on the kitchen sink (the old one looked "tired and beat up"), he put some new hardware on the closet doors in the basement, he shoveled the deck (yes, that was a realtor suggestion), and he bleached and scrubbed the grout in the upstairs bathroom (that one actually did need to be done and it looks WAY better.... so the realtor had at least one good idea). The items that we have not done yet is to dust the water heater and the furnace (is she serious? but, I'll probably get to that one... tomorrow...) and to replace the counter top on the island with a "nice piece of granite" becuase our ugly green counter top has a chip in it. As she put it, "how much could that cost... $1000?" Our answer, " yep, probably about $1000... and we're not doing that!" Slowly, but surely, we'll get this place ready to sell - I just hope that someone wants to buy it...

Frank also has an appointment to meet with a realtor on the Omaha end this week. I hope that the market is as grim there as it is here - we might be able to get a deal on the new home purchase, anyways. That could be kind of fun...

In other "moving to omaha" news, I have been scoping out preschools for the kids. I don't plan to work full time, at least not when we first get there, and I know that they both have gotten so much out of the "preschool / daycare" setting here, that I would hate for them not to have that in Omaha. I did a lot of internet research and found that there are a lot of daycare centers similar to where they go here, where we could opt for a reduced schedule -- surprisingly, the rates for daycare there is less than, but not that much less than what it costs here... without a salary from me, it was looking like the three of us would have to play "pretend preschool" at home :) But, as I kept searching, I found a couple of places that offered specific preschool programs - like 2-3 mornings a week for 3 hours a day. My favorite one is called the Imagination Station (and it's not just the name that I love!) Like lots of things in Omaha, the building is new (less than 10 years old) and it's so darn cute! I sent Frank over to check it out and he concurred - it really is pretty cute, he says. And the best part is that the rates are ridiculous - ridiculously low! It is in a good location for where we think we might live, too. So far, it's the definite front runner...
(imaginationstationomaha.com)

That's all for today - but I think the posts will be coming more often now - things are going to start really hopping!