Day Four: Carlos and the Realtors Show Up

At home near Fort Worth, Texas...

After breakfast, Carlos, my ace yard man, showed up to begin some refreshing of the landscaping. I'm having him remove a stand of black bamboo from the rear of the lot and prepare a garden area in its place. I figure the next owners can decide whether to plant a vegetable or flower garden or something else there. Carlos is also going to refresh the mulch around the shrubbery and clean up the leaves. We live in a heavily-wooded area, and Carlos will be making several more trips here, as the leaves will be shedding for about six more weeks.

Another of Carlos's chores will be to pressure wash the flagstone patio to bring the colors back to life. I always enjoy talking to Carlos, as I get to practice speaking Spanish with him. He is a very smart guy and is fluent in both English and Spanish.

As for my contribution, I decided to begin with books, of which I have many, unfortunately. I decided that, for now, I would keep only those that I consider keepsakes or classics. With that in mind, I began to toss the rest into plastic bins. When the bins were almost too heavy to carry, I loaded them into the car. I'm not quite sure what to do with them yet, but I will figure that out. This project has only just begun; there will be many more bins to be filled. While doing this, I happened to think of how technology has changed so many things: Virtually all of these books are obsolete now, as most are available online, or the information contained therein is accessible with a Google search. This makes me feel old.

Sandy busied herself tidying up the inside of the house in preparation for the realty agents' first visit. One of them was a relatively new agent, Angie, who had been recommended to us by a friend. She brought with her a very seasoned agent named Brenda, whom Angie described as her mentor. We were impressed by Angie's openness about her inexperience, and I love nothing better than to give a helping hand to young folks, so long as we will be well served. The older agent seemed very savvy and down to earth, so we are quite comfortable with this arrangement. We showed them around for about an hour, pointing out all the features of the house, inside and outside. They were very complimentary (not unexpected, since they obviously would like to get the listing) and informed us that the DFW Metroplex is a seller's market, as the inventory of houses for sale is quite low in the face of high demand. This is something we already knew, and we can't say that we didn't take that into consideration when we decided to make this move.

Due to the uniqueness of the property, the agents asked for some extra time before they suggested a possible listing price. I told them I have a figure in mind and that I wanted to see how close they come to it; we'll talk to them about the listing after that.

Why not sell it ourselves, you may ask? Well, that is a possibility; we haven't fully decided. We've done that before, but the problem is that we are out of town a great deal of the time, and that makes it difficult to do a FSBO. 

Tiring of the book triage, I decided to check the air pressure on Phannie's tires as a change of pace. All six tires were a little more than five psi low, probably due to the change in seasons. Since a five-psi loss is the maximum that I will allow on these tires, I got out the air compressor and topped them off.

The only thing left to do before the next departure is to check the coach batteries and top them off if needed, a chore that I do every couple of months. That seems to be about the right frequency, as they always take a little water, but not so much that I could be called neglectful. For now, the batteries are holding up well, even though they're nearly five years old. If I get five years out of them, I'll be pretty satisfied. 

Tomorrow Carlos will be back, and I'll be digging through more books. Reza por mi, por favor!

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.