House:
We meet tonight with our realtor, Krista, to discuss pricing the house. It's been a lot of work, but the house if finally ready. Okay, almost ready. There are still some small details that need to be taken care of before next week when we have an open house for realtors. But they shouldn't be that bad. We need to rearrange the study to make it look more spacious, assemble and arrange the patio furniture, kill some grass, and take another swipe at cleaning everything. I finished up the lawn yesterday, so it should be okay. Just need to do some more sweeping for grass clippings. I am proud to say that we have the greenest lawn on the block, and that's the result of a lot of work on our part. It's been very dry all Fall and Winter, so we have been watering a lot. Plus I laid down some fertilizer and some grass seed last fall, and that's paying off now.

The original plan was to be finished with the remodel by the end of last year so we could have a few months to enjoy the house in a finished state. That never happened. The contractors didn't finished until the first part of this year, and we have been working on it nearly constantly. There always seems to be something that we've missed and are having to work on. In a way, I'm kinda relieved that we didn't have time to settle into a "finished" house. We've constantly been reminded that this is a project, and that the intent is to sell it. I think if I really had the time to enjoy the house, I would feel more regret about listing it. Now we are just anxious to find out where we can price it, and sell as quickly as we can. We would love for it to sell within a few days.

We still haven't found the next house, but that's okay. We have a couple of prospects, and if we have to, we can rent an apartment or lease a house for a while until the next remodel opportunity comes up. The plan is to spend about two years in the next house before selling, that would get me to the end of my schooling.


School:
Started back from Spring Break this week. Eh, it's okay. I'm finding that the classes I enjoy most are Microbiology and Karate. Both are pretty darn cool.

The process to get into my nursing program is continuing. I just got a letter requesting an interview and some testing, plus I had to provide a background check. My interview is next Tuesday at 4pm. I'm hoping that it goes better than my last interview for a nursing program.

Back in 1996 I decided to go back to school in order to increase my earning potential. At the time I was living in Dallas and working as a doorman at the Eagle, and also as a clerk at Leather By Boots. I had a lot of fun, but I was working about 60 hours a week and averaging 5.50/hr. I talked to my parents about going back to school, saying that I was thinking of going to community college in Dallas for either nursing, or a computer certification. They told me about an LPN program that my sister was applying for up in Oklahoma, and that if I wanted to go that route, that I should apply too. I applied, tested and interviewed.

I did well on the testing, but the traumatic part of the process was the interview. I didn't really have any nice clothes, but I cobbled together the best I could do at the time. Dress slacks, dress shirt and tie, cardigan, black belt. Unfortunately, the pants were very much "fat" pants. I think they were size 54, and fit across the belly. Now, my fat brethern know that the when your equator is larger than your hips, if there is any slippage, nothing stops the pants from falling down. And indeed they did. I got in to the conference room okay. Sat and talked for the interview for about 30 minutes. Got up, shook hands across the table and then headed for the door. As I was walking to the door, I felt the pants start to go. Unfortunately, I had a folder in one hand, and couldn't really do much except grab the waist with the other an try to make it the three steps out the door before I could hitch up the pants. I made it about two steps before I mooned the interview committee. I had a brief hope that no one noticed, but as I shut the door, I saw the shocked expression on the face of the program director.

I didn't get in.

I will be wearing suspenders to the interview next week.