Or, more accurately, St. Joseph. Because apparently Jesus has delegated residential real estate.
I have discovered that there are approximately seven stages of selling your house.
Hope.
Excitement.
Obsessively checking Zillow.
Panic.
Cleaning things that were already clean.
Questioning every decision you have ever made.
And, apparently, burying a Catholic saint upside down in your front yard.
We have officially reached Stage Seven.
Let me back up.
Exactly two weeks ago, I listed my house for sale.
And when I say I listed my house, what I really mean is that after months of painting, packing, purging, fixing, organizing, cleaning, landscaping and generally trying to erase all evidence that actual humans and approximately 47 animals have ever occupied these five acres, I put my beautiful house on the market.
I was ready.
The house was ready.
Phoenix was waiting.
Surely, people would come.
They did not come.
Our first open house produced exactly zero people.
ZERO.
And because I am an exceptionally rational and emotionally stable person 😂, I immediately arrived at the only reasonable conclusion:
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY HOUSE?!
Never mind that school was starting.
Never mind that families were busy.
Never mind that the open house was short-ish and maybe at a weird time for the boonies.
My take: Clearly, the entire population of central Michigan had gathered together and collectively decided that my house was undesirable.
Naturally, I began stalking Zillow.
Views.
Saves.
Views.
Saves.
Refresh.
Refresh.
REFRESH.
Hundreds of people were apparently willing to look at my house from the comfort of their own homes, but I needed one of them to PUT ON PANTS AND COME INSIDE.
Eventually, thankfully, they did.
We got a showing.
And because this is my life, it had rained the night before and I had not finished mowing the lawn.
So, on the morning strangers were coming to inspect my home and decide whether they might like to exchange a rather substantial amount of money for it, I was outside frantically finishing the grass.
Nothing says “luxury country property” quite like the homeowner racing around on a zero-turn mower trying to make five acres presentable before the buyers arrive. (Queue the theme to ‘Green Acres’)
I finished.
I cleaned myself up.
I gathered the animals.
I left.
The prospective buyers came.
And apparently…
they met the goats.
Now, at the time, I assumed this meant they had wandered over to the goat barn during their tour and enjoyed a charming little introduction to country living.
It did not.
Because when I pulled back into my driveway after the showing, THE GOATS WERE STANDING IN IT.
Both of them.
In the driveway.
Just… there.
Waiting for me.
Like two tiny, furry listing agents who had just wrapped up an appointment.
It took me a minute to piece together what had happened.
Remember the frantic mowing?
Apparently, somewhere in my race against the clock, I had bumped the goat gate just enough to knock it loose.
Which means I released the goats.
On showing day.
And then LEFT.
I have no idea how long they were out.
I don’t know where they went.
I don’t know exactly when they encountered the prospective buyers.
I don’t know whether they greeted them at the driveway, escorted them to the front door or accompanied them on some portion of the property tour.
I don’t know whether anyone discussed financing.
What I do know is that the buyers later reported that they had “met the goats.”
Yes.
Yes, you did.
Apparently the livestock portion of your showing was complimentary.
But the feedback was good.
They loved the house.
They were potentially going to write an offer.
AN OFFER.
I allowed myself to get excited.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I became unexpectedly well-versed in property dimensions, surveys, boundary lines and exactly how many square feet are in five acres.
And then…
Nothing.
But! Another showing!
Hope returned.
Maybe these were The People.
Because this is the particularly cruel little purgatory of selling a house: every showing could be The Showing.
So you clean.
You put things away.
You fluff pillows.
You wipe counters that were already clean.
You remove dog bowls, litter boxes and anything else suggesting that biological organisms actually live in the house.
You spot clean.
Or, as I accidentally typed while discussing one of these showings:
You spit clean.
And frankly, at this point, I stand by the typo.
Because “spot cleaning” implies calmly wiping a fingerprint from the refrigerator.
Spit cleaning is what happens when strangers are arriving in 45 minutes and you’re running through the house with a Windex bottle while simultaneously threatening everyone who lives there not to touch, eat, shed, drool, breathe, sit on or otherwise interact with ANYTHING.
You spit-clean your entire existence.
Then you gather the offenders, leave your own immaculate home, and wait for strangers to decide whether they’d like to buy it.
And while all of this was happening, Leo remained committed to ensuring that I did not become overly focused on real estate.
One afternoon, I discovered that he had taken a particular interest in the decorative sweet potato vines in my planters.
First, he ate them.
Then he excavated them.
Then he apparently decided one deserved indoor accommodations and carried the entire vine into the house.
I found dirt, roots, plant carnage and one very satisfied Braque du Bourbonnais.
This was shortly after the goats had apparently begun conducting property tours.
And shortly before the sprinklers went rogue.
Yes.
The sprinklers.
The effing sprinklers… again.
One evening, for reasons known only to God and whatever demon currently inhabits my irrigation system, the front sprinklers turned themselves on.
And would not turn off.
I pushed buttons.
I changed settings.
I turned things off.
Zone 1 sprinklers remained committed to their mission.
Eventually, I found a yellow handle outside and shut off the water supply to the system, which felt both wildly irresponsible and like exactly the sort of thing a qualified irrigation professional would do.
I was not a qualified irrigation professional but now consider myself a faux-irrigation professional.
I am also not a surveyor, although apparently I am working toward a faux-masters degree.
Because selling a house, as it turns out, requires a minor in land surveying.
Fine.
Whatever.
At least the house was still standing.
And it looked GOOD.
Meanwhile, we kept working on ways to get more eyes – and preferably actual human bodies – through the front door.
Marketing.
Agent outreach.
Open houses.
Incentives.
I continued monitoring Zillow with the intensity of a day trader watching the S&P 500.
And then I ordered a blue flashing light for the For Sale sign (thank you Heather 😂). Helllooo Blue Light Special!!
Because apparently that is where we are now.
The sign itself, by the way, is located at the end of my very long driveway.
And it falls over.
Every.
Single.
Day.
At this point, I don’t know whether the sign is faulty or has simply lost faith in the process.
Either way, I intend to attach a flashing blue light to it soon.
Nothing desperate about that.
Just a tasteful little beacon announcing:
HELLO! BEAUTIFUL HOME FOR SALE! SOMEONE PLEASE BUY IT BEFORE THE OWNER ESCALATES FURTHER!
Spoiler alert:
The owner escalated further.
But first, I decided the house needed additional targeted marketing.
Marc’s man cave is filled with mounts from animals harvested over the years, including deer taken right here around our property. We are surrounded by farm fields and woods. Deer wander through the yard. They eat from the crabapple tree. Wildlife has always just been part of living here.
Marc used to call this place his fortress of solitude.
So I made a little framed sign for the coffee table downstairs:
Hunters Read Me
It explains the deer, the woods, the fruit trees, the neighboring farm fields and what a special place this is if you love hunting – or simply love watching wildlife from your own backyard.
I ended it with Marc’s (and Superman’s, I guess) words.
Your own private fortress of solitude.
And then:
Welcome home.
That one got me.
Because here’s the strange thing about selling a house you really loved:
You’re trying desperately to leave it while simultaneously making the case for why someone else should desperately want to stay.
I’m walking around spit-cleaning every surface, fluffing every pillow, mowing every blade of grass and telling strangers:
Look at this kitchen.
Look at this property.
Look at the pond.
Look at the barns.
Look at the deer.
Look at how wonderful this place is.
And it is.
That’s the problem.
For a very long time, this wasn’t a listing.
It was ours.
It was where we raised kids and dogs and goats and chickens.
Where we sat on the deck and Marc proposed to me with our kids.
Where we watched deer wander through the yard.
Where life happened – ordinary, messy, beautiful life – long before anyone cared about square footage, property lines, Zillow saves or whether the damn For Sale sign was standing upright.
And now I’m doing the strange work of loving this place enough to tell someone else why they should love it too.
And being ready to let them.
It turns out that’s considerably harder than putting a house on Zillow.
Which brings us back to Stage Seven.
Because I can only tolerate meaningful introspection for so long before I start looking for another solution.
There comes a point in every sophisticated real estate transaction when you’ve optimized the listing, spit-cleaned everything that can reasonably be spit-cleaned, discussed marketing, considered incentives, created niche collateral for hunters and ordered a flashing blue light for your perpetually horizontal For Sale sign.
And when none of that has yet produced a purchase agreement, there is really only one reasonable next step.
You call in the Catholics and bury a saint upside down in your front yard.
Enter St. Joseph.
For those unfamiliar, there is a longstanding tradition of burying a small statue of St. Joseph while praying for his help in selling your home.
Naturally, I did not just start digging.
I researched this.
Because if I am going to deploy a saint as part of my real-estate strategy, I am going to deploy him correctly.
Upside down.
Facing the house.
Say the prayer.
And once the house sells, you dig him back up, take him with you and give him a place of honor in your new home.
Forever.
I can work with this.
My St. Joseph arrived today.
St. Joseph of Amazonia (thank you Feech 😂).
He is holding a carpenter’s hammer, which I took as an encouraging sign that the man came prepared to work.
There was, however, a logistical issue.
The traditional advice says to bury him near the For Sale sign.
You remember the For Sale sign.
The one at the end of my VERY LONG driveway.
The one that spends more time lying on the ground than standing upright.
I decided Joseph did not need to be stationed that far from the asset he had been assigned to move.
So I selected a spot in the front yard.
I dug the hole.
I buried him upside down, facing the house.
I said the prayer.
And then I looked up.
Leo was watching me.
Not casually watching me.
Watching me bury something.
If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you understand the gravity of this situation.
I had just placed a small, apparently chewable object underground…
in front of Leo.
Except – and this may be our first actual miracle –
I buried St. Joseph on the other side of the Invisible Fence.
Leo cannot get to him.
Joseph has a security perimeter.
I have never been more confident in a decision.
And lying several feet from Joseph’s new underground office was the mangled purple carcass of what used to be one of Leo’s toys.
Before you blame him, you should know:
That one was me.
I whooshed it.
It survived Leo.
It did not survive The Woosher.
Apparently Leo and I now have competing destruction statistics.
So that was the scene tonight:
St. Joseph buried upside down in my lawn.
A whooshed purple dog toy nearby, which I decided to use to mark Joe’s location.
A suspicious hunting dog standing at the Invisible Fence trying to determine what his mother had just hidden from him.
A For Sale sign several hundred feet away that, statistically speaking, has probably fallen over again.
And me.
Standing in the middle of all of it, waiting for someone to buy my house.
I don’t know who that person will be yet.
I don’t know whether they’ll hunt or just watch the deer under the crabapple tree.
I don’t know whether they’ll have goats or dogs or children running through the yard.
I don’t know whether they’ll sit on the porch and fall in love with the quiet.
I don’t know if they’ll ever call it their fortress of solitude.
I just know that for a very long time, it was ours.
And whoever comes next, I hope they understand what they’re getting.
Not just five acres.
Not just a house.
A place where a whole lot of life has happened.
A place that was deeply, deeply loved.
And a place that I am finally getting ready to let someone else love.
Anyway.
St. Joseph is currently buried upside down in my front yard, safely beyond Leo’s Invisible Fence.
So we’ve got that going for us.
Joseph, buddy. Phoenix is waiting.
Sell. The. House.
😂🙏🏡
