It seems like we have now reached the season(s) of which we are more likely to be going to funerals/memorials rather than weddings/showers. We went to my uncles’ not long ago and last weekend, we went to our church friend, Daniel’s.

It was a celebration of life service in which it is not necessary to dress in black. It was encouraged to wear his favorite sports team outfits (I happened to wear my royal blue shirt…dodger blue!) Lowell led in worship and Pastor Tom preached a sermon. There was a time of sharing from Daniel’s friends. He loved movies, sports, talking (lol), serving in the church, and sharing Christ with others. 

Anson remembered him as his Awana leader many years ago in which memorizing verses would give him baseball and Marvel cards (from his own pocket). He cared about the kids put in his charge and even if they didn’t know Christ at that time, he wanted the seeds of the Christian faith to be planted in their hearts. I remember being in the same life group with him during my short time at New Life Church and also attending one of his Super Bowl parties where it was my first time getting heart burn because of all the great (and rich) food! Ironically, the day after this memorial service was Super Bowl Sunday. 

We hadn’t talked to him for a while since we’ve been in the Bay Area and then moved to Camarillo, but almost every time we visited New Life, we would talk briefly as he would faithfully be in the back of the room. He suffered from esophageal cancer for the last few years of his life, but he remained steadfast in his trust in God and tried to serve to his capability. 

Daniel is someone I can look up to and see how the Christian life should be lived, how the race should be run. God will say to him, “well done, good and faithful servent.” I hope to strive to be faithful and loving as him and to serve others with joy and gladness. Farewell, Daniel. See you later. Hope you enjoyed watching the Super Bowl from the sky

My dad was diagnosed with dementia in April 2023. At the time, we knew that he was forgetful (my mom was thinking of buying AirTags for his phone/keys in May 2022), and the reason why my mom wanted to give me and Anson one of their cars was because my dad was driving a little erratically. He got into a car accident (all parties were fine), but later, they went to the hospital to get him checked out. That was when three doctors recommended that he not drive anymore as he could be a danger to himself and others. It has been downhill ever since.

Seems like each day is a new challenge. He frequently can’t find his glass, wallet, or keys. This time, it does look like he has lost his keys so we will have to make a copy of everything for him when we see them this Thursday. We just bought them AirTags to make it easier for them to find if/when this happens again. Some things are also just getting harder for him to remember how to do: turning on the stove, how to use a charger to charge his phone, unlocking the car door, etc. In his own mind, I think that he is trying to protect his family, so he goes through my mom’s stuff in her purse and hides it because they are important…but then he doesn’t remember that he does that or where he puts it. Just last month, he left the house twice and didn’t know how to get back home, and people at the hospital next door called us since they couldn’t reach my mom. We had to buy a door lock so that my dad won’t be able to leave the house in the middle of the night again.

The last time we visited was for my dad’s birthday in January and we stayed over for three nights…never again. The last night was just too much for me. I woke up 3 times for various reasons: one included my dad walking around and being afraid of ghosts in the room. I feel sorry that my mom has to be his caregiver. He usually becomes more agitated and frustrated as the night goes on and does not sleep at night and becomes restless. He does not make much sense and seems to live in his own delusions/hallucinations. We wanted to live in Camarillo because the weather is so much better than the valley, and also for us to have a little bit of space from parents, but we left the door open by buying a bigger place in case they ever needed to live with us…with my dad’s progression, I’m not sure if it would be wise if he can just walk out the door. Part of it is selfishness in which we don’t want our lives fully focused on caregiving, but part of it is also safety for him. I think we’re just taking it one day at a time. Praying for patience and endurance and compassion towards him…I’m sadly going to need it…

It was a normal Wednesday morning, but pretty windy outside, so since we woke up early, we decided to go to the gym. After a short workout, we left the gym and smelled a little smoke outside. When we went home, we could sort of see some smoke in the distance. I get notifications on my Ring app, and others were talking about a fire out in Somis/Moorpark area. A few mins later, there was an update that the fire had jumped the 118 freeway and made its way to Camarillo. I downloaded a fire watch app called Watch Duty by then since I was starting to get worried.

Winds picked up, 20 miles, then 30, then 40. We were packing by 10-11am as some areas were told to evacuate. Anson packed our documents, and I packed various things like food, personal hygiene stuff, my scrapbook I made when we were dating, our sermon notes, etc. I didn’t exactly know what I was packing…what is most important when you think it will all be gone that day?

The fire made national news and a few people we knew from LA and the Bay Area reached out. The first was Anson’s dad. We evacuated to their house around noon. Our area was on a red flag alert and firefighters were going door to door telling people that they had to leave. Getting out of Camarillo was a little backed up but orderly. Thankfully, the power at our house was back on around 3pm and I was able to use the Ring camera to see that our neighborhood seemed like it was still standing. Even though we were told to evacuate, our neighbors in front were there that night. 

We stayed two nights at Anson’s parents’ place, but we didn’t want to overstay our welcome and also wanted to make sure our home wouldn’t be broken into, so we came back on Friday morning. There were some streets that had barriers to close it off, but we found other streets open in order to get back to our house. Found out later that our other neighbors to the back (former firefighter) and to the right never left. 

Almost 200 homes were destroyed in the fire. Most of them were in more remote areas, but Camarillo Heights was still the area hit hardest. Looking at the map, our house was about 2000 ft from the fire (less than 1/2 mile). I feel sorry for those who have lost their homes, yet thankful that our house did not burn down. We only moved here 4 months ago, so in a way, I didn’t feel like this house had many memories for us as I did about Foley, but it would still be a hurtful loss. Would we be okay if we did lose it? We are stewards of all that God has given to us. He can give, and He can take away. Thank you, God, for protecting our earthly home. Help us to not rely on our own strength as we have little control and know that nothing in this life will last. Pray that we will store up treasures in heaven and to know that on this earth, we are just passing thru. 

Uncle William, my dad’s younger brother, passed away at the beginning of October. I didn’t know him that well, so it was nice to hear about what he did in his life. He was a quiet man, but played the violin in a well known orchestra in Hong Kong, studied and was a social worker, became an engineer when he moved to the states, and loved and served the church faithfully for years as the Cantonese choir director. We attended his memorial on Saturday, November 2, 2024.

On Friday, Anson and I had lunch with his parents before we went over to my parents’ place to stay the night. This was so that we could drive them to the memorial and was a way for us to serve them (I shouldn’t get annoyed at this) since my dad can’t drive anymore and my mom is uncomfortable with driving long distances. We were already going to have a busy weekend since we were staying the night in Hollywood to attend David Foster’s 75th bday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl (too cold and bad sound quality), but I’m glad that we went.

The service was well run (wondering if Emily helped lol…loved the Porto’s after service). Tim K led in worship with Amazing Grace, the choir sang one song, there were 3 people who spoke about Uncle William (a choir friend, Irene (his sister), and Hanson (his oldest son), and Johnson gave a message. One of the things his father said was to his grandchildren to “be a Christian on the inside”. He seemed like a loving friend, husband, father, and grandfather. He already knew how he wanted his service to be held and wanted the gospel to be preached as his last act to have others hear about Christ. He was never outspoken during his time on earth, but he did not need to be in order to make Christ known in both his life and death. Farewell, Uncle William. I’ll see you later.

We checked out a few different churches while we were deciding on where to make our home church. We visited CCAC since that is where Anson’s parents go, but we knew early on that it didn’t make sense to drive an hour to church each week. We also went to New Life Church since it was my home church for a year before we got married and Aaron and his family go there. It is 30 mins away and is doable…but I think still a little far in order to maintain community. We visited Christ Our Redeemer PCA which is in Camarillo at the local high school. We had good conversations with Cal and Bora. Though not an absolute red flag the way they conduct service is not something we’re used to. We also visited Pleasant Valley Baptist Church which was really close to us (5 min drive?). I liked the worship and the preaching, and a couple was very nice to us and they also had small groups/Bible study after service. This was a semi-contender as it was a nice local community. It seemed pretty established and I wasn’t too sure how we would be able to serve.

Throughout our visits to different churches, we kept coming back to Chinese Christian Church of Thousand Oaks. We liked that it was a smaller sized congregation, the expository preaching style (Pastor Steve has incepted our thoughts), recognizable worship songs, and Elder Wayne was very friendly and gave us a tour on our first visit. Some things that I may need some time to get used to is all the women leading worship (not enough guys with ability or desire to lead?), not having to be a member in order to be part of small groups, etc. Pastor Tim is relatively new in his role as the English pastor, so I know that it takes time to grow into the role and have the church change when there have been things just done for years.

We visited a few of their small groups: New Heritage (mostly retired folks), New Legacy (those w/ middle school to college aged children), and Semi Pro & Hungry (single and married w/o kids). We plan to visit CAMTO in the next month and that group mainly consists of those with young kids). It looks like we’re more comfortable being in Semi Pro as we like the discussions and teaching and it being more Biblically oriented rather than topical and it is easier to have conversations as it is a smaller group and doesn’t have as many disruptions where there are many kids. Regardless of which SG we attend, it does look like we have decided to make CCCTO our home church and have completed their 1st membership class last month. We’ll be taking the 2nd one next week and applying afterwards. Hopefully we will be able to serve and help the church.

Anson had to leave his company after his 3 months of working remotely. We knew that this was going to come as it has been the trend for tech companies to not let workers be fully remote anymore. Not exactly sure what I should blog about regarding this…should I talk about us going up to the Bay Area in October for his last 2 days? He had a dinner with coworkers and also ate with them for lunch on both Thursday and Friday and worked out with Frank both days. I ate with Emily (Lisa and fam stopped by) at Orange Square, ate at BJ’s with BWC peoples and caught up with them and Janet after she was let go. We also ate with Tracy at Google, with Uncle Tim and Aunt Helena (Little Saigon), and with Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan (Mediterranean Grill House). We talked with people at church (Cindy, Jane, Ruth), and ate with Randy and Eva at Big Bites. But…seems like this paragraph is more about the week we went up rather than about Pure…instead, how about a list of things I would like to remember about his company of 11.5 years.

– Him randomly bringing leftovers home from the office (using waiter.com and Eat Club)
– When IPO’d, they gave him an IPad Air 2 (what I’m using to type this blog entry on) and an Apple Watch (which we gave to my mom).
– A generous amount of stock options as he was employee 115….they’ve grown to 4000
– Meeting him down at Le Boulanger for dinner before Janette’s small group on Castro
– Going on the weekends after church for snacks and studying
– Bringing church friends there to eat snacks
– The massage chair!!!
– Blueboard award that gave us a free sailing trip and annual passes to Great America
– For his 10 year anniversary, he received a Bose sound bar that retails for ~$400
– Various swag (shirts, jackets, cups, etc) he’s received thru out the years
– When moving to Santa Clara, we started carpooling to the office, and I would drop him off, go to GA for lunch, go to work, stop by GA for dinner, and bring to his workplace to eat there
– Very fancy Christmas party in San Jose one year, Anson going on a couple ski trips, cool picnic at Saratoga Springs, and two years at The Plex with good food, ice skating, and games.
– Even though they stopped lunch after moving, at least had a subsidy for the cafe. And yes, they downgraded some snacks due to inflation, but still had nuts, drinks, eggs, guacamole, cheese, yogurt, milk, teas, chips, etc. Thankful for fun times eating snacks!
– Walking around his company while he and Frank worked out/ran…he will miss his running buddy
– Anson working from home for a good amount of time cuz of pandemic…which made us realize what we should be working for
– Pure not letting him WFH anymore so that he can finally have a break
 
Anson’s had his ups and downs at work, but that is to be expected. Pure has given us much to be thankful for and I know he was glad to work with many people at the company. They compensated him well to the point where he has the freedom to do what he wants now. Thank you, Pure, for everything…

Wow, was my last entry just about our get together up in the Bay Area??? There’s been so much that has happened and seems a little overwhelming to write it all down I guess I’ll try my best…

Our pod from 1-800-PACK-RAT was dropped off on Wed, 6/26, and it would be picked up on Tuesday, 7/2…this was NOT enough time to pack everything as we still had to work, do different last get togethers, bidding on a house, and mistakenly thought we could do all the packing ourselves. And to top it off, we had a heat wave come through and were packing in 100 degree heat. I sort of had a breakdown as things were just pretty hard trying to pack everything on Tuesday before the truck came to pick up all our stuff…yet, it wasn’t actually all our stuff as we had to bring a car full to Uncle Kenway’s place for them to store for the next few months. The plan is to pick it up (maybe) when we visit when Anson says farewell to coworkers in October.

Even though we brought stuff to Uncle Kenway’s, we still had two car loads full and had to push our date to move down by one day since there was still so much to pack and Anson wanted to leave the buyers a clean the house. On that day, July 4th, I looked over our house, swept one last time, pulled some weeds from the garden…and cried the whole time. This has been our house for 10 years and had many memories in it. We’d been in the Bay Area for our whole married lives, and leaving this place and all our friends was definitely sinking in

During this time, we were also looking over houses in Camarillo on redfin. We had met a real estate agent, Regena Ryan, at an open house when we came down in April, and she had been helping us look for places while we were selling our Foley house. She was the one who noticed this house even before it came on market listing at $1.295m. It was single story, 2700sq ft, slab foundation for one room to be Anson’s gym, big kitchen with smart fridge, a beautiful backyard that I’d actually want to spend time in (gotta learn how to use a hot tub!), in a good neighborhood, 1 mile from Ralphs and .5 miles from the park. The only bad thing is the location since Foley was close to many stores and the library, which was a reason why we bid $1.25m…site unseen. Sellers had bad experience with selling this way, so they wanted us to see the place and wanted their original price.

We drove down to SoCal and stayed over at the Wongs’ house for one night, then went over to the house on Friday to see it with our own eyes (Regena had given us a virtual tour which didn’t count to the seller), and put in our same bid but with a fast closing. We thought we were in a pretty good position since we could offer all cash. Anyways, we drove to my parents’ condo and stayed for 2 nights, where we found out that our offer was accepted! Hooray! We went to New Life on Sunday 7/7, had economical lunch there for $3/pp, hung out with Aaron’s family, then went to Wongs’ place for dinner. While packing up, found out that the inn we were going to stay in had their front office close at 10pm, so we wouldn’t be able to make it to check in. We ended up staying for the night (which Anson’s mom was happy about).

I had booked us a month’s worth of hotel/Airbnbs for the month of July…didn’t know we would get an offer accepted so quickly. Our first week, 7/7-7/13, was at Bella Capri Inn in Old Town Camarillo. The 2nd week, 7/13-7/21, was in a Santa Rosa Airbnb, and the 3rd week, 7/21-8/1, was in an avocado orchard in Camarillo 1.5 miles from the house we were buying.

At Bella Capri, the room was pretty small and only had one desk with both Anson and I having to still work remotely. It was nice to walk around Old Town Camarillo at night. This was during their heritage week and they had carnival rides, food trucks, and various musical/dance performances. We also had to go to the house to be there for the various inspections (home, sewer lateral, and termite). I also had to create accounts for SoCalGas (gas), Southern CA Edison (electric), and City of Camarillo (water, sewer, garbage). We also got not great news that a forklift damaged our container pod, so they had to transfer all the contents into another pod. Joys of moving…

At our Santa Rosa Airbnb, it was owned by a retired couple (Gary and Mary) who forgot that we were going to stay this week haha, but everything was set up already. It was a spacious place with a dining room, kitchen (though the stove was outside), and bedroom. We had much more space to work and lounge. The only knocks on this place were probably the sink that would randomly make noises on some days and ants as the property was in nature. On Sunday, 7/14, we visited CCCTO for the first time, where we met Wayne, an elder at the church, Steven (a deacon), and Gary (SG leader) along with many other people. People were very welcoming and it was nice that there was lunch after service.

Throughout our Airbnb stay, Mary gave us those various fruits and even included a bottle of wine to celebrate us buying our house. We closed escrow on Tuesday, 7/16! We met with Regena in the morning on Wednesday where she gave us the keys to the house. We took a picture with Regena and our new house before the tent went up and the fumigation process started. I met up with Gina at Panera on Thursday since we both had the free drinks promotion and had brunch. The tenting was removed on Friday, 7/19, and our container pod was dropped off same day.

We packed up and left our Santa Rosa Airbnb on Sunday 7/21. We visited Christ Our Redeemer PCA church in Camarillo. The way they conducted worship was something that we weren’t use to (communion, reading of passages, etc). It’s not to say it was bad, but just different. We met Cal and Bora there and talked a while with them. They’re very into pickleball and their daughter goes to CCAC. Not sure if we’ll be going to this church, but hopefully, we can hang out with Cal and Bora again and get to know them better. After church, we checked into our next Airbnb hotel in Camarillo Heights that was situated in a working avocado orchard! We were able to self check in and Sterling, our host, answered questions via chat. The place had a full kitchen, two tables, Netflix access, and a separate bedroom. The only knock was that it did not have air conditioning.

On Monday 7/22, Aaron, Anson’s parents, and Lauren’s parents all came to help us move our items from the pod to the house. Auntie Esther mom made a bunch of food for lunch. It was very nice of them to help us unpack since we were first thinking of hiring movers cuz of our bad experience packing, but it wasn’t necessary since we are just taking our time unpacking (now still :). During that week and the next, we traveled between the Avacodo Acres Airbnb and our house since it was nice to enjoy some comforts in a fully furnished place especially when we were still working remotely, so we took our time to enjoy the Airbnb (it was also fully paid for…oops, at least the interest on selling our Foley house paid for part of our stays…yay for high interest rates!). I had made Anson get another credit card and it was pretty easy to hit our minimum spend with all the moving costs. I’ll write another blog on all the costs cuz…accountant

During this time, we signed up for a local gym (Fitness 19….we were previously at this gym in the Bay Area), and got lifetime memberships costing $400 after a month of being a member…guess we’re committed to this place! So far, I’m liking the Friday Zumba class! On Friday 7/26, we met Aaron and Lauren for a dinner of Costco sushi we brought and Aaron making spaghetti, pizza, and chicken wings at their campsite in Point Mugu (south of Camarillo). Aaron makes a pretty good fire, and it was nice to catch up and try to be closer to family (Aaron mounted our tv as a surprise for us!). Eventually, we figured that it was getting a little unnecessary to travel from one place to the other. We had to be there to meet the termite repair guys and for the delivery of our dining table set, so we cut short our Airbnb stay by one night so that we could focus more on unpacking and making this house our home.

We were asked if we wanted to have a big farewell party, but that isn’t really our style…instead, we had a various hangouts in order to have a more intimate gathering and for it to be more personal.

F 5/3 – lunch w/ Minnie: Costco food, had Eataly and salad from Dave’s Hot Chicken
Sa 5/4 – dinner w/ Paul & Julie: Beef Kabobs, Chinese food, Tiffany’s chocolate chip cookies
Sa 5/11 – last official meeting for Family Fellowship
Su 5/11 – Church open house for new building, had Mister Softee ice cream
W 5/15 – Ryan and Steph: they brought El Pollo Loco and we showed them the house and Steph’s old room
Sa 5/18 – Anson ran with Yang at Rancho, rope climbing with Joe & Wilson, then farewell dinner w/ Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan’s family: Kirin Chinese Food at their house
Su 5/19 – picked mulberries from Jada’s tree
M 5/20 – dinner w/ Tracy at Google, came back to the house and picked loquats
Tu 5/21 – dinner w/ Ruth & Albert & Richard & Michelle: El Pollo Loco, turkey loaf, salad
Th 5/23 – dinner w/ Jerry & Vivian: Vivian made such great food! Really good discussion about living the Christian life…
F 5/24 – Emily came over to see the house after getting used books for Caleb, Anson & I did our last annual hike at Mission Peak
Sa 5/25 – Anson worked out w/ Spartan, then brunch (steak!) with Tim and Irene, played w/ girls
M 5/27 – picked up Paul from Amtrak station…we have an Amtrak station?!?!
Tu 5/28 – dinner w/ James & Char: gyros and salad and birthday cake!
W 5/29 – dinner at Chef Chu’s w/ Lusan, Ruth, Albert, Randy, & Eva
Sa 6/1 – bento takeout and eat at Kwoks’ before driving down to Monterey
Su 6/2 – Anson’s Spartan event in Monterey, lunch at Butter House with RBF peoples, then walk to Old Fisherman’s wharf, Cannery Row, and Lover’s Point
Sa 6/8 – Family Fellowship Farewell at Leongs’ house: potluck! Good memories since use to meet there
Su 6/9 – Last church lunch: counted money with Cindy Chang – most intimate discussion
Sa 6/15 – KBBQ Service Auction: Jeff & Eleanor hosted us and Vivian & Yang
Su 6/16 – Father’s Day pho lunch with the Yeh’s
W 6/19 – Pho lunch w/ Susanna, dinner w/ Kenny: made salmon
Th 6/20 – Anson had vegetarian dinner with Dave after work
F 6/21 – Lunch w/ Lien at The Habit before last health exam at PAMF
Sa 6/22 – GEN KBBQ w/ Tracy, Anson w/ Maciek and me w/ Sam walking on Castro Street: good talk
Su 6/23 – Moomo Tea w/ Nathan & Andrea, Worship Team Farewell lunch at Albert’s
M 6/24 – Dinner with Jean & Brion: good discussion about family as they age
Tu 6/25 – Last day in the office…I will miss talking with Jennifer and getting free lunch
W 6/26 – Swung by BWC to say goodbye after the 1-800-PACK-RAT container was dropped off
Th 6/27 – Poke w/ Emily on Castro Street, free music event w/ Ruth, Emily, Janette, Derrick, & Kevin
F 6/28 – Dinner w/ Hong: made the last of the chicken breast, salad, and brown rice
Su 6/30 – Saigon City lunch w/ Aunt Helena & Uncle Tim
M 7/1 – Lunch at Dish N’ Dash w/ Uncle Kenway & Aunt Susan

Our house is officially in contract! Wednesday, 5/22, was our deadline for buyers to submit their offers at noon. Susanna was going to review with us all the offers at 6pm. Little did we know that there would be more things going on behind the scenes…

We initially thought we’d have about 5-6 offers, but ended up with have 3 (technically 4, but our agent thought that $1.65m all cash wasn’t strong enough…this market is crazy). The 1st offer was the Google couple with $1.68m (same as their preemptive amount). The 2nd offer was from someone at Meta with $1.71m. The 3rd was from a couple that offered $1.83m. And then, the bidding war started…1st offer revised from $1.68m to $1.828m, and the 2nd offer revised from $1.71m to $1.825m. At this point, I was debating on whether I wanted to give to the Google couple, but our agent pointed out that they are using almost all of their Proof of Funds, and 2nd offer seemed to also be in the same boat. Both 1st and 2nd offers were bidding +$100k over their initial offering amounts.

Then, the 3rd revised their offer from $1.83m to $1.85m! I think what happened was that our agent let them know that all the offers were so close in range that we were probably going to multi-counter offer all buyers. They did not want to have to go thru with that, so they upped their bid $20k. They were already the highest offer and came out strong showing that they wanted the house. Their loan agent said that they will have no problem obtaining the loan, and I was impressed that their proof of funds was just in one clean statement for $1.2m and could definitely afford these insane mortgage prices. Plus, they’re going to give us free rent back for 30 days after the loan closes to give us time to pack and move…so, even though we kinda had an affinity for the Google couple, we eventually accepted the 3rd offer. I think it was the right thing to do since the other 2 offers were probably swept into this and might not be able to afford in the long run (weird saying this about DINK Asian tech workers lol).

We accepted their offer on Wed, and they deposited their 3% earnest money of $55.5k on Thurs. Susanna came on Friday and put the “Sale Pending” sign up. The total cost for expenses/improvements was $15,120 which will be reimbursed to her when the purchase closes. They are doing a 21 day close (which is pretty fast), so will close on 6/12, and then we can stay in the house till 7/11 (though we will probably leave sooner). We need to rent a POD, pack, and get together with a few more peoples to say goodbye. I’ll write another blog about peoples…they deserve their own entry

Where to start? It’s surprising that we signed with Susanna on 4/12…it’s only been a month, and on Wednesday, 5/15, we have officially listed our house on the market. We’re listing it for $1,569,000 and already got a preemptive offer for $1,680,000…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning…

After meetings with the HVAC, painter, and gardener on Wed 4/17, HVAC came back to finish adding freon and installed a new thermostat. The handyman, Quy, was here over the weekend on the 20th and 21st and got rid of our ceiling fans, installed LED lights, 4 recessed lights, installed a new toilet in the masterbath, took away the shower door, removed the patio cover, etc. The gardener came on Sunday and cleared out all the weeds…we can now see the dirt!

Our anniversary weekend was the toughest in that we had to move all our furniture to the middle of the room (note that we’re still both working) so that painters would be there on the weekend to paint the baseboards. They also “fixed” the cracks in our walls, all our problem areas, painted all our doors white, and did almost all the exterior. There was also a guy who refinished the tub, though our tiles in that bathroom don’t look as nice after the shower door came off. Quy came back and installed all the hinges. Anson didn’t want to pay $70 for each installation of door knobs/pocket doors and did it himself over the next couple weeks (I installed 2!)

Honestly, the last two weeks have been more of a blur, but most of it was to just declutter our house. I fixed up Anson’s mats in the gym, started packing everything into boxes, and we started moving them into the garage on Wed 5/8. We moved my desk and end table from our master into the spa room. We didn’t want to list during the week of the Santa Clara city cleanup since trash would be everywhere. It was very helpful to get rid of 2 large patio chairs, some big boxes, various miscellaneous items, and our old sofa (too big of a butt imprint for staging lol). I bought a smaller sofa on Wayfair which arrived on Mon 5/6. Setup wasn’t too hard and I like that there is storage underneath and can pull out to be a sleeper sofa. The landscaper, Benjamin, and his team came and pulled out all the weeds in the planter box, put in wood chips all over our backyard and planted flowers in the front and back and installed drip irrigation. Benjamin planted some tomato plants in the planter box. We’ve had to hand water some plants that aren’t on drip in the very front and some in pots in the back.

The cleaner came on Thurs 5/9 and Fri 5/10. Susanna used some of her staging material (pictures, fake plants, cushions, pillows, etc) and got her husband to hang up pictures on Sun 5/12 & Mon 5/13. Termite inspection and home inspection happened that Monday too. The photographer took pictures on Tues, 5/14, and the listing went up on Wed 5/15. Meanwhile, Anson fixed a “leak” in the secondary bathroom by tightening the handles (yay! Glad it wasn’t serious). The wiring for the sprinklers up front were corroded (that’s why our lawn wasn’t looking as green), so Anson got guy who came at 6:30 am to fix it. I used almost a whole bottle of liquid fertilizer on it. Since weed blocker wasn’t installed, have been weeding a little everyday o.O We had an open house on Thurs, 5/16, and there seems to be good interest in our property. We’re staying at Granada Inn from Friday 5/17 thru Thursday 5/23 so that we don’t have to keep packing/unpacking. On Friday, there were 3 appointments (at 2pm, 4pm, and 5pm). The couple who gave us the preemptive offer work at Google and have been renting in our neighborhood for many years. They knew our house was going up for sale cuz of all the work that has been going on. Truthfully, I think $1.68m isn’t a bad offer since we first though $1.7m was on the high end, but this is how the Bay Area market is. I’ll update once our place is sold!