Visit to the "White Elephant"

No fireworks for us this year.

My husband and I went back to check on the house we are "selling" in Virginia. We decided to go over the July 4th holiday weekend, so we could spend more time getting things done, and visit some of our favorite spots. We were going to leave Thursday evening and come back Sunday afternoon. Didn`t quite work out that way.  Our flight Thursday was canceled because of "weather", and we didn`t get out until Friday morning. The nice part was hardly anyone was traveling on the 4th, so getting around in the airports was easy.

It was nice to get back to the house, and the best part was sleeping in our bed. Boy, do we miss our bed! After watering the plants, and checking out the house we realized we needed to do some flower bed maintenance, finalize the arrangements shipping our car, return cable boxes, and most importantly bury St Joseph in the yard.

Landscaping was easy enough, because the deer eat EVERYTHING, we just planted boring green bushes in a few spots to replace the eaten flowers. It was hot, so I bought the plants in the early morning and planted them in the early evening. Easy Peasy!

The first few times you see these beautiful creatures in your yard you think they are so adorable. Then they eat everything in your yard, and all you can do is picture them hanging on a hook and having a deer burger for lunch.

Returning the Verizon boxes, not so easy peasy. We had 8 boxes in the house, a lot I know. In May we returned 5 and Verizon still had not credited our account for the returned boxes. UPS has a deal with Verizon that they will ship the boxes back for you, and all you have to do is take the boxes, cords and remotes to UPS, they will box them and ship them to Verizon. Sounds simple, right? When we took in the 5 boxes in May, Amy our UPS agent, gave us some invaluable advice. Amy said to track the boxes with the tracking number, and as soon as they are received, print the information that has when, where and who signed for them. I guess that Verizon is known for saying that they did not receive shipments. Well guess what, they had no record of receiving our 5 boxes. Because of Amy, I was able to give them tracking numbers, branch location, date, time and name of the person that signed for them. After about 5 calls, and 45 days from the date they received the boxes, we got our credit. Now I was shipping them 2 more boxes, and I will be making the call this week to see why we have not been credited with the return. You can be assured I have all the tracking information. Thanks Amy!

Type of trailer our car was shipped in.

The car mover came early Saturday, and took the car on its 1300 mile trip to our little abode in Texas.That was the easiest part of our, trip. The car arrived safely in Texas the following Wednesday and we have happily returned the rental car we had for over a month. Happy Husband!

The best part of the trip was my husband burying the St. Joesph (Patron Saint of real estate) statue.

We bought the "Authentic St Joesph"
 Comes with prayer and instructions.
Faith sold separately!

Neither one of us is Catholic, so the fact that he was burying the statue shows you just how desperate we are to sell this "White Elephant".  So, he takes the statue out to the "For Sale" sign and starts to dig with a small hand gardening shovel. I am watching as he hits rock after rock and he is cursing up a storm. He leaves and goes into the house to get a big shovel. Now he is digging a new hole with the big shovel and still hitting rocks and still cursing. I had to walk away because I was starting to see a little too much humor in this drama, and after all he did have a shovel. About 30 minutes later we were in the house eating lunch and I asked if St Joseph got buried? He said, "Yes". I asked if he said the prayer over it? He said, "I read the card in the kitchen". He said maybe I should go do it since I was Lutheran, which is "Catholic Lite". I told him that I was not Catholic and did not believe that St. Joesph would help sell the house. Then, I could not hold my laughter any longer. I was laughing so hard I was crying as I told him that all I could picture was a non Catholic, cursing while digging a hole, to bury a Catholic saint statue, and reading a prayer from a card in the kitchen, all to help sell his house. Just how desperate are we? It still makes me laugh just thinking about it. I just hope St Joesph see the humor too!