I put feelers out for realtors today. I went out to homegain.com and created a profile, then sat back and waited to be contacted by realtors that wanted to sell my house. In 4 hours, I've had 7 responses. I have no idea what I'm going to do next. Do I go by my gut, do I research credentials, a combination of both? I just want to sell it, the sooner the better.

I loved living in that neighborhood, in that house. It was the first place I ever lived that was truly mine. I owned it, and I still do. The house, the appliances, the deck, the yard...all legally owned by me (financially, the bank still owns most of it, of course). Everywhere I liked to go was nearby, and Noah's school and day care are just a half-mile down the road. We spent just about every Saturday last summer at the community pool. Our cats napped in the atrium window in the kitchen, or sunned by the patio door. If it was bigger or closer to where Rob works, we'd still be living there.

The house is still mine, but now my personality is gone from it. It's all Kat. It feels petty to say so, but I'm a little out of sorts about it at the moment. I'm still paying over half the bills there, but I feel like I'm intruding on someone else's space whenever I go there when she's not home. It's not anything she's done, really. Part of her personality is to take control, to take over everything in her path and make it her own. She can't help it, any more than I can help being mousy and pathologically averse to any kind of conflict. And I do want her to feel at home as long as she lives there. Same with my brother Ryan, once he gets there this week. Still, I'll feel much better once it's sold to strangers and there's no inner conflict anymore over whether it's still my home.

Mmm...angsty. Probably the rain, messing with my mood.

Anyhoo, I was back down to 181 today, mostly due to the gallon of water I drank yesterday. Today, I haven't drunk any, unless you count the water content of a tall frappucino and an iced tea. I'm all about the extremes, I guess. Food hasn't been great today either--the frap was my breakfast, and I had buffalo wings and fries for lunch. (Note to self: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T EAT BREAKFAST.)

Since Apple had extended their ship time on the iPod mini to 6 weeks the last time I checked, I've been toying with the idea of ordering mine now so that it's here when I hit 176. Then I tell myself, "But Joy, at the rate you're going, it'll sit in the box till December, and you'll just be out $250 six months early." Then I tell myself to shut up, but decide not to buy one anyway. I'll wait until I actually break 180, at least.

Speaking of Ryan, he called me last night. As it turns out, a girl he worked with in Milwaukee was chosen as a contestant on that Sw@n show (K3lly B, for anyone who follows it). He had mentioned it when he was down here for the wedding, saying "I don't know why they picked her...she was hot already."

Her show was on last night, but he couldn't watch it because he'd be in his car 100 miles from Memphis at the time it came on. Could we tape it for him? Yes, we could.

This is the first (and last) time I watched the show, and we only watched far enough to see my brother's friend. I hate the premise of this show almost as much as I hated the notion of "Married by America". First, they choose these women and point out everything that they already think is wrong with them, and then they tell them the answer is plastic surgery, training, and therapy. Even after all that, they choose only the better transformation to be in their beauty pageant. Maybe it's my own low self-esteem talking, but that's just mean. It says to me, "Sure, you look great, but even at your greatest, you just aren't quite good enough." Whatever.

Rob disagrees with me. He looks at it another way..."sure, some of them don't make the pageant. But even if they don't, they still go home with thousands of dollars in plastic surgery, months of personal training, and look better than they did when they started. They're not losing anything."

As for K3lly, I couldn't help but feel for her. I'm inclined to agree with Ryan's assessment--she was a pretty girl already. Sure, there was a bump in her nose...but if she didn't obsess over it, I wouldn't have noticed it. And she was underweight...which I was surprised to see on this show, for some reason. Her biggest problem was how she thought of herself, her low self-image brought on by kids picking on her when she was a kid. She was assigned to a nosejob, some other minor surgeries, a personal trainer and a 2300 calorie diet to put on 15 lbs of muscle, and therapy to work on her self-esteem.

I didn't watch the whole show, so I don't know how it turned out for her. Maybe I'll watch it when Ryan comes into town, but probably not. I took a few things away from watching her story, though:

1. The reality TV trend needs to end. Seriously.
2. If I have anything to say about it, my kids will never bully anyone ever.
3. Skinny little pretty girls have their demons, too.