*Whew*

Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted.

The reason for that is because I've been BUSY! As a little bee. As a whole hive of little bees!

We're in.

All of our stuff is here and some of it is actually unpacked and where it's supposed to be. We still have a lot to do, but it's coming along nicely. Mainly what's left is the living room and the master bedroom. I bought some new tables for the living room at Whitley Gallery and am still waiting for them to come in before I work on the living room any more. And as far as the master bedroom, I'm doing a little there each night. Of course that's where all the junk has been put that doesn't really have a place yet, so there's a lot to go through and make decisions about.

Yeah, and if I haven't been busy enough with unpacking, working, school, ferrying the kids around, etc. I've decided to host Donald's birthday party at our house this evening. I will have twelve people tonight in my everything-still-mainly-in-boxes home. Yeah, I know, I'm a lunatic. A masochist. But I don't really think it will be that bad or that stressful. The menu is fairly simple: standing rib roast, green beans and almonds, and smashed cauliflower. The standing rib roast is cooking already and the side dishes won't take long at all. For dessert we're having panna cotta, which was made last night.

Part of the reason I wanted to do it here, though, is because I wanted to see how this house handles having all those people in it. If current conditions are any indication, I think it's going to be wonderful. There are, at this moment, five other people in the house and I can't hear or see any of them. William and his friend are in his room. Alex, Elizabeth and Carly are in the bonus room watching a movie. I'm sitting in my rocking chair, beside a cozy fire, quietly updating my blog. It's wonderful having that much space in a house! You know your family is close by and safe but they're not right underneath you annoying the !@#$ out of you. Life is good. :-)

Packing Day

It's 8:41 a.m. According to the rep. from Two Men and a Truck the packers should be arriving sometime between the past 41 minutes and 9:00 a.m.

I'm happy to report that I managed to write my paper, along with the executive summary and the .ppt presentation. I submitted them last night. That's a huge load off! Of course, I have an exam Thursday night that I need to study for, but I think I'll be OK just cramming on Wednesday and before class Thursday.

Lizzy finally decided to go with the room that was already painted green so we ended up having only two rooms to paint rather than three. So Saturday we got Grandma's room painted (I now refer to it as the fish bowl; Lizzy calls it the baby's room because of the pretty baby blue color). We have almost gotten William's room done. It still needs one last coat of red, though, I think. Donald got a lot of the packing that we'd planned to do completed yesterday. I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and spent tons of money buying more frog "decoys" (I'm evil, I know) and other miscellaneous household stuff we needed.

I'm tired today--wasn't able to get to sleep last night until nearly 3 a.m. and then had to be up at 7 a.m.--but I'm a lot less stressed out than when I wrote that last post, thank goodness. I just wish these packing people would get here and get it over with.

HELP!

There's just too much to do and not enough time to do it all!

I woke up this morning around 7. Immediately got on the computer and finished up some work that I couldn't complete the night before. Went to the house and met the furniture guy, the gas guy and the cleaning girl. Came back home (Wendell) shortly after noon. There was some issue with something I'd done for work that had to be figured out. Spent a considerable amount of time on that. Went down the street to the antique store to look at chairs for the breakfast nook dining table. Was supposed to meet Liz at Capel at 4 p.m. to pick up the rugs. Ended up calling Capel and asking them to just give Liz the rugs without me. Came home did small amount of packing. Left to meet Liz at new house. Was going to paint but Lizzy couldn't decide which room she really wanted. By the time she decided which room it was 7 p.m. Left for Lowes to get more paint (paint she had previously picked out was way too bright). Took paint chip from living room area to try to get match for touch up. Lowes people couldn't match paint, but I waited and waited and waited for them to try and it was after 8 p.m. before I left. Got home around. . .8:45. Tried to write some more on stupid project thing due for stupid class but it's too noisy now with everyone here and I can't concentrate.

See. A whole day over and I got NOTHING accomplished. It's 9:30 now and I haven't even eaten dinner!

What am I going to do? Somehow, between tomorrow and Thursday, I have to paint three rooms, pack stuff (even though we've hired packers, the more we pack ourselves the less we have to pay the moving company), see to it that everything gets moved, unpack, and write a 5-8 page paper complete with executive summary, power point slides and references (all in MLA format).

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

How am I going to do all that? I don't even know where to start. I'm SOOO overwhelmed.

I'm losing my mind.

It's all over but the moving

We closed yesterday. Went off without a hitch. Sort of anticlimactic, actually. All that searching and looking and sleepless nights of online house hunting--over. We own the house. And the HUGE mortgage that goes with it.

So now what? I'm losing my mind, is what.

Between work demands (few, thankfully, at this particular moment--but it is month-end close and I still have some responsibilities that I can't slough off), school demands (big project due NEXT THURSDAY! that I haven't even started on, unless you count what's swirling around in my head), and now house demands. I really feel as though my sanity is hanging by a thread.

I finally got some boxes. Had to break down and buy the stupid things. I had all intentions of coming home tonight and doing some packing, but I also wanted to go to Lowes and get paint (recall that I need to paint three rooms before Monday) and I wanted to run over and check out the house, so there hasn't been any time for packing.

Then I realized while in Lowes that blinds needed to be put at the top of my purchasing list, as the house has ZERO window treatments, so I went over to blind section and asked the Lowes' curtain and blind lady (that is, the person responsible for selling curtains and blinds, not the lady who can't see) about real wood plantation blinds. Those things are EXPENSIVE! And, more importantly maybe, they take up to 14 days to receive after ordering. How am I supposed to live for 14 days without any blinds?!!

Still have to think all that through. Maybe something "off the shelf" will have to suffice for Grandma's room and Lizzie's room (I want those wooden roll up things in my room, so no big deal there). The living room, though, I think I want done in real wooden plantation blinds. Although. . .I dunno. . .could be that shears and curtains are the way to go. Hard to tell without the furniture. And I still have to find end tables! Ohhhhhh!!!

Not enough time. Not enough ME!

Anyway, the house is mostly empty and very filthy. The owner lady was there when I got there tonight. She had the kids packed in the car and was on her way out, but she hung out long enough to give me a headache (she's very talkative and very loud). There are several places that will need spackling (is that how you spell that?) and painting and there is a huge amount of dusting and general cleaning that needs to take place. I'd like to hire someone to come clean the carpets, but not sure that I'll have time to have that done before movers get here.

Yarg!

I'm going nuts!!!!!!

And what am I doing right now? Typing on the computer! I should be up, packing! But it's 10:30 at night now. I have to relax sometime, right??

I think maybe this is going to be an Ambien night. . .