We are slowly but surely getting ready to move to our new house. Only 9 more days until we close on our new house! This is still a bit surreal for me, and there is a part of me that wants to say, "I'll believe it when I see it." This has been such a long journey, it seems.

       It has come in handy having a son working at the local grocery store. He brings me boxes for packing almost every day that he works. We have a huge stack of them filled and ready to go. I still don't have all my books packed. I have a LOT of books. I haven't even packed very much other stuff.... mostly just books and more books. We did get the clothes that are not in season packed into some plastic containers and I packed a few dishes. I also got quite a few toys packed away. It is hard to know what else to pack, though, because we are also still living here. I try to pick a closet or drawer, etc. to go through each day.

          Lately, I've been having a hard time with not feeling very well. I think it is allergy related. I am stirring up a lot of dust in this process. I wake up feeling tired. It is hard to push through some days. I also have something going on with my knees.... I think tendonitis. I could take ibuprofen everyday, but it also helps if I just remember to do my stretches that my chiropractor told me to do. If I forget, I can really tell a difference. It is frustrating because the more I sit around to rest my knees, the more tired I feel and the less I get done, but then, when I try to do more, my knees hurt bad and I get less done the next day. For the most part, though, I have been able to accomplish quite a bit in the last two weeks, so it isn't hampering me too much.

          Amazingly, everything seems to be going well with the sale of our current home. This is exciting, as we had made the difficult decision to buy our new home without selling the current one. The housing market has been so crazy, we didn't think it was going to happen this year. We thought maybe if we got out of the house, fixed it up a little more, then maybe it would sell. We also entertained the idea of renting it out, but I really struggled with prospect of maintaining TWO properties. I just didn't know if we could do it. After we bought our new home, I had a lot of anxiety about this.... more than I should've had, I guess.

        Then, just a couple weeks after buying our new home, our current home sold! We just had the home inspections and are now trying to prepare to move while also getting repairs done, but wow.... it looks like this is really happening...... and it worked out that we are going to close on our new home one full week before we close on our current home, so that means we have a week to get things moved to the new home. That is a nice luxury not everyone has, and very helpful with a larger-than-average family.