Things I love going on in our lives right now:

1. We had our meeting with the title company today for closing on the new house. Relocation companies require 48 days between closing and title transfer. We should have the house and keys by Friday a.m. Wow!


2. Cate's preschool had a sweet Valentine's party today, complete with a cake walk. The best part? A mom who made the egg-free, barley-free cupcakes so I wouldn't have to worry about it. Love her!


3. I loved listening to Christopher in the back seat of the car today on the way home from swim lessons. He was reading Cate all of her Valentine's cards, and then showing her the pictures and handing it to her so she could look. Melts my heart.


4. Cate was apparently the only child in her pre-school to make separate Valentine's for mom and dad. Everybody else just made a single one for their parents. Her spoken reason? She needed a special one just for her daddy because she's going to marry him someday. Sorry, babe, he's taken!


5. I've been stressing about the painting needs of our house. The realtor's designer came to our house this weekend, picked out new colors for the walls, and declared that every wall and ceiling should be painted prior to listing! Aaaaah! I had been thinking this would be "Jenny's job" and that I better get started immediately. Lisa (thanks!) even picked up paint for us this weekend before the shop closed while we were at Grandma Loudon's memorial because I figured I'd need to start that night. Luckily, we've had tons of people offer to come for a painting party.The new plan? Wait til after moving day, invite over lots of people to help, and get the house painted in an afternoon. Ok, now I can breathe.


6. The flooring guys told us we were being too agressive with our planned move for next Tuesday. The flooring will not be completely installed and it makes no sense to move in until we have floors. Luckily, another client of the mover's changed his date of moving so we will easily be able to change our move date to later in the week, probably Friday, Feb. 23. The client who so conveniently changed his move? Sean Parnell -- the newly elected Lieutenant Governor who is apparently downsizing his Anchorage home now that he is living in Juneau.
7. Today I finished up the last of a lot of dental work I've had scheduled. In the past month I've had 9 cracked cavities taken out and refilled. I've known I needed to do them, but it's been hard to schedule between caring for small children and the ever-changing insurance from Greg's changed jobs. No, I can't feel nose or mouth competely yet, but at least it's done. And I'm grateful that I could do it with two kids in school so I didn't have to worry about child care.

Things that I don't love in our lives right now:

1. Greg is working on his third day in a row in bed with the flu. He's got it all -- fever, diarrhea, body aches. He was up pretty much every hour or two last night. Not much keeps that man down but this has done him in. And he's not feeling better yet -- don't know whether he'll make it to work tomorrow. I hope this doesn't sound horrible -- I'm obviously very sad for my hubby, but is horrible to also be concerned about the whole family getting ill right now? I'm also concerned that the days off of work for illness will make it harder to take days off for the honey-do list. (see below)


2. We made a list going room by room of all the individual things that need to be done to our current house before market. Some are hard, some are easy, and some we'll pay the contractor for. There were probably 40-50 items on the list. Plenty for Greg to do with his limited time. I've decided this is a big reason for my stress -- seeing all the things that need to be done, but knowing I can't do them. I have many skills but unfortunately I am not Bob Villa, or even Lanford Sorensen (my grandpa who could fix anything). At times like this I wish I was handier with a toolbox. After having almost every person who knows me tell me to try not to stress out so much, I'm trying to listen. If we end up being a week late with getting the house on the market, it won't be the end of the world. I just have to remind myself of that.