Fingers Crossed

For those of you following along...the Master Plan was to be completely moved and have the old place cleaned up by December 1st. It's December 3rd and we are still there. I can say without ANY guilty conscience however; it's not for lack of trying. Jason and I have given so much time and energy to moving out of that old place. And our poor children!! Each time we have to go back to the old place and the kids have to go with us, they get locked up in a pack n play for hours while we take care of what needs to be taken care of. There just is no way to let them run around the house with all the miscellaneous things laying around. They HATE it. The poor guys are getting to the point where they scream when we go to get in the car. It's terrible. I knew moving out of that place was going to be tough...but I honestly had no idea. None.

I'd been feeling really guilty about the condition of the house but I think I need to keep reminding myself (and have those of you out there continue to remind me...) that when I moved into that place 3 years ago....it was FILTHY! Disgustingly dirty. It was a nasty bachelor pad that had at LEAST 7 bachelors traded turns living there. At the point when I so stupidly decided to move in, there had already been massive amounts of damage done to that house due to all of my husband and his friends' partying. With all that being said...there is only so much I can do. I've done my very best at turning that filthy party shack into something that more resembles a home. Pardon my french, but I've busted my ass at that. When Jason and I were trying to get started with the adoption process, we countless hours trying to get that house in shape. Now it's time to move out and it's a 15 year old house. It's been rented by Pat and various other bachelors for the past 9 years. It simply is not fair under ANY circumstance to expect just Jason and I to get that house back in the original condition it was in 9 years ago when Pat moved in. Sorry. I've been beating myself up over this and I've got to say that I'm done. I have quite simply done everything in my power to clean up that place and if it's not good enough, there just isn't anything more I can do.

Jason took the van to work today and he's going to try to pack everything that's left in the back of the van during lunch and bring it to San Marcos. Let's keep your fingers crossed that today will be the very last day that we have to go back to Yora Drive.

This move has caused so much stress. It's not the actual buying or building of the house that's the tough part, it's parting ways at the old place. It's trying to keep your family happy while doing all the back breaking work while trying to balance friendships at the same time.

I just want to thank our family for their love and support they've shown us, especially in the past couple months. Thank you to EVERYONE who offered to watch J&A for us. It means a lot. A big thank you to Opa for helping us those two very long days with moving. We couldn't have done it without you. Thanks to Nana and Grandpa Mark who are always willing to help out in any way needed. Thank you Oma and PawPaw for saying, "I'd LOVE to! When?" when asked if you'd help watch the kids for a few hours. Dale and Cheryl for always offering their help with the move or with the boys. And most importantly, thank you to EVERYONE else (Grandpa Lou) for allowing us to vent to you. It's so important that we are able to talk through our frustrations and also get other peoples perspective on things. It's reassuring to know that we can tell you guys anything and you won't be so quick to judge. You let us talk and that's so important to us. Thank you. One thing is for sure, we have TONS of family that love and support us and we are extremely blessed for that. Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.

(I'll post a blog about Thanksgiving in a few days. I've just got to get done with this other house first.)