Itinerary

This is probably the craziest month we've ever had since our wedding day. Though today, right now, this very minute, I don't feel very crazy because the crazy part of this month is lingering as an impending doom just days down the road but all within the confines of July.

If I wish to have a feeling of craziness wash over me, I just saunter over to the calendar, browse over the days and soon my heart rate rises, my breath comes in quick pants, my brow breaks out in a sweat and I feel crazy. I don't even have to turn the calendar page to find such good reasons to feel crazy.

The itinerary goes like this...

July 7th, time unspecified as of yet. Hopefully, there will be a big sigh of relief this day. That's all I can say for now but read on to a further date if you're wondering why July 7th is marked on our calendar.

July 14th, 8:00am - 12:00pm: Whole House Inspection on current place of occupancy. This means, I steal my children from their warm beds early in the morning, evacuate them out the door and feed them cold toast and juice for breakfast in the van.

Then, while we're gone, some guy that has nothing better to do than pick apart people's houses and find more work for them to do before they move in two weeks, will come over and inspect my house. Believe me, if he started in the laundry room he could save himself about 3 hours and 57 minutes worth of "work" that day... "Yep, this place definitely needs to get the laundry done before the buyers move in..."

After July 14th, there will be endless days of nothing to do until July 25th. I really shouldn't say "nothing to do" because if someone spends that much time in our house just walking around nitpicking things, we'll probably have a whole list of things to do.

I imagine he'll come up with the following:

• Mow yard (Toby claims he doesn't need to mow anymore since our house is now sold and there's no need to impress prospective buyers.)
• Clean basement shower (hasn't been cleaned since we got the new bathroom upstairs 2 years and 5 months ago -- we've lived here for 2 years and 6 months.)
• Paint over juvenile pen art on kitchen door.
• Patch walls where a creative two year old peeled off the last 7 layers of paint in his room.
• Locate key to back door lock. (who locks their house in Seward?)
• Collect delicate and intricate cobwebs in basement and place in proper trash receptacle.
• And finally, replace or repair front living room window where hand prints plastered glass so intense, the results give the viewer a very unclear vision of the out of doors.
• Plus, add the laundry to that and a need for groceries if he looks in the fridge, and we'll have our work cut out for us for at least a week.

Now fast forward a few days...

July 25th, 6:49pm: Omaha International Airport. My inlaws are flying in from Haiti for a two month furlough. All local family will drive to retrieve them from the airport. Local family means us and Toby's brother's family. Not a huge family reunion but quite a gang nonetheless.

July 26th, time unspecified as of yet but this date is anticipated with much anticipation considering their may not be a full working out of details if certain paperwork, financing and plans cannot be arranged by certain people. The occurrence planned for this date? Closing on new house. There is a contingency clause on the acceptance of our offer though. In the event the sellers cannot arrange the details for their next piece of property by July 7th, our offer on their house will become null. Void. Of none effect. And we will be homeless. Because on -- well, read on to a further date.

July 28th, time unspecified as of yet. Closing on our house. Do not send mail to my address here in Seward after this date. (Unless of course you desire to welcome the new occupants to this house into their new home after we move out.) Hopefully, as long as everything goes well July 7th, everything should go well July 26th which means we will not be homeless by July 28th.

July 29th, specific time will be forth coming. A wedding will occur between a friend of Toby's family and her fiancé. We don't plan to go but since we have no plans previously written on this blessed day of blessed matrimony, for fear we may be sitting at home bored with nothing to do, we just may have to zip 6 hours north to South Dakota to witness the blessed event of our friend and her fiancé.

*(Let us all observe a moment of silence for the appreciation of hot keys that provided the apostrophe over the "e" in fiancé. What would we do without a proper apostrophe for fiancé? To find those hot keys, I almost lost this entire post as a handsome computer geek mastered the art of hot keying my blog. The trick? Alt 0233 but you have to hold Alt down while fingering the numbers in and then let up Alt to see the result. Or, if you want the ` over the "e" the other way, you hold Alt and punch in 0232, let up Alt and voila, è. Amazing.)

Okay, so back to my itinerary... July consists of a host of topics for me. WHI (refer to July 14th) will be the onset of the sure slide towards a snowball of busyness, then guests arriving, then moving, then a wedding and then finally, August.

I'm sure amidst all this stuff going on, my darling children will pull some pretty good projects off during the month. They never cease to amaze me at the ceaseless way they never cease to amaze me. (If you caught that, good. If not, either I'm ready for bed or you are.)

Last month consisted of a tragic paint spilling all over the living room floor an hour before a house showing thanks to the helpful mind of a blue eyed little miss. (picture of the catastorophe here.)

Another episode included Creative Substance Graffiti sponsored by Landon an hour before another house showing.

We were surprised one day by unusual writing patterns on the kitchen door and no suspects at hand.

And then there's always just the usual everyday stuff like eating plant dirt, streaking windows with cute hand prints, putting an entire bottle of Dramamine pills into a mouth but thankfully not swallowing even one of them, leaving the house without telling Mom, and washing the toilet bowl.

One things for sure, my kids keep their guardian angels busy and their mom on her knees!

In case my blog is inactive for awhile, you can re-read my itinerary and find out what I'm doing that day or did the day before or will be doing the next day.

Another thing to keep in mind, after July 25th, I will not have my computer anymore because my father-in-law will be using it at their "house" while they're in the states. I'll still have Toby's computer but if I don't update too often, it's because Toby's on his computer and not me. I should get my computer back some time in Sept./Oct. In all honesty though, I'd rather have my inlaws around than this computer. :)

Stay tuned for more updates in case I get a chance to update.

*Edit.. the apostrophe over the word that describes a man engaged didn't translate to Blogspot very well. My apologies. If only Blogspot cooperated as well as Word...