~whew~ What a day. ~WHEW~ What a week! This has been a long and tiring, but strangly rewarding week. (By "week" I am referring to the past 7 days since we officially started moving.)

Sunday we... wait... was that just yesterday?! GOOD GRIEF! It feels like at least 3 days ago!!! Okay, so yesterday was a good day. !!! All I did in the morning was clean some things up. Like the kitchen that had previously been DEEP in... stuff. "Put it on the counter, Katie." "What counter???" It was bad. Then we all got cleaned up and went to church. That was sooooo nice! It felt so good to get everybody (me, most of all!) out of the grungies we've been wearing and into something NICE and have nicely fixed hair and actually feel clean for a little while. And church was so good. It felt sooooo good and relaxing to go and worship God for a little while. I've been very careful to not let this move "take over" and push God out of the way and have sat down with the kids every morning to do our devotions. I'm sure that's a BIG reason why I'm coping with all of this chaos so well! Speaking of chaos...

We found out Sunday morning (yesterday, right?!) that house #2 isn't going to work out either. That means we are homeless as of next week! Wow! I've never thought about being homeless before. The really, really strange thing is that it doesn't bother me in the least. I am sooooo not worried about it. Right now I am focused on one thing and one thing alone: get this house packed, everything moved into storage, and get the place shining for the new owners. That's three things. I'm focused on three things. :-) (Speaking of the new owners, I found out today that they are "a wonderful Christian homeschool family" from upstate New York and they sold their farmhouse to come here and were worried about what west Texas would have to offer. This was the second house they looked at and the wife said, "Show me no more--this is the house I want." They LOVED it and don't plan on changing a thing! WOW!!! It makes me sooooo happy! And it makes me sooooo glad that we took the time to pray for "the right buyers at the right time and all that." :-) Anyway...) Back to our being homeless, it's kind of like a new adventure for us. Neat, in a way. I'm sure it will get old, but maybe by that time God will have opened something else up for us! I was telling James how that I have a tendency to be so critical of other people and if I knew of a family in the situation we are now in I would be thinking, "Let me get this straight... You sold your house, you're uprooting your family, and you have NO PLACE to go?! That is sooooo irresponsible?! How could you have not PLANNED better than that and have SOMETHING lined up by now?!" Ha! Well, here we are! We've been TRYING to work something out, but nothing has panned out yet. We're doing the work! We're not slackers! ;-) In God's own good time. In the meantime, I'm kind of enjoying the novelty of it all. Fun! It's definitely going to be a Christmas we'll always remember. :-) And I thought of the scripture yesterday that says something like, "And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content." Shelter is optional apparently and not necessary in order for us to be content! Jesus didn't have a house and He was happy. We have food. We have clothes. And boxes. LOTS AND LOTS of boxes. (Optional, too!) And I feel sooooo... content. :-)

Let's see, where was I? Sunday. Yesterday. After church we grabbed a bite to eat, then headed home to get back to work. I honestly can't remember what all was accomplished last night and what happened today--it all runs together and feels like at least 4 days worth of work at this point! Ha! Sam & Tammy came over to help again and we made great headway in the living room and den.

Today has been another long, hard one, but with great things accomplished. Tammy was here for about... oh, 9 or 10 hours, working away again! She packs circles around me. I've always been sooooo bad about THINKING too much. I'll look at what needs packed and stand there and stare at it and work the puzzle in my brain of what needs to go where and in which box and with what else... And Tammy will have three boxes already done! Ha! (It's kind of like the lists I always used to make, right, Mom?!) Between the two of us, we got ALL of the living room and den finished, ALL of the Christmas stuff taken down and packed up (including the lights on the roof), and 95% of the kitchen. At this point there are just a few things left in the kitchen to pack up, then the computers and a couple of stereos and whatever miscellaneous junk is still lying around here and there.

We worked until nearly midnight tonight and only stopped then because we ran out of tape. Again. James bought 4 rolls this morning! We need one more. And we actually used that whole roll of newsprint!!! So now we're using my bathroom towels to "wrap" the rest of the kitchen stuff in! Ha! Guess we can't take showers at the new house (assuming we get one! Ha!) until we unpack the kitchen. ;-) We ran out of boxes earlier today and James went and picked some up from the dollar store. We ran out again tonight so at 9:00 James and I were rummaging around behind the Dollar General gathering up Depends underwear boxes and such. Homeless and already rummaging through the dumpsters! HA! In the morning we'll need just a few more boxes and packing material (and tape, of course) and we can finish up. James has a U-Haul reserved for tomorrow, so we plan on getting this house EMPTIED! Wa-Hoo! Then I intend to make sure everything is spotless for this "wonderful Christian homeschool family" and I want to fill all of the nail holes and get out all 14 colors of paint to touch up with. It's no doubt going to be a long day tomorrow! We'll be staying with Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry. She's already promised us stew and cornbread for tomorrow night and I can't wait. I'm so ready for a nice homecooked meal! We've been living on sandwiches and pizzas for a week now.

When Sam & Tammy left tonight (Sam came over and helped, too, later on) I decided to make myself take the time to go soak in a nice hot bath. ~aahhhh~ It was sooooo nice. In my wonderful, marvellous, sparkly-clean, deep bathtub with the little ledge perfect for resting your elbows so you can hold your Reminisce magazine and read... ~sigh~ I knew I would always regret it if I didn't take the time to enjoy one last bath in there! I'm REALLY going to miss that tub. And everything else about that bathroom! That's the one we totally gutted and remodled and it's bright yellow and blue (sounds tacky--it's not, it's gorgeous!) and, and, and... I love it. :-) If James would let me I'd rip the tub out of there and take it with me. Ha!

And now I'm taking the time to blog. Not very smart, probably, but since this has become my diary, of sorts, I figured I would some day appreciate all of these things that I won't remember unless they're written down. But now it's nigh until 1:00am and I've GOT to get some sleep. Whatever the hot bath did to alleviate my aches and pains has now been lost due to sitting on the hard floor in my office typing away! My back has been getting a little more sore each day and I'm REALLY feeling it tonight. Tammy has been having her own crop of aches and pains, too. I accredit hers to "just getting old," but I choose to claim mine to be "an old plane crash injury." Ha!

Okay, I'm going to get some shut eye. Keep praying for us! God's been sooooo good and sooooo faithful through all of this and it's so wonderful to know that HE CARES for us and that He moves in answer to our prayers. We are just so very, very blessed. No proof reading again tonight and there are several words that my brain just blanked out on tonight. Don't laugh. Or do, but don't tell me about it! G'night all!

~Rebekah~