That was a great big sigh of exhaustion mingled with satisfaction, in case you couldn't tell. ;-)

Life has been soooooo hectic around here, but things I'm finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I wasn't sure I'd ever reach that point! Tuesday was spent unpacking all of the junk that we'd had with us while we were living in the motel and somehow that "little" project managed to trash the entire house. Every room that had previously been put in order was slung back into utter chaos. It was a miserable feeling to have lost everything that I had achieved! It's just sort of the way things happened. I threw some clothes in a suitcase that night and fell into bed in a very, very messy house.

We left early the next morning for Andrews, Texas: The Move, Part 2. Actually, it's probably more like Part 8 or 9, but it was our second (and final!!!) trip back to Texas to get our belongings. We got into town and I went by the old house to meet the new owners. Just something I wanted to do. The lady was soooooo nice and seemed genuinely excited to meet me, too. She took me through the house and I was amazed--it looked almost like our house back in New Mexico! They haven't gotten settled yet and there were boxes here and there and still no furniture in the living room or den. Weird. My red kitchen is now sea foam green, which is kind of bizarre. She said she just didn't know what to do with the red since everything she has is green. I didn't think to ask her how many coats of paint it took to cover over the red! Ha! It couldn't have been fun!!! Anyway, she said she loves everything else in the house and doesn't intend to change a thing. She did take the bars out of the windows in the boys' room. (The inspector said it would be a good idea--in all the time we lived there we never thought about having our boys barred into a room in the midst of a fire or some such emergency! Ha!) She said she's thought about changing the wallpaper boarder in there as well, but every time she mentions it everybody goes nuts--"No! The wanted posters are great--that's so cool!" Ha! So I guess even that will stay put for a while. Anyway, it was fun to meet Cara and be able to see the house again. :-)

I then drove out to Aunt Sue's house and left two children and a dog (Sam had ridden with James in the moving truck from Hobbs), then headed back to the storage units. Sam & Tammy showed up just after James and I got there. We emptied Door #1 into the moving truck and hauled it all over to Sam & Tammy's garage since it was all stuff that we were getting rid of and donating to the Mission Sale in Andrews next month. It FILLED their garage! Should be a good sale! :-) Then we went back and filled the truck up with everything behind Door #2 and Door #3. We had the little moving truck this time and everything we had fit in easily enough.

We then went and picked up our kids and poodle from Aunt Sue and our whole grubby bunch went out to eat at Cassidy's. We usually try to be presentable when we go out in public (a good representation of the Lord and the Church and all that), but there is nothing decent and presentable when you're moving, so we just went anyway! Had a nice dinner, then went back to the Kaufman house, put the kids to bed, and took turns showering. We played 7-11 that night, a new game Sam & Tammy just taught us. I won handily, so it was a good night. :-) Tammy and I stayed up visiting until nearly 2:00 before finally calling it a night.

When I woke up at 8:00 the next morning Tammy was busy in the kitchen, whipping up a fantastic breakfast: bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and apple cinnamon and strawberry muffins. Yum! She is 10 times the breakfast cook that I am. Everything was delicious and we enjoyed a nice breakfast together before Sam had to go to work and we had to head out. THANK YOU AGAIN, SAM & TAMMY, for EVERYTHING!!! All of your help and the fun and--well, just everything! You guys are the bestest! :-)

It was Katie's turn to ride in the moving truck, so I had the boys for the trip home. We got home at about 3:30 that afternoon and got right back to work. I sorted through the boxes that were already in the garage and opened most of them, yanking out a few things here and there to take into the house. I found some lamps and such, so that really helps things feel more homey. I also hung a few pictures on the nasty, grubby walls just because I knew it would make it feel more like home if I could see a few of my old familiar things about. I stacked and re-stacked the boxes in the garage to make more room for all the stuff still in the moving truck. Spent most of the rest of the night unloading the truck and piling it strategically in various places throughout the garage. It actually worked out better than I had anticipated and we have more space to manoeuver in there than I thought we would.

Yesterday I got up early and hit it hard again. The house was still in the state of disarray in which I had left it when we went to Texas. But I knew that Jason was coming over in the afternoon, so that gave me the movitation to make things get done. :-) I worked pretty much up until the minute he got here and had everything except the bathrooms looking really good. For folks who just moved in and have been gone half the time since then, I was pretty pleased!

Jason brought his 7 year old daughter with him so she could meet Katie. Julia seems like a really sweet little girl and she and Katie got along great. They jumped on the trampoline for a few minutes, but it was too cold for them out there so they went and played in the kids' room while we visited with Jason. I'm still just amazed by him. Everything is over with concerning this house--his job is done and he's received his commission and all that... yet he still stopped by to bring us some paperwork and just to check up on us and see how we're doing. We just really, really like him. I told him that we're not clients anymore, we're just friends now and he should stop by any time he's up this way. He said he would and that maybe we could get the kids together to go tubing sometime or maybe he could bring his wife out and we could have a bar-b-que once it warms up or something. :-) That would be great!

Once he left, we sat down for just a few minutes and relaxed for the first time since getting home the day before. Oh, I forgot to mention that Mike had left his refrigerator, stove, and couch here, along with miscellaneous odds and ends throughout the house. When we unloaded all of our stuff from the truck Thursday night, we went ahead and loaded all of his stuff into it. We tried to contact him, but he either hung up on me (?!) or got cut off, so I called his realtor. She got back with us and said that he didn't want any of that junk. So after Jason left yesterday we took the truck down to the dump and ridded ourselves of the all of the things that Mike left behind for us. (Dirt and grime and muck and spiderwebs--along with dead spiders on the walls--excluded, of course. It's going to take a while to rid ourselves of everything he left behind! Ha!) It felt WONDERFUL to have all of that stuff gone!!! Wa-Hoo!!!

After we did that we figured we'd just go on into Albuquerque and return the moving truck and be rid of that, as well. We waited for almost an hour at the Budget place because the computer was confused by our back-to-back truck rentals and didn't want to give us the $150 deposit back twice in the same week. The guy finally convinced the computer to give us $149.99, and he threw in the extra penny. Ha! Crazy.

We went out to eat at Shoney's, then came home and crashed last night. I let the kids watch Moe & the Big Exit on YouTube (!), then sent them to bed. I talked to Mom for a while and James dinked around on the computer before going to bed ourselves.

Today we started out with devotions for the first time in a week or more! I HATE THAT!!! But it felt soooooo good to spend some time reading the Bible together today and singing and praying. ~sigh~ Normal life again! Next week we'll be able to get in 3 days of school before heading to Arizona for the wedding, so that will be good, too.

Hhmmm. Somehow I seem to have left out our stove situation. While I was sorting through the mess at the house on Tuesday, James went to town in search of a new stove for me. Sears was having a 15% off sale, so he found a Kenmore with everything I wanted and more at a good price. (My requirements are #1: glass top, because I'm a sloppy cook and it's easier to clean. #2: self-cleaning oven, because I'm a sloppy cook and have a tendency to spill things. #3: I prefer a speckly looking glass top, because I'm a sloppy cook and the speckles help hide the stains.) The oven he found even had a "hidden coil," so I can't actually make a mess onto the coil itself--it's just smooth on the bottom of the oven. Cool! Anyway, he brought it home that night and we took the old, slimy one out of the house.

We were going to bring the new oven into the house before we started unloading the truck on Thursday afternoon, but when we opened the box we found that the stove was damaged--had a scratch on the top and a big ding in the side. ~sigh~ I spent an hour or more calling every Sears within 50 miles, but nobody had this particular model in stock. And the earliest they could get one in would be March 15th! Can you imagine?! I've already been without a stove since December 19th, you know?! The guy we bought the stove from was sooooo nice though and he talked to his manager and they agreed to let us exchange the damaged stove straight across for an upgrade (wow!) at no extra charge. Wa-Hoo! The new stove should be in this coming Tuesday. I can wait a few more days, just not until March 15th. :-)

That's the latest from here. We woke up to snow this morning, so Katie and Joe are outside building a snowman. There's probably not quite enough snow for that, but they don't know it. James built a nice, cozy fire for me and Hershey is playing with his stuffed duck. Sam is setting the table for lunch. I keep telling him it's only 10:30 and we've got an hour and half until lunchtime, but he's determined to get things ready now. Crazy kid. I decided I'd blog first today and work later. I usually wait until I've worked all day long and am too tired to actually do it! I've been working so hard lately though I figured it would be okay to take the morning off. I intend to get the bathroom closet all cleaned up today so we can actually unpack the bathroom stuff and move in to that room, too. Maybe I'll even get the master bathroom scrubbed up today too, then I can soak in a nice hot bath--in that giant tub tonight! My 30 year old bones would lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove that! :-)

I'll try to get back on here later today and post some pictures of how the house is looking now. It's far from great, but sooooo much better than it's ever been before! Until then...

~Becki~