This month is going to be primarily focused on preparation for the move. It may seem premature since we’re not moving till the end of may but: 1) it will sneak up on us faster than I will be ready for if I don’t get a head start and 2) Andy has a cadaver lab month. He goes into work 2 days a week, leaving a decent amount of time (after his homework) to help me get the house ready. This post may seem redundant from the previous week’s, because it is. We have a lot still to do. This week we replaced a fan in the nursery. The previous one wasn’t the original (there was a circle under the fan that made it clear that there used to be a bigger one), but it didn’t last. As we replaced it with a new one, we discovered why. The person who installed it wanted to make the fan have a constant hot current and used a ground wire as a hot wire. First off, this is a huge fire hazard, against code, etc. but it also made it a massive spaghetti puzzle for Andy to figure out what wire should go where. The previous one went out with a popping sound and now we can probably guess the cause. He ended up getting power to the fan, BUT now the light switch controls the outlets in that room AND the neighboring bathroom but not the fan… so he’s got more work to do. I (and in this case our landlords -love you mom and dad!) are super lucky to have such a handyman with a large amount of unusual free time. I told my mom, “Andy is going to be gone all the time his intern year, so I’m going to enjoy every moment now that I have him.” Third year was rough, so I am sure I can handle intern year. The hard part will be that the craziness won’t be from month to month, but an entire year, the easier part will be that his schedule won’t change every month (well he’ll have a different schedule due to EM, but it’ll be similar hours etc.). Third year was rough because every month I had to get rid of old expectations of when I’d see him and discover what the new rotation would bring. I’m sure you could guess that surgery was one of the absolute worst, but some of the others that seemed good before they started ended up being almost as bad. However, with the hour commute to work and the hour commute home, his long work hours always seemed longer. THIS is another thing I am definitely not going to miss about Houston. There are quite a few things I will miss, but I guess I’m focusing on the positives of the move. It’s a big life change and having a negative attitude about anything won’t help the process. Aside from the fan, I finished de-cluttering the boy’s room and going through all their books and stuffed animals. Next week we’ll go through all their toys. And I’ll finish up the kitchen and linens. I admit I may not be able to give up any linens. With potty training, it is always useful to have one or two extra set of sheets; plus my kids build forts quite frequently– both of those conveniences bring joy to either me or the boys. If I have additional time for organizing I’ll knock out the closet under the stairs. I’m psyching myself up for the nursery closet/ crawlspace because it will be a lot of work (holiday buckets, organizing baby clothes; it’s KIND of organized, but I probably don’t need to hold onto 14 onesies in the same size). I think there may be some stray boxes in there from Andy’s and my life before kids. It’s going to be an adventure. I actually love organizing and this has been very freeing. I can see my kids clothes and close their drawers without any problem. All the books are organized and the ones we’ll never read are gone. It makes my living room look a lot less cluttered. I love it. It is still very hard to keep the house “perfect” with three tornadoes (OK, sometimes Andy and I make up the fourth), but I don’t mind the kids’ messes as long as I have the rest of the house in order. I’ve told friends that the two rooms I really focus on keeping clean are my bedroom and the kitchen. I make my bed every morning and the kids have to stay out of that room. Because of these two things it rarely gets cluttered (though I do fold laundry in there) and it feels like my little clean hideaway that I go to bed in peace in. As far as preparing the house, we replaced the vent above the stove. Next on the list for this project is painting the side of the house, pressure washing sidewalks, trimming the trees. This is a BIG project that we are outsourcing. Our neighbor offered to do it for $250! Just in case you don’t have trees, this is a STEAL. I hope he does a good job. We have a few more paint touch ups for the bedrooms and then when we get closer to moving we’ll replace the back door and back gate. BeforeafterAndy replaced the original- non-working vent to this stainless steel model.Let the pressure washing begin!Believe it or not, this isn’t the tree that needs the most work, but it is the tree that needs the most work in the front yard. (four in the front, four in the back)Two boxes to put in the attic for when our kids are old enough to read them (classics and personal favorites) and two to the garage sale.We Marie-Kondo-ed our drawers. It really does bring joy! It is so much easier to put the clothes away and to find the ones that I want to wear. The kids’ drawers look the same :).