My to-do list

Today I meant to:
* pack up the extra books I keep with our homeschooling stuff. These are random textbooks that might have useful information on a history unit, or the stargazing book I grabbed because it was only $9.95 at Barnes and Noble even though we aren't studying astronomy this year, plus the creative science projects book I haven't had time to open yet... and all sorts of other interesting and random books. [I got one box full, so hooray- only 3 or 4 more to go]
* pick up and pay for the Durango. [who knew a squeak would cost $900?!? but I got a good 20-minute walk out of it]
* balance my checkbook. [this actually got done before I picked up the Durango, and thank goodness- and Dave Ramsey- for our $1000 emergency fund]
* move kids' savings accounts to the credit union [Walker came with me, took about an hour to get the money from one bank, then open three accounts at the credit union. That was the easy part. The hard part was moving the money in Myles' account, and knowing that I couldn't keep it in his name. I mean, I can call this account whatever I want, but it isn't his account anymore. *sigh*]
* work on a crocheted blanket. [did a little of this tonight while the kids were playing after dinner]
* feed myself and my family breakfast, lunch, and dinner. [Jared made breakfast, lunch was whatever the kids found in the kitchen, and dinner was me running away from the chaos to a fast food restaurant, with a good friend and her son, where we fed the kids fattening and unhealthy food, talked a lot, and I completely forgot to get Jared anything to eat, so he had to find something in the less-than-organized kitchen at 11pm after he spent the day painting. I pretty much lost my 'loving spouse of the year' award there.]
* clean out the car. [hah! not even close]
* sort the magazines in the house and pack what I want to keep, recycling the rest. [Maybe tomorrow, or maybe I'll just do this when I unpack, because I didn't have time to sort anything and had to throw everything into boxes to prepare to show the house to potential buyers.]
* do another load of laundry. [where would it go?!? The couch is full.]
* have the boys fold and put their clean clothes away. [Their clothes are still on the couch.]
* fold my clean clothes and put them away. [Folded, yes. Put away, no. My dresser is in the middle of the room, and there's stuff in front of the drawers. So my clean clothes are piled precariously on top of the pile of things on my dresser.]

Currently, the carpet in my bedroom is randomly pulled up and away from the walls. Jared was checking to see if he needed to paint the baseboards down to the subflooring. There are random doors leaning against walls in rooms they don't belong in: all the closet doors in my room are in the kitchen, and my bedroom door is in the computer room. My bed is propped up against the living room wall. There are random socks and books scattered on the living room floor, and probably under the blankets on the couch as well. We turned off the heat for about half the day, because Jared was painting the outside doors, and took them off the house to do that. It was about 57 degrees Fahrenheit inside- brrr! My kids were piled up on the couch, watching 'Curious George' under 3 blankets. The doors are back on the house, thank goodness, but the handles are still missing...

On the plus side, all surfaces needing paint have now received it. All that remains are minor touch-ups here and there, and we'll probably do those after we sell the house and move all our big furniture out.

Gratitude List:
* I didn't have to paint anything.
* We have enough money to fix our car without borrowing anything. And, the problem was easily fixed. Had we waited another week or two, we would have paid at least double the price, and it would have taken 3-5 days' work to fix it.
* My friend's company at dinner tonight.
* Crocheting is very soothing for my order-obsessed self [knitting would also work].
* I have SO MANY books. [I bet I could open a library.] This makes me feel rich- to have so much information at my fingertips when 100 years ago I would have been lucky to own one book [a Bible], much less be able to read it.
* Good poetry. Emily Dickinson is one of my very favorite poets.
* Robert Louis Stevenson is pretty high up there, too.
* music.
* good friends and neighbors, and a family who loves and supports me.
* a camera, to record my current chaos.
* that someday I will laugh about this move.
* Jared is an awesome painter of rooms.
* God
* the internet
* that tomorrow I get to start again LOL.