5 Days Left...Love Weekends!

I've been tired as I've mentioned and I'm so glad it is the weekend now! It means I even got to lay down for a while during the day because my husband was around and able to keep an eye on the girls (who were happily outside playing in the mud!).

Some bumps have come up towards securing the payment we need next week for the new place we have put in an application though but I am still hopeful it will work out, and also keeping my eyes open for ways to make some extra money and/or another solution to our predicament. I really hope the bumps are surmountable and will hopefully know by Monday afternoon.

I'm focusing my attention on keeping the vision of being in the situation we desire, safe, stable, and lots of green garden space. Also a peaceful birth that goes smoothly any day now...I'm starting to get regular contractions off and on which is exciting too.

Six Days...

I now have 6 days until I am due to help this baby into the world outside of my body. As one of those people who really hates to admit to just about any kind of weakness I am having a hard time. Money is tight. Now our phones are out of service. We might get a check today that will cover our phone plan as well as a down payment but who knows...maybe we won't!

This on the edge life of not knowing when how much money is coming in is a lot more fun when I'm able to get out there and make some of the money. At this point I have some things I'd like to sell on eBay, lots of clothes to be gone through to take to consignment, and that sort of thing but the energy drain I am feeling is totally totally insane and SO SO frustrating.

I feel like if I could just have a few days of this energy referred to as "nesting" I could easily pull in a couple hundred bucks or at least set the foundation to. Not to mention downsizing like I want to.

Beating myself up for being tired doesn't do much to boost my energy though so I'll just leave it at that. I'm trying not to freak out too much on my husband either as I want his focus to be on making it happen more than calming me down.

We have come up with a new goal as far as the housing situation we are looking for, we have realized that with so many BIG places for rent, we could combine resources to get into a sort of cross between a communal and co-housing living situation.

We posted an ad with this intention in mind and have been contacted by somebody who wants the same thing, yet is actually the owner of the property as well which is HUGE...now we really just need this elusive check to appear and seal the deal.

Part of what we really want is to have a nice gardening area and so I have been spending time in the garden to up the intention on this...right now my daughter is out there watering plants too :-)

I really hope we get this place, though it'll all work out even if we don't as I'm sure we will find something better.

I haven't written for a few days as I've had internet trouble and blogger.com doesn't have an iPhone app far as I could find...now I have internet and no phone service, go figure!!

Oh well.

I feel like baby could come just about any day...and also know that if history repeats itself that it would be July when our baby is born, so we will see...we will see.

Due in 17 Days...Elusive Calm

Yesterday was like living in a pressure cooker.

Aligning priorities and how to make them happen is very difficult to do sometimes, in particular for me it is difficult when I am pregnant and consumed with wanting a safe stable place to live and rest once baby is born.

My husband, who is ever insightful and a big picture thinker wants us to focus on our big life goals and believes that doing so will lead us to finding the ideal stepping stone to that place. Normally I would very much believe in this. Right now though, I am tired. Thinking of packing absolutely exhausts me, I have not moved forward with much organization even. I feel huge, dependent, and so tired, so so tired.

I'm not sure if I'm depressed or if this is just because I am technically ready to give birth any moment.

My thoughts are focused on staying rested, fed, and hydrated because birth could start at any moment. I am very consciously NOT worrying too much about how the next two months will pan out though sometimes, especially late at night, I pretty much am a basket case thinking of how/where/when we will be able to move.

Part of my stress is that my husband, who is wonderful, is taking on so much. Of course this is kind of expected since I'm not able to do as much as I normally would. I wish I had energy to help more. I wish I was more domestically and organizationally inclined. I wish that my body didn't get tired simply standing up doing things like typing this blog post or looking at rental listings online.

Other parts of my stress are all of the "to-do"'s that are piling up it seems each day, for example we need to:

• Find a pediatrician for the girls and new baby
• Find someone to help/do the placenta encapsulation
• Pack
• Gather things to be given to Goodwill
• Photograph and list things to be sold on eBay (ideally before moving so that items are gone and we have some extra money)
• Compiling a list of all our magazines and accounts to be informed of our new address
• Compiling the contact information for the kids at my daughter's school so we can stay in touch
• Writing a letter to my daughters teacher that yes we are moving though do not know if we will or will not stay in the same school district
• Baby announcements? We will be doing these through our SendOutCards account which I'm not allowed to link to here but if you comment with an email I can send you a link if you like. I'm grateful that all relevant addresses are already in there so it will just be uploading a few pix!!
  

Then of course there are the things I want to get done for other reasons, like making money!

• Draft the ebooks I have been meaning to write
• Update my personal site to be more succinct and organized in a way to more consciously attract the kind of clients I am looking for.
• Write up the review I've been asked to write for a salad dressing
• Write up more articles and blog posts relevant to the market I'm focusing on and the ebook content deep dives.

Oh and the whole summer thing...

• Find and pay for a couple weeks of fun summer camps, probably focusing on bugs and swimming for my daughter
• Find sitters/friends/family to help with the kids etc. during the moving and post birth recovery time

So yes, I'm thinking a lot about these things, but after each thought "calm down, it will all work out, just stay calm, it will all work out" I have even taken to saying the serenity prayer at times which is not something I normally do, it is a good message though and I do feel a little bit calmer when I say it aside from the strange memories I have that led to me learning it.

Okay, that was a good dump of what's going on. Today is better than yesterday, I'm more tired, but getting some alone time which is nice. My husband and I haven't argued at all which is also nice. I'm glad there are leftovers from dinner last night to reheat and feed the kids with. I'm feeling more at peace right now than I have been.

Probably the biggest stress is:

• How the heck will we get any place to rent to us when we have totally lame credit scores including a foreclosure and bankruptcy and no 'steady' income as it all comes from contract gigs?
  

That's the kind of how I'm not to worry about though...just to focus on the outcome and the universe will make it happen. I'm looking forward to telling you about when that happens.

First Discussion With Realtor Tasked With Our Removal

Apparently came down to:

"30 days and $3,000 or 60 days and $2,000"

Wow.

So it didn't go as hoped, but hey, this lady is just doing her job right? I still don't understand the benefit considering we are willing and able to pay now, and even just getting the house sell-able will take a lot of money and some time (unfinished kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and basement).

Lucky us though, we get a fresh start.

So while we are waiting til early next week to talk to the woman again about what we decide to do, we are absolutely getting started on the organization. If anyone reading this has any great coupons good for those big plastic storage bins or anything like that from Ikea/Target/etc. please let me know in the comments.

Didn't sleep so well last night, those 2yo molars are coming in and causing my little one to wake up quite a few times a night...hoping tonight will go more smoothly.

On my way to go visit the midwife now.

I suppose the main decision is, given the options we have, either move right before the baby comes, or right after the baby comes. Neither is even mildly appealing at this point.

I hope I never have the need to do business with Chase or Freddie Mac ever...ever ever.

Project Planning

My husband and I were able to really discuss what is going on for the first time today. Last night I was freaking out a bit that we hadn't come to any conclusions and we agreed to just wait til today, and it went well.

I'm very grateful for the local family support we have that took care of watching our younger daughter for a few hours since these discussions can get a bit heated!!

We have come up with a loose action plan that includes 3 projects which cover our stuff, our plans, and our resources basically. These are projects to take care of either before or during the next few weeks:

Streamline:
We have a lot of stuff, and are pretty much packrats in our own very ADD kind of way. Seeing as how I'm having a baby soon nesting has started a little bit, with me mostly organizing things I can easily move like the massive stacks of paper. I have made some progress but we need to do more.

I see this project as a much much bigger project though that can be done over time. What I want to do is to clear out anything we aren't using on a regular basis, to either sell it, give it, or store it if we want to keep it for a later time. I figure if we keep only the essentials (for example only 4 plates/bowls/etc) then our lives will be easier as there will  be less stuff to deal with, and if we do end up moving urgently then it will be less stressful.

Since we don't know exactly how long we will have to stay then it makes sense to keep it all as minimal as possible. I would love to stay and figure that if we do somehow figure out a way to do this then we will be starting fresh and have a clean slate to selectively add things into our lives in a much more conscious way. If we move we can move the essentials, live simply and then we can do the same.

Conscious living and choice is our priority at this point.

Budget:
I think keeping a budget is always a good thing...however we haven't really been good at this one. Still having separate accounts, separate streams (or lack of) streams of income etc. has made it a bit complicated.

Enough with excuses.

Now I'm going to be pulling together approximately what we 'need' to have and pull all that into a spreadsheet to see what we really are able to do with what we are planning to be bringing in.

Ideal Living:
We have some big goals of things we want to do in life, mostly taking place in a few years, so we are looking for something that will keep us comfortable for the next three years maximum, 1-3 is the estimate. To make this as ideal as possible it has to be a lot of little things. This project is coming up with a list of the variables that we require in a place we will stay long term (see picture) and includes things like number of bedrooms, being close to things that improve life like parks, pea patches, grocery stores, maybe a zipcar and/or public transportation etc.

We will also have some things on here about neighborhoods we like, where we have support and weigh those options accordingly.

So... Our plans are starting to come together. I would really like to stay in the house at least 60-90 days, if our baby is born late as both of my girls were then by the end of 60 days would be approximately when my 6 weeks after birth would be done and I'd be approachinge able to walk without making a big mess and be approaching overall functionality etc. 90 days and we're talking about spending most of the summer at our house which means I can help more in the move too.

I'd also love to be able to harvest at least some of my garden, peas and strawberries should be appearing pretty soon...