A Team Weeks 144 & 145: Peanut Butter Jelly Time

A Team Weeks 144 and 145 were extremely busy and chaotic.  As I've mentioned in previous posts Eric and I have been officially looking for homes in a better school district since February and unofficially since last fall.  During this time we had found only a few homes that we liked and none that we liked enough to put an offer on.  At the same time our realtor had been pushing us to get our house on the market because she was afraid that with the current market no one would accept our offer if we didn't at least have our home already for sale (or have an accepted offer ourselves).  Eric and I had talked about this and he had mentioned trying to get the house on the market by the end of the month (of June).  Trying to be supportive of this moving idea I got into gear and began doing the cleaning, organizing, etc. that was needed to make it happen.  Then, when the weekend between weeks 144 and 145 came, I realized Eric hadn't understood that I had committed myself to that deadline.  Once we were both on the same page, we took advantage of my parents being in town for an anniversary party and spent the weekend working our butts off to get everything ready.  It was a long weekend with long weeks before and after.  For the period of time, our parenting skills sort of took a backseat as we worked day and night keep our jobs and get the house ready.  Thankfully Asher and Avery played together very well for much of this time making it a little easier on us., thankfully my parents were able to help up with the boys and a few odd jobs around the house, and thankfully the boys were okay with the fact that we ate nothing but PBJ, hot dogs, hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, etc. for basically this entire time!  As I said it was a chaotic time (& really still is as I type this), but every time I made Avery his favorite PBJ for dinner, I couldn't help but have this song start playing in my head...

On Wednesday of Week 144 the boys and I had a day off together with some play time and a lot of work for Mommy.

That night after dinner we headed over to Culver's for a special treat.

Avery was sure to get every last drop of custard from his bowl.

On the weekend, the boys spent basically the entire day with Grandma and Papa while Eric and I worked.  He painted the back porch and did several other odd jobs both inside and outside the house while I gave our upstairs hallway walls, trim, doors and ceilings fresh coats of paint.

On Sunday, our work continued.  The boys went to church and the park with Mom and Dad while Eric and I played hookey to get more work done at home with out the little guys trying to "help" us.  By Sunday night all of the painting was done and things were in pretty good shape.

Asher built himself a "drone" of Legos!

On Sunday night, Eric took the boys out of the house so I could continue to get things cleaned up without my work immediately being undone.  That allowed me to be alone and it allowed them to play with Daddy's new toy (I blame you Rob Migrin!).  :)  Due to the wind they were not gone long but they did stay in the driveway to play for a bit.  When I looked out I saw all three of my boys happily staring at the flying camera bot with jaws on the floor as they ogled at the technology.  Then when Eric tried to land it and it bounced a bit as it touched down I heard Asher say, "That was a rough landing Dad!"  Lol!

When Monday came (the start of week 145), Eric and I were both completely exhausted, but we pressed on with the deadline of our realtor coming to visit on Wednesday night.  By the time we went to bed on Tuesday night our home was cleaner and more organized than it has ever been!  We were proud of everything that we were able to accomplish but also couldn't help but wonder how long it would stay that way...

My view "at the office" on Wednesday morning (& my coworker John)

On Wednesday night, Eric and I planned for me to head straight home after work to check the house one last time before Veronica (our realtor) came while he headed over to pick up the boys from daycare.  I got home ran into the house to change and get the pictures that we had taken ready to show (we wanted to take our own photos of the house for our listing).  Then, I heard Emma crying by the back door that she wanted to go outside.  I let her out and then went to the driveway to shut our gate.  As I did, the gate somehow got going too fast and got caught on the heel of my shoeless foot, tearing the skin down the back of my heel and creating a 1" wide gash!  It was horribly painful!  I don't remember the last time I felt a pain like that and even though I did not cry it hurt so bad I thought I might throw up!  Still, no one was home to help me out (just Emma who kept giving me a very curious look).  I hopped to our back door and up the porch trying to hold my foot.  Then as I was about to go inside the house I looked down to see my foot gushing with blood.  Not wanting to get blood all over my spotless house and freshly mopped floors, I hopped back down the back porch and to the garage where I was able to wrap my foot up with a bunch of paper towel.  Then I headed back into the house to try and bandage myself up before Veronica came over.

A few minutes later, Eric came home and I sheepishly looked at him from the back door and told him that there had been a mishap, which I thought might require stitches.  He came in to look at it and sent a picture to his mom, whom I then talked to and was told that I should indeed have it looked at.  As I was talking to my mother-in-law, Veronica came over to see all we had done to our house since she had last seen it in February.  I found it ironic that when she had come in February we had to reschedule giving her a tour of our home because of my appendectomy and now four months later I had to try to hop around to show her the house with my poorly bandaged foot while trying to also clean up small spots of blood from earlier!

Thankfully, she was very impressed with everything we had done on our home and after a long meeting discussing the details and signing the papers, our home was set to be listed.  Roughly two and a half hours after I had hurt my heel Veronica left and then I headed to the ER, with a stop at Potbelly for a sandwich and shake (I figured I'd earned it!) before arriving.  A couple of hours after that I was back home with a swollen foot, six stitches and a somewhat humorous tale of my day!  Side Note: When I was getting checked into the ER, the nurse was taking my vitals and asking me the standard questions to make sure that I was not being abused.  When she asked me if there was anyone or anything at my home that made me feel unsafe, I promptly responded with, "Yes, my gate!"  :P

**Normally I'd have pictures to go along with my stories, and I do but I will spare you the gore. ** 

I will mention though that on Thursday I hobbled around my work office all day and by the end of the day my dressing was barely hanging on.  When I looked down at it I noticed it looked very much like a frowny face....so of course I grabbed the permanent marker off my desk and drew on some eyes.  Then I sent Eric a pic...he was NOT impressed!!  My parents, however, thought it was quite funny! :P

On Thursday night, it was the end (sort of) of A Team Week 145 and also the end of an era (possibly 2): The Era of our 4 year old Asher!!  We spent the last snuggle time of him being 4 making silly faces on my phone, and then the next day he was five, but more on that next time...

The other era that came to at least the possible beginning of the end was our home officially going on the market.  On Friday morning we all walked to our favorite neighbor Marge's home and gave her the news that we were thinking of moving.  We wanted to make sure that she found out from us BEFORE the sign was placed on our lawn later that day.  Being the tough gal that she is, she didn't have much to say but encouraged us to do what we need to do.  When I looked in her eyes though I saw them well up with tears, as did my own, and I knew that our home is not the only thing we will miss.