the moving process

After living here for longer than anywhere Austin & I have ever lived, we are MAYBE saying goodbye! who knows! :)

I thought I'd share some of my stresses....

1. sublease our apartment (of which we thought we had it rented to FOUR different people. Two of them even spent the $30 to get approved, but then backed out for different reasons). The pain of listing it on Ebay, emailing people back and forth, doing numerous showings, and cleaning the whole house spotless before anyone comes. Man, I never want to sell a house!!! I feel for Brooke Oldroyd when she had to show her house a bazillion times! (hi Brooke!)

2. find a place to live when we get to Texas. What a headache! We have been back on forth on rather we should or should not stay in Texas. I spent SO MUCH time on the computer trying to 1st find an apartment. We found one that would lease to us for 3 months, but then 2 weeks later when we called to get it, they changed it to a minimum of 5 months. Great! So, then we decided we were just going to be staying down there for good, so we'd save ourselves a move and find a home to rent which meant a one year lease. I spent a lot of time looking all over Houston area. I didn't felt like any of them were right, but Austin thought it was PURE PROCASTINATION on my part not to have something already lined up. So, this morning, I found a nice apartment complex in Spring Texas that we'll sign a 3 month lease. We'll have our options open and can come back to Iowa to finish school if we decide to OR we'll have a better idea where we want to live for the next year while Emma attends FIRST GRADE! Honestly, I feel very good about this decision. ahhh......
(quick tip: HAR.com is AWESOME! You can check houses for rent under "residential leases" and do any kind of search you need! I like I could check houses that were in the school district we wanted.)

3. Austin is not only in FINALS, but has had GOUT!!! This is one of the most frustrating things in the world for him! (for those who don't know what gout is: Gout is an extremely painful attack with a rapid onset of joint inflammation. The joint inflammation is precipitated by deposits of uric acid crystals in the joint. Intense joint inflammation occurs as the white blood cells engulf the uric acid crystals and release chemicals of inflammation, causing pain, heat, and redness of the joint tissues.) Austin gets it so bad that his whole foot is HUGELY inflammed, red, and very tender...we can not get into close proximity of his foot without giving him a huge scare because it hurts so bad if you touch it. He literally can't walk. He borrowed a cane from his friend to help him get around. He has to lay down with his foot propped up and iced. It is thankfully getting better. We hope that we can prevent it from EVER happening again!

4. The stress that I have to have my house totally boxed up and cleaned in 11 days!!! OH MY! I have started packing. I am filling my garage up embarrasingly fast. I want to get rid of everything! We'll have a garage sale on Saturday. The girls have been looking forward to doing a lemonade stand for years! We'll take advantage of the yard sale customers for it! :) It has been really sad packing up. I think sometimes... why are we moving???? I love it here. I love my friends!!! THe girls adore their friends, teachers, schools, and the ward. We've been so blessed. There's not really much more we could have asked from Iowa! If only the weather..... Honestly, the weather is a HUGE part of it. It's so sad to leave once the weather is just barely becoming so beautiful... We are excited though to be close to some family. Austin's brother and family live there. The girls are so excited to see their cousins again this summer.

For all of my family, except Mom and Dad, this is where we've lived. It won't be sad to say goodbye to it as it will be to our friends. Although, it is sad, because our girls have grown up so much here and we've had such an amazing experience here. ugh... this is making me so sad :( I could almost cry.... better stop! :)