Night #3 in the new place

And night #3 of no sleep. I'm not sure what the issue is - a new room, the fact that it's a whole lot brighter at night, or just that my mind is continually whirring with everything I have to get done by 6pm Friday. By then, we have to be completely out of the old place and have it clean with all the nail holes spackled. We have the vast majority of our stuff moved over into the new apartment, but there's still a lot of odds and ends left at the old place that I have to figure out what to do with it all. Most of the boxes here are unpacked. I *hate* having boxes stacked everywhere, not knowing where something is, and just being so unsettled. Besides, I needed to know if any of the leftovers will fit in here and where. As a result, I've worked almost nonstop over the past few days packing, hauling things up and downstairs, and organizing things into their new places. The packing was done in a hurry, so the unpacking involves a lot of going through boxes and carting much of it out to the dumpster. Even though I've been moving constantly since Thursday, I don't feel overly tired, probably because my drive to get everything settled is overriding my body's screams to stop :-) I did notice that it took a whole lot of effort to drive the new screws into my daughter's desk to (hopefully) keep it together for a little while longer and the office staff of the complex remarked that I didn't seem as chipper today as I did when I last saw them on Friday. I collapsed on my bed this afternoon after I sent the girls to their rooms until their dad got home (and thankfully, my awesome husband let me nap while he took the girls to dinner). They were at each other's throats all day and I finally couldn't take it anymore. They're awfully tired of this whole moving thing and having to entertain themselves while we're busy. I have a friend coming over tomorrow to go over my homeschool stuff (which yes, is already organized neatly on the shelf, thank you very much) and I'm planning to ask her if I can hire her daughter to do some child entertainment for a few hours over the next few days. The girls will love it, I'll be able to get more done faster, and my friend's daughter can earn some money for school clothes. See? It's good all around!

There are a lot of positives about the new place to make the move worthwhile. All the rooms are bigger so we don't feel so crammed in. We purged a lot when we down-sized last year and we're doing more of it now just because we've learned we can live with less stuff (less to clean up, after all). The girls now have their own rooms where they can do their own thing. With the age and personality difference, it's nice to be able to give them their own spaces. I can also separate them when they just can't get along, like today. The kitchen and all the cabinets and drawers are bigger and it's so nice to be able to see and reach everything. The biggest thing that's making itself felt right now is that more space, plus 3 levels, means we're getting a whole lot more exercise. I told hubby yesterday that I was going to start a moving company disguised as a unique exercise experience. People will pay me to allow them to workout by moving other people's stuff into or out of a multi-level house. Brilliant, isn't it?

I think I'll try going back to bed since tomorrow will come all too soon.