SCRAPING by...

...literally. We have been so busy trying to get our house ready for showings & interior photos (yep, we are officially "for sale" as of today), we are wiped out. We've spent a lot of time in the past few days downsizing the contents of rooms (thanks to a storage unit and using Paul's awesome trailer), repairing those little things that we all have to repair around a house, cleaning, and, oh yeah, STRIPPING WALLPAPER.

The last one has been the biggest challenge. I joked to ribB that if this is the biggest challenge we face in all of this moving business, then we are lucky. Let me tell you, I can NOT believe how much time it took to strip off just the vinyl layer of wallpaper in our smallest bathroom (on the main floor of our house). We have removed wallpaper before--this should have been a much easier process. As it turns out, I think they actually used super glue to hang that 1991 wallpaper. Ok, I kid...kind of. On Saturday night, I was up until 4am trying to strip it (ribB joining me until 2am). After a total of 8 hours of work in this little room, I finally finished removing this top layer of wallpaper tonight. I am celebrating by sharing the experience with all 3 of you who read this blog! Ha!

House fix-ups and preps has taken up most of our time lately. Thanks to Brian and Katie, who watched the kids Saturday morning, we took the opportunity to check out the property we are currently interested in. It was so nice to look everything over closely, without the kiddos in tow! We also had an opportunity to visit the local school districts and were pleasantly surprised and impressed. My mom also helped out for a couple of hours on Saturday, which we were grateful for as well. I think it goes without saying that by Sunday night, we were all exhausted!

Fortunately, tonight we got to have some real fun! We had a "double date" with my great friend, Angie, and her boyfriend Steve. We were very excited to get to know Steve more and we had a great time having dinner and talking about everything from Beavis and Butthead to hunting coyote (and purses, too). It was an awesome break from all of the insanity, and the kids loved the chance to have some actual play time (with Ann!).

Pictures that celebrate "the bathroom": the small shreds of paper, the naked truth and THE tool that made it all possible (after all wallpaper tools and products failed): a glass scraper!