The Countdown Begins.

The move is just 10 days away & I am feeling a little more stressed. Mostly because I really can't get much done each day with swimming. Emily has practice each day from 10 - 11:30. I am trying to get everyone up & ready and accomplish one thing before we go to practice, like run to the dry cleaner or the bank, pick up paint chips, etc. 

Today I dropped off the dry cleaning for the last time. I love that place & they love me! I never have to tell them my number when I walk in because they have it memorized. Once I had the babysitter drop it off for me. She had never been there before & when she walked in they automatically knew it was my stuff & pulled my name up on the computer. When she asked how they knew the girl said "I recognize the clothes." Seriously, they are awesome. I know them all by first name, they know I don't like the plastic covering and gave me big cloth re-usable bags to cover my clothes, they always give me a discount when I pick up my order - they even gave me a bottle of wine last Christmas (so, I guess they don't know me enough to know I'm LDS.) I hope I can find a good dry cleaner in our new town!

When I got home Irene arrived for the last time. Irene cleans for me every other Tuesday. When I was pregnant with Jane I got very sick & was admitted to the hospital. We decided to get some cleaning help & hired Irene, after that I could just never let her go.

She is one of the sweetest people alive & has been super reliable. In the 5 1/2 years she has cleaned for us she has missed just 3 days due to sickness. When I said good-bye & gave her a hug, she cried. I wish her well in the future, we will miss her.

Then we all went to the pool and Jacob & Jane played while Emily practiced & I made good use of my iPhone to get as many "phone call" items done as possible. Today I set up a cleaning lady to clean the rental house next Monday and Stanley Steamer to clean the carpets on Tuesday afternoon.

After swimming we dropped Emily home to eat & rest and I ran to a pediatrician appointment with Jacob & Jane. The school nurse from their new school called me last week to say they were missing a couple of shots. Jacob needed chicken pox and Jane needed the chicken pox & to start the Hepatitis B series. I didn't need to say goodbye to Dr. Grace because I am just going to bring them back her to see her - at least for a while. She is SO good & we love her SO much. I will probably eventually find someone in our new town but for now it's just adding a challenge that I don't want to deal with and it will be easier to keep bringing them back here. On the way home we dropped off a bunch of giveaway stuff at the kids old pre-school for their thrift shop & got the car washed.

I got home at 1:55 and needed to leave at 2:10 - I took a super fast shower, left Bek with a list for the other kids for the afternoon and Emily and I were ready just in time for our ride to pick us up for Counties.

Counties - Day Two

First up for Emily today was the medley relay - where each swimmer swims a different stroke for 50 yards. Their team has come second SO many times this season and I was feeling the stress for them. Emily swims third -  the Butterfly.  The first swimmer (back) did a great job at keeping it level, the second swimmer (breast) held her own too. As Emily entered the water they were slightly behind the lead (see the swimmer in the lane beside her, ahead by a length.)

I was standing about 1/3 of the way down the pool. As she passed me she started to level it out.

 

Neck in neck. 

 

Then she started to pull ahead.

Then passed her for the lead!

 

They won their heat. They all did really well and Em had a personal best with her butterfly length. Unfortunately not quite fast enough to win overall but we were all super proud of them. OK, I actually cried. It was so wonderful to see them finally win a heat after so much hard work and training.

She also swam the 50 free today. She didn't have a great swim and was 2 seconds slower than her usual time but I reminded her that not every meet can be her best swim ever. Sometimes you just have an off swim.

We got home from the meet around 8pm and I had Emily eat and then sent her to shower while I ran to buy some groceries. When I got home from the store I bundled her off to bed and got cracking on the laundry. It would be lovely if I could just put our "regular life" - needing to eat and wear clean clothes & feed the dog, etc on hold while all this swimming / moving / building craziness is going on but I can't. A member of our Bishopric gave a fantastic talk 2 weeks ago about the difference between adversity or hardship and inconvenience - and how we sometime confuse the two. It was a great talk and very timely for me. I am getting about 4 hours sleep a night. I am so tired, I feel overwhelmed and like I have a million things to do all at once, I wish we had some family around to help out ... but it's just an inconvenience. This will all be over in 10 days (most of the crazy) and all the hard work will be over by the end of the year and we will have a beautiful place to live in, in an area that will makes our lives better and mine easier. The crazy of this month for us are champagne problems and we are lucky to have them.