Flurries

I bet you thought I was going to talk about snow, but I'm actually not... I'm referring to the flurry of activity that's been going on at our house. If I've never mentioned it before, FarmerGeek and I are going through the licensing process to become foster-to-adopt parents. (This means we'll be foster parents, but if the children become available for adoption, we're able to adopt them.)

Now you know how it is when you move, you it takes a long time to get things just so. Well- that's definitely been our problem. The three main rooms of our house are fine. The kitchen, the living room, and our bedroom are in good shape. They aren't finished by any means, but they are clean and safe. Then there's the bathroom, which we thought was just fine for now, but in reality has slowly disintegrated over the past few months. For some unknown reason (we suspect condensation) the ceiling paint started peeling. Then we find out that all the plugs need to be GFI's in the bathroom and kitchen. (I guess the kitchens not perfect after all.) Then I need to reorganize our linen cabinet in the bathroom so it's easier to childproof. I also looked at our bathtub and thought that if I were a kid, there's no way I'd want to take a bath in that. In fact, I don't want to take a bath in there now. So what to do?

Right now, the biggest things are the kids rooms! When we first moved in we had a vague notion about "someday" having foster kids in there. And what they would need. Now the room that was my sewing room needed to be primed, sanded, painted (ceiling, walls, and trim/doors) and the rug pulled up and hardwood restored. Then the dressers (each child needs their own bed and dresser) need to be painted. And the light needs to get switched to a ceiling fan. Not to mention bedding and curtains. The boys room... ugh... that'll be a chore. We need to pack the hundreds of books we have, the numerous musical instruments, and all the other *ahem* stuff *ahem* that we have dumped in there for lack of other places. Then prime, paint, sand, and pull up rugs. Same thing goes with dressers and bedding.

Right now we're working on the girl's room. We have the walls done (including a chalkboard wall) one coat of paint on the ceiling, trim primed and painted, except the baseboard- we can't reach all of it with the rug still down. Basically, all we need to do is finish the ceiling, baseboards and floor. Oh and of course all the fun fussy stuff like curtains, bedspreads, and the like.

Then there's the miscellaneous stuff. The GFI's, we have to move the washer and dryer because it's against code to have it where it is, the front porch railing needs to be fixed. The entire house needs to be childproofed. The basement needs to be clean and organized. We have to come up with some way to lock up our guns and bows in one spot, and ammo and arrows in another spot. And lock up the alcohol. Oh and the light in the hallway needs to be replaced because it doesn't work right. That's on top of all the usual farm stuff like planting the garden, raising chickens, etc...

The worst part is that we just realized January snuck by us. This weekend is the Superbowl (GO STEELERS!) then the next weekend we have a training, the weekend after is my father-in-laws birthday, the weekend after is another training, and pretty soon it's March! Our training classes go to the end of March and then we should be able to complete our homestudy... should be being the operative word. If these things are finished we can't do it.

Oh just pray for us.... we'll need it...