And Everything Was Going So Well

I was really doing it! Blogging an advent post every day! Okay, so some days I'd write two and backdate one of them for the day I missed. But I had a post for every day, like a good little blogger.

And then, about a week and a half ago, we got this brilliant idea that we were going to put our house on the market - something we've been considering for a while - and that we were going to do this by Christmas.

My house, which was in its usual state ranging from cozily cluttered (kitchen) to downright embarassing (craft room), was going to be cleared, staged, and cleaned in under two weeks. With holiday obligations already on the calendar and Ben working full shifts every day and me not supposed to be lifting heavy stuff.

I'll wait while you laugh at our expense.

So we sorted. And packed. Rented a storage facility. Imposed upon guy friends to come and move stuff into said storage facility. Rearranged furniture. Coerced friend into painting with me. Coerced same friends in to helping again when the going got tough. Had carpets cleaned. Moved fully-decorated full-of-water Christmas tree. Cleaned, sorted, packed, repeated. Stayed up till 4am. Took two carloads full to Goodwill and another to recycling.

And guess what? By the grace of God and, again, the kindness of friends, we did it! Our house is almost unrecognizable, both in cleanliness and furniture placement. If no one even looks at it while we're gone for Christmas I'm going to be seriously unamused.

So our sweet little abode is on the market now! When it sells, we're hoping to move to the Franklin area (a suburb south of Nashville, for those of you not from around these parts) so Ben can be closer to work and so we can (eventually) take advantage of the Williamson County schools.

Getting the house ready in such a short amount of time is a great accomplishment, but it sort of killed my post-a-day advent series. For that I am terribly sorry, dear readers! I still hope to post at least one or two more. I was saving some of my favorites for last and everything!

I hope wherever you are your Christmas and holiday preparations are significantly less manic than ours have been.