Anyone got half a dozen or so extra arms?

So, so busy, you guys.

So! Since last time I wrote... Wait, let me go back and see.

Okay, the last time I wrote it was a recipe. (Delicious.) The time before that, I wrote about how we had some hopeful signs about a house we liked. Shortly after that, after we had scrambled from separate states -- hubby was on a business trip -- to get together a mountain of paperwork and pay stubs and certified funds and mostly get Michael back in town so he could sign the application, and when we were about two hours from having the application signed, sealed and delivered, the owner and her realtor pulled the rug out from under us again. ("Sorry. She took another application.")

We were trying not to panic, but we were four weeks from our current lease running out. We saw three more houses as soon as we could get appointments, but they were awful (and awfully expensive for awful, to boot). We had no idea where we were going to live. Since we had seen everything there was on the market to see, we followed through on our plans to go visit my parents in Pennsylvania for my niece's birthday party.

While we were there, the realtor from The House That Kept Getting Away called us again and said that the owner wanted an extended lease -- 15 or 16 months instead of 12 -- and were we interested? We scrambled to get all the paperwork together again, because we hadn't brought the completed stuff from Virginia, and faxed him everything late on a Saturday night.

On Sunday afternoon, we were informed that we got the house. I didn't let myself believe it for two more days because until the lease was signed, she could totally change her mind again, and after the "No, yes, no, yes" we'd already been through... I was certain she was a flibbertigibbet.

BUT.

Now everything is signed. She can't back out. She even offered to let us move in before the lease even starts so that we wouldn't have to spend Christmas unpacking. I think it's all going to be good. As I said, the rent is still more than we wanted to pay, but it's a lot of house for the money. And it's nice.

Meanwhile we have so much to do that my head is swimming. The packing has begun in earnest, but we don't want the kids living in a box fort so we're having to take it slower than we'd like. Meanwhile, I don't know if you've heard but it's Advent now, and so, you know: BUSY BUSY BUSY.

Help me, Jesus.