Forget going day by day; I need more hours in the week. Each day needs about 2 more hours in it for everything that needs doing to get done. Maybe 4 more hours, so we can get some extra sleep hours, too.

Everywhere I look there's something that should be fixed / cleaned / packed / otherwise addressed. Like the places where the old sink attached to the tile in the bathroom, but the one we have now attaches lower, so the filled-in holes in the tile are visible. And then there's poor Tom getting high on noxious paint fumes while putting the last coat on the walls of my closet, so that I can then sort through the remaining hanging clothes and see what I can part with (having done this 3 or 4 times already).

And then there's my job, and my uncooperative laptop, and that dissertation still hanging over my head.... Have to remember to pray at some point each day that someone makes an offer on our house. And practicing random acts of good karma, to stay on the safe side.

The good news is that I knocked out several file boxes full of magazines! It hurt to chuck all those Martha Stewarts and Country Livings that moved from Massachusetts to Georgia and then to Tuscaloosa with me, especially the ones that were addressed to Miranda Mathews. (She got Country Living; Abby Mathews subscribed to A&E's Biography magazine.) Now I simply have a couple of folders' worth of articles instead of multiple bins of complete issues.

Have to remember to keep thinking about all we've accomplished, not all that we have left to do!

Why do I have so much stuff? Am I really that materialistic? Or that much of a packrat? Am I -- gasp! -- a hoarder?!?

1. I have a lot of things that are meaningful to me.

2. No.

3. No.

4. NO!

I do not hoard. I simply do not discard in a timely manner. If I followed the OHIO (Only Handle It Once) principle with mail, receipts, and all my other paperwork, a huge percentage of the crap I'm complaining about would not be in my home. It would have already gone out with the trash/recycling.

The other problem we have is that we both let things pile up, and we ignore the piles. I don't like washing dishes, so they tend to pile up in the sink. Tom doesn't always see that I have bagged trash ready to go out, so it doesn't make it to the curb. Then there are the things neither of us wants to deal with (usually relating to money), so we don't confront whatever it is right away.

Couple this with the fact that our house is too small for our possessions (since we merged two households of stuff plus inherited furniture and wedding gifts) into one space previously filled by one such household. *sigh*

Still deciding what to do about the house situation. Seller holding firm on price; our house still not officially for sale (but unofficially, yes it is). So until we get my closet painted and everything put back and the last of the cleaning complete (and maybe even the new exhaust fan installed in the bathroom), no news on the home front.

This morning we made an offer on the 1926 house. Still in the process of getting ours on the market, which should happen by the first of next week. Last few fixes and tweaks to be made over the weekend. I am so ready to be out of here!

It's beginning to feel real. Signing and initialing all the buyers' points in the offer was almost surreal. We knocked that our last night and emailed it back to our agent, who expects to have a counter for us to consider by end of day tomorrow.

!!!!!!!!!!

We're thinking we're about to have a house on the market. This will be my first time selling a house (and buying one, when we get to that). I'm nervous about making this house seem spacious when we're busting at the seams. This won't be fun, but if we get to move to a home of our own that we actually fit in, it will be worth it. Positive thoughts...

Tom and I looked at another possible new home today. "New" in relation to us; this one was built in 1926! It needs a fair amount of aesthetic work to bring it to Land-ready, but we wouldn't need to add on or move walls or anything structural. Smoothing the ceilings (instead of the swirly textured imprints it has now), refinishing the hardwoods, and painting the walls would pretty much do the trick. And I think I can live with the near-primary wall colors so long as we had the floors and ceilings "corrected" before we moved in.

Oh, wait, we would have to carve out some closet space from the massive master bedroom. But as renovations go, that's pretty minor.

We came straight back to work after we saw it this afternoon and haven't really gotten to talk about it yet. But I think we're going to go ahead and get our house on the market, since selling our current house is required. Wow.

I am still crazy about both the house plan we designed to build on our lot and about the bungalow on Hargrove we have seen several times. But the Hargrove house would require adding a master closet and a garage, because there is virtually no interior storage and there is literally no outdoor storage. And the bedrooms are so small we couldn't have a nightstand on either side of the bed in the master! With a full-size bed! Not a king or even a queen. So the Hargrove house really isn't quite what we need.

Our house plan, on the other hand, is exactly what we need in terms of layout and space design. However, we can't afford to build it. So it remains shelved for the future, when our financial situation is different (retirement/new job for Tom, "real" job for me, etc.).

Which brings me back to today, the 1926 saltbox-style house we saw today. I feel good about it. Looking forward to talking it over with Mr. Land.

It's no secret that I hate Valentine's day. The day designed to make people feel bad, have their hopes dashed, and spend unnecessary money. When you're alone it stinks, and when you're with someone you have pretty good chance of having hopes dashed/disappointing your sweetheart. Plus it makes it nearly impossible to get a table to go out for Tom's birthday dinner (2/13).

That said, I love conversation hearts. Actually, now I must say, I loved them. Apparently NECCO changed the colors/flavors without consulting me. In years past I have bought bags and bags of them, then separated them by flavor (because no one wants to get a white one with an orange one -- mint and orange, ew!), and then snacked on them for the entire month of February. No more. Now we have only nastiness. Blue raspberry? Lemon-lime? Come on! Yellow is supposed to be banana! Green should be lime, not apple! WHY?!

As a general rule, I'm not opposed to change. Even when it comes to candy I hold dear. I don't mind eating them in Spanish, so long as they're the right flavors.

The one thing I liked about Valentine's day, ruined.

This Land family is into history. And "history" can be very loosely defined as a record of events (hence "prehistoric" events happened before a human recorded them). Tom and I both work in archives, and we are both actively engaged in genealogy research. So why do I find it difficult to maintain a blog?

This is a great way to record the events of our daily lives. And Blogger/Google will host it until any electronic apocalypse. So this is my pledge to record our history here. (Future genealogists, rejoice!)

The Landlanders are kind of hung up on the show "Criminal Minds" right now. Love, love, love it. And love that we've caught it after it went into syndication, so we can watch whole seasons! No waiting a week between episodes! Thanks, A&E!