An afternoon of calm in between stormy days....

So much is happening. And so fast.

With the help of our good friends A and K, the husband and I pushed ourselves to declutter, purge, pack and clean our entire house over the kids' spring break. We decided to put it up for sale, and it's now doing open houses, waiting for a buyer to come and put in an offer :)!

This activity took a huge toll on us, but even if we didn't want to sell, it was very much needed. We had accumulated SO much stuff over the last 7+ years, and we never really found time to purge. Our house was always clean, but we could never get it organized to our satisfaction.

Since the beginning of the year, I wanted to follow the "Less is More" principle. I am SO happy we were able to pull this effort off. Our home feels and looks amazing right now. A lot of our stuff is boxed up in the garage, and we are living with only the basic essentials since 2+ weeks. It feels.....quite.....nice!

You must be wondering if we are selling our house, where are we moving? Well, we have put a holding deposit on a brand new house within our neighborhood itself. Our move is contingent upon us selling our current home, so I'm not yet ready to announce to the world that we are moving!

My pet peeves with our current home are a small kitchen, relatively smaller yard, and the layout of the kids' rooms (which until now were never used because we still co-sleep). If we were in India, we would keep the same property, and turn it around to suit our needs. But it's more expensive here to do that. The husband and I really enjoy gardening, and would love to have our little space to grow all we could. We would plant a bunch of fruit trees, just like we did in our current backyard, and would have have a large area for kids to play ball, climb, and slide. Let's see how it all pans out...

While we were in the midst of all this, I got into a hydroplane accident in our old car on the highway. I was extremely lucky to not hit anything, or lose control of my car, and I just swiveled to the shoulder which had loose dirt on which my tires stuck. But after that incident. I felt terribly unsafe to drive that 16 year old car. It lacked many safety features that are standard today, like side airbags.

So we sold that car, and bought a new one. Selling was effortless - I had a couple interested buyers, and one of them came through in a timely manner. Buying a new car took some haggling online, but my time at the dealership was short, and sweet. However, the sell/buy of the car weighed on my mind ever since my accident, and I'm relieved it's taken care of now.

I am now going through the loan paperwork for the new house. We need to get pre-approved and be ready, even if we may not end up applying for a new loan. I am also doing my taxes so buried deep into investments, deductions, credit scores, debts, etc.

In the midst of all this, yesterday was an oasis. We made an impromptu plan to visit a friend who lives on a 5 acre property, very close to Folsom Lake. She has pet tortoises, chickens, and 3 cute doggies. She has a huge organic garden and spring is planting season around here. The kids helped her plant squash, melon, watermelon, curry leaves, and few other things. They also fed the tortoises lettuce, bananas and tomatoes. They played to their heart's content with Archie and Roxie, the 2 hyperactive doggies. My friend is going to let us babysit the dogs on the weekends, so that we can see if we can manage a pet (that the kids have been begging for) in our new house.

There is always some work going on at our friends place. She had some workers digging and laying stones in the patio, and the son enjoyed some digging along with them.

The husband and I also managed to take a short hike to the lake with our son. He rarely gets undivided attention from BOTH of us, so it was lovely. He saw a toad, and a flying fish in the lake. He stood on the side and threw stones as far as he could for several minutes. The hills and trails were lush green, the California poppies were shining bright, the lake is full with the abundant rain this year, and the spring weather was simply gorgeous during our short walk.

We had planned for a 2 hour outing at my friends place, but ended up staying until after dinner. The kids were tired but super content, and passed out in their carseats on our way back home. Here are a few pictures of our amazing day....

Sorry for the long post but it feels better to have penned my thoughts down, all at once!!!!

SUPER cleaning week....

After a week of fever, we had a relatively good weekend. Thank goodness for that. Because we had no idea what was in store for the following week.

The daughter had been complaining about an itchy scalp for several days now. Blame it on my work travel and the bout of fever with both kids, I did not pay more attention to it until the weekend. I oiled her hair, washed it, but on Monday, she still complained. So Monday night, I checked her hair and found some nits. I thought she must have just caught it from school and spent some time removing them. But on Tuesday morning, I spotted a lice (yes, the dreaded SUPER lice) in her hair while combing, and that's when I realized the problem at hand is more severe than I was imagining.

I subsequently found nits in my hair, and my son's hair, and loads of time was spent on the internet trying to figure out how to best address the issue. I decided to get rid of it the same day, and called a local lice lady who uses all natural methods - yeast spray, essential oils, and a fine nit comb, to get rid of them in a 1-hour session. She comes to your house and does it, and she agreed to visit us on Tuesday evening. So for about 3.5 hours that day, all four of us took turns with her, and participated in "Operation Lice Removal". I am happy to report that the operation was a success :)!

Once our heads were clear, we turned to disinfecting our home. Thanks to our super awesome maid, we got the floors, bathrooms, carpet and tile, toys, sofas, etc done in one visit. We changed out the sheets in all rooms, vacuumed the dining chairs, carseats and rugs, threw the combs and hair ties in the freezer, and washed the jackets and clothes worn in the last couple days in hot water and dried them in high heat. It was a mammoth task, but it had to be done, and it is done now. Phew!!

The nit comb - I bought two of them by the way - is my new best friend now. All the way until children are in high school, I'll have to follow a prevention routine to ensure we don't have to tackle this kind of a mess again.

Lice love clean hair - they don't get onto heads that are not washed for several days, or on heads that have products on them. The husband dyes his hair and he came through clean. So, it's not really a taboo or a hygiene issue if you get lice. I reported the incident to both the kids schools without any shame.

This is also a month of finances. We have taxes to file, a home refinance to consider, and investments to look at. Add to that our summer travel plans and visa procedures, we are overwhelmed.

Sometimes I feel, I have very little time, outside of my daily routine, to devote to tasks that are really important. For example, investments. I keep procrastinating, and I would love to be a bit more savvy and proactive on that front. Exercise has been another thing that has always gotten the last priority. The only thing I do for myself without compromising on a regular basis is reading.

And then I also think: I have a good amount of savings. What if I quit my full time job and found something else, part time. Something that would keep me challenged, and left me more time to do things I really love to do? Like not having kids in school all day, and spending the late afternoon with them, exercising and going for runs, learning an instrument, have more time for parents and family, travel whenever kids are on break, have a less stressful routine life where I could enjoy the cooking, and play time, and can do the chores at a leisurely pace, be able to read when I'm fully awake, vs when eyelids are half closed, and so much more.

Something has to change. How, when, what? I need to figure it out.