What's been going on?

I haven't had much time lately to post but I wanted to give an update on what's been going on in our lives over the past week.

Thank you to all of you that have inquired about Keith's mom. She was released from the hospital on Tuesday and seems to be doing pretty well thus far. Keith talks to her every day just to check in and see how she is feeling. Thankfully the diarrhea has subsided and she is feeling physically good. Keith is a bit concerned about her mental and emotional well-being, as she continues to talk about the bad news that the Oncologist gave her last week (I don't think I specifically said in my last post, but this doctor told her that the cancer IS in her bones, that she has Stage IV cancer and that there isn't really anything that can be done but to make her "comfortable". He also told her that she has 12-32 months to live). She told us last week, and then told Keith again last night, that she believes what this doctor said is true and she thinks her regular Oncologist is hiding things. We have all advised her to seek another opinion if she has her doubts, but at this point, she hasn't decided to do that. She is scheduled to have her next chemo treatment on Tuesday so we are all anxiously waiting to see how her body responds. She had blood drawn recently and we are hoping that her cancer markers are still going down. I will post an update next week after her treatment and let everyone know how she is doing. Thank you, again, for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Keith and I are now 6 days away from being home owners!!! I cannot believe it is coming this fast, but I am really excited about this new stage in our lives! We have a lot of work to do before we actually take residence in this house on July 3rd, but it's all going well so far. We started going through closets and drawers last night and our guest bedroom is now the staging area for all of our "crap". We filled two huge garbage bags full of stuff that we feel we no longer need. We have a huge pile of "gently worn" clothes that are going to go to Goodwill or the Veterans and we also have a pile of things that my co-worker Dot is going to sell in her yard sale at the end of the month. It is amazing to me how much unnecessary stuff that we have, especially since we only moved into our current house a little over a year ago. I sometimes think that clothes and other miscellaneous stuff multiplies once it gets into a closet or a drawer (oh, and I also think clothes shrink after awhile too....ha ha!)

The other big thing we need to do before we actually move our stuff into the new house is to paint. The good thing is that we close next Thursday and we don't actually move in for two weeks after that so we have time to get it like we want before all of the furniture arrives. Fortunately, the house isn't huge so we don't have that much to paint - just the three bedrooms and maybe the dining room. We can hold off on the dining room for now (I would like to paint it the same color as the living room is currently, but I don't know if the previous owners are leaving any paint behind). The bedrooms are more of a necessity because once the furniture gets in them, we don't want to have to move it all to paint! Thankfully, my parents and my sister, Katie (& maybe Shaun) are available to help us. We are going to have a full day of painting on Saturday, June 21st. If anyone wants to join us, you are more than welcome!! Of course that means Keith and I have to get all the necessary supplies before then - including making the final determination on the colors. While we were in Wal-Mart in PA last week, we went to the paint section and got some color swatches that we both liked. I think it's important to pick out a color that we like, but I also feel like you will never really know what it's going to look like until you get it on the wall.

All in all, I am really excited to be moving into this new house, although I have realized that buying a house is a lot of work! Once we get everything settled - the closing, the painting, the utilities all transferred, our stuff all moved - then I will be much happier!