Overwhelmed.

I guess I hadn't realized just how much it would take to get our house ready to live in. I think much of the way I feel has to do with the fact that we had to move abruptly, with very little planning, and that makes me crazy because I'm a closet perfectionist and prefer to plan everything to the letter.

Every inch in our new house needs to be cleaned. Not just wiped off, but disinfected. The walls, the floors, the ceilings, the windows, the heat vents, the outlet covers. You name it. Everything that has been in that house needs to be bleached. I was well aware of this when we purchased the house, but I guess I didn't really think about how much surface area a 2700 square foot house really has. Did you know that a 2700 square foot house is really big? Yeah, it is. It seems even bigger when you're 32+/- weeks pregnant and it needs to be disinfected. I thought about bringing in a fire hose or something, but figured it would probably ruin the woodwork.

The cleaning is just one tiny piece of the pie. We also need to put new subfloor in the kitchen and hall, and put new floor coverings in every room. The dining room is the exception, but that floor needs help too - we need to rent a floor sander and put some polyurethane or something down.

We need to replace all the lower cabinets and countertop. We need to replace all the interior doors. We need to replace one exterior door and frame. All the outlet covers and switchplates need to be replaced. There is a small roof leak around the chimney that needs to be dealt with. One toilet needs to be fixed. The kitchen is absolutely the filthiest thing you've ever seen and is probably a two day cleaning job. The grease around the range area will need to be literally scraped off with a putty knife.

I need to buy all new appliances. The water heater has been purchased but needs to be installed. I think the ducts should be cleaned before we move in, or at the very latest, before we start using the furnace.

The Hub has to build a bar for the space between the kitchen and dining room. If he doesn't, I'll have to tear up a bunch of the wood floor, because it's in a funny shape to accommodate a bar. Three screen doors need to be replaced. I need to find information about the garage door so I can figure out how to lock it - there's no lock, and it has an opener installed but I don't have the remote thingy.

The worst part is that I can't do any of this stuff. It's far too dirty to put The Babe on the floor. I won't put him down once it's clean either because it's all subfloor, and he can't very well be crawling around on that. And a babysitter? Yeah right.

My hope is that we'll finish just one room - the playroom, if I'm really lucky - and can stock it with toys and diapers and juice cups, so I can let the kids play there while we work on other parts of the house.

I had really wanted to be moved in by September 10, when the kids start school, but that's not looking like it's going to happen. Bummer. I did register them at their new school, and I plan to drive them to the bus stop every morning and pick them up in the evening. Hopefully this will only last a week or two. I feel like it would be best to drive them to the bus than to make them switch schools in the middle.

Housing stuff aside - I need to sort the kids' clothes and prepare boxes of baby clothes for the new baby. I need to go through my baby girl stuff and see what will work for a fall/winter baby, since my girls were all summer babies, and go through my baby boy stuff just to have it all in one place. I also have a bunch of gender neutral baby clothes that need to be washed and folded and put somewhere. I need all of the baby things in one place so they're easily accessible despite the move.

I also need to finish assembling the birth kit, and have that accessible for D-Day, and, oh yeah, come up with something for newborn diapers since I have none. I have tons of prefolds and pins and some snappis, but no covers for the new baby. And no money to buy them, and no time to make them! I don't have receiving blankets or anything else ready either.

As far as packing - haven't even begun. Don't even know where to start.

And on top of all of that, I need to host a birthday party for The Babe - he turns one in a week and a half - and my mom is throwing a baby shower for me sometime in September. Then The Hub's birthday at the end of September, and then my Blessingway at some point in October...

I am so overwhelmed. I wish I could just step away from my life for a month, and come back to everything done and taken care of.