"Where's Lucas?"

So, Luke has been gone from my presence for three full days and today is the fourth full day. I should really count Thursday too since he left after lunch Thursday. Evie is seriously missing him. She asked me three times on the way to school today, "Where's Lucas?" She is too precious for words. She is terribly lonely, and spent all day yesterday watching princess movies. I feel bad that we let her just veg out in front of the TV, but Chuck and I (more chuck than me) were furiously working on the house and getting it ready to sell.

We're working on everything all at once and it is totally stressing me out. We had a painter come in to texture and paint three or four big rooms, but I've decided that we need to finish up all the little stuff on our own. We also pulled up a bunch of carpet and had the wood floors underneath refinished and stained. We had new tile laid in two bathrooms. We got a new fence. We had our sprinkler system worked on. Money just seems to be pouring out of our bank account into the hands of various subcontractors. Now we just need to have our granite counter tops installed Wednesday and the outside of the house needs a face lift - nothing too major, just something like microderm abrasion. Unfortunately, that will probably be the bulk of the cost on the entire remodel. I'm ready for it to be over, but I'm dreading the idea of selling our house and, even more so, I'm dreading the idea of buying another house and starting the remodeling process all over again. Ugh! Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on whether I'm looking at the glass that's half full or half empty), the market is really good for us to sell our house right now just because of the area we live in. It's an odd situation to be in given the state of the real estate market in the rest of the country, but I guess I should be thankful that we have such an opportunity to make some money on our house. It has been a great investment.

The fourth was good. Lots of good company with Em, Ben & Maddie, and Lorry, Patty & Savannah. Wish Luke could have spent the holidays with us, but apparently he's having a good time where he is.