May 5, 2013

Dear Mama,

Hi! Happy Cinco de Mayo! It is also Beck's Birthday, and we 
didn't celebrate like we usually do. But there was a potluck at church 
today and there was cake and ice cream there as we celebrated Brother 
Bane's 90th birthday.

Last week, Jay worked his last two days of work, and Brenna did the 
same. However, on Brenna's last day she was asked to return for a 
meeting later that night. She didn't want to go, but they insisted and 
it was because they had a cake and farewell party for her. Jay was 
surprised because fast food places usually don't do that Ah well...

Our May Day turned supremely cold. It was a Wednesday and our 
first day to go to Portales to get into the new rent house. On the way, 
I got lost if you can believe it. I had Brenna with me and discovered 
that she has a bit of navigating in her blood. She got us back on 
track. The house was truly disgusting and I won't go into details and 
gross you out. But no one wanted to touch any surfaces. The people 
that were renting before us must never have done any house cleaning at 
all. I am sure they never owned a vacuum cleaner or a mop. They also 
took the curtains that went with the house as well as the bathroom 
fixtures. When Jay went down to put down payments on our phone and 
electricity there were signs everywhere not to accept checks from these 
people. Jay had to impress upon them that even though we had the same 
address, we were not those people. Anyway, our mailing as well as 
physical address is:

127 NM 467
Portales, NM 88130
(575) 226-3688

This will be the first time that I will be dealing with propane and well 
water. The plumbing needs fixed by the landlord. Every single sink 
leaks at the bottom. I left Brenna and Jay there on Wednesday and 
finally got away rather late. Beck had picked up the boys from the bus 
stop and they stayed at her house until I got home about 8:00 that 
night. Meanwhile, I painted, cleaned and packed some more.

Friday, Jay and Brenna showed up back here in Tucumcari. The Brown 
girls showed up during our movie time and invited the boys to 
participate in a scavenger hunt. Since they had already seen the movie 
we were watching, they excitedly joined them. Brenna and Josh were 
hanging out at Beck's and so it was just Jay and I for a time. Jay is 
trying to get back to being called Jason. After calling him Jay for 
nearly 25 years, it is hard for me to call him Jason. Even when he 
really gets me angry about something, I still call him Jay.

Saturday was the hard day. As we woke up, Jay decided that he 
hates moving and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible and 
moved our moving date up from the 25th to the 11th. That means I have 
the rest of this week to finish painting, cleaning and packing. We 
still needed to finish up the upstairs bathroom, paint the kitchen and 
the downstairs. We got the bathroom finished, the kitchen painted, and 
a first coat in the living room. I also cleaned my oven, stove and 
cleaned up the bathroom upstairs and somehow managed to fit in getting 
ready for my lesson and prepared for the potluck scheduled for the next 
day. I was so tired, and my body hurt so badly that even though I was 
so exhausted, it took me several hours to finally fall asleep.

Today was Fast and Testimony meeting and it seemed like a farewell 
to the Brown's as well as us. The Brown's are going to Arizona and we 
are only going to Portales. Matt will still be here in Tucumcari with 
Beck, and more than likely we will be visiting every now and again. 

Next week, I am sure we will both be tired from the move, so we will 
attend church in Portales, and then later that evening the plan will be 
to go back to Tucumcari with the boys because they will have one week of 
school left. We will be sleeping on air mattresses and living with an 
igloo for a fridge. Camping out. The boys are excited. However, we 
still need to speak at church on the 19th in Tucumcari, so after 
Shayna's graduation, we will all come back to Tucumcari that night, camp 
out, and then stay at church the next day and then have lunch at Beck's 
since we won't have a table or chairs here at our house. Then we will 
head back to Portales, hopefully with no more trips to Tucumcari until 
the house sells and we have to come back for the closing. Our realtor 
thinks he might have another interested buyer, a big family. We hope 
they can afford our price because we would prefer a big family get use 
out of our big house rather than have some guy buy it that will just 
turn around and rent it for a profit.

Tomorrow I will run my errands and then get started on painting 
downstairs. Once I am finished with that I can pack the rest of our 
stuff. I have already thrown out a lot and donated quite a lot, so 
hopefully it will not take me too much longer to get it all done and 
will meet Jason's deadline. He plans on bringing the moving van after 
he gets off of work on Friday. So much to do and so little time. I am 
going to close now. I know this isn't very long, but I have been so 
busy with the same things every day there isn't much to share with you. 
Take care of yourself, or let Anna take care of you and you try to enjoy 
being waited upon. All my love, your 4th, Lisa