Have you looked into items and spaces that will make life easier once you move in? Such as shelves in the laundry room, where you'll put the kitchen garbage pail, etc. I wanted to dwell on this point a little more, too. That you should focus on setting up the INFRASTRUCTURE you will need. I love infrastructure--we often ignore it, esp. stuff like shelving, etc. Be sure you have hooks for brooms, enough shelves int he closets (in any closet w/ shelves, seriously consider adding ONE MORE shelf) Then, you can decide what you want to put there. "Gumball Rally" is what I thought it was.And that's a great philosophy for lots of situations. Gloria, we're contemplating a move down the block, and my DH was saying "no need to pay movers except for the piano and the couch; we can just carry it down." Over my dead body! We've got 2 kids, and 4 people's worth of stuff. Last time we moved, I nearly killed one of his friends (who was helping us but wouldn't listen to me) out of frustration. I told DH then, we are never moving ourselves again. It is just TOO HARD. And, that same friend moved, w/ DH helping, and he packed some, moved some, etc. It's VERY inefficient. MUCH more efficient to pack everything, truck it over in ONE trip (get as big a truck as you need), and then unpack. I suppose 4 doors away doesn't require a truck, but it'll use a handcart, and major packing. I've really learned mylesson from watching those friends. Pack everything before you move ANYthing.

Wow...how did I miss this thread till now??? I LOVE being organized, but one half of this family, not so much. My oldest DD was born with the gene, so it comes naturally for her. The youngest DD...not so much. It's like living with Felix and Oscar (for the **oldies** here who can remember the ODD COUPLE) hehehe. Frankly I love being organized cos it drives me crazy having to look for things. I'm just glad to know I'm not totally crazy for labeling my light switches. I use the P-touch labeler too. I never knew they made brass plates. When I labeled mine, I just used the small tape with small fonts. With one plate that has 5 different switches, it sure comes in handy. For my dear mother who loses EVERYTHING, I found the perfect plaque that reads "Organized people are just too lazy to look for things!"

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I googled before posting and I found out that the Habitat For Humanity Homes can be sold at any time, but if the owner sales before 20 years of home ownership they must share the profit with Habitat. It looks like the owners paid about $55,000 or $65,000 for the house in 2000, but the real current value is the land. I couldn't find info. explaining how the owner will have to share the profit with Habitat. Can a homeowner sell their home? Yes, homeowners can sell their Habitat home at any time. However, there are often restrictions on resale value and/or permanent affordability covenants. There is also a profit sharing clause that requires that any profit made from the re-sale of a Habitat home within 20 years of purchase must be shared with Habitat. (Last Modified: 2005-01-20) Here is a link that might be useful: Habitat for Humanity website

In response to your comment that schools need to be of more assistance to parents who are dealing with children with behavioural problems and how the schools have more contact with the child therefore teachers, etc should be able to better see the problems, I say come into my classroom any day and find out how difficult it can really be. You deal with 1 or 2, maybe 3 or 4 kids in your home on a daily basis. I deal with anywhere from 120 - 130 kids every single day. So before you go loading more responsibility on us, try to understand that we do what we can with the limited resources that we have. We want to help, but it's difficult when there is so much to do and we have so little time to do it. I've been there with a difficult stepson. We tried to get help from outside agencies but there was nothing for us. He was emotionally, verbally and physically abusive to his whole family. Had we been abusive to him, there would have plenty of help for him, but a child (even one who is 17, over 6 feet tall and weighs over 200 pounds) is not considered a threat, because he is still a child. We had to call the police on him several times because he was attacking his father, but they never took him away. They came, they talked to him and then they told us that we needed to be more understanding to his needs. We called social services who told us that they could nothing as the child was in a safe environment. It didn't matter to them that the rest of us (father and siblings and me) weren't in a safe environment. It finally came down to us removing him from the house. We rented an apartment for him and gave him a monthly allowance. We would not allow him back in the house. We paid for him until he found a job and was able to support himself. Since we paid for only the bare necessities, it wasn't long before he became motivated enough to fend for himself. Sure it's great to think that the schools have some responsibility for your kids. They do. They have a responsibility to educate them. But please don't expect the schools to be a social agency. We don't have the resources.