"a flight with an instructor within 3 months preceding the 2 years"
No, any time in the second 12 months for this, duly signed by the Instructor !
Plan well ahead to avoid being caught by weather /no aeroplane/ memory loss....
Wasn't it so that you need to do a one-hour flight with an instructor in the preceding 12 months, but if you did it in the preceding 3 months, the license would be extended to the renewal-by-date + 2 years instead of the flight-with-instructor-date + 2 years?
Another thing. The one-hour flight, at a minimum, needs to include stalls, steep turns, PFLs and a few types of landings. If you're current, that's something you can do in 15 minutes. Have a plan for how to spend the other 45 minutes as well! I'm going to combine my imminent prof check with an aerobatics check, for instance.