Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Yikes, What a Weekend

So, right about the time I wrote my last post, I got a knock on the door. There was a man there who informed me our household goods had arrived and they would be dropping them off in twenty minutes. Needless to say, I was quite surprised; the last we'd heard, they hadn't shipped our HHGs from Washington until September 25th. We'd been bracing ourselves for a very long month without our stuff. Instead, we were happily overwhelmed with boxes and crates.

One interesting thing about living here is that when your stuff arrives, they don't unload it. So, we got to do that fun task by ourselves. Luckily, everyone here is quick to offer their help, and we had a couple sets of guys over two days that helped us with most of it. (We might have been able to do it all in one day, but they only delivered half our crates at first. We had to call and ask them to find the rest of them, which they did and delivered that evening.)

Now that we are close to being done setting up, we have found this place is both smaller and a tad challenging because it seems to have nothing but wire shelves in all the closets. Wire does not hold much. For the most part, that has worked out, but we shipped a couple thousand pounds of dry goods and canned food. We've had to get pretty creative in where we put it. Luckily, the kitchen has proven to be much larger than our townhouse, which is a huge plus for me, but I have been using extra space in the boys' bedroom to stack cases of canned goods.

Overall, though, everything is fitting just fine. I was worried for a bit because there just wasn't much space for all the boxes. For a couple days, our house was a maze of narrow pathways through the stacks of boxes. I left lights on at night so I wouldn't kill myself if one of the boys woke up and needed something. After we began unpacking in earnest, however, it became clear that amongst all the packing paper there really wasn't as much there as it seemed. I think this became clear to me when I unwrapped a large wad of paper and discovered two pieces of candy inside.

However, all that paper has done its job. Our stuff is here, no big mishaps or breakage, and in record time. I think it will be another week or two before we really finish setting up, but most of it is done. I was going to add a few pics, but didn't get past uploading them. Hopefully, I can make myself sit down to edit and add them tonight.

6 sonar pings:

Andrea@Sgt and Mrs Hub said...

Hooray for stuff!! And in what seemed (for me... not the one living without ALL my stuff, only most of it) a very short amount of time for an overseas move.

I hope that you find your new house to be happy and cozy very soon :)

-Andrea

Emily said...

Oh goody! It's always nice to get settled in.
When we lived in a small apartment, I devoted the bottoms of two closets for food storage, and the top to coats, clothes, and more boxes of stuff that I unpacked as needed...small spaces call for creative measures!

The Mrs. said...

I second andrea's yah for stuff. I like stuff... especially my stuff!

enjoy getting that home feeling : )

Mrs. Captain PAO said...

considering how excited i am for simple things - like my dishes! :) i am sure it is so relaxing and restful to have your things again about you to make a home :)

~Lina

Sues2u2 said...

Wahoo! Gotta love stuff. It just makes you feel so much more settled. Oh & not having the movers unpack has gotta help in the getting to know your new neighbors part. That's great!

The Mrs said...

Hooray for surprises! It sounds like you are really enjoying the island life so far. It looks beautiful. I'm still looking for more pictures of those white sandy beaches. Have you gotten to see much of the local life?