The moment we’ve been waiting all summer for has finally arrived: our stuff is here.

In June, movers came to our house in Seattle and packed up all of our belongings (OK, not ALL of our belongings…only the ones we deemed worthy of a round-the-world tour). For the last two months our “household goods” (the fancy term the using company uses for our “stuff”) have been traveling on a cargo ship through the Panama Canal and all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland. I’m sure if our dishes and bath towels could talk, they’d have quite the stories to tell us. As it is, though, they arrived mostly as they left us: in box after box of obscured treasures from our former life.

This was a pretty exciting day for us–we’ve been essentially living out of our suitcases for the last 2 months, and things were starting to get old. I used to love the 5 shirts that I brought with me. Now I hate them. I also hate washing the same 3 plates, meal after meal, because they’re the only 3 plates we have. First-world problems, I know… But, really, it’s great to have all of our stuff here again (I may not even have to burn my t-shirts in the back yard now).

When the movers got here, they gave us an inventory list so we could check off each box as it was unloaded from the truck. 89 boxes. How do we have so much stuff?

Once the boxes were unloaded, the movers unpacked everything from the boxes and took the empty boxes and packing materials back out to the truck for disposal. This was both good and bad. Good because we don’t have to spend the next 2 years recycling 1 box at a time in our recycling bin that gets emptied every-other week. Bad because they emptied all of the boxes. Onto the floor. And the beds. And the tables. And into the bathtub. Basically every square inch of our house was covered in…stuff.

Now, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if I could just sit there all day and sort and organize and put everything away. As it was, though, it was a Thursday. Which meant that Jon was working and I had two children under the age of 3 present to “help” with the unpacking. Thankfully, David was away at his first day of preschool when the movers came and Jacob took a nap for about an hour in the morning during the busiest part of the unloading. Once David got home, though, it was basically chaos. I survived by throwing as many toys as I could unpack into the back yard and sent the dog out to supervise the children while I sorted out the house.

 

My ploy worked beautifully, and I was actually able to put away everything from the boys’ rooms and the kitchen (our main “common area” in the house) before they caught on to my absence.

As always happens in a move, though, there were a few surprises. A few things that snuck into boxes that really had no place being there. A large floor fan that doesn’t work in Ireland. Enough hangers to supply Macy’s (that’s Debenham’s, for you Irish readers) clothing department for a year. A dozen tubes of toothpaste (perhaps I was thinking we’d need to brush our teeth 20 times a day here?).  Lots and lots of…stuff.

 

For all the hassle that is unpacking, though, it was definitely worth it. I haven’t had to wash my dishes yet, and I’m wearing a bran- new (old) outfit today. But the best part of it all? Jacob got to sleep in a real crib last night for the first time in months. After weeks and weeks of waking up every couple of hours, he actually slept. Through the night. Which means I got to sleep through the night. Like a baby (a baby that actually sleeps through the night). It was…wonderful. It’s good to have you back, stuff.