137 Boxes

The house is empty now. All our things are gone. Packed away in 137 boxes. Four Korean men arrived at our house yesterday morning at 8:30a.m. and in a matter of hours, reduced our home to this:
It's exhausting work, moving a house. Even though I mostly just supervised, I still feel like I did most of the work. There was a lot of prep work and pre-packing involved.

I really hope I see all 137 boxes on the other end.
It was important that they didn't pack everything though. We just wanted to be sure that they didn't put Zara in a box and ship her away.
Apparently, she really likes stickers. She kept trying to steal David's "DON'T PACK" sticker.

So after they packed all our belongings, they brought in a ladder car to transport our stuff from the second floor down to the waiting truck.
That's how they do it in Korea. (And, I imagine, many big cities.) They could only bring small trucks up our tiny streets so they had to move the boxes from the small trucks to a big truck waiting on base, where they packed our stuff into crates. When we moved here, we only had three crates of stuff; we're leaving with 5 crates now.

By 5pm, the movers were gone.

Afterwards, we went to Jeong Gam Eorin, our favorite beef and leaf place to eat a final meal with our friends who leave in the next villa over from us. It was a delicious meal. I need to eat as much Korean food as I can in the next 6 days.

We're just waiting for the Army to come pick up the furniture they lent us (washer, dryer, an extra bed, couch, dresser, etc.) and then we can move into the hotel on base. We hired a cleaning lady who spent all day yesterday cleaning our house so there's only a few odds and ends left to take care of. I"m looking forward to staying in the hotel. It will feel like a little min-vacation before we have to brave the 12 hour plane ride home.

Moving Madness

We're knee-deep in moving madness here, thanks for asking. Moving across the world is super fun, ya'll.

Honestly, I love getting to live in all sorts of different places and having all these fantastic experiences. I wouldn't have it any other way. But in the last five years I've moved from California to Virginia from Virginia to Hawaii from Hawaii to Korea and you see, I'm a little worn out now.

Plus, now I have to move with a baby. Who requires SO MUCH STUFF. Seriously, it's exhausting just thinking about all the little things I need to remember to pack for Zara, especially since I don't know how she'll react to the drastic changes that are coming her way in a week. I want her to be surrounded by familiarity even as all our worldly possessions are packed up and away and sent off. I'm pretty confident she'll do just fine with it all, but you never know.

So here's the super awesome run-down of my life for the next three months:

The rest of May - We have exactly one week until the movers come to pack up our stuff. Then we move in the hotel on base for a week while we do our final check-out.

June 1st - Fly from Seoul to San Francisco and then on to San Diego. I don't even want to think about what a joyous experience it's going to be to take a 12 hour plane ride with a 9 month old and a cat. But, like labor, I figure you can survive anything for a day. And then promptly forget all about it.

June 1-10? - We'll spend roughly the first two weeks of June in San Diego while David does his final out-processing with the Navy. He can't do it here because we're at an Army garrison, so they send you to San Diego which works out perfectly for us.

June/July - We hit the road on our Rediscover America! super awesome roadtrip. (And why are we torturing Zara so much? I hope she learns to loooove her car seat.) Our tentative plans are to take the 10 through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas through to Houston, then drive up to the Dallas area (hi Kara!) to then take the 20 on to Atlanta. We plan on spending 10-14 days with David's family in Georgia before heading back on a northern route (possibly hitting up Nauvoo and other church history sites along the way) before rolling back into San Diego the weekend of July 16th for my mom's big 60th birthday bash. (All the family is flying in for the occasion.) We want to take our time on our roadtrip and visit as many friends along the way. (And if you want to host us for a night, that'd be super awesome too. ;))

July 16ish - Spend a little bit more time with my family.

End of July - We might continue our road trip a bit by driving up California (to visit my sister in Lemore, near Fresno) and possibly up to Oregon, which neither of us have been to before, and maybe Washington. (I've always wanted to see Seattle.) Or we may just sit on the beaches of San Diego in exhausted trances.

Early August - Move to Utah. We plan to get to Utah at the beginning of August (at the very latest) to look for housing, jobs, and to be reunited with our long lost belongings. I've been looking at the housing market in Utah but I haven't really seen anything I really like yet, but I'm hoping we'll still be able to find something quickly and easily. I'd really like to see the apartments before we move in rather than try to get something lined up before we move there. But we'll see how it goes. David has orientation the third week of August and then has his first official day of school on August 29th. We get to be poor grad students ALL over again. Yay!?!

So yes, it's going to be a whirlwind three months but I'm looking forward to it. And if I can survive it all without breaking out into hives this time, I'll be truly impressed with myself.

Moving Day

Weeks ago, David and I scheduled the movers to come pick up our stuff on Friday, thinking that that would give us plenty of time to prepare. Ha! Thursday night, we were up until 3:30 a.m. trying to finish last minute cleaning, packing, and organizing in time for the movers' morning arrival. We didn't necessarily have to pack ourselves, but I had kept a lot of the original packaging for some of our more delicate items (Kitchenaid, plates, Foodsaver, Wii, etc) and wanted to pack them all myself to ensure that they were properly and carefully packed. We also had to clean and decide what would be packed and what would stay with us. We wanted to make things as easy as possible for the movers once they arrived in the morning.

We woke up at 7 a.m., hopped in the shower, and then proceeded to wash our bedding and towels and continue to get things ready and make final decisions about how much clothing to pack with us. The movers arrived a little after 8 a.m. and went to town wrapping and taping and boxing up all our belongings. It was overwhelming to watch our stuff being dismantled and packed away into 5,000 boxes. I tried to be watchful of the packers' techniques (especially of my books) and direct them as best I good to be gentle, but this soon proved to be impossible due to lack of sleep and multiple eyes to oversee everything. Eventually, I just decided to trust the packers and pray to God that my stuff would still arrive in one piece and I took a 30 minute nap on the floor of the spare bedroom, nestled between a pile of David's accounting books and two suitcases. David slept in the bedroom closet.

By the time I emerged from the spare bedroom around noon (where we were keeping all the items we did not want packed), the packers had basically finished packing up our bedroom, closets, bathroom, and front room, and were beginning to pack up the kitchen items and inventory all the boxes.

This was the scene as they packed up our beautiful dark cherry wood bookcases, filled with our linens. That big blob in the background is our loveseat.

And this is what our bedroom was reduced to. Those top two boxes in the tallest stack are David's collection of Legos. He was quite concerned over the safe packaging and transportation of his large collection. He even called our insurance company to double-check that they would be covered. They laughed at him. So did the packer who wrapped them up.

After inventorying all the boxes (another hour), the big moving truck arrived, and they began packing all our belongings into three big wooden crates. But first, they taped a bunch of boxes to our stairs to create a big slide. It was quite ingenious, actually, but it also meant that a lot of our stuff was simply being shoved out our front door and rolled down the chute. I mean, yeah, our stuff isn't that nice, but it's still OUR stuff. And I'd really, really like to see it all again sometime soon. Also, it's weird to know that everything we possess in the world can fit into three crates.

By 2 p.m., our front room was empty, sad, and forlorn. I don't like going out there. I can still see where the couches used to be. I miss having chairs to sit on.

And this, my friends, is everything we currently own in the whole world, exploded all around our spare bedroom. We borrowed an air mattress, blankets, and towels from a friend, which we've set up in our bedroom. We can check into a hotel tomorrow, but we haven't decided if we will because none of them will let us bring Suyom.

And speaking of Suyom, I think she hates us. Not only did the movers take away all her favorite toys and cat condo, but we also sedated her during the big move. I asked the vet if we could get tranquilizers for Suyom for our flight(s) to California, Altanta, and Korea and the vet said we'd have to test it out before she'd give us more, because some cats have bad reactions to sedatives. So we gave Suyom a quarter of a pill at 8:30. She calmed down a bit, but instead of knocking her out so that she simply slept through the morning (like I had expected), she wandered drunkenly around the spare room, meowing piteously and looking glassy eyed and stoned. Poor cat. It wore off after about 4 hours, but I don't know if I can do that to her again. I think she just might pop the air mattress during the night in retaliation.

Anyway, the packing portion of the big move has been completed. Now we just need to clean and paint our condo, sell our cars and get everything settled with the property managers. And I really really really hope that we'll get our plane tickets on Tuesday. Because if we don't, I might just have to have a mental breakdown. And that just won't be pretty. And David is already stressed enough because his computer's hard-drive just crashed and died and he has to completely re-do his accounting mid-term. But that's another sad story for another day.....

Oh please, let it be Friday soon.

Things To Do

Most of you know that David and I have a little over a month left in Hawaii. (Hallelujah!) And, like 95% of the people I've talked to in the last month, you're probably wondering how the packing is going. I really wish people would stop asking me that question for many reasons: 1) The military movers come in and pack everything for you. In fact, they do not want you to pack up anything yourself for inventory and insurance purposes and I'm totally cool with them doing all the heavy work, 2) Because I'm lazy and don't want to do it, and 3) I am insanely talented at deluded myself into thinking that I have lots more time to get everything done. Hence, no packing of any kind has been done.

The most difficult part of the packing process is determining what items we want to keep with us for the two months that we'll be separated from our belongings. (Our stuff will be packed up on May 22nd. It will not arrive in South Korea until July 27th, over a month and a half after we arrive in Korea. Fun times!) I also want to do a complete inventory of everything we own because the military has this really wonderful habit of losing your stuff along the way. I don't have much stuff (most of our poundage comes in the form of books) but I'm rather attached to the stuff I do have. And there are those items (childhood trinkets, journals, and photo albums) that are simply irreplaceable should they be lost.

So, you may be wondering what I've been doing with myself instead of doing all the inventorying and packing and arranging. I would draw your attention back to item number 3. Aside from watching all five seasons of Babylon 5, refinancing our condo so we can rent it out, working, and playing with Suyom (I need to post some photos of her), I haven't really been doing much. But now that I've finally convinced myself that we do not have much time left for such frivolities, here's a list of the fun (and not so fun) things I need to do in the next month.

1) Organize like I've never organized before.
2) Inventory everything we own and take pictures of said items.
3) Clean out the refrigerator and kitchen cupboards, determine what can be shipped and what must be eaten, used or given away before we leave.
4) Scan photos. Back up any files (possibly on an external hard-drive).
5) Go to Kauai. Trip planned for next week, Monday through Thursday. Will write a charming blog post about our many wonderful adventures on the Garden Island.
6) Figure out what to do with Suyom. Take her to the vet for a health inspection.
7) Get appointment with eye doctor and get new pair of glasses since adorable nephew broke my old ones. Which are still functional, just slightly wonky.
8) See other medical professionals as needed.
9) Visit my dentist for the VERY last time. Sing songs of praise.
10) Pack.
11) Make endless number of lists. Like this one.
12) Gather and organize very important documents which must travel with us.
13) Finalize all travel plans and details.
14) Freak out. Just a little.
15) Go to Maui. Trip tentatively planned for second week of May. (Might as well see all the islands before we go!)
16) Go shopping and buy new clothes as I will not be able to find anything my size in Korea, the land of tiny Asian women.
17) Put in forwarding mail address at Post Office. To somewhere....
18) Make minor repairs to our condo including changing light fixtures and outlets, door knobs, painting and deep carpet clean.
19) Find a renter for our condo.
20) Look into Vonage, so we can still call people in America.
21) Say good-bye to friends.
22) Write farewell talk for church, scheduled May 10th. Mother's Day!
23) Remember to call my mom on Mother's Day. And send a card if really ambitious.

Yes, it's becoming all to real to me now. Maybe I should get started on it right now. Or maybe, I'll just keep reading my book and promise to get started tomorrow. Yeah, that'll work.