And then it was empty...

Wow, this place looks really nice without all the stuff! There is really a fine line between "personal touches" and "excess clutter." I think we crossed it way back in September.

This was my favorite and least stressful packout ever. I'd like to say I'm getting better at these things, but really the reason is that we didn't have most of our stuff. We only brought 700 pounds of stuff to VA from the DR, and acquired a bit more stuff, but not much! We had probably 300 pounds set aside for UAB, so they kept telling us to go find more stuff to send by air. The best problem to have! I don't know how much our final HHE shipment was, as they will weigh that back at the office, but it wasn't a lot.

I want to go on record saying that my husband was right. Last time, when we packed out of the DR, he wanted us to completely pack our suitcases before packout. I organized and packed our clothes, but decided that I couldn't REALLY pack everything because I still needed a lot of it before we left post. Well, really the issue was that I hate organizing toiletries and the sock/underwear drawer and all the random stuff, so I left them for last. Plus shoes, bags, etc etc. Let's just say that we had SO MUCH last minute stuff that I don't know how we got it into the bags and under weight.

This time, we actually have an entirely empty suitcase and 2 half-empty bags! Woohoo! I tried to be more ruthless about bringing less clothes. So what if I wear the same outfit a lot?

We will be on home leave for the next 5 weeks, and then my family stays in OR for another month, so I'm pretty sure we'll fill those bags with stuff. Besides, my son is having a birthday during this time. But still, I feel really good about not packing our bags to the brim at this point.

We had a lovely get together last night with some new and old friends. I found it hard to be as social as I like to be during this time in VA. People (us included) were busy and stressed learning new languages and I think many of us with kids packed a ton of activities into the weekends. It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction after not having enough to do in the DR (other than pools and beaches...oh, how I miss them!). Anyway, maybe next time in VA, we will try to take more time to smell the flowers and spend quality time with people. I'm grateful, though, for the new friends we made and the old friendships we nurtured as best we could!

Ok, 3 blog posts in 3 days is a little much. Let me sign off.

Goodbye, stuff!

Packout is over. Can I get a hallelujah!? I almost didn't make it. There is practically nothing more miserable than the night before a move or packout, when there is stuff all over the house and you are so tired you can barely keep going. I just wanted to cry about all the mess and all the stuff that still needed sorting. If it wasn't that important, ok, I could let it go. But our desk full of important papers and other stuff? I couldn't really let the movers just throw it in a box. My husband has been scanning like crazy and soon we won't have this problem (though there is always paper...). Honestly, I have given so many things to my housekeeper and driver over the last two years that I can't believe we still have so much stuff.

So, our strategy:

• We packed our suitcases, for the most part, and moved them and the carry-ons into our bedroom, which we kept locked at all times. The suggestion to put these items in a closet, bathroom or car is comical to me! We needed the whole room! What a mess. We are taking more carry-ons than we vowed we would this time around, but we have some new bags and D just wanted to be sure we'd have enough room for all the last minute stuff. 
• In the living room, we designated an area for UAB, or Unaccompanied Air Baggage, the only stuff we'll have with us in Virginia. It's also the stuff we'll send to China first, so we needed to add things like linens, which we won't actually need in VA. The UAB became a huge mess, as I threw stuff into the pile. I did try to keep the most important items in the front and know what they were, since it was soon obvious that we had more than the 700 lbs allotted to us. The movers let us tell them what should go into UAB, so that worked fine (they weighed the boxes right in our house), but we are sad about some peripheral stuff that we just couldn't fit. Luckily, the boy-sized stuffed shark will be with us in VA. 
• Here's about half of our UAB pile. See the shark in the upper right hand corner (upside down)? The other half of UAB was large plastic containers in which I like to pack our clothes and linens. I feel more safe that way, but the containers themselves add some weight. 

Here are our 8 UAB boxes, ready to go. I liked how they wrapped them with plastic AND metal belts.

• Our HHE (Household Effects, which will travel to Belgium, I think, and wait for us until we arrive in China) was in another part of the living room. We also had some HHE items in the other rooms. The kitchen was confusing, because we had welcome kit stuff there, in addition to HHE, and I was worried they would pack everything. (The Embassy gives us a welcome kit containing basic linens and kitchen items, and it's used before our shipments arrive and after they leave. We will donate it when we fly out). So I pulled out the HHE kitchen items and put them on the dining room table for them to pack. It's hard to think we won't see this stuff for possibly 18 mos. It's just stuff, and I can live without it, but I'm slightly bummed about not having my serving dishes and other items I use for entertaining at Oakwood. I guess it's just as well since I won't have much room- entertaining will be casual. I'm planning to buy a new set of light-weight melamine dishes, including serving dishes! That will be super fun. Going forward, I won't stress about the nicer stuff, I'll just know that the melamine stuff goes in UAB and that's that.

The movers were really quick and complimented us on not having so much stuff. Hah! I feel like I have WAY TOO MUCH.

So, it's off! Goodbye, stuff! Please make it safely to your destinations!

More stuff

We are buried in stuff over here. Our final shipment arrived on Friday and was strewn about the house when I arrived home (we had the movers unload the boxes and take them away, which felt like a mistake but my experienced FS friends told me this will mean we actually deal with all the stuff. We'll see). We're lucky we don't have a live-in maid, because we're using her room as a storage room!

There is a lot going on this week, which I'll tell you about soon, but for now, some photos of the mess, just for fun.

And, some photos of my little girl, trying on and playing with every new/old thing she could find. Aunt J, do you recognize the fairy wings??

M was running a fever all weekend and Mama had to work on Saturday. But yesterday, I got to spend some wonderful QT with my family. We made cupcakes from newly arrived supplies and organized the kitchen and kids room. Slowly, slowly, our home is coming together. But boy, do I need to reduce some more.

HHE!

Some of our household effects were delivered on Friday- hooray! We have two shipments coming by boat- one from New York and one from Virginia. We received the one from NY on Friday, which was unfortunate because it had almost no toys in it, except for M's small Statue of Liberty, which he has been inexplicably asking me about for months. It was a bit (ok, a lot) embarrassing to receive so much stuff, especially when I knew that more was coming. However, once we got it upstairs and unpacked it, I wasn't as mortified, because once you took away all the packing materials and boxes that were too big for their contents, it didn't seem like that much stuff. But I couldn't help obsessing about what we must look like to our housekeeper and the guys who were unpacking us. Good incentive to keep reducing our belongings.

This isn't all ours! We had 2 of these crates plus a little one you can't see.

We definitely packed things we don't need- a lot of storage solutions like plastic drawers and shelving. Now that we have sufficient closets and shelving, all of that is superfluous.

We were happy to see our linens, the kids' little bookcase, and our rocking chair. We don't use it that much now that my babies are big, but it fits nicely in our bedroom and will go to a happy home whenever we decide it's time. We are glad to see our artwork, though it doesn't match this furniture at all and definitely doesn't fit all the space in this huge apartment. It will be fun to buy new pieces of art as we travel the world.

Yesterday we went to the beach with a number of friends. It was our first day trip, and it was lovely. We went to a small beach club where you can sit all day, as long as you eat lunch there. They have beds with thatched roofs or cloth covers- including a few that are in the water! Whenever we go somewhere with a pool, M doesn't want anything to do with the beach, but this time, he enjoyed swimming in the salty water and L really had fun playing in the sand. The water is so gentle and shallow that she could run in and out filling up her buckets. It took about an hour to get there, but we ran into some traffic. Looking forward to next time.