Hello from Arizona! Part 3

Because of all the squabbling with the underwriter, we had to move our closing date out 1 week, we meant we had to move our appointment with the movers, and the military housing inspectors by a week.  We should have been prepared, since nothing else had gone smoothly, that the house would end up closing on the original closing date.  October 31.  Happy Halloween to us!

November 4 I found out that Melissa and I won a Kindle Fire from LOLShirts.  (I still haven’t been able to use it since my WiFi password is still packed!  😆 )  This was such a much needed happy thing with me!

November 7 and 8.  Since I had only been working 4 hours a day I had been spending my time at home getting ready for our move.  I never felt like I was getting anywhere even though I had been filling several boxes and bags with donations and throwing out tons of stuff.  I guess doing it over a long period of time is what made me feel like that because I was so used to seeing other people move out and there be tons of stuff sitting on the curb waiting on trash day.  We never had a bunch of stuff on the curb at one time.

The packers got everything packed in 2 days, and there were only 2 of them.  I could not stand just sitting around and doing nothing while they were there.  I ended up packing almost all of my clothes, shoes, and purses; all of my cross-stitch and quilting fabric; all of my magazines and most of my patterns.  I left everything (except the fabric) open for them to inspect and finish up.

By the time they left there were 271 boxes stacked all around the house and the poor puppies were totally exhausted from being so freaked out for 2 days.

November 8 was Son’s birthday and his girlfriend was in town.  We took them out to dinner.  He and M talked about work and brewing beer while we girls just sat there and grinned at them.  The conversation was so “adult!”  It was very hard dropping him off that night, knowing that in 2 days I was going to be moving to a different state and he wasn’t coming with us 🙁

November 9 the truck arrived.  All of our furniture, that could be, was torn down and loaded on the truck.  M and I slept on a blow up mattress that night.   The next morning I got up and had coffee and food at McDonalds while M was surfing.  I started loading the RAV and waited on him to get home.  He finished loading the things I couldn’t, hugged me and the puppies “goodbye” and at 10 a.m. on Thursday, November 10, the day of the Marine Corps birthday, I drove off of Camp Pendleton and headed to Arizona.  How fitting, since I was born there.

I pulled into the driveway about 9 p.m. and unloaded my suitcase, the puppies’ bag, the air mattress, and a folding chair.   The puppies had a field day running up and down the stairs and sniffing every nook and cranny of the house.  I was a little freaked out to let them in the back because of the pool but they avoided it while they did their business and then it was time to get to bed. The next morning, though, I turned them loose, and they had a really good time checking everything out.

7:00 a.m. on 11/11/11 the truck pulled up to our new home in Arizona and started unloading.  While there is no requirement other than putting things where I ask them to be put (I put signs on all the doors and walls so they would know where to put the furniture and boxes), the guys who unloaded were wonderful.  They centered all the heavy pieces of furniture where I wanted them and put my dining table and bed together before they left.  They were gone a little after noon.

Before I left California I had made the appointment for cable and internet to be turned on and I had just enough time between when the movers left and the cable guy showed up to go grab some lunch.  The cable guy was nice enough to help me unpack one of the TVs.

November 12th I headed out to take advantage of the Veterans’ Day sales and bought a washer, dryer, and refrigerator.  Amazing how frequently we depend on a refrigerator!  I was so tired of eating out.  It took me 3 days of unpacking to find another essential – my coffeepot!  😆

M stayed behind until Monday, November 14, to clean our quarters, and to get in as much surfing as he could.  I was so excited for him to get “home” since he had never seen the house, except for pictures.  I was so nervous for him to get “home” because I was so afraid he wouldn’t like it!  He came in through the front door and the first thing out of his mouth was how nice the house looked.  He hadn’t even made it past the 2nd room!

This has been the best moving experience of our 30 years in the military.  To date I’ve only found one thing broken.  The Ott floor lamp I keep in my stitching room.

I saved my stitching room for last for two reasons.  I had intended on painting it and I didn’t want to be distracted by my stash.  I knew once I started touching it I would slow down in my unpacking.  I want it organized and not have to re-do it.  This past weekend we bought another bookcase from Ikea.  M gutted the closet and moved both large bookcases in there.  We still need to pull the wall supports for the hanger rod down and I’ll paint that white. Once I started putting the furniture in I knew I had made a mistake in wanting to paint the rest of the room.   The existing color is perfect for the furniture – which is birch.  The paint color almost matches DMC 677 (Admit it! You thought about pulling a skein to look, didn’t you 😉 )

So far unpacking that room is going as expected.  I still have my “office supplies,” “papers,” quilt and cross stitch fabric,  WIPs and kitted items to unpack.  The cross stitch fabric will be last since I’m going to change the way I have it sorted.  It used to be by color, but now I’m going to change it by count….maybe.  We’ll see after I have it sorted 😉  I only brought Houses of Hawk Run Hollow with me and I’m getting a little tired of it, plus I’ve almost finished Block 5 and I only stitch using working copies. My copier is unpacked but the cables aren’t.  I keep thinking of all the stuff I have upstairs, but I’m trying to be strong! 😆  I packed all of my “notions” into plastic shoe boxes and those need to be sorted and put in their forever home.  I’m using my sewing/work table as a sorting table so that stuff is sitting around on the floor and waiting until last, but it’s getting there.  I have thought many times, though, that I have too much stuff, and I’m going to be thinning it out.

The living room is still cluttered with picture boxes.  The furniture is set up in there though, as well as our Christmas tree. 

I still have 4 boxes of items for my china cabinet that need to be put away, and I unpack one box a day.  There is packing paper dust on everything so I’m having to clean it before I put it away and that takes a lot of time. My days have set into a rhythm of one china cabinet box, then upstairs to play in my stitching boxes 😉  I try to unpack a minimum of 2 boxes a day, but more often than not I’ve kept going.  It doesn’t sound like much but I’m finding it takes more time to keep up this house than I’m used to.  It’s two times larger than any home I’ve ever lived in.  Plus we’ve been out and about a lot.  We’re living further out than we expected  (San Tan Valley,  instead of Mesa) so shopping trips take more travel time.

In addition to our Ikea trip, we’ve been furniture shopping and are expecting our new kitchen dining set to arrive on Thursday.  M isn’t retired yet and still has some military obligations that took him back to California for 4 days before Thanksgiving and he left again yesterday and returned early this morning.  He goes back around January 21st for the last time and will retire, and return, on January 31 😀

I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’m a bit lonely.  I’ve been to The Attic once since I’ve arrived.   There really hasn’t been much time to go more since there has been so much unpacking and settling in to do.  I’ve been determined to put everything away in a box and not just stack it here and there so it is taking longer than it should.  I haven’t been able to sit and stitch a lot either for the same reason, plus Son and his girlfriend are coming to visit Christmas Eve so I have to have everything unpacked out of the guest room by then.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post some cross-stitch updates, and make some stitchy plans for next year.