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| Our main shipment that came from Italy |
Anyone who has moved knows that it's not exactly easy. I love moving, especially since the military does a good portion of the work with packing and loading, but the unpacking and organizing part gets a little (or a lot) tedious at times. We are allowed 14500lbs for our move, between the 3 shipments, and we were RIGHT at that when they took off 10% for all the packing materials. Good thing they took 10% off for packing materials or we would have been over our limit.
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| Me trying to check off all the boxes, which are all numbered, to see if we had everything. |
The Italian's way of numbering the boxes and organizing everything was a complete joke, not surprisingly. They took EVERYTHING apart. If they could take it apart, they did. So all of our patio furniture, office chairs, beds, tables, etc - everything was taken apart. And instead of keeping the hardware with all of the furniture that it belonged to, they decided to wrap it all up and put it all together in one box. Great fun... We still don't have all of our furniture back together, and one of the feet for our couch seems to have run off. I noticed it was missing in Italy when they took them off, I asked them where the 4th one was and they didn't know what they did with it. We still haven't found it.
My kitchen has looked like this since we moved in and it stresses me out. I'm still trying to find places for everything and the kitchen counter always seems to be the catch-all for everything you don't know what to do with anyway. I need to find a more hidden place to put things.
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| Abbie's room - it is more put together now |
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| Living out of suitcases for a month isn't fun, but we have dressers now! |
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| The formal living room/dining room looks much better now, but it was like this for a good 2 weeks. |
Our 2nd shipment came from my parents house. We shipped stuff to them when we moved to Italy for them to store for us. I left a plastic container of clothes with them that Abbie outgrew while we lived with them during the summer of 2011, and they sold the washer and dryer that they were storing for us since this house came with a washer and dryer. So we should have shipped less weight back than we originally shipped to them, right? Wrong. They sent a good 500-600lbs more back to us than we shipped to them, and that's without the washer and dryer. My parents have had my baby grand piano that they bought for me when I was 16. They have always said it's mine (and still do) and that when I got space for it, I could have it. So I have been asking them for it back now that I have room for it and I would like Abbie to start piano lessons soon, but they won't give it to me. They live in an almost 6000 sq ft house and they have a "piano room" and want to have the piano for their decoration basically. Neither of them play it, ever, but they want it for that room. My mom actually told me she wants it because they might have a dinner party and they want to have "sing-alongs by the piano". So basically I'm not ever getting my piano back until I inherit it. I'm not happy.
So what was all that extra weight shipped from my parents house? It was JUNK! I absolutely cannot believe the stuff they shipped to me, and to say I'm quite pissed about it is a vast understatement. My mom has had these horrible ugly towels since the 70's and I've been telling her for YEARS to get rid of them. Guess where they are now? In my garage. She shipped me an entire BOX of disposable dinnerware. A whole box that she's been saving for years. Now in my garage. They shipped me all of the artwork of mine that they'd been keeping since I was little, because, you know, I want it all.... They shipped me my baby book AND my sisters. They shipped me cleaning supplies that they had from our house in E. Dubuque that we moved out of in 1996.... They shipped me a tricycle that Abbie and my sisters kids used at their house - that I didn't ask for since we already have one. They shipped me gifts that I'd given them that they apparently don't want anymore... Tacky?! They shipped me old family photos of my cousins and sister. They shipped me boxes of stuff that they don't even know what is, and neither do I! I am SO annoyed by it all. I've called them ranting way more than once and they tell me they want me to figure out what to do with it. Their house is almost TWICE as big as ours is for TWO of them. They have a full basement and 3 rooms that are guest rooms, all with large walk-in closets. THEY DON'T MOVE EVERY 3 YEARS!!!! So now I have all of this junk from them that I have to figure out what to do with, or I have to throw it all out. As if I don't have enough to do with caring for 2 little kids, trying to paint this entire house and put away all of our stuff that was shipped to us and we still have one more shipment to receive. We are not happy about this stuff at all, and I honestly have no clue what to do with it all. I feel like they basically shipped me everything that they didn't want in their basement so I got all this junk that I don't know what to do with. My grandpa made me a pretty good sized doll house when I was Abbie's age, along with all of the furniture to go with it. I remember playing with it for hours at their house, but we just don't have room for it now and I don't think Abbie will play with it much. The furniture is all pretty fragile so I wouldn't really want her to play with that anyway, since she'd break it, but I have no clue what to do with it. I don't really have any place to store it.
So we have been in this house for almost 3 weeks. We still can't even fit one of our cars in our 3 car garage because of the amount of stuff in it. At the rate we're going, we'll have everything in it's place right about the time we're supposed to PCS again. Standard.
5 comments:
Oh my goodness. I have no words for you. I can only imagine just how frustrated you are with your parents.
As far as all the junk you KNOW you don't want. Some places offer to pick it up and haul it away for free for you.
Perhaps you can find a local charity place that does that.
Good luck organizing and getting the house all settled in. I know how hard that can be with 2 little ones running around!
Take 3 slow deep breaths.
Now repeat after me: "It's okay to throw it away."
Have you heard this quote? "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
Your parents obviously do not want the things they sent to you, so do not even bring them into your house. Throw them out or give them away. And as the person above mentioned, there are organizations who will just come and pick up your stuff from the curb for you.
Bahahahahaha. I know it's not nice to laugh, but your post just cracked me up!! It gave me hope for our move next week as we try and squeeze ourselves into a little apartment from a nearly 2,000 sq.ft. house. At least there isn't a surprise shipment of paper goods and expired cleaning supplies coming my way. LOL I'm sure you will have it sorted and thrown out and settled before you know it!! Thanks for the post :)
I agree with Em Monica. And look at it this way, you can count your donations towards a tax deduction. ;)It may seem overwhelming right now but you will get through it.
liz
It all sounds incredibly frustrating and parts sound awfully similar to your last move.
I would go bat-sh** crazy if my mom dumped stuff at my house. That being said, my MIL keeps filling up our garage with Bobby old junk since she is moving out of his childhood home.
In regards to the piano: you obviously have an attachment to the piano your parents are using as a showpiece. You should not wait until you can inherit it, to have one in your own home. If you search the newspaper and craigslist, you will find that piano's sell for very cheap these days. $200. Not much of a market for pianos anymore. You will have to put money into tuning obviously once the piano is moved.
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