Moving (In) Day Blog #24 (11/24/08)

I'm pooped. But very content. Our containers arrived on Friday and we've been unloading a LOT of stuff. As the boxes were stacking up in the front of the house I had serious doubts about it all fitting in--I still have very serious doubts about some of the things I deemed important enough to have hauled 1/2 way around the world (I'm wondering how it was only in August I thought some of these things were so necessary) I think there was a bit of a reaction about not having a lot of those things in Tanzania and not being able to get them. But when I found a bag of cinnamon-scented Christmas pinecones, well, there's really no explanation for that.

We did have 2 containers--one from the States and one from Tanzania--in order to get the majority of our stuff consolidated in one place. Here is my US container.

Here is my Tanzanian container. It is SO. TYPICALLY. AFRICAN.

It is obvious they just chucked everything into the container--no wooden crates to hold things steady--so the stuff rolled around all over the place. It's amazing that nothing was broken! It was also stored for a time in Dar es Salaam, very evidently in a non-climate controlled place. Everything was mildewy.The first load out of the laundry smelled as bad as when it went in...I found some enzyme stuff that you use for cloth diapers and that seems to be doing the trick. Our mattresses, however, are still on the balconies, airing out in the pristine Beijing air. I think they'll be ready to use by tomorrow.

This was Friday afternoon. Truthfully, I left the whole thing at 5:00 to go Tibetan furniture-shopping (you know, a typical every-day kind of thing. And what better way to celebrate getting huge crates of stuff than by going out and, you know, buying some more?)


This is Sunday night. Voila! I can't believe how great it looks! I can't believe how comfortable my couch is! I can't believe how great my TZ stuff looks in here!

It really does feel like home. I don't understand it exactly, but I'm not fighting the feeling. FINALLY, I have a comfortable couch on my insomnia nights. FINALLY, there is soft and comfy carpet for laying on and watching TV. I just LOVE. IT. ALL.

We are having Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday with another new family. Apparently a lot of people go to restaurants, but that just doesn't seem right to me. I am going to be so happy to be eating in my home. I loved the Thanksgivings in Tanzania--warm weather, a place where food was actually secondary to the company--but I'm happy to spend it at my table this year. We thought the containers were still a`week or so away so we started painting last week. You can see where Mark got with the trim when I said, "Yikes, this is so not the color." Of course, I didn't have the paint chip with me when I bought it so I guessed at the right color and I figured, well, that's what I get. Then while Mark was painting I found the chip, and guess what? It's the right color. But oh-so-wrong. Cameron walked in, took one look and said, "Man, that color's sick" so you know it's not working when a 13 year old has an opinion! It's called "Rosebush" and it's supposed to be a taupe with kind of a rosy undertone. It's actually a brownish-muddy mauve. I doubt I'll be able to do anything about it before Saturday, so we'll just have to live with it a couple more weeks.

Stay tuned for Tibetan-furniture-shopping pics. I bought a table for Mark's office (he has the ugliest office in the whole school, where everyone else's is full of great Chinest furniture) and an end table for the house. Tibetan furniture is ornately painted, so a little goes a long way, at least for me.

Oh, and all of this transpired on our wedding anniversary. Twenty-one years. *sigh* Someday I'll get it together. We were robbed last year about a month before our 20th anniversary (we were planning to go to Zanzibar) and we were all too freaked out to leave the kids with anyone, so missed that one, too. Pathetic, really.