We Really Live Here.

Finally, after three months, we really live here.  This past week sealed the deal.

Sunday of last week Enterprise, The Best Kitty Ever, arrived at Narita Airport.  Navigating through the procedures and paperwork unfolded like a scavenger hunt where we were rewarded with our kitty at the end.  He is adjusting well, though he seems a bit older than I remember.  Someone here said her dog was affected similarly, traveling takes a lot out of our little furry ones.  But he is eating well and is as sweet as ever.  He is not using the little carpet pieces I used on the stairs, which is fine because he doesn't seem to have trouble with the smooth tiles; they are still there if he ever chooses to use them.

The Best Kitty Ever.

On Tuesday we received the long-awaited notification of our household goods' arrival and scheduled delivery for Friday.  That morning, Friday the 13th, our temporary furniture was hauled away and a couple hours later the truck carrying our four crates of belongings arrived, three months and thirteen days after being packed up in Texas.

The four Japanese movers were cordial and efficient and the process of checking off item numbers went relatively smooth.  A number of furniture pieces arrived damaged due to how they were loaded into the large, wooden shipping crates and some items (like vintage cabinet speakers) arrived unwrapped when we witnessed them being wrapped in blankets during our pack-out.  We know why this happened though – at the time of our pack-out we still did not know exactly where we were moving which meant that our household goods were packed into temporary storage then re-packed for shipping later.  It wasn't until we arrived that we knew we were staying here near Tokyo, therefore we did not witness the re-packing, which we knew would cause issues later.

Once the movers were done and paperwork was signed we held on to tradition and opened a bottle of sparkling wine, turned on some good music, and got to work.  My husband worked on the entertainment equipment while I unpacked kitchen items and dish pack boxes with breakables.  The only broken glass was a wine glass I really liked but that didn't necessarily hold great sentimental value, those all made it through unscathed.

So most of the weekend consisted of unpacking, organizing, notating damage and taking photos.  As I sit here now, the hubs is putting my desktop computer together because I finally cleared off my desk and shuffled enough stuff around the dining room to make space.  Since this is only a two bedroom house we compromised and my office space will live the formal dining room, a room we've never had before and will require some creative space planning.

Still cooking through the mess.

With the computers and entertainment components set up I feel accomplishment but so much more work remains.  Our new kitchen is half the size of our old one and incorporates the laundry facilities as well.  The pantry organization has stalled until I have space to empty and re-work it.

The largest project is my clothing.  Ei-yi-yi.  I unpacked most of my shoe boxes to check for damage (none!) but my new closet is vastly different than my previous one and the bedroom itself is much smaller as well.  I have boxes and bins of clothes to go through and I cannot put the chore off too long because the room is too small to remain so unorganized.  We also have two closets in the hall upstairs that need serious organization in order to fit health, beauty and linen items still currently packed in boxes.

In all, about half the boxes are emptied, but empty boxes don't necessarily mean the items contained in them are put away in new homes in an organized manner.  Unpacking always gets messier before it gets neater and we haven’t seen the real mess yet.


P.S.: During this past week I was without my laptop computer again.  Turns out the hard drive was going bad which was causing the recent, incessant problems, putting it out of commission.  On Friday, when I went out on a girls' night, the hubs dug through boxes until he found a spare hard drive which he then installed in my laptop and now all is well.  For the time being.  It is an old laptop after all.  But now that my desktop computer is set up it won't be such a tragedy when the laptop goes down again, eventually.


(These photos were taken with an iPhone and are by no means intended to be "real" photos, just snapshots of where I was and what I saw.)