Moving Part III: Gone to Carolina

We're home!! New home, that is. Home sweet North Carolina.

I am very relieved thankful grateful happy to report that the moving truck made it from CA to NC with all our things mostly intact.

We had a small number of broken items... mostly fixable and nothing to cry over, though we will be reporting the broken items to the moving company. There was also some frustration over the timing of the truck's arrival. They had originally told us the truck would arrive on a Monday... and then that got changed to Friday... and it actually arrived on Saturday. Plus it was difficult to get in touch with the company because they were so slow in responding to calls and emails. I get the sense that this is all typical of cross-country movers, unfortunately. But I am brushin' that dirt off my shoulders because what's important is that we made it!

Unpacking has been almost-but-not-quite as horrible as packing was. Man, it is hard to get ANYTHING done around here with these BABIES all over us!! LOL. And although we made an effort to organize things by room when we were packing, things did not end up perfectly sorted... As my friend Jaime put it, "At first everything's all neat and organized... and by the end you're just, like, throwing everything in random boxes!" She nailed it.

We also kept running into roadblocks because of lack of storage furniture. We chose not to pack most of our shelves and storage units because we wanted different ones, but you can't unpack books if you don't have a bookshelf and you can't unpack clothes if you don't have a dresser!!

Slowly, painfully, in halting, partially completed steps, we have managed to accomplish most of the unpacking. The truck unloaded on Saturday night a week ago and sometime around last Wednesday it started to feel like an actual home instead of some kind of homegoods warehouse explosion.

My parents came up for a couple of days to help out while we are getting unpacked and organized. It's so nice that they are just a drive away! (A long drive, but not longer than a day of flying cross-country!)

James is starting work this week. We visited his new lab at Duke a few days ago and met some of his coworkers. Hoping all goes well for him as he starts work!

I am so ready to be *totally done* unpacking and organizing, but I am trying to let myself start to feel settled, even with all our books still in boxes and missing furniture that needs to be bought or built. Some things can wait until January!