Home Depot, Lowe's, Ikea, Target - Oh My!

We have officially moved back into our old but new house in Dilworth! My darling Derek packed and moved our whole condo in the span of 6 days with the help of his younger brother. I didn't get a chance to pack a single item before we left for Utah. To be completely honest, I hate moving. It's for the birds.

Is that a saying? If not, it should be.

So, having cleared the air, I procrastinated and wasn't much of a help. I should not have been surprised at the way I found the house when we got off that jet plane from the West Coast. It wasn't as bad as I had pictured in my head BUT we did look like a house on that show Hoarders. It was ugly. My sweet Derek hates moving as much as I do and I don't know if this is a man-thing or a Derek-thing but he's moved us this way 3 times now and after the last time I told him no more pour moi. I am not moving like this again...........

Here is what happens, instead of getting a zillion cardboard boxes and packing up each room in an organized fashion (i.e. labeling boxes and wrapping all breakables); D likes to take 3 (no more, no less) tuber-ware bins and load them with as much stuff as he can fit in and carry. Steps 2 and 3 involve taking them to our new address and dumping into whatever corner has empty floor space then going back to re-load those same 3 tuber-ware bins!

It gets the job done but the unpacking process is a nightmare! He has now vowed to never move a single bin again and promises to hire a moving crew to pack and move us. I hope that time does not come for another 10+ years.

So, the past week I have been trying to find my sweet bebe in the mess that is our stuff. Poor Van has been a bit cranky since we won't let him down to crawl around and explore. There are too many things lying around that could hurt him. I didn't realize how hard this move would be on him. Especially since I can't explain to him what is going on. So, we're trying our best to get back into his routine. It's been a hard and slow process since I don't have 6 arms and 2 pairs of eyes.

In the process of unpacking, I decided that we did not need so much stuff. Where did it all come from anyway? We usually purge before the move but didn't get a chance to this time so while we're trying to organize our piles we're making more piles of give-aways and trash. Thank goodness the garbage man comes tomorrow because our trash bin is spewing over. Not a good look.

Did I mention that we lost about 700 square feet? And a lot of closet/storage space. I have already taken two full trunk loads of give-aways to Goodwill and there are still piles to go through.

Which leads me to Home Depot, Lowe's, Ikea and Target. I can't tell you how many times we've been to each store looking for odds and ends to get this house together. We're almost there and hopefully we will be back into the land of the living soon! Dear Steph and Phil, how have you two done this 6 times in the last 6 years and with two little ones in tow? You are our heroes!

I'll post pictures when the dust settles. Until then, if you don't hear from me - send help!