We're in Our House!

We're in our house, we're in our house, we're in our HOUSE!!!!

October 22 was move-in day.  I took the little boys to a babysitters' house so we could have some time without them underfoot.  The men were maybe halfway unloaded when I brought Lucan and Zaden home, and we put Zaden down for a nap, so that helped a lot.

The next few days were a blur of opening boxes, sorting, organizing, and a bit of lamenting, such as, "Why did we bring that?!  We can't use it here!" or "Oh, if only we hadn't put _____ into storage!"  But overall things began finding their new home quite nicely.  It didn't take long to set up the kitchen; I AM glad I put a number of bulkier items into storage.  We have a good-sized hutch from the housing warehouse, plus my grandmother's china hutch, so we're able to make the items I did bring fit pretty well.

I stole the two bookshelves formerly used to hold our kids' books and Sonlight books and put them in my pantry.  Most of Ted's and my books we left in storage, bringing only the kids' and Sonlight books plus our absolute favorites and ones we hadn't yet read but wanted to.  So our books fit nicely on the two shelves Ted built soon after we were married.

As an aside...I shouldn't assume that you already know this, because I didn't before we came!  Italian houses generally have no closets, cupboards, or built-in shelves: thus the need for me to steal bookcases. :-)  We are issued one wardrobe per person, plus an extra one for the active-duty member for uniforms.  So yes, that is NINE wardrobes, folks!  Only two were delivered; the rest will arrive this coming week.  Those will hold our linens plus games, coats, anything else that would normally be in a closet.

Ted had the week off to help, and then he had to leave bright and early Sunday, October 28, for an exercise in Estonia.  I know he hated to leave us with things pretty much in chaos, but I assured him we would be fine...

(To be continued!)