Move-In Monday!

After a weekend trip home for a family Christmas party, I hit the road Monday morning with my best helpers, Mom, Grandma B and Tess. We stopped along the way to buy Mr. Clean in bulk and enough drawer paper for the entire kitchen.

Keep in mind, it was Move In Day, we didn't arrive at the house until an hour past when the movers said they could initially be arriving, and there was still painting, cleaning and plenty of other things to do! I thought it was exciting! Others found it stressful.
My kitchen was chaos but my mom was a trooper and dove into the task that no one else wanted: lining all kitchen cupboards and drawers.

Grandma B mopped all the floors and proceeded to wash everything else in sight.

Tess and I enjoyed some sister bonding time inside the spare bedroom closet while we painted the walls, the ceiling (on accident) and even ourselves.

Then this Bathroom Bleaching Queen moved onto the spare bathroom, in order to allow me "a good, long, soak that night."

Clean Blinds!!! Thanks to all three of my helper's joint efforts.

The good news is that we still found time to consume my mom's amazing, warm, melt-in-your-mouth blueberry scones topped with lemon curd. Applause for you, maMa! Your breakfasts make me want to be a glutton. 

Isn't my sister beautiful?! How she manages to look so cute, even when covered in grey paint, will forever blow my mind...
Somewere in the midst of our cramming-to-beat-the-movers craziness, the TV guy showed up. Next, I glanced out my window and a trench was being dug through my already muddy backyard.

Then I saw this out the front window.

The truck had arrived.
Then came the internet guy.
Our house was a hoppin' place!
The moving began and it went something like this...
Endless boxes and pieces of furniture came in through the front door. (We turned the heat completely off. It was brrr!) The movers would call out the number on the object they were holding and Brian would mark it off on the sheet they'd given him. They called Brian 'Boss' and 'Bingo Master' all day. At one point they brought in one of our camping chairs, set it up in the middle of the living room and said, "Here you go Boss, here's your bingo chair."

Once all of our stuff had made it into the house, garage, backyard...etc. the moving guys assembled any furniture that they had unassembled back in Vancouver. And then they were off!

This was what our bedroom looked like when I decided it was time to call it a night...

And this was the state of our bathroom when I woke up the following morning...

But my kitchen looks like this!

I love how the drawer liner looks with my old bowls!

Still three days later, I don't know where most things are but everything is beautifully put away in what I don't doubt my grandma, or my mom, or my sister deemed the perfect place. For that I am very grateful.

Thank You, Thank You, Ladies! This house would still be a freakshow, had it not been for you, your generosity and all your hand's, knee's and gas tank's hard work.

I've been doing some things...

Because we are facing the possbility of yet another move in our near future, I've been doing some things...things that aren't fun to do. Atleast not if you're me and you prefer residing in Meganville over living in reality. This past weekend I had Brian bring home some boxes from work. I completed a closet cleanse. I cleaned out a wreck of an office dresser. I cleaned/organized our clothes dresser. (Fortunately this dresser wasn't as bad as the first.) I've even started a to-be-donated pile...which has grown into multiple piles. Mmm, progress! (Mom, you ought to be proud!) Brian even told me he was going to help by tackling one of the filing cabinets. I was thrilled! BUT did he do this to make our possible move easier? Yeah right. Rather, he was motivated by a problem, there was paperwork inside that needed to be located. I wasn't aware that "filed' papers could require such effort to locate but that was before I saw what filing meant to Brian.

I was so baffled when I saw the contents of the below filing cabinet that I went to get my camera. Blog post inspiration! How he managed to look a little proud [PROUD!] in this pic,  I'll never understand...

In addition to our our joint attempt at organization, we went to Costco to pick up a bunch of pictures I had printed. It didn't help the cause of cleaning, organizing and minimizing. In fact it created a new problem, I now have more pictures than I know what to do with. At  first I was determined to place them throughout the house without having to purchase anything additional in which to display them. I even resorted to pasting them in Brian's "classroom," on his beloved iMac.

But eventually I ran out of options and the unruly voice within me chimed, "Just go shopping, maybe you'll find some irresistible frames that need a cozy home." "Oh, but I shouldn't," I replied, "that would only undo what I've already done." It's the same every time so I try to resist the temptation. Once I see them and decide they're perfect, I never have the heart to leave them on those cold, heartless shelves surrounded by all the other shivering frames longing for a happy home. Oh c'mon, I had to have something to look forward to through all_this_cleaning! So yes, we went shopping and yes, I bought more frames. What can I say, this frame fetish is really something, it leaves me practically powerless. But it's ok because now my pictures are happily showcased in their newly adopted frames and our next home will simply have MORE FRAMES! Oh, and one of them is a gift...so the hubs can't hold that one against me. :)

Blog post Summary:

Let's be real, my house isn't always this under control...

 Right now it looks more like this...

As you can see, dusting joins filing on the list of Things We Dread To Do.

The good news is that my closet looks like this...

...while Brian's looks like this...

I think it's safe to say, he's got some catching up to do. ;p

I'm just thankful it has a door so I can shut it if I don't want to look at the inside...that is, if it will even shut... :S

The finished result:

Two dressers, one closet, and one filing cabinet have been conquered.

One batch of newly printed pics and a few new frames have been purchased.

In Meganville, this adds up to 4 extra large steps forward and some might say, 2 itsy bitsy steps backward. Not so bad, if you ask me.

Our house is now cleaner, better organized and cuter than it was just last week. Go Us!