The Packing Journey

Why is it that when so many important things are happening in my life- I just don't have time to blog about them?  I wish that I could have written every single day/night over the last few weeks of packing because it has been a journey to remember.  Or maybe one that I would like to forget for a few weeks at least, but one that in the long run, I will want to remember.  It has been an exhausting, challenging, overwhelming journey.  The day after Christmas we started packing and we just finished this Thursday, January 13th, when we loaded up 136 boxes onto a 20 foot container to be sent to the U.S.  And yes, it has taken me a few days to recover and therefore I am just now finding a few minutes and a few ounces of energy to write about it. 

How in the world did we collect so much stuff?  Although I actually hate the process of packing, I welcomed the opportunity to downsize our collection of things!  I think my theme for this year is going to be SIMPLIFY!  I went through every single item that we own and decided if we really needed it.  If we did- I cleaned it and packed it.  If we didn't- I threw it away, sold it or gave it away.  We have thrown out a lot of trash over the last few weeks!  And we had a lot of yard sales!  We had three official ones, in fact.  Until the last official one ended in a downpour and a lot of our stuff, as well as us getting soaked!  Then we got really brave and set our yard sale up on our back porch (at least it is coverd by a roof and the rain couldn't stop us!)  and advertised for people to come just whenever they wanted for an entire week.  And come they did!  They came as we were first waking up in the morning, during lunch, during pack time, during dinner, after we got the kids to bed and they came and came and came.  After a week of hardly being able to get anything else done (although we did sell a lot!), we decided that was enough of the open invitation.  So, we concentrated on packing.  I got so tired of packing!  At first packing was just a big part of every day.  We still did other normal things like run errands, go to lunch with the team and play outside with the kids.  But the last week, we packed from the time we woke up, until it was time to go to bed at night.  And the hardest part was having to tell the kids that we just couldn't play- we honestly did not have the time!  We had to keep promising them that as soon as our stuff was gone- we would turn back into their normal parents who played with them, remembered to feed them at normal times and spent time with them.  I dreamed many nights about sorting through things and packing them away!  It was such a consuming process.  And it zapped every ouce of energy that we had, every single day!

We almost packed Olivia!

Emma and Luana, a friend from church, built a tent in the living room floor with boxes, chairs and blankets.  They had a blast! 

The hardest days, and I think the craziest days, were the two days before the Thursday when the container was supposed to be loaded.  On Tuesday, the Blackmers came and got the kids to keep them for us for the morning so we could pack all day.  The moving company was coming that day to prepare all of our big furniture for shipping.  (International moves are a little more complicating than national ones for sure- everything has to be "prepared" to be in the container for months). 

Here are some of the bigger furniture items that they "prepared" by wrapping them in cardboard.  Emma felt that the boxes needed to be "labeled" with what was inside, so she drew a picture of the furniture that was inside on the outside of the box.  She is a funny little girl!

So, back to Tuesday- Chris and I took advantage of the kids not being at home and we got to work upstairs.  About 30 minutes into it, Chris made a funny noise.  I looked over at him as he said "we need to go to the emergency room- I need stitches."  I didn't believe him at first.  I heard the noise, I could see him holding his hand in his shirt, but I just could not believe that on one of the busiest days of our lives, he had he had just been cut with the box cutter and it required us leaving our house and going to the hospital to wait for who knew how long, to get stitches!  And the moving men were in our house preparing our furniture and we still had to explain to them which pieces to prepare!  I grabbed everything I could think of that we would need for our little trip, told the men the best I could which pieces they needed to work on and off we went.  It just so happened that it had been raining a little earlier in the day, so the roads were a damp.  We were driving down one of the main roads and a huge truck pulled right out in front of me.  I had to slam on my breaks, which locked-up and we skidded to a stop about 2 feet away from this lovely truck.  The cab was full of wide-eyed people (probably about 5 of them and likely with no seatbelts on).  After they realized that I was not going to hit them, they all started shaking their heads in disbelief as if I was the one to blame for almost hitting them!  I had the right-of-way, I was on the main road, they pulled out in front of me!  This is so typical of driving in Paraguay!  No one has any idea who has the right-of-way, so they just do whatever they want and then get mad when they get hit or in our case, almost hit.  Anyway, thankfully we made it to the hospital unharmed (well, except for that gash in Chris's hand). And we were amazed to find that as soon as we walked in, they looked at the blood on Chris's shirt and sent him straight to a room.  We were in with the doctor within 10 minutes!  He only ended up needing 3 stitches on his finger, and, of course, a tetanus shot.  The doctor told him not to use his hand very much.  We told him that we had to have the rest of our house packed over the next few days.  To which he replied to me "Well, I guess you will just have to finish the packing then."  He told Chris that he could get his stitches out within 6-8 days depending on how much he used his hand.  As we were leaving, Chris said "I guess I will be getting them out in about 8 days!"  I hated that he was going to have to use his hand a lot, but the reality was that we didn't have a choice- we both had to work nonstop to be ready for loading on Thursday.  The beauty of the day was that we walked right out of the hospital without paying a penny.  It was completely covered by our insurance!  The rest of the day went fairly well- we worked hard all day long and Chris was able to do pretty much everything he needed to with his other hand.  That night, Chris and I made our lists of everything that we had to get done the next day since it was our last packing day.  And it was a long, long list.  We had it all planned out- Rocio was going to watch the kids and we were going to do nothing but pack, all day long. 

On Wednesday, we both woke up early.  I am not sure if that was because of nerves or because we both just knew that we had a lot to do!  I immediately found a message from Rocio that her mom and grandmother were very sick and she was not going to be able to come.  My attitude went from "let's get going and get this done" to "how in the world are we going to get this done????"  The first hour went fine because the kids were all still in bed!  But then they woke up.  We got through our normal morning routines- juices poured, vitamins taken, everyone dressed, breakfast eaten, etc.  But then, reality set in.  Every time I turned around, Olivia had grabbed a box of something and dumped it all into the floor.  Or Emma and Walker were fighting over who got to play with which toys.  Or they were yelling at me from the bathroom to show me that Olivia had thrown the empty toilet paper rolls into the toilet.  Or someone was trying to convince us not to pack a certain toy because they were still playing with it.  And on and on it went.  And mine and Chris's stress levels started rising quickly.  How in the world were we going to get everything done that had to get done that day?  I did the only thing I knew to do- sent out text messages to the entire team begging for help.  Within an hour- our kids were all at Nora's house for the day, our teammates were bringing us pots and pans and mattresses to get us through the next few days of having no furniture, and new boxes were brought to us- it was amazing!  They all helped us with the things that had to get done outside of the house and Nora kept the kids for the entire day!  All 3 of them!  So, Chris and I were left to pack.  And we packed....and packed.... and packed.  By the end of the day, we were beyond exhausted!  Thankfully, Nora called and had asked Emma and Walker to spend the night with her.  She brought them by the house to get their stuff and they headed back to her house.  She left Olivia with us, but she hadn't had a nap all day. So I fed her, gave her a bath and put her straight to bed.  And we continued packing and working.  Around 9:00 that night, we had just about everything done.  We still lacked 3 dining room chairs, an office chair, a bicycle, a tricycle and a framed picture that was fragile.  We decided to just wait and figure it out the next day.  Chris had to go back to the hospital to get his bandage changed.  I cleaned up our room and made up our mattresses on the floor, took a shower, made some popcorn and got started on the lists that we had to turn in to go with the container.  We had to have a list in english and in spanish with every single box and what was inside of it.  By the time Chris got home and I got our list finished, it was around 10:30.  It had been one long day!  And we were so tired!  And so ready to be done packing!

This was our living room during the crazy packing week.

Thursday was loading day.  Thankfully Rocio was able to come and stay with Olivia while Chris and I finished up the last few items and the rest of our list. 

This was the creative box that our moving guy made for our office chair and 1 lone dining room chair that we could not figure out how to pack.  I hope it makes it there okay! 

We ended up with 136 boxes/items, used around 15 rolls of packing tape, a giant roll of bubble wrap and did a lot of hard work to get to that point!  But, by 10:15am, we were done with our part of the packing!  And we got to just play with Olivia, take pictures and enjoy the rest of the day.  It was a good feeling!

Here are the moving guys bringing out all of the boxes from inside the house so they would have an idea how to load the container.

Here is the big truck hauling our container, parked out in front of our condominium.

 The kids came back to the house with Nora right as the men were finishing loading up the container.  It worked out perfectly because they actually got to see the container and our stuff inside of it.  That way they have a visual of what kind of container our stuff is in, how it is going to get to the port and  how it will get put onto a boat with big cranes and shipped down the river until it hits the ocean. We explained how it will travel all the way around South America and up the side of it until it eventually gets to the US!  They thought that was pretty cool. 

We watched them close the doors and drive down the street with our stuff as we kept yelling "Bye stuff- see you in a few months!  Don't fall in the ocean!"

And then the kids were so excited when they came into the house and saw how empty it was.  I thought it might make them sad, but they were thrilled with the fact that there was an echo when they yelled and that they could run in circles really fast! 

Here is Emma running!

We all went to McDonald's to celebrate!  The kids finally had their parents back!  And we were finally able to do something other than pack!  It was a good day.  We all even got to take naps, which was something that I had not done in weeks! 

And then at dinner time, we had a picnic in the floor because we didn't have any chairs to sit on.  The kids thought that was so much fun! And it was, although eating with a one year old on the floor is not the easiest thing to do.  She kept getting up and running off or trying to dig her little hands into everyone else's food! 

Going back to the basics- it is kind of nice.  And it sure beats packing!