Moving Week: Day 1

We officially took over our new rental house today, and after weeks of anticipation for moving day, I have to say that it was a bit anticlimactic. Not bad, but not very exciting either.

We started off the day well – J got to Skype with his mom in Kansas, and I got to Skype with Sorenne, Amy, and Doug in Australia.

As soon as we were done, we packed up a carload of stuff from the hotel, and brought it over to the house, full of excitement. I was happy to see that all of our things except the suitcases we brought on the plane fit in J’s little work car.

When we got to the house, we were pleased to find it clean, cute, and neat, like we remembered. However, the lounge (living room) seemed smaller than we remembered, and we were suddenly worried that the couch from our lounge set wouldn’t fit. After all the fuss about finding the best deal on a used set we liked, we both felt utterly deflated at the idea of facing returning it and finding a new one. We measured the room, headed back to the furniture store, and found that it will fit. Just barely, but we’re happy with that!

Quite relieved, we took a break and went to the Whanganui Festival of Cultures for a bit. I will write about that and put up pictures later. My camera cord is at the house, and I’m at the hotel, so I can’t do it just now.

Next, we went shopping for the last few things that we needed before we were ready to start living in the house: a mattress cover, silverware, and dishcloths. After ruling out options in several stores because they were made in China, we ended up at Warehouse, which seems a bit like Walmart, and is therefore not our first choice for anything. Even worse, as we looked at mattress covers, we discovered a problem. Turns out, King Single does not mean a King size bed at all, but a size in between a single and a full. When we looked at sheet sets, King Single sets came with one pillow case, while King set came with two, so we thought that that was the “Single” part. We should have realized this, but we were already confused about sizes, because a King here is what we would call a Queen in the US, and a Queen here is a US full. In addition, all of the measurements are in centimetres (or millimetres), which I find hard to translate into real sizes in my head.

As you might have surmised, we bought King Single sheets for our King bed. I have already unpackaged and washed them, because I was eager for them to be ready to put on. Unfortunately, all that means now is that we can’t return them. We had to set out looking for sheets again, which we hate, because they are so expensive here, and we wanted to be done shopping. Fortunately, the previous tenant in our house left a Single bed, and we’ll just tuck in the extra on the sheets we had, so we can use them in the spare bedroom. So there’s a silver lining there, and we did find a real King sheet set, so that’s done.

Another frustrating thing is that after all of our efforts, we ended up with sheets and silverware Made in China. Yuck. Eventually, we intend to replace them with better ones and donate these to a Hospice Shop, so someone else can enjoy them and give money to a good cause, but they will do fine for the moment. I just wish we could have given our money to someone who is not selling cheap Chinese stuff. Next time.

Having taken care of all this, we came back to the hotel to relax, which has been nice, but since we’re still at the hotel, it doesn’t feel much different that pre-moving day.

I will have to reframe and think of this as moving week. We will take the rest of our things tomorrow (Sunday) and do a bit of cleaning. Half of our furniture will be delivered and the Internet will be set up on Monday. We will check out of the hotel Tuesday morning, and sleep in the house for the first time Tuesday night, and then the rest of our furniture will be delivered on Wednesday. I think that this extended moving week will be good in many ways, because we can organize things as they come an not feel overwhelmed. The downside is really just about my impatience. I want to be moved in and enjoying our new house NOW!!

Tomorrow is a new day, and we will get closer to that goal. In the meantime, it’s tea and card playing for the evening. J and I are learning two-person versions of Rook, and having lots of fun, even in the hotel. J