We're moved in (well, sort of, kind of)

It happened.  The move that is.  We packed up our belongings and hauled them 964.4 miles (door to door) from Florida to Ohio.  The sixteen foot truck contained possessions for four humans and four cats. It was a very challenging day, especially since we had originally planned it to be a two day trip. One hour into the trip Jack (our long haired Maine coon) decided that traveling was not for him and had a, well, we will say it made the rest of the trip offensively odoriferous. And it meant that the first thing we had to do before letting him free in the house was give him a bath.  I still have wounds from where he decided to stick his fangs into my arm.

When I decided to do "living with less" I hadn't quite banked on not having furniture.  We only moved our beds, one dresser, my sewing machine table (the one that holds the sewing machine not the one I would use to cut fabric on), and the television stand.  No chairs, no tables, no couches, or dressers other than the one mentioned.  Our intention is to buy new here.  Or gently used (which would be nice considering the price of furniture).  We have been here just over a week and we are still using the folding chairs and tables borrowed from the spouse's work.  It is functional, but certainly not comfortable.  You can't flop in a folding chair.  You can't curl up in a folding chair (unless you are under the age of four and we are all beyond that).  You can't lounge in a folding chair.  You can simply sit.  And sitting for more than an hour is uncomfortable.

Herein lies the problem.  I want nice flowing lines in soft colors that have cool fabrics (think cotton or linen) and what we keep finding are overstuffed fluffy things in browns.  I don't want heavy dark colors, but the only places we can find lighter colors tend to be places that are ridiculously expensive.  I guess only designers use pretty colors and the furniture made for people who don't want to spend $2500 on a sofa are relegated to brown, black, black-brown, olive green or some weird shade that may have a blue hue to it, but really looks quite dullish gray green.  Ick.  What I am afraid is going to happen is that I am going to become so uncomfortable sitting in these (explicative explicative explicative) folding chairs that I will settle for something that is neither beautiful or what I want.

And let's talk about clothes.  I have no dresser or chest of drawers.  That means some of my clothes are still sitting in boxes.  I have most of my clothes hanging in the wardrobe that came with the house, but everything else (underwear, t-shirts, socks, pajamas) are still in boxes and poor spouse hasn't even gotten to hang up his clothes yet.  I keep thinking I am going to take pity on him and do it for him, but then I change my mind and think he should to it himself.  He is so used to living out of a suitcase that he probably hasn't even thought about the fact that he has an entire closet all to himself (well, except the bottom of the closet where my shoes are neatly lined up on my shoe rack).  Each morning I become more agitated at not being able to easily find clothes to wear.  I'm so tired of digging through boxes to find things. 

In the organizing front, I have begun a routine that I hope I can continue doing.  I get up each morning and unload the dishes, start a load of laundry and do a quick tidy through.  I want to get to a point where each day has a specific area or task that I concentrate on.  For instance on Fridays I do all the sheets in the house and clean the bathroom.  I need to pull out my Organized Simplicity book and see what the author has as examples to get me started.  It is difficult adjusting to new routines and I'm not just talking about housework.  The garbage runs on a different day and the mail comes at a different time.  Sometimes I feel like I am walking around in a fog because things are so different here.  The plants are different, the landscape is different, the road signs are different (Ohio goes a little sign crazy warning you about everything from "hidden driveways" to "snow streets"), the stores are different, and brands in the stores are different.  The one thing I am thankful for is that my new knitting group meets on Mondays, which is the same.  But even my new knitting friends are a little different (in a good way).

Oh and if anyone has a good recipe for a cleaning product that will get an entire pan of Bourbon Chicken sauce off hard wood floors please let me know.  
 

Time to panic

Well, no, not really, but it feels that way.  Because of a deadline that the spouse has at work coupled with a staffing issue we have had to move our date up a few days for departure.  Which means that I have four fewer days to get things done.  My list is ever growing.  I would have thought that my list would get shorter as I got closer to exit date, but it just grows and grows.  I keep finding little things that need to get done such as finding a place to dispose of all the full sharps containers that the spouse was supposed to dispose of as he filled them but instead collected them.  Now I have something like 30 containers that need to be properly disposed.  There is a number I can call according to the state's website, but no one is answering yet this morning. 

The worst part of this moving process is getting rid of the cluttery things that are getting in the way of real packing.  For instance my desk has a broken tape dispenser (why?), an old hymnal (I'm not religious so again, why?), a bunch of cords, a painting I don't want and a set of books and some old work out holey socks.  And receipts from who knows what (or when).  Today's task is going to be tackling the old office area.  It's full of much of the same stuff that is on my desk.  It is going to be a long day and I can't put these things off any longer. 

I did promise that as I tried various cleaning techniques I would respond back.  This past week I have used two different natural cleaning techniques with remarkable success.  The first was a kitchen spray made from 4 oz. of white vinegar, the juice of one lemon and the rest of a 20 oz. bottle of water.  I poured it into an old spray bottle and it has worked quite well as a general kitchen spray.  Ass well as the Method kitchen spray I have been using but at a fraction of the cost.  The other thing I tried was a paste of baking soda and lemon juice on my flat top kitchen stove to clean it and it did a very good job.  It also smelled good, so that was a bonus.  I wish I had taken before, during and after pictures, but I forgot.  I've been pinning tons of these ideas on Pinterest.  That place is addictive, but I'm trying to limit my time on there as I just have so much to do.

I haven't forgotten about this blog, I just haven't had the time to sit down and pen out any coherent thoughts.  Keep checking back, though.  If I get a moment or two I might pipe in with something.  Until then know that I am just horridly busy.