Yesterday on my ump-teenth long drive I crossed the 4,000 mile threshold. That's 6,437 kilometers for you foreigners. I've only been in the USA for 8 weeks. That's a lot of miles to add to an odometer. I'm grateful that rental car companies no longer charge for mileage.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Our stuff is finally here...now where to put it all?
After the long wait, our stuff finally arrived in Saudi Arabia last Thursday. I have been living in our house since April with minimal items. Our new house was provided furnished. We were provided with tables, chairs, couches, beds, sheets, towels, a vacuum, and kitchen utensils. However, many times I find the provisions lacking--especially when it comes to cooking. I have been really looking forward to receiving our shipment so the house would be fully stocked. It is a relief to have everything, but I don't enjoy the unpacking.
When we moved to Singapore we were given a 40-foot container as our shipping allotment. At the time we had no real understanding of how much stuff could fit into a 40 foot shipping container. We divided our household up into to groups: 1) our furniture, clothes, and other items we used frequently to be shipped to Singapore (about 2/3 of our stuff), and 2) the remaining items we felt we could live without for three years. These items were loaded up into two moving trucks and taken away to be packed into the shipping container or sent to long-term storage. Once the shipment arrived in Singapore we found out we had used about 26 feet of the 40-foot container. We could have fit much more. Many times we found ourselves thinking, "I wish I just had that [name an item] that we put in storage. It sure would be useful today." Sometimes we ended up purchasing the item we needed and sometimes we just made do without. Overall I believe we were glad we did not bring much more than we did because our Singapore house just did not have a lot of storage space. If we brought more we would not have had anywhere to put it.
As our Singapore chapter ended and we prepared for the move to Saudi Arabia we were informed we would only receive a 20-foot container as our shipping allotment since our Saudi house would already be furnished. Wait a minute, we have to leave Singapore with only half the shipping space we received when we arrived? I asked for clarification to the policy and eventually received authorization for an additional 20-foot shipping container to send to the USA for storage. Then came the hard part--what to take with us and what to send to storage? The furniture, of course had to go to storage. We knew we were still probably over our limit for the Saudi shipment and needed to reduce our Saudi shipment a bit more. Angie did a great job of selling/gifting/trashing many items in an effort to trim down the amount of stuff we had.
Finally the packing day arrived. We loaded the back of our car with our suitcases packed with the clothes we would need for the next two months and opened the house to the packers. After only one day of packing nearly everything was boxed up ready to go. On the second day the two shipping 20-foot shipping containers arrived on one trailer: a blue container bound for Saudi Arabia and a green one for the USA. Our house is on a bit of a hill, so they parked the trailer at the top of our neighborhood circle where the road is level so they could load both sides without the boxes falling. The movers finished packing the remaining items and started loading them into the containers, starting with the Saudi shipment. Because the containers were a little distance from our house, they loaded in a two-step process: first they loaded the items onto a moving truck at our house and then offloaded the truck into the container.
I imagine it must have been hot moving the stuff from the truck to the container. In Singapore it is common to call taxi drivers, grocery checkers, movers, etc. by the name Auntie or Uncle. One of the uncles moving the boxes would take his shirt off during this part of the move. Ashlyn saw the guy with his shirt off and started calling him "naked uncle." When they came back to the house for another load the uncle had put his shirt back on. Ashlyn kept asking where the naked uncle had gone.
Even after all of the great work Angie did to reduce our stuff, we could tell our Saudi shipment was going to be tight. I grabbed some of the larger and lower priority items and set them aside to load last if room remained in the container. After three truck loads the blue shipping container was completely full. We were not able to add back any of the items I had set aside. The packers forced the door closed and then moved on to fill the green container. There was plenty of room for the items headed to the USA--the shippers did not have to work nearly so hard to fit it all in. In fact, they purposely spread everything out across the floor of the container so it wouldn't shift while in transit.
With the house empty, we had a few days remaining before leaving Singapore. We cleaned the house and prepared it to turn back to the landlord. We were also able to enjoy our kids' last days at school. Then Sunday morning we all headed to the airport and parted ways. The family went to the USA to spend summer vacation with grandparents. I returned to Saudi Arabia to work for a couple of weeks before joining the family in the USA.
After two weeks of work I made my trip to the USA. On my second day there I received an email stating that my shipment had cleared customs in Saudi Arabia and was ready for delivery. I was very surprised it made it through customs that fast. I had heard stories that sometimes it takes weeks a shipment to clear customs because they will search the shipment for magazines and videos and remove or black marker over anything they considered inappropriate (basically any woman not fully covered). Our shipment must have slid through without any inspection (once we received the shipment it appeared that not a single box had been opened). I had to ask for the shipment to be stored for a month until I returned to receive it.
Once I returned to Saudi I was able to receive the shipment. It arrived in two moving trucks: one closed box truck and one open flat bed. Both trucks were completely packed--the flat bed truck had boxes stacked slightly higher than the fences on the sides. Within two hours of arriving both of the trucks were completely empty, the bikes were reassembled and lined up in the front yard, the contents of the kitchen boxes had been emptied out onto the kitchen counters and dining table, and the movers hauled all of the trash and empty boxes away. The rest of the boxes were scattered through the house, with some in each bedroom and a large pile of boxes containing toys and office stuff in the center of the main floor.
I was now left all alone with a massive challenge: Put away as much as possible in the next week before leaving for the USA to pick up my family. I started by targeting two areas: the kitchen and living room. One of the things I missed most was my stereo system--the house has been very empty and quiet over the last four months and I was really looking forward to listening to music again. I had identified the boxes containing all of the audio equipment as they were brought into the house and had them set aside so I could easily find them. Once I got the music going then I moved onto the kitchen, which was the second area I had missed moset. After two full days of unpacking and organizing I pretty much had the kitchen and living room taken care of. I celebrated being able to cook again with a fresh fruit smoothie in the recently unpacked blender.
Next I cleared the bedrooms and was able to empty most of those boxes. Finally I opened all of the toy and office boxes in the center of the main floor. I didn't put them all away because it would take too long to make it through them all. However, I did organize them so we could more easily find things as we needed them and so we could live in our house as we continue to unpack the remaining items. After just over a week of unpacking I have opened every box and emptied around 70% of the boxes.
As I unpacked I did come across one item we did not expect to be in our shipment. Apparently one of the Singapore geckos was excited to travel the world and jumped into our shipment. Unfortunately he did not make it--the month in storage was just too long and hot for him. I feel bad for the little guy. Someone should have told him it was not a good idea to stow away. Now I wonder how many more we will find when we finally unpack our USA shipment a few years from now.
When we moved to Singapore we were given a 40-foot container as our shipping allotment. At the time we had no real understanding of how much stuff could fit into a 40 foot shipping container. We divided our household up into to groups: 1) our furniture, clothes, and other items we used frequently to be shipped to Singapore (about 2/3 of our stuff), and 2) the remaining items we felt we could live without for three years. These items were loaded up into two moving trucks and taken away to be packed into the shipping container or sent to long-term storage. Once the shipment arrived in Singapore we found out we had used about 26 feet of the 40-foot container. We could have fit much more. Many times we found ourselves thinking, "I wish I just had that [name an item] that we put in storage. It sure would be useful today." Sometimes we ended up purchasing the item we needed and sometimes we just made do without. Overall I believe we were glad we did not bring much more than we did because our Singapore house just did not have a lot of storage space. If we brought more we would not have had anywhere to put it.
As our Singapore chapter ended and we prepared for the move to Saudi Arabia we were informed we would only receive a 20-foot container as our shipping allotment since our Saudi house would already be furnished. Wait a minute, we have to leave Singapore with only half the shipping space we received when we arrived? I asked for clarification to the policy and eventually received authorization for an additional 20-foot shipping container to send to the USA for storage. Then came the hard part--what to take with us and what to send to storage? The furniture, of course had to go to storage. We knew we were still probably over our limit for the Saudi shipment and needed to reduce our Saudi shipment a bit more. Angie did a great job of selling/gifting/trashing many items in an effort to trim down the amount of stuff we had.
Finally the packing day arrived. We loaded the back of our car with our suitcases packed with the clothes we would need for the next two months and opened the house to the packers. After only one day of packing nearly everything was boxed up ready to go. On the second day the two shipping 20-foot shipping containers arrived on one trailer: a blue container bound for Saudi Arabia and a green one for the USA. Our house is on a bit of a hill, so they parked the trailer at the top of our neighborhood circle where the road is level so they could load both sides without the boxes falling. The movers finished packing the remaining items and started loading them into the containers, starting with the Saudi shipment. Because the containers were a little distance from our house, they loaded in a two-step process: first they loaded the items onto a moving truck at our house and then offloaded the truck into the container.
I imagine it must have been hot moving the stuff from the truck to the container. In Singapore it is common to call taxi drivers, grocery checkers, movers, etc. by the name Auntie or Uncle. One of the uncles moving the boxes would take his shirt off during this part of the move. Ashlyn saw the guy with his shirt off and started calling him "naked uncle." When they came back to the house for another load the uncle had put his shirt back on. Ashlyn kept asking where the naked uncle had gone.
Even after all of the great work Angie did to reduce our stuff, we could tell our Saudi shipment was going to be tight. I grabbed some of the larger and lower priority items and set them aside to load last if room remained in the container. After three truck loads the blue shipping container was completely full. We were not able to add back any of the items I had set aside. The packers forced the door closed and then moved on to fill the green container. There was plenty of room for the items headed to the USA--the shippers did not have to work nearly so hard to fit it all in. In fact, they purposely spread everything out across the floor of the container so it wouldn't shift while in transit.
With the house empty, we had a few days remaining before leaving Singapore. We cleaned the house and prepared it to turn back to the landlord. We were also able to enjoy our kids' last days at school. Then Sunday morning we all headed to the airport and parted ways. The family went to the USA to spend summer vacation with grandparents. I returned to Saudi Arabia to work for a couple of weeks before joining the family in the USA.
After two weeks of work I made my trip to the USA. On my second day there I received an email stating that my shipment had cleared customs in Saudi Arabia and was ready for delivery. I was very surprised it made it through customs that fast. I had heard stories that sometimes it takes weeks a shipment to clear customs because they will search the shipment for magazines and videos and remove or black marker over anything they considered inappropriate (basically any woman not fully covered). Our shipment must have slid through without any inspection (once we received the shipment it appeared that not a single box had been opened). I had to ask for the shipment to be stored for a month until I returned to receive it.
Once I returned to Saudi I was able to receive the shipment. It arrived in two moving trucks: one closed box truck and one open flat bed. Both trucks were completely packed--the flat bed truck had boxes stacked slightly higher than the fences on the sides. Within two hours of arriving both of the trucks were completely empty, the bikes were reassembled and lined up in the front yard, the contents of the kitchen boxes had been emptied out onto the kitchen counters and dining table, and the movers hauled all of the trash and empty boxes away. The rest of the boxes were scattered through the house, with some in each bedroom and a large pile of boxes containing toys and office stuff in the center of the main floor.
I was now left all alone with a massive challenge: Put away as much as possible in the next week before leaving for the USA to pick up my family. I started by targeting two areas: the kitchen and living room. One of the things I missed most was my stereo system--the house has been very empty and quiet over the last four months and I was really looking forward to listening to music again. I had identified the boxes containing all of the audio equipment as they were brought into the house and had them set aside so I could easily find them. Once I got the music going then I moved onto the kitchen, which was the second area I had missed moset. After two full days of unpacking and organizing I pretty much had the kitchen and living room taken care of. I celebrated being able to cook again with a fresh fruit smoothie in the recently unpacked blender.
As I unpacked I did come across one item we did not expect to be in our shipment. Apparently one of the Singapore geckos was excited to travel the world and jumped into our shipment. Unfortunately he did not make it--the month in storage was just too long and hot for him. I feel bad for the little guy. Someone should have told him it was not a good idea to stow away. Now I wonder how many more we will find when we finally unpack our USA shipment a few years from now.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Unpacking
Update from Dad in Saudi Arabia:
I have now spent a full week unpacking. Out of 240 items, I pretty much opened every box, although I left the stuff in about 70 boxes (mostly office stuff and toys) until we have a plan for where to put them. The rest are all put away. Attached is a picture of the packing paper I pulled out of about half of the boxes (I have more packing paper flattened out in a stack behind the table). The empty boxes are all stacked in a big pile upstairs waiting for the kids to build forts. Now, what to do with all this paper?
I have now spent a full week unpacking. Out of 240 items, I pretty much opened every box, although I left the stuff in about 70 boxes (mostly office stuff and toys) until we have a plan for where to put them. The rest are all put away. Attached is a picture of the packing paper I pulled out of about half of the boxes (I have more packing paper flattened out in a stack behind the table). The empty boxes are all stacked in a big pile upstairs waiting for the kids to build forts. Now, what to do with all this paper?
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Overwhelmed in America
I had read about this before but didn't think it would ever happen to me. After all, I'm from America, right? My understanding is that when people from nations with less abundance come to America they can be totally overwhelmed by the amount of stuff. It made sense. Especially after two visits with grandparents to Bali, Indonesia and Hanoi, Vietnam, both much less developed countries. We drove along through the country side and saw shop after shop after shop set up in front of little houses. The shops were just a basic table top display about 4 feet by 3 feet. At the back of the table there would be a shelf of some sort holding a few more items for sale. With the grandparents there to entertain my children I was miraculously left to my own thoughts.
As we bobbed along in our air conditioned/heated tourist vans I began to think of how very, very little the people had and I questioned what I saw trying to reason it out in my Western head. Why not just have a bigger shop? More available products to sell surely means more profit, so why the small shops? In time, my eyes began to extend beyond the shop on the edge of the roadway. My eyes moved out - to the modest shacks they called homes and then to the yards with a single rope hanging the clean laundry for the entire family to dry and the cows in their yards so thin I could see their bones. In time it occurred to me. More products to sell means more than simply having a bigger table to put the items on. More stock means more money to purchase that stock and by the looks of things there wasn't a lot of money to be spending on much more than food for dinner tonight and a few other basic necessities.
Two things caught my American eye that day that triggered those realizations on those trips several years ago. At lots of shops I kept seeing glass bottles of about 1-2 liter size. At first I figured it was water. Nearly every shop had some and they were all at varying amounts of full and it was just a little too brown to be water though it was hard to see at first because they were all set against the upright brown wooden shelves. Then I saw a sign in English somewhere that told me it was gas for sale in those bottles. That gas for the motorcycles, in tiny quantities, was the sole form of transport for the more well to do families.
The other item that opened my eyes that day was when we stopped at a rather large shop next door to a touristy boat ride spot. This shop had 3 long rows of shelves and a roof. I saw a local lady buy a single sample packet of shampoo. For years I had thought of the trash in the streets and the waterways I saw in the countries in Asia and how dirty the places felt. (It's hard to fully blame the individuals since there is no trash collection company coming around in trucks to remove the waste.) I always saw the shops that sold the sample packs of shampoo and was annoyed at them. 'Why don't the people just buy a big bottle and put less waste out into the world," was how my American brain thought. This mother came to the shop, where I was choosing between a large bag of cookies or crackers, a luxury she likely wouldn't be able to afford. She was there to buy shampoo for her family. She picked up two packets, conversed with the shop owner, put one back, paid for a single packet and went home. I had a pit in my stomach. I am quite sure that woman would have done so much more with the money I spent on cookies for my children that day. She left with just one packet of shampoo. That woman would be overwhelmed by the choices and speed and busyness of my America.
I find it odd and yet understandable that I was overwhelmed by the choices in the corner grocery store this weekend. Saturday night I had to buy eggs for Sunday breakfast. One item on the list. I went to the grocery store and as I walked into the store I got this panic feeling. The store was so BIG. My chest started to tighten and I wanted to just run back out the front door. I didn't know exactly where the eggs were in the store and I knew there would be so many choices and that scared me to death. It was a very physical reaction of dread. I wandered a little and found the eggs in the back corner but as I walked back toward the front I got a call to grab one more thing. I wasn't panicking anymore but as I walked up and down the aisles I felt like a stranger in a foreign land. I could no longer walk the aisles and navigate the system like it was second nature. It wasn't obvious where I would find anything anymore. It occurred to me that I most certainly looked lost as I wandered. And that's exactly how I felt. Lost.
I just wanted to return to Singapore. Where I knew how to exist now and I was sad to realize that I am moving on to a new place. A place I will be ultimately more lost than I was in America. A new foreign place where nothing makes sense. Everything is different. Strange. Intimidating. Scary. I guess today I'm feeling a lot of dread. I am not sure if I have the emotional energy to start again. What gives me hope is knowing that as I explore my new space in the universe I will grow and learn about Saudi just like I learned about Asia. I will become enamored with the people, the culture, the religion, the beliefs, the landscape.
As we bobbed along in our air conditioned/heated tourist vans I began to think of how very, very little the people had and I questioned what I saw trying to reason it out in my Western head. Why not just have a bigger shop? More available products to sell surely means more profit, so why the small shops? In time, my eyes began to extend beyond the shop on the edge of the roadway. My eyes moved out - to the modest shacks they called homes and then to the yards with a single rope hanging the clean laundry for the entire family to dry and the cows in their yards so thin I could see their bones. In time it occurred to me. More products to sell means more than simply having a bigger table to put the items on. More stock means more money to purchase that stock and by the looks of things there wasn't a lot of money to be spending on much more than food for dinner tonight and a few other basic necessities.
Two things caught my American eye that day that triggered those realizations on those trips several years ago. At lots of shops I kept seeing glass bottles of about 1-2 liter size. At first I figured it was water. Nearly every shop had some and they were all at varying amounts of full and it was just a little too brown to be water though it was hard to see at first because they were all set against the upright brown wooden shelves. Then I saw a sign in English somewhere that told me it was gas for sale in those bottles. That gas for the motorcycles, in tiny quantities, was the sole form of transport for the more well to do families.
The other item that opened my eyes that day was when we stopped at a rather large shop next door to a touristy boat ride spot. This shop had 3 long rows of shelves and a roof. I saw a local lady buy a single sample packet of shampoo. For years I had thought of the trash in the streets and the waterways I saw in the countries in Asia and how dirty the places felt. (It's hard to fully blame the individuals since there is no trash collection company coming around in trucks to remove the waste.) I always saw the shops that sold the sample packs of shampoo and was annoyed at them. 'Why don't the people just buy a big bottle and put less waste out into the world," was how my American brain thought. This mother came to the shop, where I was choosing between a large bag of cookies or crackers, a luxury she likely wouldn't be able to afford. She was there to buy shampoo for her family. She picked up two packets, conversed with the shop owner, put one back, paid for a single packet and went home. I had a pit in my stomach. I am quite sure that woman would have done so much more with the money I spent on cookies for my children that day. She left with just one packet of shampoo. That woman would be overwhelmed by the choices and speed and busyness of my America.
I find it odd and yet understandable that I was overwhelmed by the choices in the corner grocery store this weekend. Saturday night I had to buy eggs for Sunday breakfast. One item on the list. I went to the grocery store and as I walked into the store I got this panic feeling. The store was so BIG. My chest started to tighten and I wanted to just run back out the front door. I didn't know exactly where the eggs were in the store and I knew there would be so many choices and that scared me to death. It was a very physical reaction of dread. I wandered a little and found the eggs in the back corner but as I walked back toward the front I got a call to grab one more thing. I wasn't panicking anymore but as I walked up and down the aisles I felt like a stranger in a foreign land. I could no longer walk the aisles and navigate the system like it was second nature. It wasn't obvious where I would find anything anymore. It occurred to me that I most certainly looked lost as I wandered. And that's exactly how I felt. Lost.
I just wanted to return to Singapore. Where I knew how to exist now and I was sad to realize that I am moving on to a new place. A place I will be ultimately more lost than I was in America. A new foreign place where nothing makes sense. Everything is different. Strange. Intimidating. Scary. I guess today I'm feeling a lot of dread. I am not sure if I have the emotional energy to start again. What gives me hope is knowing that as I explore my new space in the universe I will grow and learn about Saudi just like I learned about Asia. I will become enamored with the people, the culture, the religion, the beliefs, the landscape.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Unplugged
Ben, Maddie and Jacob have been working on their brag tags for being Unplugged this summer. They are loving it! Here is the picture Ben had to show to prove he went to Cedar Breaks. It’s been a fun program and keeps the kids out of the house and electronics free. They are really motivated to earn the badges too so it keeps them interested.
Good Shooting Form
This cracked me up and I’m so glad I got a picture of it. Ben is just too small for the rifle. His shooting form looks like he’s a cooked spaghetti noodle.
After this one, he tried a pistol and a higher power rifle. I was switching camera cards at the wrong time when he had the shotgun, but boy I missed an awesome video/picture when he tried the BIG gun with some kick. He pulled the trigger, got knocked back just a little tiny bit but nearly ran away from it after he shot it and said it was too big for him. He had us all laughing at his surprised response.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Homeless Travelers
Been back in the States 4 weeks today. Put 2,200+ miles on my rental car since I arrived. Having fun every day with friends and family. Ready for a break from this "vacation" though. We are feeling a bit homesick and yet are homeless. Kids just want a house to call home. Transition isn't our favorite state.
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