Our Frausted Life

The day finally came for our household goods (HHG) to arrive here in Guam. It was an entire process, truthfully. Our things left our home on May first and didn’t arrive in Guam until the end of June. Everything had to go through customs so that took a little longer. Our things sat there for nearly 2 weeks before they set up a delivery date for our things. Movers came late in the afternoon on Wednesday, July 10 and we were EXCITED! We weren’t happy with the time as they told us they would be arriving early morning, but regardless, it was here! It was raining some off and on so we moved Rosie from our garage so they could use that area for temporary storage and quick moving out of the rain. The movers were very kind, and things were quickly moved in. Most of our boxes we put into one of our spare bedrooms to be out of the way. We decided we would unpack things ourselves rather than have the movers do it. We can’t imagine how much time that would have taken had we had them do that. They did help with bigger furniture and moving things of that nature where we wanted them.

Getting our things was like Christmas day. So many things we forgot we even had! Many items were brand new, thanks to generous friends and family who bought us things off our registry before we left the states. We got to open things straight from the package, brand new, and it was exciting! Especially being in this “new” space, we are enjoying making this our home and a space to feel safe and comfortable.

The boxes and paper have taken over our dining area, for now. It is pretty crazy how much paper is used to wrap things. While we are appreciative of the Texas packer’s gentleness and care of our things, we both agree it was overkill. Our dining area is a place for extra paper, boxes, and any project Syd have going on. Syd has painted an accent wall in our home. She gave 2 nightstands we got from a neighbor a makeover to go with our colors in our bedroom. She’s currently working on scraping the paint off an old bench-like shelf to repaint white (shown above) and possibly put new knobs on it. We snagged a FREE dining room table with 6 chairs that need LOTS of TLC so we’ll be recovering the seats and scrubbing the chairs and table clean. We are just thankful for all these things that were either given to us or we got at a steal of a price. We’re sure it’ll take another month or so before we are fully settled with any remnants of this move completely removed from our space.

With this being our first PCS (permanent change of station), we’ve learned a LOT. #1: when moving OCONUS (outside the continental United States), they use 200lbs of packing paper. Literally found a house shoe wrapped like it was fine China. I mean, thanks, but let’s save our tress. #2: Carefully decide whether you really want movers to unpack you or not because paper and cardboard will be your new best friend if you do it yourself. We have enough to make an incredible, sturdy dining room table out of it all . #3: check every box for anything broken or missing – just know you have 180 days to claim. #4: We’ve GOT TOO MUCH stuff. We have about 15 boxes of just clothes (hanging clothes included) and 15 boxes of crafting/holiday decor. We will absolutely PURGE before we leave here!

We are looking forward to finally being settled very soon. We’ll update you all when that time arrives!