Boxes of Wonder

Don’t fall off your Ikea chair, I’ve found time to blog! Welcome all…

The back story:

Our current living situ: We took up the offer to rent from friends of friends for 3 months because a) we hadn’t found or bought our house and needed somewhere to live and b) because we just love temporary abodes. In the end, we did find a place to buy and we could exchange just 2 days after we arrived, but we’d already agreed to rent. Considering we pretty much had no furniture and the kids don’t like sleeping on the floor in the middle of Swedish winter, renting was a great option. We had planned to renovate during that time and to start setting up home. The renovation plans are taking much longer than we expected so we decided just to move right in, which we are busting to do.

So the last two weeks has been all about dashing off to the house, when one isn’t working or kid wrangling, to unpack box after box. We have 30 boxes that we shipped from Sydney, 5 suitcases and multiple boxes that were held in storage from when we sold our previous Stockholm apartment.

The actual story:

All our crap on its way down to Stockholm

In 2015 we sold our beloved Stockholm apartment because a) with the addition of the surprise baby we would need extra space in any case and b) we planned to use the gains from it to buy a house in Sydney. TSH went back to Stockholm for 3 weeks over the summer and packed up all of our things.

I was very concerned with this situ, having to give up control of what we would be keeping or throwing out. To not be there in person, to not know what was going on. I prepared a 2-page document which I sent to TSH and his mum, with instructions about which dish was a christening present and which were the dishes from St.Vincent de Paul.

Prior to leaving for the trip, I had given STRICT instructions, that he was to get rid of most of it; sell, donate, give away, just get rid of it. When he arrived in Stockholm, I kept giving him the same instructions, ‘just get rid of it’. Who knows when we would be needing it? Most of it was second hand and chipped, it would just get mouldy and his parents would have to store it all. If it wasn’t knitted by a great-grandmother who miraculously survived WWII, then chuck it out.

He’d send me a picture with an object with a ?? and I’d text back, ‘X’, denied, he’d send me another one, and I’d say ‘X”. What was left was taken up to our family cabins in the north of Sweden, for my parent-in-laws to store.

The weekend before last, my wonderful parents-in-law drove all our boxes down and I started the job of unpacking. I was pretty excited to see, the few small things we had remaining from our old house.

SO THEN YOU CAN IMAGE MY SURPRISE WHEN I FOUND:

• Our shower curtain
• Half a roll of baking paper
• Some leftover clingwrap
• An empty box of matches
• An ABBA Museum fridge magnet
• Toothpicks
• Padlocks without keys
• Cables for the stereo we owned 9 years ago
• The stereo we owned 9 years ago
• A bag of elastic bands
• I think you get the drift

Unpacking the elastic bands

Apparently I’m married to Helen Keller. Didn’t hear A WORD of my instructions. Baring furniture, I’d say that he decided to keep the ENTIRE CONTENTS of our home. CAN YOU BELIEVE THE CHEEK?  Went on his merry packing way. COULD.NOT.BELIEVE.IT. Didn’t know whether to hug him or slap him. Husbands who don’t listen. Well there’s a deep pool of blog content right there.

Of course, seeing as though we are back now and absolutely need everything, I’m very happy. But still annoyed. But very grateful for all our old crap. But still, a little bit annoyed.

Anyhoo, this week we have been living here in our new home with ALL our old stuff!!! Couldn’t be better.

Full report to come…. but like really soon. Not like last time.