Getting settled into our new house has become the bane of our existence for the last few months. It’s sort of like a new part-time job. One with crappy hours and no pay, and one that seems to have no end. There are several factors that have lead to this move taking much longer than it should have: 1. The remodel isn’t finished so we still have several unfinished projects 2. The fact that we only moved a few houses away means that we grossly underestimated the magnitude of this move 3. We both have jobs, and 4 kids, and were strapped for time even BEFORE adding this move to our plates. The result of these three things means that we have been living in a sort of chaos limbo in which we spend every free moment trying to get the house in order, each week finding that we didn’t have the time to unpack/organize/finish projects. We had about two weeks where we lived in blissful denial. We moved over all the big furniture, and left behind the random piles of miscellanea one accrues after ten years and four kids in one house. But alas, a new tenant was coming so we had to frantically pack up the random crap that was too important to sell at a garage sale but not important enough to move in a moving truck. We had piles like this all over the old house: 
These belonging are still in boxes in the garage. Of course, it’s easy to say that this is the stuff you don’t need UNTIL YOU NEED THAT STUFF. A few things I’ve needed and couldn’t find among the haphazard boxes this week:
- paper
- pens
- a stapler
- my printer cord
- the textbooks for the class I teach
- my headphones
- the book I bought for book club
- advil
Every day I think I will go into the garage and make some progress on those boxes, and every day life gets in the way and no progress is made. In some most cases when I can’t find something, I just run to Target and buy a new one instead of having to search through the dreaded boxes. I am hoping this weekend we can tackle unpacking once and for all. But I’ve been saying that for the better part of a month Then there is the kitchen. The countertops took MUCH LONGER than we expected to arrive, and the sink, range, and dishwasher could not be installed until they arrived. Which means we had no running water or means to cook in our kitchen for two months. We washed our dishes in the bathroom sink: 
We became adept at “dorm-style” cooking, using a George Forman grill, a hot plate, and our microwave.
Finally, a few days ago, our beloved countertops arrived. 
We are still awaiting a plumber to install the faucet, but look! I COOKED EGGS ON MY NEW COOKTOP!
Progress, I suppose.
