Once we returned to the states, there was much to be done, but far more than we planned on. We picked up our car in Texas as well as our dog, which a very good friend had fostered for us for the 3 years we were in Japan. After some visiting with her and some other friends, we were in for a long road trip to Washington state. Once we arrived, we lived in a hotel for about a month while looking for a place to live. We found a home to rent in a decent neighborhood and slept on air mattresses for a week or so while waiting for our household goods to arrive. But those were only the ones from Japan. We had another shipment (the other half of our stuff that we couldn't take to Japan) that would need to be released from long term government storage and delivered to us. So, that was about another month to receive that stuff. When they delivered it, we had them put it all into the garage so that we could go through it a little at a time. After all, we had just been up to our eyeballs in boxes and packing paper and using unopened ones for a desk or table in the midst of the unpacking mess. If you ever wonder if you really need to keep something, just put a date on it and then set a reminder for yourself to go back and look at your items after a year. If you hadn’t used any of it in that year and the only reason you are seeing it is because you had a reminder to do so….well, you might want to consider letting it go.
After three years of, the other half of our stuff, being in storage here in the states while we were in Japan, there was a lot to process. By the time we were done, it was late summer or early fall of 2012 and we desperately needed a yard sale!! One of the last sort of “normal” things we did in 2012.
Til next time….
