My couch smells funny after its 2 month trip across the Pacific...

That will be my one and only complaint about the whole weekend that was moving in (part 2) for me! It's just that I'm sitting here on it while I type this. :)

As I told just about everyone I emailed this week, multiple times, my HHG (that's Army for household goods) arrived on Friday! I, sadly, don't have too many pictures of the procedure of actually moving my stuff in. It started with me meeting the movers outside (in the frigid windy-ness of a 40 degree day...not complaining, just a little bit of back-story in explaining the pic above). There were three large crates with "Ms. Kristina Kelly...Destination: Taegu" stamped on the outside. Pretty cool in a very official kind of way, but also AMAZING in that all my stuff fit into these three tall wooden boxes. So, I approved that the crates belonged to me and that they appeared not to have been already opened. Then the men sent me back upstairs to my 15th floor apartment. 

Then the fun began. The man in the pic above is actually one of the movers, standing OUTSIDE one of my windows. They removed the window frames/glass and the screens to stand out on my little gravel ledge and man the boxes that were LIFTED to my apartment window. I kid you not. They have this amazing raising platform/pallet on which they hoist stuff up and in. No elevators required! I've seen it in-process in my complex, but figured someone was moving in a piano (yes, that is where my head went)! But I wasn't able to get back downstairs to take a pic of my move/this crazy contraption because my movers kept me BUSY! They ran boxes in from the window, calling out the numbers taped on each carton, while I checked off the inventory list...and while we ALL unpacked (even Furgie "helped")! 

Now, the movers' version of unpacking is a bit different from an owner's version...

...but again, NOT complaining, because they also hauled away all the boxes (and there were 107 of them, to be precise) to a recycling center, saving me a bijillion trips downstairs! 

I checked the inventory at the end of the morning - it all took only 2.5 hours - and signed off on the total of 1.5 TONS of my stuff (3,205 lbs...), I am a little ashamed to say. I looked all around me and, honestly, felt a little weird. I mean, here's all my stuff - some I've had with me since college and DC, some acquired because of/during my marriage, some very recently for my short-lived "transition" place - now here in a home where I've been without for over a month. And by without, I mean a bed, a pillow to sit on in an empty living room, plastic dishes and utensils, a smattering of work clothes that I've overworked into different combinations, and instant coffee (and, ok, my new 42" TV and blue-ray player, but only 1 DVD to watch!). :) I guess I was just a little shocked to a) go from sparse to a full house in 2 hours, and b) see all my Chicago belongings here on a new continent. But it IS wonderful to have little bits of "home" here in all my newness. Crazy, and good...which I guess IS my life these days:) 

So, while there are still pictures to be hung, laundry to do, and re-organizing multiple times, all the boxes are gone, everything's unpacked, and, I suppose, I'm home! At least for another year and change:) 

Come visit!