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Monday, November 30, 2015

Weekend Recap: A whole lot of boxes

This year I celebrated Black Friday by dressing in black and mourning the fact that we would spend the foreseeable future unpacking. 





Don't get my wrong, I LOVE our new house and am so happy to be reunited with our belongings after their voyage from Alaska; I'm just not thrilled at the prospect of unpacking from now until forever. I've seen beautiful mountains and they are not made at cardboard. 



After lots of work this weekend, we are finally making a dent in the boxes. Not to be confused with the dents the movers made in the boxes and every piece of furniture we own. No really. Our stuff has never looked worse. I'm really perplexed as to how everything could be so damaged when they used 5 pieces of paper to each item. We're in for a long process of paperwork, but fingers crossed we should compensated for the damage. What's a huge gouge on a headboard run these days? 

I'll also be getting to go on a shopping trip since the only box that didn't make it was my shoes. Oh well. Some of my heels probably needed replacing anyways. 

Besides unpacking, we spent our weekend watching football. Our cable provider can't make it out until next week (which is mostly disheartening because of all the good holiday movies I'm missing) so we watched games at wing places near where we live.  I'm ok with not having anything buffalo flavored for a while. Friday night's game was terrible 1) because my team lost and 2) because Buffalo Wild Wings soft drink machine was down. We take Diet Coke very seriously in the Wells house. 


I'm hoping to be done unpacking tonight and then be able to focus on fun stuff like decorating over the next few days. We'll also make it a priority to repaint as the previous owners had a love for bold colors (looking at you lime green and brown dining room).






Thursday, November 26, 2015

What Where They Thinking: Movers Edition

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
I'm still trying to come to terms with the weather in Texas and 90% humidity and 80 degree temperatures aren't helping.

It was great to get to spend the holiday with family. And even better to get to eat my mom's cooking again. Hooray for family and good food.

I represented Alaska during my time in the kitchen with this cute apron my mom bought on a trip years ago. 


My favorite part of the day was probably when my grandma decided to go lay in my nephew's hammock. She's usually not one for adventure. It became even more funny when my nephew got in it with her. 


Nathanial and I headed back to our house (the one we bought in Texas, closed on earlier this week and I still haven't blogged about) to start going through the sea of boxes that the movers brought yesterday. This move is proving to be much worse than any other so I'm sure this will be the first of many posts  on the subject. 

There were several moments in the midst of unpacking where I wondered what the movers had been thinking. 

Here are a few:
- Moving policy said no liquids but they packed a scrubber brush FULL of dish soap. I'm glad there were 5 pounds of paper to absorb the blue Dawn that leaked everywhere. 

- They put a painted canvas (a one of a kind masterpiece might I add) paint side closest to the cardboard. With sharp objects in the box. 

- They packed the racks to our kitchen sink. The one that's still in our Anchorage house. 

- They packed paper napkins and a plate holder together. 


- They packed a beverage dispenser and Pyrex dish inside a laundry basket. This is especially impressive considering each of those items had been in a different room. 


This is only a few boxes in. There's no telling what else I'll find.

Tomorrow you can find me Black Friday shopping in boxes. Remembering the stuff I already had and figuring out where it goes. 

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Embracing the Silence

This weekend I ran my fourth half marathon. Life right now feels like a continual state of running a marathon so I thought I might as well get a medal out of it. 


We started the weekend by attending the wedding of one of Nathanial's good friends. It was at a beautiful ranch so we got to spend a few days hanging out with guys from Nathanial's childhood and enjoying the outdoors. There was a lot of laughter and not much sleep. 



Once the bride and groom made their exit, we started our trek to Oklahoma. We drove through the night which involved lots of singing and Diet Coke. 

We got in a few hours of sleep and then headed off to the race. It was a brisk morning for the Oklahomans but I was in heaven with the cooler weather. 

I noticed before the race started that my music didn't seem to be playing correctly. I didn't give it much thought since the event was pumping in loud music at the start line.  But when the gun went off and I could only hear the background track, I knew I was in trouble. I found a position that the headphones seemed to work normally in but that was only if I didn't move which proved problematic while running. At one point I tried to forcefully keep the headphones in position but that resulted in the jack breaking off inside my phone and the rest of the headphones being in separate pieces.

Nathanial offered me a new set of headphones when he found me on the course around mile 2.5. He was even sweet when I said I needed his phone instead. I had just turned on the Pandora Spinning station when his phone jumped from 30 to 1% battery. I gave up and decided to embrace the silence. The route was beautiful and there were enough spectators to keep it interesting. The early miles flew by but around mile 9 it got brutal. That could have something to do with the fact that my legs decided they were done around that point too. I ran through my ever growing to do lists and did lots of praying and soul searching and finally the finish line appeared in view. 

I didn't have any goals for this race outside of finishing. I took some (a lot) of time off of running at the advice of the physical therapist I visited for leg and foot pain. I only started running again after moving back to Texas and most mornings didn't go much further than a mile.  Three weeks of one-milers and three hours of sleep and I still made it to the finish line. That's a big success to me even if it meant my worst time ever. 

The course had quite a few hills but it's absolutely a race I would do again. I had so much fun - silence and all.

Oh and the start line had confetti canons. It was everything I thought it would be. I need more confetti in my everyday life.

 

 




Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Changes

I started to write several times since my last post but got overwhelmed thinking about where to start. So much has happened in the last few weeks. We left Alaska and moved back to Texas where we've been staying with my incredible brother and sister-in-law who have graciously allowed us to live with them for a few weeks.

It still doesn't feel real. Probably because I only have 10 shirts to choose from (thanks hubby for giving me a hard time about packing) and because it's hard to find a routine when you're sharing a car and working remotely.

I'm still amazed at everything we have been able to accomplish in such a short timespan. It's been a whirlwind but I wouldn't trade it. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't thrilled about moving to Alaska. I had no idea what life there would look like. I also had no idea how much I could love a place until we found out we were moving and would have to leave Alaska. I am forever changed because of my time there. It was a more incredible experience than I could ever have imagined. In some ways I'm disappointed to be back from what seemed like the grand adventure of a lifetime (I'm looking at you humidity and traffic) but mostly I'm excited. Excited to see what this next chapter holds. I'm also excited about the Mexican food and family time.