Whirlwind

We have slept in a hotel 15 days of this month so far. That, my friends, is too long without being in your own bed! We have had teams here for most of the month and then last week we painted our new house and moved furniture from a friends house to our new one. Finally, we are done with house stuff for a few weeks! (I hope) Oh, the stories I have to tell.

As I related before, painting our own home is dumbfounding the people in our new city. But what shocked them even more was walking in and seeing my two kids painting with us. They didn't know what to say or do!

On that note, it is perfectly acceptable for people to just walk into our new home, look around, make comments, and sit and watch for long lengths of time. Comment, sigh, and sit, smoke, and watch. I wanted to hand them a paint brush and ask them to help, but that wouldn't have happened. I did keep having to tell our observers not to touch the walls, because they would want to see if it was still wet or not. You will be happy to know that our landlords like how we have painted the house, even though our schoolroom is bold yellow and hannah's room is lime green! The guy from the paint store came up to see what we had done and said, "People here wouldn't dare do this to their home!" Should I take that as a compliment? However, he did say he liked it.

I would also like to say how proud I am of my kids! They were so great helping us paint and with some instruction actually did a good job! We couldn't have painted the whole house in 3 days without their help. I had bought brand new movies for them to watch while we painted, but they ended up only watching one the last day while we were doing touch-ups. I love my big kids!!

After day 3 of marathon painting, we loaded up and drove 2 hours away to another small town. I haven't related this yet, but we were abundantly blessed by some friends who have left the country for good, leaving us everything in their home. Our current apartment is completely furnished, but our new one is completely empty. So, they really blessed us by telling us to come and take whatever we want and leave what we don't. The blessings included leather couches, 2 refrigerators, wardrobes, bookshelves, fans, desks, etc. etc. We were also able to give some things to our local helpers and outfit our new office.

Once we arrived we were in for a treat. The landlord didn't want us to take anything. She wanted us to leave it all for her to sell and profit from. Our friends had told her we were coming, but secretly she was hoping we wouldn't show up. After waiting nearly half an hour for her to open the door (she was inside) we began the "dance" of dealing with her. I will spare you all the details, but will say we are definitely foreigners in a foreign land, and sometimes we are treated as such. :) What we didn't know was that she had already "sold" a few things to family and friends, and didn't want us to take what she had spoken for, even though she knew the things were ours. Rob, graciously, gave her a few things she wanted and all was well. We started tagging and boxing and spent the rest of the day walking up and down the stairs of the local house sorting, packing, taping, and tagging. The day ended with local BBQ, shao kao.

The following day the movers arrived. 10 movers and 2 trucks. I must say I have never seen anything like this. These guys hoisted boxes and furniture on their backs and went down 5 flights of stairs, then up 6 flights of stairs into our new home......all while chain smoking. These guys were small in stature, but massively strong.

Here is truck 1 of 3 that is packed full of furniture and boxes.

The movers loading the truck. Notice the neighbors just standing and watching, paying no heed to whether or not they might be in the way.

I am really looking forward to the day we are completely moved into our new home and have this crazy month behind us!