Setting up a new home

There are so many things that need to be done before I can really unpack.  I still have everything in suitcases.  Martin's house has space for me (although it's not unlimited), but he didn't have furniture that will store and organize my "things".  The final count is 6 big suitcases, 3 medium and 3 small suitcases of "things" that I brought over, which is considerably less than I owned 5 months ago.  But that is still a lot of stuff that needs a home.

Each day we're making progress.  I'd like to take a moment to give a shout-out to my fantastic husband who has taken this week off work to be with me and help me settle in.  He's also the one putting together a closet (while I'm sitting on the stairs "cheering him on"??), so that we can put our bed back together and go to sleep sometime tonight.  To quote him "too bad there is only one hammer."  He asks "who are you talking to?"  I'm sure he says hi to anyone who's reading this.

Anyways, the point of this story is that it's taking a lot of time to prepare to start unpacking.  I did break into a suitcase to get the baking powder tonight, but otherwise, I'm waiting until I have a place to store things.  Yesterday we got a little cabinet for in the bathroom for me.  Today we picked up a closet for our bedroom, which will store mostly my clothes (I think?  hah... this could get interesting.)  And tomorrow we're planning to order a china cabinet and bookshelf for the dining room, to keep our china, cookbooks, music books and my personal reading books.

One thing that I've noticed is that many homes here only have what they need, and everything has a place.  Maybe that's just Martin, but it seems to me that it's a Dutch or European thing too.  So if you buy a hairdryer, then you need to make sure you have a storage spot designated for the hairdryer.  I'm actually really excited about my hairdryer storage spot... but it hasn't been installed yet.  I'll be sure to post pictures as we finish rooms.

Tomorrow I'll be unpacking clothes, we'll set up the Christmas tree and decorate for Christmas, I hope :)

OH!  I bought a cast iron pot today, and used it for dinner... it was AWESOME!  I fried up the onions, garlic and mushrooms in it, then added some other stew-like ingredients, then I put it in the oven for 30 minutes to cook the dumpling on top, then in the fridge with leftovers for tomorrow.

Okay, off to help lift the closet up... yay!