Still unpacking

I am loathe to admit that we have taken minimal (two) photos of our house now that we've moved in. However, that will change this weekend, I assure you. We've hooked up the family computer and are no longer operating solely from laptops. Downloading our photos will not be too far down the priority list.

Vern and I have put a few pictures on the walls and some plants on the porch and patio. It is amazing what these few things do to make a house feel more like a home. Now if we can only get the house aired out enough to rid it of the previous owners cigarette odors....

As we are still unpacking box after box after box, we laugh at how things were packed. What is the floral arrangement from the butler pantry doing in the same box as the dog food from the untility closet? And, we wonder where some items are, as surely the packers couldn't have made items smaller. I saw the inside of the moving van--it was empty. So where, oh where, can some of our items be?

I remember these dilemmas from our last move, but at least then we had unpackers to do much of the work for us (no, not our family that we schemed to come visit the first two days after we moved into the house in St. Louis--these were actual paid unpackers). Now it would seem that we just have more stuff and less time to unpack. Add in a two year old, and it is amazing that we have anything unpacked other than the electrical outlet covers.

After seeing how much junk we moved, we have decided to implement a new rule. No large purchased items without getting rid of another large item. No new toys without getting rid of toys. No large toy items. Period. This goes for all of us--Vern, Dawn and Erich. I don't want to still be unpacking at Christmas!