It has been a quiet few days

The truck that brought our stuff

Do you hear the crickets? Things have been quiet around the blog and the Sunshine household lately. Our stuff arrived last week - all of it in almost mint condition. It was like Christmas, only a month early. We did lose 4 boxes  - well, actually the shipping company lost 4 of our boxes.  Mostly clothes and kitchen stuff. Thankfully we have insurance so we'll get some of the monetary value back. Sentimentally though, we lost quite a bit - all of Mr. Sunshine's wedding outfits, some of my nicer Indian outfits that I owned since my college days and was saving for any future baby girl Sunshines, and several nice (and new) pieces of clothing that I was very fond of. Ah well, I suppose it is all part of the moving process. 

Neat stacks of boxes
waiting to be unpacked

I have spent the last few days unpacking and putting things away, and the apartment still looks like a disaster zone. Gah! I hate unpacking. It is one of my least favorite thing to do in the whole entire world at par with gift wrapping (the actual physical act of wrapping of the object), and just behind chopping onions, and any kind of food prepping. 

Since Stavanger is the oil and gas capital of Europe, we meet a lot of expats here. Some of 

them in the oil industry, especially the ones who 

work off shore and in operations tend to move around a lot. One person I met has moved, with her family, 13 times in 10 years! That is an average of 1.3 moves every year! 

Let the chaos commence

While I think it would be awesome to travel so much (on someone else's expense - the best way to travel and see the world!), I can not even begin to imagine the constant packing and unpacking that goes with it. Plus, I am kind of a hoarder. 

Yes, we packed stuff in garbage
bags. We did put them nicely in
sturdy moving boxes

And NO, I am not as bad as the ones of TV. I just have a hard time parting with things. It is a trait that I inherited from my Ajji. She never threw away things. The only difference is that she would use, recycle, up-cycle and repurpose things constantly. I just keep collecting them hoping that I will need them one day. I am getting better though. I now have a policy (one that I very loosely adhere to) to deal with all the crap I (we) tend to accumulate: if something has not been used for 6 months, it is never going to be used. Throw it. Anyway, this was my longwinded way of saying: oh, my goodness! all the packing and unpacking involved in moving 13 times in 10 years -  I would not be very happy!!!! But then on the other hand, I'd get to see, and live in places like China, and Australia, and Venezuela, and France. That would be very cool!

If you had the choice of living in a country other than your home country - where would it be? Leave a comment and tell me - I would love to hear from all of you. 

XOXOXO

Ms. Sunshine