Stuff!

We are swimming in stuff.

A very large and important bit of stuff went last week...the Honda should be on it's journey from Tacoma to Georgia, and then on a boat to Germany and finally to Belgium.  Bon Voyage mini-van.

Storage stuff is gone.  Stuff that is not worthy enough to be in Belgium with us but too important that we must keep.  Really, ultimate pack rat stuff.  Those baby clothes that you don't want people rifling through at the garage sale and haven't had time to go through and pick out the special ones so you can donate the rest.  The boxes of work papers from North Carolina or San Antonio that Brian isn't sure what to do with.  College junk that's sort-of sentimental.  Teacher things that I may need one day (like my materials from '95-'02 are so relevant now).  The Army will kindly house these for us here at Lewis until we return. 

Our "Unaccompanied Goods" are gone.  That's a cool military term for "your stuff that you might need while you are a transient that will get there before the rest of your stuff".  It goes on an airplane instead of a boat.  This one was interesting.  Do we send our favorite pillows so we will have them in one month instead of two or do we keep them here because they make life at the moment more pleasant?  And which stuffed bear (cat, dinosaur, bulldog, frog...) is worthy enough to travel in a suitcase, and which can go "unaccompanied"?  Or who is the sad little critter that has to wait and go on the boat?  All this picking favorites is taxing.  We may or may not have a house before it all arrives, but if we do it will make our borrowed beds (that our ten year old neighbor who moved from Belgium this summer described as "like sleeping on a rock") and one dresser between the five of us more homey while we wait for the main shipment.  And if we don't have a house, well, I don't think we'll be squeezing more of that stuff into our one hotel room with the allowed ten suitcases worth of "most important that it rated a suitcase spot" stuff.  I'm not sure we should count Molly the Dog as "stuff", but let's not forget her and her giant crate that we'll also be carting over.  This should prove to be a circus indeed.