Fingers hurt, muscles sore, a move-in marathon

I've given up on my nails.  At least for now. My goodness do my fingers hurt.  My nails hurt, the pads of my fingers hurt.  Thankfully the soreness in my knee, ankle, shoulder and hip joints has passed.  That is probably because we're taking small breaks now.  30 to 45 minutes here, an hour there.  Earlier on I was using our much larger soaking tub A LOT.  

The quote from Under the Tuscan Sun keeps reverberating around in my brain.  "Pick one room and make it yours. Go slowly through the house. Be polite, introduce yourself so it can introduce itself to you." - Frances Mayer.

Funny, this house was already mine, I already knew it. It already knew me.  Four years ago I moved away from this house. So for me, this is a getting to know you once again type of deal.  The house and I have both been dinged up a bit, we both might be showing our age a bit more, but we're working on getting comfortable with each other once again. 

We've gotten almost each and every box out of here.  I will be glad to not see another box in a really long time. I know my hands will cringe, my hips will ache in memory if I do.  When did moving become so physically trying?  

For now, we still have a few things to hang. Curtains, a few pictures.  The kitchen, while mostly tidy, is still cluttered.  I hate clutter.  Our office is still waiting on a bookcase that we ordered yesterday, but now is home to a new, smaller computer desk. I can't wait to see how the office looks after all is said and done because that too is full of small items here and there, dust collectors my Dad calls them.  It too is cluttered, much of it needs to be culled.

The garage needs to be emptied out so that one of us may park our vehicles inside. That will save us just the slightest amount on our electricity bill since we have to plug in both vehicles right now. 

The forecast says below temperatures are arriving later this week so the garage work will have to be completed within the next day.  Thankfully we have NO outdoor work to complete right now, that will be put on a shelf to be completed in late April or Early May.  I would love to walk around the back yard, check the area out but there are just too many other more important things to be done.  Plus living in Maryland has acclimated me slightly to warmer winter weather so within 10 to 15 minutes I find myself shivering in 5 degrees.  I guess I need to work on getting thicker blood once again.  

We have the goal to get the house decorated for Christmas by Friday, exactly one week after the move in.  I have had to suppress the unusual "Bah Humbug" as of late when going grocery shopping and hearing Christmas carols on the store music. I love celebrating Christmas so not having a Christmas tree up has been bad for morale.  

So we're home and its Christmas, or almost anyways and I'm so grateful because this time, this home will most likely be one of the last ones we will have to move to.  John le Carre once wrote "Home's where you go when you run out of homes"  Well that's us.  We've had numerous other homes, but finally we've reached the end of our moving.  I hope anyways.