Packing

The shippers are coming tomorrow! The pressure is on! My husband and I both took pto today to go through all our rooms and things so we can pack everything. We put Connor in daycare as its hard to do all this with Connor trying to "help". Wow, This is really happening!

Looking forward

So I have started somewhat obsessively looking at daft.ie, a rental website in Ireland, for available housing in Dublin. While it is too early to settle on an apartment now as turnover is too fast, it gives me a good idea of what to expect and what we can get in our price range. There are a few that seem really nice and I hope there will be similar places available when we get there. We are looking for a 2 bedroom in the city center of Dublin. Our goal is to find an apartment the first two weeks there. Thankfully my husband's company will put us in corporate housing when we get there, but would be nice to get settled in our own place. The crazy part is that our daycare will be almost as much as our rent.

Countdown

The shippers came last week to look at what we generally want to ship to determine if it could go by air or sea. We are going by sea. If we were only shipping a few things it could go by air. I am already embarrassed how many clothes boxes I am shipping over. But it includes both professional business clothes and casual clothes. I made a list of other areas that I need to sort through and it's a lot. I am taking some pto next week to do that. The shippers are coming next Friday to package and take our items.
I can't believe I am leaving in 27 days. Thankfully I have a full month in Dublin to get settled and get used to the area before starting work!
I also need to start coming with a list of places we would like to visit. My husband and I will probably go visit Paris as our first continent visit. We went there for our first anniversary for 10 days and loved it there. I also want to tour Ireland as it looks beautiful and UK after that.

Getting excited! Although I don't think it will fully hit me until we get over there.

Chaos

I have been spending the last few hours going through my clothes and sorting them into the following piles:
1. Ship
2. Wear and pack in suitcase
3. Donate

It's been a tiring project. I have realized the following:
1. I am a pack rat
2. For a girl that lives in Florida in a mostly summer climate year round, I have an abundance of winter clothes/coats
3. I hate packing. Wish someone could just make these decisions for me.

Here is a picture of the aftermath. Looks like a hurricane went through my closet.

Preparation in full speed

So I wanted to write an update on the move. My husband contacted the shippers and we are shipping our container during the week of June 4th, which is in a week away. It will take 6-8 weeks to arrive in Dublin. The hard part now is figuring out what we need to ship and what we will have to live without for that long. Its especially hard to plan that with a 1 year old baby. We have been having some success with Craig's list but no one wants the smaller items. I want to minimize the storage we will need but it's painful to get rid of some of the nice items we have acquired. We will only take a few electronics but it will need an adaptor since the voltage is different in Ireland.

I have also heard from numerous people that goods are expensive in Ireland, which stresses me out. Thankfully there is a Clinique bonus time right now at Nordstrom so I was able to buy some make up with bonuses to ship over. I also went to BJ's with a friend to buy some discounted toiletries. I ended buying more baby food than anything.

I haven't had much luck in the winter/fall clothes department in the stores around here but I was able to buy a nice trench coat online for myself. I'm bringing that in my suitcase as I think I will need it when I get there. I am a Florida girl and 60 degree summers in Dublin equal Florida winter weather!

My husband received his approved green card a few weeks ago so we are legal now. I am waiting on approval of my green card for my job also so hopefully I will hear soon. I am thankful it was easy (somewhat) for me to get a job with my firm in Dublin.

We have lined up a crèche (daycare) for my baby that came highly recommended. We already put down a deposit and will tour it first thing when we arrive.

Living abroad is something my husband and I dreamed of doing before we even got married. It's one of the reasons we chose the international firms that we did. I am very happy and excited that we are going to be able to live our dream. I know it will be a little harder with a 1 year old baby but this will be an adventure of a lifetime for all of us.

For Sale

Work is still pretty busy and I just went out of town for a training in Dallas, Texas. However, my husband has been listing a lot of our things on Craigslist for sale.  Since the apartments in Dublin are furnished, we are trying to get rid of a lot of our things so we don't have to ship too much or have storage. We have sold our dining room set, our hat rack, and many other items already.  One item I am going miss is my vanity table that just sold.  It seems like it is going to a good home.  Hopefully we'll sell a lot more things too so we can get some spending money!

too much work

I wish work would slow down so I can focus on packing and getting ready for the move to Ireland.  Starting to get anxious as our flight is less than 2 months away now and time is flying by fast!! :-( :-(

I went to the outlet mall on the weekend to try to buy some fall/winter type clothes for the move to Dublin but the stores already have summer clothes out.  Even the clearance racks don't have any cold weather clothes.  This might be because I live in Florida, but was kind of bummed about that.

Hope to have more updates soon!