Casa Abeja, a Stuff Story

A friendly little Talavera bee greets visitors at our front door

You may remember that Esperando had been remodeling Casa Abeja (so named Bee House because when we bought it the attic was full of bees and honey.) Well, after a year of hard labor he has finished it! We have spent the last four days moving over. Right now it looks like a disaster zone, with loose Stuff, and bags and boxes of Stuff piled up everywhere. It brings back memories of past moves, every one of which I have hated--packing and unpacking is the pits! My feelings about this haven’t changed one whit. I feel like I am trying to solve one of those hidden object computer games but one of my own devising. You’d think with all the practice I have playing those that finding things would be a snap. But it isn’t. This was not one of your anal organized moves itemizing the contents of each box, but a random Stuffing of items into empty cartons and bags. Today I finally got the last pickup load of Stuff packed up from our two rooms in Casa Boleo. I never could have imagined that we could have so much Stuff crammed into our two small rooms there.

Our new home

Maybe I should explain a bit. Half of our Stuff was purchased when we lived in Australia and were planning a move to Ghana six years ago. Esperando was working in Ghana at the time so all our Stuff was moved from Australia to Ghana and stayed with him for several months there before we realized that the Ghana thing was going to south. Then all that still packed Stuff was sent back to Denver where it sat in it’s unpacked boxes in our basement for the next 5 years. Well--except for some minor tweaking of boxes trying to figure out which one might hold Esperando’s wet suit. (We finally decided that had been pinched by the packers in Australia). The trouble is, that other than a general idea of what sort of Stuff I bought in Oz for our Ghana house, I couldn’t remember the finer details; and I had NO desire to open and repack boxes just to inventory Stuff.

Sweet Pickle milling around in the Stuff

In Denver before we moved here, I bought more Stuff that I thought we didn’t own yet or wouldn't be able to find in Santa Rosalia. And that is why I have unpacked (I am not kidding): 2 can openers, 2 reamers, 6 spatulas, 10 whisks, 4 sets of measuring cups, 2 sets of measuring spoons, 25 beach towels, 40 packages of cute cocktail napkins, way too many wine glasses, 5 shower curtains (for one bathroom)--plus about 15 bath mats. What was I thinking? In the bottom of the last box we found Esperando’s missing wet suit. Yay! In addition to all of that I brought great amounts of emergency supplies. Stuff we couldn’t get down here such as Nyquil, Tylenol, Motrin, certain prescription medicines, hair dye for pale skinned women, dog food and cat food, etc. Now we can stock a store! The trailer we brought the Stuff down in has sat like a storage container untouched for the last 1-1/2 years. It turns out that we have way too much Stuff to fit all of it anywhere in this house. And my body is sore from bending, twisting, sorting and lifting. My calves ache, my back aches, my knees are broken and my brain is on sensory overload. Every time I try to sit down for a rest I think of something else I need to find or to do.

Despite the Stuff lost in boxes, Frida’s renewed interest in peeing on beds and couches to show her distain, and the piles of random Stuff beckoning to be put away, it is nice to have our new found privacy and truly our own space. Sunday, our first night in Casa Abeja, we celebrated by opening a bottle of Champagne that we hauled down from the U.S. Later, as I lay in bed I could see all the stars in the heavens through the window—and even though the motion sensor light outside the window came on for a few minutes to annoyingly glare in my eyes, I was still quite happy. I never believed we would move in.

Sour Pickle checking out the new digs