tips for pack out and moving part 2-- the purge

All right, so I've figured out what I want to go into my airfreight, now what about the rest of this crap?  Now it's time to purge.  This step is not really necessary, but it helps to keep your weight down and believe it or not it helps when you unpack.  I usually start my purge a couple of months out so that I can take my time and I don't get frustrated with how long it takes and quit half way through.
I don't know about you, but for some reason my stuff breeds in the dark.  I might start off with a few sheets of paper or a couple of books here and there, but by the time we leave in two years I've got stacks and stacks of paper, shelves of books, clothes, craft items, and other assorted--well crap that has limited use.  So every two years or so with a pack out date looming on the calendar like an ominous cloud I begin a purge.
I usually start with the least used room, no reason, except that in that room I can make as much of a mess as I want and it doesn't disturb anyone's life.   Then I open all the drawers, go into all the closets, look at all the bookshelves to see what we haven't used in the last two years that I can get rid of.  In this way, I slowly move through the house from room to room getting rid of things. 
I know this step sounds simple, but it is time consuming and will help you when it comes time to actually organize your things for pack out.

Where am I?

I'll give you three guess as to where I took this photo?  Did you guess the US?  Well you'd be wrong.  I took this picture at the new mall just around the corner from our place in Chengdu.  The new Wangfujing mall is only one of the dozens of new malls opening in Chengdu all the time.  In the year and a half since I've been here I can think of at least three new malls that I have been to.  I don't know how many more are out there that I just haven't been to yet (and probably will not get to).  Although strangely enough, many of them are almost always empty. 

I took this picture in the Bellagio restaurant.  It is inside the Wangfujing mall.  When we first arrived we walked up to this place trying to find the restaurant because it's fabulous, but the mall was completely gutted.  Both the mall and the Bellagio opened during Chinese New Year so we took the opportunity this weekend to go check them out.  The Bellagio was fantastic!  We liked everything we tried and would go back there again.  It wasn't dirt cheap, but the atmosphere and the food were well presented. 

I don't know what to cook

 Before we joined the foreign service I was a pre-made girl.  If it came in a box, a can, or a bag, I knew how to use it and expand on it.  About the only thing I consistently made from scratch was cake.  But then we joined the foreign service.  Our first post was Beijing, and it was delicious and cheap to eat out, and eat out we did (and we both gained a bunch of weight)!  Then we went to Baku.  The first year I didn't cook a thing.  The markets were crazy, the food odd, everything was in Russian-- oh and I was pregnant.  By the end of the second year I had started to cook some things, but I was still having trouble coming up with things for us to eat.  After all, I couldn't go to the store and buy a can of soup, or a box of tacos... what's a girl to do?  By the time we moved to Taiwan, I realized that the world simply did not supply their grocery stores the way America does, and for better or for worse I was going to have to make some changes in the way that I thought about cooking. 
So I began simply.  Instead of dwelling on what wasn't there, I started to look at what WAS there and I tried to figure out what I could make from that.  I discovered that with a little flour, sugar, and vegetables there are TONS of things that you can make yourself.  Now, despite the fact that we live in China and nothing looks familiar we eat Western style almost every night. When we go out we eat Chinese because Chinese food in Chengdu is good, Western food...not so much.  This is true in most places outside of the major cosmopolitan areas, you are not going to get quality __ food unless you are in that country.  In all other cases it will be expensive and tasteless.  So cook what you can at home, and eat the local foods out, this way you get the best of both worlds. 
I guess my point is, that if you are a foreign service spouse, or officer, you have to be brave, and daring even on the culinary front.  There are very few things that you can buy, be it in a can, a box, or a package, that you cannot make, and often times make better, at home with a few simple ingredients.  And when you start to think it's impossible remember that your grandmother (or maybe your great grandmother) used to do all this AND she didn't have a microwave or a refrigerator.

Tips for pack out and moving in Part 1--air freight

I know it’s still early, but we are getting close to summer transfer season.  And while I’m not supposed to leave post until July (at the earliest) I’ve already started making my lists and mentally preparing myself for pack out. 

Why, you might ask, are you worried about pack out now?  For heaven’s sake, the movers will come and do everything for you!  Well, my friends, I’m glad you asked that, because, as this will be my sixth move, experience teaches me to prepare early.  While the movers will pack everything for you they basically just want to get everything in a box as quickly and carefully as possible.  This might not sound like a problem, but imagine 3-6 strangers in your house with boxes, paper and tape emptying drawers, closets, boxes, in 16 hours—and this includes loading the truck—and you might begin to understand why you need to be ready in advance. 

First things first:  Do you have items going to more than one place, or in more than one shipment?  For instance do you have an air shipment and a sea shipment?  Are you sending some of your things to storage, or to another house somewhere?  What about your suitcases?

Think about where you are sending your things and by what method.  Speak to your shippers early on in the process to find out if you can ship food, electronics, liquids, or aerosols.  If you get a lighter shipment (like an airfreight) to get you settled in before the main bulk of your household effects arrives, separate out those items first.  In this shipment you want to think about what is the bare minimum that your family can survive on and feel at home.  Things like kitchen supplies; pots, pans, plates, silverware, anything you use regularly to get food on the table—and take it from me pack your muffin pans and loaf pans if you might ever make muffins or bread.  I now have 5 loaf pans and 2 muffin pans because every time I move I don’t think I’ll need them, and every time we get there I need them and buy new ones. Bedding; sheets, towels, blankets, pillows—these may or may not be provided for you when you get to post, but chances are they will be weird, scratchy, and unfamiliar.  There’s nothing like sliding into bed in your own sheets to make you feel at home.  Toys—if you have kids this is a must.  There is nothing worse than arriving to an empty house, except arriving to an empty house with kids asking every two seconds “what can I do?”  Clothes—I would bring as many seasons as will fit, I once packed only summer and fall clothes because we were supposed to arrive at post in early summer and there would really be no way it could take 6 months for our items to arrive… well we didn’t get to post until late summer and by the time our shipment arrived it was late fall and I was freezing! 

Of course, every family is different and you are going to have to make your own lists as to what you send by air.  One way to do this is to make a list of everything you use as you use it for a month, then pare this list down to the essentials. Like getting rid of a pizza cutter when a knife will do, or instead of 3 plates per person per day, one set of dishes for each person. 

On packing day have your packers pack and weigh this shipment first so that if you have extra space you can add to it, or if you are overweight you can take things out before your entire house is packed up. 

Dragon Dance Competition (picture heavy)

This past weekend we (the consulate community) were invited to a day of activities sponsored by the Pujiang government.  The whole day of events was 14 hours, but our clever Community Liason Officer finagled a way for a few of us to just go for a three hour section of dragon dance competition and tangerine picking.  The whole day looked like it was chock full of fun, but I'm glad we were only there for three hours.  The crowd was enormous!  We entered the city, and it looked like a ghost town, there were a few stores open here and there, but the wide streets and storefronts were virtually deserted.  We couldn't figure out where any of the people were....until they stopped the bus.  As we left our buses and were hurried towards the VIP seating area for the competition we walked through a corridor of Chinese at least ten people deep and elbow to elbow  for at least 100 hundred yards (and that was just a small section on the crowd I think the buses plowed through half the crowd to get us as close as possible) it was like walking down the sidelines of a packed football stadium. Oh yeah, and there was a line of police holding the crowds back too.  The performances (once they finished ALL of the speeches) were pretty interesting and creative too.  Many of them put together to depict scenes from famous Chinese folk tales (well famous to the Chinese, I have no idea why there were tons of bulls being pushed around by a fat guy fighting soldiers).  Anyway, here are some pictures to enjoy!

 

Temple fair pt 2 -what to eat (picture heavy)

One of the main things that Chinese people like to do is eat.  I think that might be one of the reasons that I like China so much. They take food and eating seriously and there are so many different types of Chinese food that you can eat for a week on nothing but Chinese food and still not eat the same thing twice.  Temple fairs are just an extension of this love.  The street food available at a temple fair is wide and varied.  There are bugs and sea creatures on a stick, sugar juice, rice balls that are thrown at a peanut powder, fried things, noodles, meat on a stick, and so on....And while I did not sample a great variety of things while I was there, I did take lots of pictures....  Enjoy!

At the Temple Fair pt 1 (picture heavy)

Chinese New Year, is the biggest holiday in China.  Despite communism and all the years of suppressing Chinese culture, Chinese New Year is still celebrated in a big way.  It's one of the few days of the year when you will actually see people in a temple in China burning incense, and giving offerings.  The cities themselves empty out as everyone goes home to visit family.  For at least the first two days of the NY almost everything is closed.  From the big foreign chain stores, to the tiny mom and pop shops on the corner.  You can almost walk down the center of the streets because there is no one out.  Not only is it traditional to celebrate with family, it is also traditional to celebrate with fireworks.  And while this year was subdued compared with last year, the displays were impressive.  (I have video, but I can't post it here) The back yard fireworks displays (or middle of the street firework displays) could rival those of any US city's fourth of July celebrations.  And that is just any one display, and there are hundreds.  From about 11:30pm-1 or 2 in the morning each firework display is like the grand finale at a 4th of July display.  It's a solid wall of explosion like sound.  Our poor dog.  

One of the other things that people do is go to a temple fair.  A temple fair is, well a fair outside a temple.  There are vendors selling food, drinks, clothes, trinkets... well almost everything.  A picture is worth a thousand words, and while I could describe to you the chaos of a temple fair, I will let you peruse these pictures so that you can get a feel for it. 

On the plane with Babes

My child is a professional traveler.  No, she's not on the plane every week, or even every month, but at least several times a year we are flying somewhere, and at least once a year the flight is over 8 hours.  I'm sure I've said this before, Mr. Business Man, but my child and I are NOT going to hold you up for your flight, so no cuts!  At 4 1/2 my child can get off her own shoes, and coat and put them in those stupid plastic bins for x-ray.  I have been doing these flights often enough that I have packed our carry-ons strategically so that I can pull out the liquids (of which we usually only have the minimal amount, I carry an empty water bottle until we get through security, but there's sanitizer, lotion, chapstick...) the computer, AND get my own shoes off and through security faster than Mr. Business Man and his stupid laptop and expensive shoes. 
But that's besides the point (sorry for the rant).  Tips for flying on the plane with a 3-5 year old girl (I imagine these tips will work for a boy too, but the toys will be VASTLY different). 

From Blogger Pictures

I ALWAYS pack Babes her own carry on bag.  She has a back pack with wheels, that's just the right height for her to pull.  This makes her feel grown up, because she's got a bag like mommy's AND it's got most of her toys in it.  This way it's separate from my stuff and she's got it in her control.  It's usually a surprise what's in it.  When she was younger it was always new toys and books, but now we have a closet shelf of toys that are only brought out for plane rides. 
In the picture are: a magnetic dress up set (about the size of a book), a coloring book and color set from target, play doh, woodkins (another dress up but with actual cloth), a read along book, sansa shaker (an MP3 player that she can operate by herself loaded up with books, and her music), child sized head phones (this is important even if you don't bring an MP3 player because the plane headphones will just fall off), coloring books, books to read, colors, stickers, strawberry shortcake and my little pony.  I also made her a notebook, with coloring pages, and letter practice pages, and places for her to put stickers, and a few games that we could do together.  Not pictured but also useful is a playmat which gives the ponies and Strawberry a place to live.  We've also had a lot of use out of magnetic paper dolls, but as you can see my child REALLY likes dress up. 

At the airport, don't let your child sit down.  The temptation is there, you're waiting with a bunch of other adults, everyone is sitting and quiet, you want your kid sitting and quiet too.  DON'T DO IT.  Get up and walk, make your child walk, if you need to sit try to send your kid on quiet, but purposeful runs (ie throw this out, or hey what's that on the wall over there, Oh can you see the plane out that window) or try the mommy says game (it's like Simon says, but easier if your child is not there yet-"Mommy says, touch the ground, Mommy says jump").  Your kid is going to be strapped down on the plane for at least the first hour of the trip so you want to get as much wiggle out as humanly possible (I know for some kids this is not possible but it will make the beginning of the plane ride at least a tiny bit easier, and every little bit counts).

Pack a few snacks, we almost never use them, but they are good for unexpected delays and if their ears get stopped up on take off and landing.  I usually also carry extra toys and books in my carry on in case the surprise toys are not cutting it.
Pack extra clothes-it's always better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.  Kids are messy, and things happen. 
A pillow and a blanket can also be useful but I haven't packed one in awhile, we've just been using the ones on the plane.  

You can also adapt some of the kids games for plane travel. We have a dice game and a couple of card games that travel really well.  And I made a travel spinner for our silly faces game and put the rest of it in a folder and that traveled well too.

After the New Year

I have been busy and I have been lazy.  After we came back from the US for our marathon Christmas visit (5 weeks baby!) there was jetlag, and WHAM right into Chinese New Year.  And like last year, DH was out of town for it.  I thought with DH out of town I would have plenty of time for blogging, knitting, cooking, and preparing the house for moving... BUT NO.  What I did not count on was 1 child who, after spending 5 weeks at the grandparents house, was constantly used to being entertained EVERY WAKING MOMENT.  And 2 dogs who generally got along, but could not be left alone because playing could turn into fighting.  So between the three of my small charges, and the ball tossing, and the dragging, bikes, dogs, balls, and whatever downstairs for daily exercise, by the time evening rolled around I did not do anything at all.  I pulled out my extended versions of Lord of the Rings and I methodically went through all six disks over five evenings.  Nothing like escaping into the reaches of Gondor with some knitting and decaf tea to bring a soothing end to your day. 
I'm not saying it was stressful, or hard, because I only have 1 kid (I honestly don't know how people with more than one do it), just busy and tiring, I'd forgotten how much energy puppies have, AND how long a day is when there is not 4 hours of school to break it up.  It was really my own fault, I did not have enough planned for either the dogs or the little one until mid week, and after that everything went along smoothly. 
SO, I'm done, with that, and I'm done being lazy after that, I've got some posts planned, and some pictures from some Chinese New Year events to post, but until then here are some pictures of some of the things I've been knitting: 
 

 
The big dresses are things that I've previously knit for Babes.  For Christmas, Santa brought her a Madame Alexander doll and I thought she might like some matching clothes for "Christina".  I adapted the patterns from the big dresses myself. 

I've also got a glove and a half of these, but I ran out of yarn on the second day of Chinese New Year, and the yarn store is still NOT OPEN!!!!!! I really want to finish them because the pattern is amazing and so beautiful on.  I would post a picture, but their in the car, waiting anxiously for the opening of the yarn store so I can buy matching yarn!

Back in Chengdu

So you may not have noticed, but we left for the holidays.  We packed up in early December and just got back last week.  I planned a couple of posts out in my head, but never got around to writing them while we were on vacation, so hopefully I'll get around to them this week.  All in all it was a pleasant trip, I got to see my parents, my siblings, my new niece (YEA!), and several friends.  Plus there were blue skies.  People talk about dreary days in the US but while we were there the gray days were relatively few.  It was also really warm, unseasonably so.  It worries me a little.  While I was grateful for the 50 degree days, Philly should not be that warm in January. 
And now we're back in Chengdu for Chinese New Year.  Happy New Year everyone and have a great Year of the Dragon!

a new dress

We're back in the US and currently battling jet lag. Usually I'm a stickler with jet lag.  No naps other than the usually scheduled ones, and you must stay up until regular bedtime, but this time I've been trying to be nice.  Babes and I took a nap the first and second day, and I thought it was going to be ok.  The first day she went to bed at 9 and woke up at 5.  Not good, but not too shabby.  But the second day she was up at 3.  NO GOOD!  So yesterday I was back to my old nazi self.  NO NAPS!  And yesterday she slept from 6:30 to 5:30.  I'm going to keep her up again today and hopefully we'll make it to 6 tomorrow.
Aside from that I've been furiously knitting Christmas presents and I'm almost done with almost all of them (I really hope to finish them so that people have presents under the tree).  It doesn't look like I'll get to my grandmother's shawl, but I know she won't mind that it's not under the tree.  I can't post any Christmas present pictures, but I will post a picture of Zora's dress that she wore on the plane.

I'm a big kid now (or make things easier on yourself)

There's a lot out there on the internet about kid proofing your house, but not nearly as much about making your kid more independent in your home.  I put a lot of thought into making things very accessible for her so that she can do many things by herself.  None of it's perfect, and I don't think any of it is original, but I thought I would share because sometimes its good to have inspiration.  And I also know that sometimes I won't think of teaching Babes something until someone mentions it (like it only recently occurred to me that she might want to learn how to tie shoes).
Anyway, the biggest place you can help yourself out is the bathroom.  Babes potty trained at two (I can't give potty training tips because she basically trained herself, she HATES to be dirty) and I cursed myself for doing it because every hour or so I was running into the bathroom to lift her on the potty, and hold her up to wash her hands.  I eventually ended up putting in two stools, a short one so that she could climb on the potty herself, and a bigger one so that she could reach the sink to wash her hands.  Add to that a towel with a topper so that she can't pull it off the rack and after a while I only needed to spot check to make sure she was cleaning herself and washing her hands well.  I also added a hook at child height so that when she's done with her bath in the evening she can hang up her own towel. 

From Blogger Pictures

In her room, I started off by making sure that she could reach all the drawers with her clothes in them.  Which is actually not that hard since her clothes are so little that she really only needs two drawers.  We used to fight about what she could wear (starting at two WTF?) so now she generally picks out her own clothes (starting around 3).  I try to keep things in sets so that she knows what goes together and only seasonal clothes at her reach. In her closet I took a shower curtain rod and hung it at Babes' height so that she could hang up her own clothes, so whenever she takes off a jacket or a dress she's supposed to hang it up herself (it takes some teaching, putting clothes on a hanger is not intuitive).

From Blogger Pictures

  We also bought her (well actually my Mom bought her) a my Tot Clock, it has a face that changes colors and she knows that when it's blue it's night time and time to stay in bed, but when it turns yellow she can come out and get us because it's morning time.  It worked really well for Babes (I have recommended it to friends and it works for some like a miracle, but not as well for others).
In the kitchen and dining room, there aren't too many things.  I am thinking about making a shelf easily accessible that has snacks and cups, but I haven't done it.  She has just started being able to go into the fridge and get her own tiny oranges and peel them herself which is fabulous.  The only thing I would recommend is a really tall stool so that she can help out with the cooking.  With the very tall stool she can see into the bowls and really see what's going on.  But I only let her stand on it while I'm next to her, it's really tall.

From Blogger Pictures

The other thing is a booster seat for the dining room chairs.  Once again it brings her to a proper height for using forks, knives and spoons and reaching cups and having conversations. 

From Blogger Pictures

Well, that's all the tips I've got?  Do you have something that makes things easier for you? Let me know I'm always looking for tips.

Cold in Chengdu

So the weather has gotten cooler... And I'm sure you're thinking, well it's December it should be cool right?  Well yes and no.  Chengdu is a weird place.  It just dipped below 60 yesterday.  While the weather is mild, it's also damp, which makes it chillier than what the actual temperature says. It's a chill that also seeps.  If you are standing around outside, you don't feel cold at first, but as you stand there it seeps up under your clothes and gets you.  BUT all that being said, it is in the low 60's upper 50's (between 12 and 17 Celsius).  You would not be able to tell it from what the Chinese people are wearing.  NOW granted most of the homes here are built without heaters (something about geography, central planning, and temperatures, Chengdu didn't rate built in heating for their buildings).  So I can some of the extra layers, I imagine that if you get cold, it might be really hard to warm back up.... maybe.  BUT, I have not turned on the heat once in my apartment and it's still a comfortable room temperature.  I'm not in short sleeves, but I also am not in a sweater, and we're not cold.  Here's where it gets tricky.  Chinese people leave their friggin' windows and doors open ALL THE TIME!  Even at the school where we take Babes.  I brought her into school one day, and she was dressed for the weather.  Her teachers FREAKED!  They said the classroom was too cold for her to wear what she was wearing and they pulled a sweater out of her bag and made her wear it.  I looked out the back of the room and the outside door was WIDE OPEN!  I was a little worried when we signed her up that her classroom wasn't heated, but it's not that cold in Chengdu, I figured it would be a learning experience and toughen her up.  But the fact that it's not heated, AND they leave the doors wide open drives me crazy! 
The other thing that I don't understand is the towel down the back.  Go to any public playground during the winter in Chengdu and you will see a bunch of sweating, red faced Chinese kids running around the playground.  They all look about half a step away from heat stroke because despite the fact that they are running around at top speed and often on an indoor playground they are still wearing there long underwear, sweaters, winter jackets, arm warmers, leg warmers, and a towel down the back.  Why the towel,  you may ask, Well, someone I know asked about it.  The towel is there because the kids get sweaty, so they run around, the towel gets all sweaty, and when they're done, they remove the towel and viola!  The kids dry again!  Forget the fact that their hair is now soaked in sweat, and I'm sure they're legs and arms too, but they are mostly dry.   Don't believe me?  Here is a picture I took of Babes' dance class (note some days the window is open in the studio too, which is why Babes is also dancing in a sweater, which I feel is somehow wrong).

From Blogger Pictures

Sorry it's so blurry, I was using the bad camera through the studio glass.   

Good bye Thanksgiving... Hello Christmas!

So I survived the Thanksgiving Extravaganza!  Even though I kept waking up in a panic the whole week before I managed to pull it off and no one got sick (my measure of a successful meal)!  And despite a mishap with the macaroni and cheese (I pulled it out of the fridge to put it in the oven and it was still frozen!) the lunch was on the table and ready to eat at 12:30 as planned.  There were even times in the morning when I was standing around thinking that I should do something, but everything was done (except of course for the frozen mac n cheese).  To make a meal like this involves LOTS of planning.  I started a month before, I picked out recipes, looked around to make sure that I would be able to find all the ingredients for everything I wanted to make, then I made a menu.  The menu went up on the fridge and beside each item I had a make ahead schedule.  Then for the day of the event I had an oven schedule, also posted on the fridge so that everything was cooked and things that needed to be hot were hot, and everything was cooked (except the mac n cheese, which ended up in the microwave and then stuffed in the oven at the last second).  I ended up with twice as much food as needed; a whole extra turkey, an uneaten cake, and a gazillion leftovers!
 This is what a Thanksgiving meal for 20 people looks like before it's cooked. 

From Blogger Pictures

And here are some pictures of the spread.  Thanks to a friend of mine who actually has an eye for photography!  

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

 And the end of Thanksgiving means the beginning of the Christmas season so this past weekend Babes and I decorated the tree to the first playing of Xmas music this year!  I used to have fairly strict rules on when Christmas started and when I would start decorating for it, but since I've been overseas I've realized that it's important for me to decorate because otherwise, in many places, you won't see Christmas.  Oh sure, you'll see some trees and lights, but it's nothing like the holiday spirit that you get in the US.  So every year after Thanksgiving I put away the fall color and bust out Christmas. 

From Blogger Pictures