ROI – we are back in black

This move really was my idea. It was me who wanted to move back to Sweden. I was just lucky enough to have a husband supportive enough, understanding enough and crazy enough to agree to doing it. Even though we had everything we wanted where we were at. And the future would be very uncertain, if we gave it all up to move to a new place. The past year and a half have been very trying. Especially for Chris. Many times we have doubted our decision, even though things have mostly gone our way and every step has inched us forward. Yesterday, however, I felt was a turning point. Yesterday Chris thanked me for "making him" move to Sweden. He says it was the right thing for us and he is finally happy where we are at. This has a lot to do with his new job and our house. And the feeling of finally getting to settle in. I don't think anything would make me happier than knowing he is happy too. This is what we worked towards, and we are finally here. Our return of investment is finally back in black.

As a side note, he did say that knowing what he knows now. If I asked him again. He would say no to moving back. It was too trying. It was too hard. I almost would have to agree. It was 10 times harder than I had expected. But now, we just look ahead.

One year

It's exactly one year ago today, that we left the United States. It was extremely hard to say good bye to everyone. It's not like I haven't been through it all before, but this time it was different. This time it was permanent. It doesn't mean that we won't be back to visit, cause I am sure we will at some point. But visiting is never the same. That is probably why saying farewell to my colleagues was the hardest, because once I left the team, I would never be part of it again. With other friends, we will still be friends, even if we don't hang out or talk as often. My last day at work, I was a mess. I cried non-stop while cleaning out my desk and then finally we went bowling for lunch. With the recent election we had divided up the team by political parties. My team lost, but we had fun. Then my boss held a speech for me and it was very sweet. Thinking about that last day with my team still brings tears to my eyes. I don't think I will ever have a team that amazing again. Today is exactly one year since we left Arkansas. Tomorrow is exactly one year since we arrived in Sweden. Today I mourn. Tomorrow I will celebrate!

Here we go again...

Less than 2 weeks left until closing. Started packing today. Not looking forward to living with moving boxes all over our house for the next 2 weeks. I know it will be all worth it in the end, but I really wish we could just get it over with and start our life again. It's been on hold for the last year and a half. Not saying we haven't been living. We have. We really have done and seen a lot. Made lots of progress in our lives. But it has also been cluttered with things we have to do, to get to where we will be in 2 weeks. I don't like complaining, but man, moving sucks!!!!

The Alchemist

One of my all time favorite books is the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It's a sweet story with an intriguing message. I am not very religious, but I think it is comforting to think that there is a greater meaning. The language of the World — That if you stop and look and listen, you will see signs and if you look within your self perhaps you can read those signs, to help guide your way, to realize your destiny.

One of the messages in the book is delivered by the old King, whom Santiago meets early in the story:
"The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness."
"To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation. All things are one. And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

I feel like this has been the case for us every time we have moved. When Chris first moved to Sweden to be with me. When we moved to the US. When we moved back to Sweden. I am not saying that it has been easy any of the times, but somehow things have worked out like pieces that fit perfectly together and complete the big puzzle. At first, every move have seemed overwhelmingly big. Like a huge rock wall, impossible to climb over. But then little by little, a path has been made and somehow, we've ended up standing on top of the world. Amazed!

From the bottom of the sea

This weekend we picked up our stuff that we had stored at a relative's house since we moved to the US in 2005. It was a handmade book case (from my dad's side of the family), a chest that my grandpa (morfar) made, my grandma's (mormor) make-up table, macramé shelves Chris's dad made, a mosaic coffee table, my sewing machine, 3 rugs my grandma (farmor) have made and 4 boxes. The chest was filled with kitchenware that I didn't even remember we kept and I don't know what is in the boxes. Since everything is already neatly packed, I don't want to unpack until we move in to our new house in less than 2 months. Plus we don't have room for the stuff in our current house. I don't know if I will be able to wait that long though... I might just have to take a peek.

Replacing what was left behind

As I already mentioned, we didn't bring a whole lot of stuff with us when we moved. Other than clothes, books, personal items and some home decor, we really didn't bring much else. We left all our small kitchen appliances behind. There were especially 3 kitchen appliances that I LOVED and would have wanted to bring:

1. Green Apple Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer, that I bought myself only one year before the move
2. AllClad Waffle Maker that Chris had gotten me for my birthday a few years ago
3. GE blender with a glass jar, that provided us an endless supply of smoothies

Almost 6 months after the move, we still had not bought a single kitchen appliance. Our rental house came with a microwave, we've used our manual whisk when whipping cream, or mixing cake batter and our hands to knead pizza dough and we've even done without a toaster. Finally today, after some research, we went out and bought an Åviken 905 double waffle maker and a Wilfa BL1200 blender and so we had waffles and smoothies for lunch.  Yummie!

I wish I could get a new Kitchen Aid mixer, but it will have to wait. They are so much more expensive here. If it wasn't for the fact that you either needed a converter the size of a shoe box weighing a ton or replacing the motor of it to make it work in Europe, I would have brought it.

Next purchase on my list, is something I did not have in the US. A bike. We bought Chris a bike 2 weeks after getting here, that I've been riding all winter, but now I need one too, so we can go on bike rides together.

"It takes a year"

Someone said it takes a year to get settled in when you move to a new city. (Does moving from the US to Sweden qualify?). I didn't believe them. Now I do.

My (new) boss said that people always under-estimate the amount of work to move - otherwise no one would ever do it. He is so right. It's been almost 6 months and we still have ways to go.

It takes a year, if you're lucky. Or it takes more. Better not think about it.

ROI - Still in the red

I can't help to wonder, whether moving to Sweden was the right decision. I am quite positive that in the long term it is the right place for us to be. The main reason being: this is where we want our children to grow up! Also, it is home to me. Still, the process of getting to this place, where we see the long-term benefits of living in Sweden has been tough and is still not over.

Sure, I managed to get a job.
Sure, we managed to find a nice townhouse to rent.
Sure, we managed to fix our house up to be put on the market.
Sure, we managed to sell it.
Sure, we managed to pack and ship, sell or donate a house full of stuff.
Sure, we managed to get Lejon the paperwork needed to bring him into Sweden.
Sure, we survived the long trip here.
Sure, we found a decent, used car to buy.
Sure, we managed 3 weeks in an apartment that wasn't ours.
Sure, I started my job, working 5 days a week for the first time since William was born.
Sure, we got through moving into our townhouse and got some furniture to make us feel at home.
Sure, our crate arrived and we got unpacked.
Sure, we succeeded in getting Chris' residence permit.

All these things add up! It's been hard work! We are still exhausted! The stress of the move, will take a long time to recover from. So what did we gain, from doing all this work?

Yes, I like the snow. So does William and Lejon. Chris, not so much.
Yes, I love being able to ride a bike, and Linköping is a very bike friendly city. However, the winter isn't the best for biking.
Yes, we much prefer the food in Sweden. And the candy :)
Yes, we love being closer to my family. But it wasn't until last week my parents came to see us, and we still haven't been up north.
Yes, we love being closer to friends. But so far we have only seen a few of them, when we went to Gothenburg to visit one weekend in January. None of our friends actually live in Linköping.
Yes, we like the central location, with the proximity to Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and the continental Europe. 

I am well aware that my picture of Sweden is very idealistic and probably not realistic. Most of the benefits of living in Sweden are so far assumed positives. Whether they will come true or not, is still to be seen. But I do know, at the time being, the move hasn't paid off. We are still in the red. What we have gained from moving here, has so far not been worth the work we put in. We do not have a positive Return of Investment.

I am usually an optimistic person and this is probably a destructive way of looking at the move. All I know is we had to make a decision and go with it. We worked our asses off, without looking back and here we are. Still looking ahead. Believing one day, we will feel that the move has paid off. Hoping to add balloons to help lift our mental backpack that this move has filled with stones.

The eye sore of the street is gone

Today we finally got rid of that huge wooden box that has been littering our driveway the last month and a half. I had listed it on "Blocket" (Swedish equivalent of Craigslist) before Christmas and had a prospective buyer withing hours of listing. He fell through and so did the next couple of people who messaged me within the next several weeks. I guess there isn't much of a market for wooden crates.

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from someone, considering to make it into a hen house. I told him I didn't know much about hen houses, but surely with some modifications, it would work... Unfortunately he lived 3 hours away and needed transportation. He didn't get back to me until this week and today, the crate was loaded into a horse trailer and hauled away. We won't miss it one bit nor will our neighbors. It's safe to say, it's been the eye sore of the neighborhood for the last month and a half.

Despite the pain getting rid of it, I do recommend having your own crate to load/unload when moving overseas. It gave us plenty of time to carefully load it and like solving a 3D puzzle, fit as much as possible of our beloved belongings into before shipping out. For us it made a huge difference!

Our stuff finally arrived

Eight and a half weeks after our crate left our house in Arkansas, it has finally arrived at our rental townhouse in Linköping, Sweden. Being without most of our belongings for this long, was more difficult than expected.

The first three weeks after it shipped out, we were still at our house, getting rid of stuff and in the process of moving out. Since the only furniture we shipped was a book case and our dining table and chairs, we still had most of our furniture. As we sold individual items, little by little, our house emptied out. We were able to hang on to our sofas and coffee table until almost the end. And due to an arrangement with the buyers of our house, they took some of our furniture in exchange of letting us stay two more weeks after closing, we ended up getting to use our desk and guest bed until we left.

The last two nights in Arkansas, we stayed at a hotel. We could have stayed at our "old" house until we left, but decide to have a deadline of when we needed to be out of the house, to make sure we weren't still moving out/cleaning house up until the time we were boarding the plane. We needed a deadline.

Once we arrived in Sweden, my new job provided an apartment for us, the first three weeks, until we got access to our rental townhouse. Staying in the apartment was a good solution, for when we first arrived, mainly since it was furnished and had linens, towels, cook ware, table ware as well as other necessities such as toilet paper and soap. All we had to rush out and get, when we first arrived was some groceries. The main disadvantage of staying in the company apartment was that they only had reserved two out of three rooms for us; meaning we had company. Luckily, this was only the case, the first two and last two nights of our stay.

When we finally got to move in to our townhouse, we had beds delivered from IKEA the same day. We had prepared some, by buying bedding and some cook and table ware as well as a vacuum cleaner, but we still needed a lot more stuff. The next day our IKEA couches arrived, that we had ordered over a month earlier, during one of their sofa campaigns (for each sofa you buy, you get 1000 SEK to spend at IKEA). The next two weeks after moving in, we filled our pantries and kitchen cabinets and drawers. We got light fixtures (I had totally forgotten that in Sweden, you have to bring your own when you move in to a place), hangers, towels, cook ware and a stereo and TV. 

Finally, this Thursday, our crate with our most beloved material belongings arrived. Since it arrived in the morning, and Chris isn't the most patient person, everything was already unloaded, in our house, by the time I got home from work. He had even assembled our table and chairs! Thank you superman! I went right to work, unpacking. I started with the plastic tubs, holding our kitchen stuff. A pleasant surprise was that NOTHING was broken. Considering, we had done the packing ourselves, this is pretty good. Afterwards, I cleaned the bookcase and unpacked all our book boxes into it. Our bookcase is full! William had his own bookshelf in Arkansas, and we will probably get him one soon, cause his books alone, take up four out of nine cubes in our book case.

The things I had missed the most were:

1. Dining table and chars
2. Silverware (we only brought 2 forks, 1 knife and some spoons)
3. Winter boots (I realized quite fast that my canvas boots didn't stay dry in the snow)
4. Hooded sweatshirts
5. Jeans (I only had one pair with me in my suitcase)

The unpacking is a work in progress. It will take a while to find a spot for all our stuff. We didn't actually bring that much. Only approx 160 cubic feet worth of things. But our townhouse is considerably smaller, with much less storage space than our old house. This Christmas holiday will be spent unpacking and organizing. I am sure by New Years, we will be settled in and ready to relax. All and all, I think we did good, prioritizing what to bring, and getting by with very little for a long time. Now, we are ready to get back to some normalcy.

I am so happy to have our stuff back!