On December 30, 2017, we closed on our new house in Idaho. We sent 2 out of 3 PODs worth of our stuff to Idaho in the first week of January, and now we are spending a week in Idaho. We had great plans of arriving on Saturday afternoon and having a few hours to unpack our bed and necessities before sundown. Yeah, that didn’t happen. Our flight from Sacramento to Spokane was delayed an hour and a half. The sun was going down as we raced from the airport to Home Depot to get a couple of lamps, an extension cord, and a snow shovel before heading to our new house in Worley, Idaho.

There was a tiny bit of light left when we drove up the driveway.  Our new neighbor, Kyle, stopped by and gave us the lowdown on how he had plowed our driveway for the delivery of our PODs.  Kyle was very helpful and we truly appreciated his efforts.   Kyle is a busy guy this time of year as he has a trapline that needs to be tended to every 72 hours.  Unfortunately, when our PODs were delivered, they weren’t really where we had hoped they would be:  near the garage with the doors facing the house.  Instead, they were up by the workshop with the doors facing away from the house.

So at 5:30 PM, in the dark, with a bit of snow and ice we began unpacking our belongings.  Basically, we needed to unpack enough stuff to find our bed and one box with a few necessities like toilet paper and bare essentials for the kitchen.  Shawn had the forethought to pack a powerful light to illuminate our path.

I think I may have mentioned that we bought the house after seeing it for about 40 minutes in November.  Since then, I have been pouring over the pictures we took almost daily, and they made everything a bit larger and shinier in my mind.  I had a moment of buyer’s remorse as I saw the state of the house in the fading light. With all the furniture removed, the rooms seemed smaller to me and everything a bit more worn and dingy.  Then I woke up Sunday morning, saw the incredible view and remembered everything that made me love the place the first time I saw it.

Saturday night after shlepping our stuff through the snow into the house and workshop, we drove into Coeur d’Alene to get some dinner and groceries.  Across the parking lot from the Chipotle, we happened upon Growler Guys.  They had 42 taps of craft beer and cider and were happy to let you taste them all (we did not…yet).  They were also advertising “Beer Yoga” the following evening.  We left with a couple 32 ounce “crowlers” of cider and barrel aged stout.  Back home, dead tired and in bed at 10 PM.

 

Sunday dawned a glorious sunny day.  We donned our work gloves and beanies and headed out into the cold to work on emptying the PODs.  I have moved in a lot of conditions, but this is the first time snow and ice have been in the mix.  Most of our stuff went into the workshop, garage and main floor of the house, but a few of the larger pieces of furniture needed to go in the basement.  This involved using a hand-truck to ferry the items around the side of the house through the snow and a few icy patches.  Shawn did an amazing job and no furniture was lost in this endeavor.

A few of the tracks in the snow were not ours…some 4-legged visitors had wandered through the yard

The previous owners left us a few things.  Some were thoughtful; others were downright weird.  The notes indicating which fuel was diesel or regular gas for the tractor = thoughtful.  The 1970’s era end table, full compost balls, yard butterfly art, child’s drawing of the water cycle, and assorted dishes = weird.

Before noon on Monday, we had everything out of the PODs.  We still need to unpack and do a million other things, but we are officially moved in!

Our first guests