Four weeks ago, we watched the PODS truck drive away with nearly all of our earthly belongings. We "moved in" to our little rental house on Aug. 15. Our PODS arrived in the bonded warehouse in Mississauga, Ontario (near Toronto) on Aug. 23. Today--finally--the first container was delivered to our residence. They bring the second one on Wednesday, Aug. 31. Friends, if you are moving, esp. to Canada, do yourselves a favor and pay a moving company. Or, if you can't do that, just rent the appropriately sized U-Haul and drive it yourselves.

Ok, now that I've got that out of the way, I'll share a few photos from the arrival of POD 1.

When the truck arrived on our street, I went outside to flag the driver down. He stopped and climbed down out of the truck. The first thing I noted was that his t-shirt said "Stay Lit!" Oh great. Anyway, he did a nice job backing the truck into position and unloading the POD without damaging the trees or anyone else's property.

Now, to be quite honest, I was a little afraid of what we might find when I opened the POD door. I had already convinced myself that everything had shifted during transport, that the ratchet straps failed, and things were going to be strewn about and broken, I rolled up the door and was pleasantly surprised:

The ratchet straps held just fine and, really, nothing had shifted much at all. Nothing was broken. A few boxes had been crushed a bit, but the paper and/or bubble wrap inside of them did their job (one of those boxes contained most of our dishes, so we are thankful for the packing paper!!).

So the three of us stated carrying things into the house (and a few items into the garage) and started to unpack. Our house here is about 600 sq. ft. smaller than the one in which we lived in Oklahoma. Knowing that, we down-sized quite a bit, and I am glad we did. I think we will fit into this house quite nicely. Sure it'll be tight here and there, but livable.

Of course, one of the first things I got set up was the TV and Google Chromecast. It's football season, ya know! Go Hawks! Go Broncos!

I'm mostly happy that we no longer have to sleep on air mattresses! There is one hiccup, however: our two queen-sized box springs will not fit up the stairwell. So, either we will go buy a set of split box springs for our bed and the guest bed or, once my tools arrive on Wed., I'll let my inner DIY'er out and do this: