It only took six weeks...

...for me to finally unpack the last of the stuff from our trip.

Well, technically I unpacked around midnight the night we got home (six weeks ago yesterday).  Before you go and say, "What the heck were you doing unpacking suitcases at midnight the night you got home exhausted after 30+ hours since leaving your hotel in Guangzhou?" realize that my mom was here.  AND she was willing to do my laundry...

So that night I dumped out all the clothes, and all the "stuff" that wasn't clothing went into four of my grocery bags.  I was smart enough to allow myself to not have to figure out where all that "stuff" was going to go just yet.  Because clothes are easy to put away.  They go in dressers and closets.  They've already lived in your house before.  But the "stuff" hasn't.  You know the "stuff" I'm talking about, souvenirs, momentos, airplane entertainment, travel pillows, electrical adapters, ...You've got to figure out new places to stick things.  And when your house is as "cozy" as mine is, that's not such an easy task.  So I was gracious to myself and decided to deal with the "stuff"another day.

Suddenly "another day" became nearly six weeks later!

Each day I woke up and told myself that I needed to work on just one bag.  After all, I was getting tired of the clutter in my room.  I also really wanted to be able to use the bench to my grandmother's vanity again.  But each day I'd find something to distract me during nap time, and by the time the kids went back to bed, I was too tired to be bothered at night.  So they sat.

For six weeks they taunted me. 

But yesterday I finally decided it was time to show those bags (and the "stuff" in them) who was boss.

 I won!

And no, I didn't just move the bags.  The souvenirs have been distributed, the momentos have been filed away (or recycled if duplicates), airplane entertainment has been put aside for the long road trips of summer, and all "travel accessories" have been returned to their Rubbermaid tub awaiting the next overseas trip...

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Which brings me to another thought.  I never talked about the trip home.  I think it has taken me six weeks to think about it because it was so bad.  No, not the children.  They were angels.  In fact this is what they looked like for some ten of the 13 hour flight from Shanghai to Chicago.

What was awful was how bad I felt.  So much of the trip is a blur in my mind.  I don't remember anything about the flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai, and only vaguely recall Ian entertaining our three blessedly well behaved kids in the Shanghai airport during our five hour layover so that I could sleep on some seats.  By the time we reached Chicago I wanted to drop on the floor and sleep, but of course we had to commemorate our youngest becoming a citizen...

When we finally stepped off the plane in NC I was so happy to be done traveling that I almost cried.  And then there was such a welcoming committee to love on us.  It brought about the adrenaline I needed to get home.  And when I finally went to the Medi-quick the next day I felt somewhat justified to learn that I had walking pneumonia ~ at least I understood why I had felt so bad.

Funny thing is that as dreadful as that thirty hours was, I still see myself doing it again someday...