and so it begins

Our house is officially sold. We will be vacating on August 31st, then taking our belongings to Portland and storing them there for a month while we go visit our family and friends in the midwest. I'm so happy that we're finally getting back to visit everyone after two years of not going anywhere.

Flights are booked. A little tip: look up the flight comparisons on one of those sites that gives you the lowest fares. But once you find that flight, go to the airline website to book it. Because something that you might not realize when you book through those cheap places? Is that itineraries are subject to change not only without notice, but without them notifying you. This happened to us once, and had we not called the airline for something else, we'd have never known they changed our itinerary - we would have missed our flight home. The airlines don't do this, because when you've booked a flight, you've booked that flight. Not the possibility of that flight, or something like it. If I can spare anyone this same fate, it's a good thing.

My upcoming posts might well be about all of my adventures in packing and moving to the US, so be warned. Hopefully I'll be able to offer tips and tricks to others who are moving, maybe someone else will find this useful.

The fun thing about moving is that we get to get rid of stuff. I always love a good purge of stuff we never use, so I have that to look forward to. There is also the Inventory of Everything We Own, which can be informative and interesting, and most useful is that when we're unpacking we know exactly what items are in each box. The inventory is something that was required of us when we moved into Canada, so we are assuming that when returning, the US will also want to know what we're bringing into the country, as they tend to be even more strict about such things.

Of note: the Canadian immigration website is quite user-friendly. If a person is willing to take the time and read the website, pretty much anything anyone might want to know about immigrating is on that website. I mean, really - everything. I cannot say that the US website even comes close. I still have no idea what the requirements are for us moving back into the US, even though I spent a good hour on the website.

I was at least able to contact someone at the DoT to find out what we'd need for our car...though I had to call one number and get the second number, then leave a message and wait for a call back. I think the big difference here is that Canadian government seems to completely abhor phone usage of any kind, ever. There are pretty much zero phone numbers anywhere for people to call immigration, and even when you do find one, all you get is a recorded message with the exact same information that can be found on the website, only less of it. Whereas the US seems much more fond of telephone communication - there are phone numbers everywhere to call for all manner of things, and very little actual information on the website that I can ascertain other than the forms I'll need - only I have to call the numbers to find out which forms.

Sorry if this is totally boring to everyone but me.

Also, see that gorgeous picture above? I found it on the interweb - the photo is linked to the page - and I searched for a way to find the actual artist  - Ramona Safree - and see if maybe she had prints of this for sale. Sadly, I could not find anything. I hope she is still painting and selling her work somewhere, because I love her colours and her soul.