The "homeless" kids have arrived... and they brought cats.

Okay, so while we ARE "technically" without a permanent address, we aren't well and truly homeless.  I shouldn't kid - I am quite grateful that no matter where we are going, we have a place to "land" - and I don't mean to make light of those folks out there who are well and truly homeless.

But we no longer reside in North Carolina.  I was awake at 5:30 this morning with my same sour stomach, because when we went to bed last night at midnight, we still hadn't quite figured out how to get all of the stuff packed into the car, and we'd done 3 or 4 rearrangings already (well, mostly Stephen had).  I tried to get back to sleep, but it wasn't happening, so I attempted to do some quiet puttering/packing.  Again, Yoda would say that I had failed, since I DID NOT ("Do or do not.  There is no try.").  Stephen was awake and in the shower by 6.  Sorry, babe.

We just got started, doing what we needed to do, and at some point, I made a decision to discard a suck-bag of sweats (shirts and pants) that was just taking up too much room in the trunk.  We both had "precious" articles in it, but I said that we wouldn't look through it, we wouldn't waver.  We would just downsize in one "swell foop."  As I carried it to the dumpster - and no, if I could have donated it to an appropriate person or charity, I wouldn't have just discarded it - I didn't look at it.  As I threw it in, I noticed my zip-up hoodie from Trader Joe's.  I didn't cry about it until later, but I did cry about it.  Everything in that bag was just a thing; articles of clothing we don't even need; taking up entirely too much valuable space in the car.  But still.

So anyway.  Got the trunk re-packed.  Got the car interior re-packed.  Got as much cleaning done as needed doing.  Got a little "cave" created in the back seat for the cats.  Got the cats into the car, with the engine and A/C running, and Stephen in the pass seat, waiting for me to lock up and head out.  We'd been up three hours before Stephen had any coffee, so our very first destination was the gas station near the highway, and he wanted to drive first, so with huge cuppa in hand, he hit the highway at 9:26 this morning.  He intended to drive the whole distance to our first fueling, but it was just too much.  He got to hit all of the road work and vehicular accident sites and foul weather and whatnot in every (okay, BOTH) shift(s) he drove.  We decided that he'd drive 200 miles, then I would, then he'd drive 100 miles, and then I would.  After five hours on the road, we hadn't quite made it halfway.  But we pressed on.

The cats were brilliantly chill.  We were quite happy ourselves.  No more NC address!  And we arrived at Daddy's after only ten hours or so.  His cat is not so happy to see us, so we've got our furbabies safely ensconced upstairs, and we'll see what we see about integrating them into this particular "household."  We're here for the next two weeks or so.  If you need to reach us, call/text/email/Facebook/comment here, or do almost all of those options with Stephen or Daddy.

Not really homeless - we're on vacation! :)