Morning has broken...

...on our first full day away from our old life. Kind of surreal. Currently it feels like we are just on some vacation (which we are); but that we will be returning to Chicago when it is all over. But, that is not to be. We are now technically homeless. I believe that these past few weeks of preparation have been amongst the most stressful days of my life. Pretty much every day of the past 5 days prior to our move; have brought about some adt'l hurdle to overcome. Were we not to leave Chicago? Anything else that the heavens can hurl @ us? Jeepers. Let's recap the day yesterday; that is; the big move day! We were up until 11pm the night before; finishing up on the "little piddly shit" as it's become known. Going to bed, I imagined we would wake up to find still more stuff that required long term commitments to complete. Not to be. We were up by 5:30am, packed a few stragglers; and were ready for the movers...who were to be there @ 8am. When did they arrive? 9:45am. Yes. You read it right. All of my Chicago readers also know that it was raining all day yesterday; so that was against us from the get-go. All in all, it was turning out to be quite a lovely day. No stress; and everything going according to plan. So, the other half and I started loading our stuff ourselves; we got about 1/3 of our boxes loaded by the time the guys arrived. When they did, they loaded everything else w/in 1 1/2 hours. Quick; and cool guys. We loaded up our truck for the vacation; placed all of our keys on our kitchen counter; along w/ our garage door opener; and closed the doors for the last time. I was sad; I cried. We put a great deal of work into the place; and it has been our home for almost 5 years. It's really, really weird to think that we'll never see that place again. Strange. Anyway, our little caravan began heading south. We said goodbye to Chicago; on our way to Bedford Park; where our "pods" were. The other half and I in front, one of the guys driving the U-haul; and their own vehicle behind. It was pouring rain. Neat! W/in an hour; we were @ the "pod" place. W/ the exception of a couple of boxes worth of space, the two "pods" were full. Let me just say that our choice to leave the sofa behind; to be sold by or taken by our realtor; turned out to be the best choice of this whole damned process. Had we taken the couch (there would have been room in the U-haul), we would have been (forgive) f***ed! Thank God it worked out the way it did; or more heartache would have been calling us. Then, the U-haul return place was to be in LaGrange. We called for those directions, only to find out that the place we were to return no longer handled U-hauls. So, after many phone calls; and my ever-decreasing sanity reaching its breaking point, we found out there was a return facility only 5 blocks from our "pod" loading area. The guys got it all in, we gave them our remaining liquor from our fridge; and they were on our way. We gassed up the U-haul; dropped the behemoth off; and we were on our way. Many other things in the days leading up to the move will be accounted for later. Let me end here; as our first full day on the road begins; w/ this. We drove about 6 hours from Chicago to Metropolis (right on the border of IL and KY) in monsoon-style, pouring rain...at least 10 times we were in what can be termed as...I guess...white-out conditions. Not snow mind you, but rain. I thought for sure that when we dropped off the U-haul, we would be stress free. What's up against us? Hmmm? Enough. More later.

Btw, I am sure this must be one of the most boring, rambling entries I've ever put to the computer screen. Enjoy.