The transition from New Orleans to Chicago has been a little stressful and rushed. Or should I say the transition of New Orleans-Des Plaines-New Orleans-Memphis-Bolingbrook-Schaumburg-Chicago. Yeah. I came up to Des Plaines last week planning to work Monday through Friday. Imagine my surprise when they told me on Monday afternoon that they would be moving me on WEDNESDAY. But it's what had to be done. :) I booked a new flight for Tuesday. THEN I got stuck downtown in a work meeting and it went hours long. So I wasn't able to get back to the office to get my belongings and to pick up my rental car. I ended up having to cab it to the airport with just my wristlet! No makeup, no extra clothes, no nothin'.
I was able to convince my sister and law to hop on a flight back to New Orleans with me on Tuesday night. We went out on Bourbon St for a couple hours (she'd never been to New Orleans) and then I stayed up til almost 6am packing. You wouldn't think it would have been that hard. Or, maybe you would and I'm just the dummy. Yeah, that's probably it. The moving company packs everything for you. So I thought it'd be OK to get ready in one night. However, I underestimated how long it would take to do laundry, clean the kitchen, do dishes, etc AND try to pack as much as I could into my trunk for my temporary living place where I'll be for a month. Yep, had to pack enough stuff to get me through a month of living into my trunk. The kitties had to go in the back seat in their cages. After a stressful <24 hours in New Orleans, my sister and law and I were on our way.
We planned to drive halfway and then stay the night in Memphis and drive the rest of the way Thursday. Sharon suggested driving straight, but 14 hours in the car is too long for me (on 2 hours sleep), let alone my poor kitties. About 2 hours away from Memphis I pulled over and asked Sharon to drive. Dumb me, I forgot that the drivers seat on my car was broken. The seat was all the way back and wouldn't move forward. Sharon couldn't reach the pedals :(
She offered to put a bunch of stuff behind her but by then I had bought a bunch of caffeine and sugar and figured I could finish up the drive. As soon as we got back on the road, we hit really bad weather. I don't know how we got through it - I couldn't see a thing and Sharon was plastered to the windshield trying to help me see. We made it to Memphis and the next day I saw in their newspaper that there were a bunch of tornados right there. Yikes!
On Thursday, the drive was longer, but it was daytime and Sharon helped drive. Poor Sharon couldn't have been comfortable; we had to stuff bags behind her back so she could reach the pedals. :) The drive seemed shorter since we had gotten some sleep and I was checked into my hotel by 8pm. The kitties were very happy to be out of the car!
On Friday, I had to go back to work right away. I felt bad leaving the kitties in the hotel room. And I was nervous because I didn't know how they'd be (especially SMOKEY). I signed something that said if my pets made noise, they would kick me out. So far so good though! I ended up being gone for over 13 hours between work, the commute to work and a huge ordeal of taking my rental car back (giant pain). I was worried to come back into the hotel room, but the kitties were fast asleep and I hadn't been kicked out. :)
So here I am still in a hotel room. Tomorrow night I move into my temporary apartment. I'm looking forward to that. Even though I still won't have any of my stuff other than what's with me, it will be nice to be out of a hotel. Now I just need to figure out where I'm going to live in the city! WOOT! Anywho, this was a big giant ramble of nothingness. Sorry if you read all the way to the end waiting for something to happen! :)
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