A trip to remember....

Whew! it's over! As I sit here on my warm comfy couch, I can reflect on this memory I made with my mom and even though I have nicknamed it "The trip from Haiti's", it all is seems pretty comical!

My mom and I made a mad dash to Maryland to get her things out of storage. She sold her house in 2009 and sold as much as she could but still had quite a bit left. We had planned to go get it all in June (thank God, it would've been so flippin' HOT!) so we planned on a long weekend over Veterans Day holiday.

We left Thursday morning at 6:00am! We took ALL four seats in my van out and only took what we needed. The drive was great! We stopped about 5 times for gas, snacks, dinner and potty breaks.
We got to Winchester, VA (hotel location) around 6:30pm. Mom and I freshened up and went to a local Mall to browse. We ate dinner there and I tried to convince her to do one of those photo booths with me but she "didn't have any make-up on". we went into JCPenneys and I was hunting for a new purse. I love fall and I wanted to find a "autumn" purse. Cha-ching!!! I hit the jackpot with a cute little Liz Claiborne diddy! I love a new purse!
 Anyway, we went to the hotel and vegged out.

Friday brought out the worst of me! I knew it was going to be physically exhausting for me and I prepared myself for that. What I didn't prepare for was the delirium I would experience and the physical pain of hunger and cold after 12 1/2 hours of moving, pulling, pushing, tugging, and exerting every muscle in my body.

After eating breakfast around 10:30am, we headed to the storage unit and began to pull everything out. All the big, heavy stuff was towards the back of course. After making a disastrous mess while pulling things out, we both knew that some things weren't going to make it. I am a firm believer in divine appointments. God sent a couple to us whom we had no idea what their circumstances were. We were just trying to get rid of two televisions and some other things. This lady who was my age just happened to come by to get something out of her unit and we asked if she wanted or needed a t.v. Her husband was in the car and we asked him. Anyway, they both agreed that they would take it from us. They had to go back an get a bigger vehicle. Long story short, we ended up giving them the two t.v.'s, a chest of drawers, a t.v. stand, a mattress and box springs, a desk and chair and we found a baby doll for their young daughter to take. During our conversation with them, they told us that they were starting over. They had lost most of their stuff in their previous home (maybe an eviction?). It was just good to give this all to people trying to make things better for their families.
Divine appointments....love 'em!

My mom and I worked hard for a few hours and I had to go get some water. And I wanted to turn some heat on! It was in the 40's but the wind was blowing something fierce. I came back and I really thought that we'd be done by 8pm o so. It took a long time to get the big stuff loaded. More than I expected. I lost all sense of time after the furniture was all in. I just focused on getting as much as I could in as quickly as I could. It must've been at least 9pm and I was at the end of my physical capabilities. I was in so much pain and I was hungry and cold and exhausted. My mom had to end up throwing some good stuff away. We were shoving, stuffing, and packing all kinds of things in every crevice, nook, and cranny in my van and the moving truck. We were down to a dining room chair, a living room chair, a bed spring, a metal baker's rack, half of a bed rail, and a suitcase!
I went to Walmart to get some bungees while my mom broke down some cardboard boxes. It must've been almost 10pm when I got what I needed at Walmart and wouldn't you know, they were locking the doors on the general merchandise side and I just about had a nuclear explosion. I told the "old man" that Walmart is notorious for hiring as "greeters", that I was NOT going to walk all the way to the other end after the pain I was in and I was NOT going to move from that spot until he unlocked those dumb doors. As I was waiting for him to move as slow as Christmas, this other guy with a cart full of groceries stands behind me and says "excuse me" like I was all in his way! I turned and said " I'm waiting for the door to open too!!!" Some people!!! I really was not me in these last hours of the day.
I got back to the storage unit and wouldn;t ya know that the gate hours are from 9:30am to 10:00pm and my mom was done with her part. I was so cold, I was shaking and groaning in pain. I had my phone on my leg when I went to Walmart and I was so delirious that when I got back, I went to look for it and couldn't find it. I seriously lost my mind! I began to yell and cry and holler and panic. I was a terrible mess. At this point, it must've been 11pm. We strapped the rest of the leftover stuff to the top of my van and I started my car to leave. My mom came to my window and said that the battery int the moving truck was dead..............(crickets began to chirp)

It took us until 12:45am to get roadside assistance to come and jump off the truck and we were finally on the way back to Winchester. I think it was about 2am and when we got back to the hotel, I peeled my clothes off and got into the shower. The hottest water I could stand.  I was in so much pain, I was moaning loudly. My mom said that people next to us were going to light a cigarette after I was done. I have to admit, it probably sounded like I was having a good time with a man but I really was hurting and didn't care what sound I made or who heard me!

We both slept until about 11am. It took us over an hour to get going on the road. We had to find a place to get some breakfast and coffee. We stopped every 2 hours or so. It must've been 8 or 9pm on Saturday and we went into a McD's to get some coffee and use the bathroom. Suddenly I looked down and found that good ole' mother nature's friend showed up to greet me! Great! the trip just got even better! I mentioned it to my mom and she began to laugh hysterically in the bathroom stall. We went on to get some gas and headed on to Cookeville. We stopped one last time at a rest area about 45 miles from home. My mom  was beat down, I was exhausted in every sense of the word and she thought she just couldn't make it. I told her to push through the pain and try to make it just a little bit longer. Gosh, those last miles were so long!

It was about 2am on Sunday morning when we got to my house. She was afraid to pull the truck into my driveway at night so she parked it at Walgreen's. Bill had stayed up to greet us and helped me untie all the bungee cords and straps off the top of my van. I don't even remember what I did after that, I just remember falling into my bed and going to sleep.

Our adventure ended and I had a few church friends come over last night to help me unload the heavy stuff. Thank God for strong men!
Bill couldn't help me with his bad back and besides he was at a Scout meeting.

Thought there were parts that were hard to endure, my mom and I made a lasting memory. I have written about here just in case one day, my son wants to know how his mom can lose her sanity. LOL

Life is short and I'm so glad I still have my mom. She's one tough cookie, a gold medal winner in the category of starting over. If you still have your mom around, go do something out of the ordinary with her. Make  a memory that will last forever.