We Are Home!

There has been so much going on in the last week that I don't even know where to begin.

We left Walter Reed on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 around 5:30 that evening. We drove to Hagerstown, MD (about a two hour drive in rush hour) and picked up a wood lathe that J.R. bought. It took us almost two hours to unpack the trailer, load the lathe, and then repack the trailer. There was not an extra inch of space left in the Uhaul. Not the mention the back to the Xterra was also jammed full. We grabbed a quick bite to eat after all the loading was complete and finally got on the road for home around 9:45 that night.

At 6:30 am we arrived at my parents house in Michigan. After a quick bite to eat with my family and my best friend, J.R. and I crashed and went to bed. After sleeping for a few hours I woke up and did quick visits with a few people. Around 7:30 pm (eastern time) Thursday night, we once again got in the car and headed for Menomonie.

We arrived home at 5:30 (central time) Friday morning. It felt so good to pull in the driveway. I opened the door to find that out refrigerator door was open. I looked inside and all my food was missing. Nothing in the freezer. After looking around for a few minutes I found a note from my landlord. A week ago storms with winds up to 80 mph went through Menomonie and the power was out for three days. My amazing landlord remembered to grab my food and put it in a fridge with a generator. The storm also explained why the gorgeous pine tree that once stood on the edge of my apartment was blown over. After exploring the damage done to our neighborhood I went to bed. It didn't last long. At eight am there was crew complete with chainsaws right outside my bedroom window cleaning up the fallen tree. I stopped trying to sleep through the noise and rolled out of bed.

After a quick shower I left to grocery shop. It was crazy to walk into Wal-Mart grab a cart and really fill it to the top. For the first time since Christmas I was able to shop for a week at a time and not just three days. I loaded the car and left for home. I then took the groceries from the bags and put them away. No labeling with the number 24, no rearranging the fridge to make more room, no frustration. It was amazing.

Later that day J.R. unpacked the Uhaul. There are boxes all over our apartment. I have no idea where we are going to find room for everything, but it's got to all fit. I fell asleep on the couch at eight that evening. J.R. finally woke me up around ten. Since he unloaded the entire trailer alone I thought I should make him dinner. One quick dinner later and I cleaned up and went to bed for the rest of the night.

Saturday the rain started. After getting ready I jumped and the car and left for my sister-in-laws wedding shower up in Hayward. Now it's Wisconsin in the summer so of course it's construction season. It was a miserable drive. Between the rain and the detour it took me over two hours to make it up there. It was nice to see familiar faces. After the shower was over I headed home. My head had been hurting since I woke up but on the way home it got much worse. By the time I pulled in the driveway I had a full blown migraine. I curled up in my dark bedroom and waited for the it to disappear. It took all night but at least it's gone.

While I was trying to sleep, J.R. was packing for Aspen. He stayed up all night trying to find all of his stuff in boxes. He woke me up around nine the Sunday morning so that I could get ready to take him to the airport. We never made it to the airport. Just before we left he realized that he could not locate the folder with all of his college information. Neither of us have had a chance to enroll in classes yet and the cut off date it coming up fast. If he didn't have the folder he couldn't leave for Aspen. By this point every box was turned upside down and the contents were dumped out. Lack of sleep and the stress of moving home made for short tempers. Realizing that there was just to much to get done he cancelled the trip.

I spent most of Sunday unpacking clothes. I can't believe how many t-shirts J.R. received while at Walter Reed. I'm having a hard time making room for everything. I have two bags of clothes ready to go to Goodwill. Now if I can just get J.R. to add to the bags. After J.R. wakes up today I can continue on the mission to locate the floor of my bedroom. I'm almost there. Another few hours and I should have the clothes taken care of. I also tackled the bathroom right away. It took two hours just to do that! There isn't a lot of room so I really had to sort through everything. Condensing pills, tossing out expired meds, dealing with the multiples we have of everything. At least I am close to having two rooms back of my apartment.

Today is going to be spent unpacking. It is STILL raining. It hasn't stopped since Saturday morning. It doesn't rain all summer and now we're getting it all at once. Go figure. We have pools of water behind our apartment. I am so glad that we don't have the flooding that is happening just a few hours south of us. Hopefully we will stay flood free.

J.R. is still sleeping. He is trying desperately to get off the last of his meds. It makes him rather cranky when he cuts back on them so I'm trying very hard to just let him be. Hopefully he's not to sore to help unpack some today. I could really use the help.