Dehoarding: 1. Stress: 0.

We haven't felt well since we went on vacation to my nephew's wedding. There have been chills, fevers, lethargy (Hopper actually slept 25 hours straight the other day, and the girls slept about 18 hours straight last night), body aches, (my elbow has hurt so much I can hardly use my right arm and have been using one of those band things around my forearm that are used to treat tendinitis and wearing leg warmers to keep the elbow warm), and some rather unpleasant side effects of the intestinal sort. It's been rather discouraging. I'm just hoping we're almost done with this bug, since we've already had it right at a week.

The good news is that we're unpacked from the trip. I just have to put the suitcases away and finish up the laundry. I quite liked having the laundry room floor clear of dirty clothes, so I'll be working today and tomorrow to finish up the rest of them. It's been so nice knowing we have a place for everything to go, too. It's the first time in 18 years we've had a place for all of our clothes. It definitely helps that we got rid of probably two-thirds of the clothing we had, and I'll be working on getting rid of even more. 

This is only the second vacation we've taken since I discovered that I have a hoarding problem. The first was last June when we went back home for Mom's birthday celebration. When we went back home then, we put the car-top carrier on the car and loaded it up and filled the back of our car. I can't think of a time we haven't used the extra space on vacation. 

Car top carriers are great for transporting those extra things you don't have the space for in the car, but they also make you a major target for thieves who can tell at a glance you're away from home. They also tend to be cumbersome to store, and as much as they're convenient, they're not. It can be quite the pain to attach them to the top of your car, and it's not entirely convenient to retrieve your belongings standing on a step stool. So it seemed really strange to try to go on vacation this year without using it. 

Things are always a bit tight in the back of the car. We have a small station wagon that can't possibly even be half the size of the one my family had when I was younger. (Those things had storage!) Still, we were able to get everything we needed for clothing for 2 weeks for 4 people, the pinata which was quite large, 4 winter coats, 4 sweatshirts, some items Mom asked me to take out to my sister's house and a few pillows from home in the back of the car. Granted, Hubster had to rely on the side mirrors only, but it really wasn't an issue.

And not having to load or unload the car top carrier was huge! It may have even saved us from having an accident. The carriers are not all that aerodynamic, so the wind can really bat you around the highway. On the way to Rochester, the wind was so strong, Hubster didn't dare take either hand off the wheel. There were several times that the wind buffeted the car enough that we nearly ended up in the ditch the way it was. I don't doubt that's where we'd have landed, if we'd had the car top carrier in place.

Honestly, I think we'd have ended up using the top of our car for storage for our vacation, if I hadn't started the dehoarding process over a year ago. Realizing we all have hoarding tendencies and trying to change the result of those tendencies made all the difference in the world for this trip. Obviously, the car top carrier situation was huge, but that wasn't the only thing.

It used to take me forever to get things packed for a trip. Because we had so many clothes, I was always doing laundry up until the last possible minute. There were times I'd forget to wash a much needed item, and we'd have have to haul it along to launder it while we were on vacation, or we'd have to buy something new when we arrived to replace it. And because the laundry was stacked in baskets in several rooms in the house, it would literally take days for me to pack.

I could never seem to sort out in my mind what shirt would go with what pants with what socks, etc., when I never had the room for the clothes to all be in the same area. I would think one set of clothes would make the perfect outfit only to find the right colored shirt in the dirty clothes. It was exhausting and incredibly stressful. I would get by on no more than 5 hours of sleep nightly for a full week or more before heading out of town. Considering I need a minimum of 8 hours to function properly, I felt like a zombie most of the vacation.

My, what a difference a year makes!

I was able to pack the girls' suitcases in less than 30 minutes. 

Total. For. Both. Of. Them. 

It took me about 10 minutes to pack my own bag, and The Hubster packed his, so I didn't have that to do. I was in shock that it took so little effort and so little time to get everything ready to get on the road for a 10 day vacation.

 

There was still stress. There always is. But the amount of stress getting out of here for this trip compared to vacations in the past is minuscule. 

Just one of the many perks of dehoarding. 

I think I'll keep it up...

And on that note...good night!

It feels like we've been gone from home for forever. It's only been about 10 days, but it's amazing how much we packed in to that short amount of time. We've thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but we've had some interesting hotel adventures along the way.


The longer we're gone, the harder it seems to get going in the mornings to get an early start on the road. It seems to verge on the impossible, even. So we decided to stop last night in Lincoln, NE at the same hotel we stayed at on the way up to Rochester. We were hoping the several hundred miles we had yet to drive today would go more quickly, if we were well rested, and the kids had gotten some sleep.


We didn't want them to go straight to sleep, because we wanted them to feel like they enjoyed their short visit at this now familiar hotel. So we took them to the pool. The water was a bit on the cold side, so they didn't stay in the pool long. We sat in the hot tub for about 10 minutes and went back to the room, got the girls showered, and into bed. 


When the girls were little, we'd often give them a nice warm bath to help them  sleep, but it didn't seem to do much good last night. The second Hopper's head hit the pillow, she started having a meltdown. It came out of nowhere, like the one had the night before, with the volume escalating with every cry. There were several times we thought she'd finally succumbed to the sandman only to hear a panicky, "MOM!" or "DADDY!" from the other bed, startling all who had dare drift off to sleep. It was well after midnight when she finally drifted into a relaxing sleep.


We were so tired that we decided not to set an alarm and just wake up on our own. Where we'll be home tonight, and we'll all get to sleep in our own beds, we figured it didn't matter, if it took longer to get home. We'll get home tonight regardless, and we figured a little extra sleep might make traveling today easier. 


Ha.


Precisely at 9:30a.m., the strobe light in the room that is used to alert those who are hard of hearing of an emergency started flashing. Let me just say that it was BRIGHT! We didn't exactly panic, because there was no audible alarm sounding, and it shut off within about 30 seconds. We figured we could wake up a little more slowly, so we crawled back into bed to awake at a more leisurly pace. 


Ha.


Our heads no sooner hit the pillows than the strobe started flashing again. Hubster tried to call the front desk to see what the problem was, but the phone didn't work. He put on his jeans and walked down to the front desk. Someone was working on fire alarm system for the hotel. Over the course of the hour and a half or so it took us to get packed up, showered and leave, the strobe light started flashing no less than 20 times. The last time, it stayed on continuously for 45 minutes. 


That peaceful and restful start to our day didn't really get off the ground so well. The strobing made me sick to my stomach and got on all our nerves. Hubster talked to the manager of the hotel and got a partial refund on the room. We felt it was very fair of them. We understood that the inspection wasn't their fault, but they could have also alerted those who were staying in the rooms that were equipped with the strobing lights to what was going on.


When Hubster was finished up, we took off on our long trek home. There was no rain in sight, but to say there wasn't a cloud in the sky would be a lie. There was heavy cloud cover, haze or smoke in the air all 450 miles home, and the wind was something else. It buffeted the car about the highway for a couple hundred miles, but things finally settled down, and we didn't have to stop for Dramamine. Still. It made for a long start to a long day.


We did finally make it home at 8pm our time, 9pm Central time, where we'd spent the last 10 days. Needless to say, it was a long day.


Everyone is exhausted but oh so glad to be home. Best of all? 


We get to sleep in our own beds!

Neither snow, nor rain, nor dark of night, nor rain, etc., etc., nor rain...

No. I don't work for the US Postal Service. But we've needed to rely on their motto to make it to our nephew's wedding. The weather has been horrid at best, and it's caused signficant delays along the way. A thousand mile trek is long enough in it's own right. Add torrential rain, hail,wind, and fog, and it gets a lot longer.


I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. I'll take the delays we've had due to bad weather (the first 230 miles took 5.5 hours to drive on the interstate due to hail, rain, and accidents) over the tornadoes and flooding that so many in our country have dealt with in the last several weeks. The delays are simply an inconvenience. They're not actually life altering.  So like I said. I'm not complaining. We are incredibly thankful for the safe trip we've  had so far.


It's amazing to see all the different hues of green in the landscape of the Midwest. From the lush green grasses to the budding trees and the newly plowed and planted fields, (one of my favorite sights ever), it reminds me that there is life out there that is bigger than my own. That my existence is but a drop in the cosmic bucket of life. It's a nice reminder. It doesn't make me feel small and insignificant, but rather it reminds me that I'm part of a bigger picture. A picture that is ever changing. 


Growing.

And growth is good.


Growth is change.


We've talked a lot about how things have changed over the years. The last time we made a 1000 mile trip was well over a decade ago. If the car broke down, we had to hope for a passing car to stop and help us out or hope to limp into the next town without ruining the car completely. We had to have maps stowed away in the glovebox to be spread out in the front seat, so we could see where we were going. Back then, it seemed like a much bigger problem, if we missed an exit.


Now, we can call the tow truck ourselves from the safety of our car, rely on GPS to make sure we don't make a wrong turn, and browse the internet on our way across the country. We can find out with the click of a few buttons, if there are any stores in the upcoming miles where we can buy much needed toiletries or snacks and what their hours of operation are. We can call the Highway Patrol of any state to report a drunk driver, an accident, or a fallen tree that's impeding traffic. 


We'd have to bring books of all sorts and games to try to keep the kids occupied in the backseat in days gone by to keep the, "She's touching me!"s to a minimum. Now there are MP3s and personal DVD players and portable electronic games to fight over. They have an upside, though, because they give a kid more to do than to fight or get sea sick while trying to read when the wind picks up.


Yep. Growth and progress are good.


Except when they aren't. 


Like when the little gadgets that keep a person entertained entertain them so well that they no longer no how to connect with people around them. Like when a person is so wrapped up in the video game/phone call/text/Facebook/MySpace/instant message thing that they don't even realize their family is falling apart. 


Or on a much smaller note like when the newly purchased headphones and MP3 player that Hopper was using disappeared sometime during our overnight stay in Lincoln, and we didn't realize it until we got to Des Moines, and poor Hopper had a total meltdown, because she loves music, and it soothes her and makes a 1000 mile trip more bearable. Thankfully, we'd stopped at a Target store when we noticed, so we were able to replace them without too much of a fuss, but not before the stress level was raised fourfold. My back is still spasming from it.


Then, about an hour outside our final destination, we hear Hopper from the backseat...

"Ha ha! Find it!" 


...as she pulled it from a pocket in her bag that somehow had been missed when we tore the back seat apart looking for the thing.


Yep. Technology is a good thing.


Another good thing about technology? It can allow for you to call en route to a wedding 1000 miles away and pretend you're not able to make it, so it can be a fun surprise that you actually made it.
As long as it's used for good and not evil, technology can be a wonderful thing.


Bwahahaha


And yes. They were surprised. 


In a really good way.