The Beginning

12/27/21- Day 1- Moving day! We woke up this morning and finished loading the rest of our stuff into the car. David went and got us breakfast (Good ol’ Bojangles) while I did some last minute cleaning. Due to time constraints, we had to make a last minute run to Nooga Paws in Chattanooga to get Frodo his food (I am definitely going to miss this place what a great store). We got Frodo his food and a few treats for the cats and headed back home.

As we drove toward Ringgold, It dawned on me that this was officially the very last time I would ever head back “home” again. We crested the hill nearest the house and I took David’s hand in mine while we silently took in the moment. Once we got home we wandered around our empty house and reminisced about the 20 years we spent there together raising our kids and growing as a couple. There were a lot of tears leading up to this moment, but mostly this was a time of gratitude and love. We prayed and thanked God for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us and we prayed for the new family coming into the house as well. We took a last moment to sprinkle some of Zoe’s ashes and then it was time for the final walk through with the new owners. They brought two huge uhaul trucks to park in the driveway so they could come straight to THEIR home after the signing and begin unloading. I have to say I have never been so happy to know we only have two cars to unload for our move! Before long, it was time to go.

We headed down to Warranty Title Co. off Shallowford and by 3:30 we were officially “homeless”. Honestly? It was slightly anticlimactic. We’ve spent the past year pouring ourselves into getting the house finished. There were many tears, much frustration, and a lot of anxiety. The culmination was a 30 minute window of signing a few papers and handing over the keys. We sort of expected balloons to descend from the ceiling and celebratory music to start playing, but alas- no such luck! We left from the signing and began our drive towards San Antonio. We headed down Wilcox to avoid the rush hour traffic and were able to navigate through the area without much delay (thanks to my amazing husband- he ALWAYS knows the best routes and ways to avoid traffic) With that said, we made it into Alabama by 4 pm!! Amazingly, the cats hardly fussed at all and were quiet in their kennels for most of the drive. I will admit that it was hard driving separate cars since we are so used to traveling together. We spend hours talking and pointing out things that we notice along the way. It was difficult not being able to share those moments, but we did share several calls and we made sure we were connected as we passed first into Alabama and then into Mississippi.

We finally arrived in Meridian, Mississippi about 8pm CST. We booked at a Tru, which isn’t usually our favorite hotel chain, but because of the pets, our options were limited. Luckily, it was very clean with a decent size room and a extremely soft bed (does anything else really matter in a hotel room?!) Once we got everything unloaded into the room, we got the animals settled. Frodo, as usual, was a pro. He is turning into quite the travel pup. The cats, surprisingly, did pretty good. They fussed and cried for a little bit, but once they got fed and explored the room, they settled in. We let everyone know we had made it to our first location, changed our clocks to CST, and finally crawled into bed ourselves.