Moving My Family of 4 Plus Cats

I'm still in the midst of sorting, organizing, and unpacking. But if you've given even a moment's thought to how the move itself went... I thought I'd bless you with a glimpse.

My husband, bless his soul, took the 4 year old in the U-Haul and left me with the screaming baby and 2 cats who do not enjoy short car rides, never mind car rides that last almost 4 hours. And he insisted I drive the Altima instead of the Explorer (where I could have put the cats in the far back instead of 6 inches from me.) Fortunately, N fell asleep for most of the ride and the cats weren't as... upset as normal. Normally, they make ungodly noises as they freak out in the back of the car. They yowl, not meow, when they are out for a drive.

To make things even more interesting, my brother-in-law backed over one of my (empty) cat carriers a while back and we never bothered to replace it. In case you haven't noticed, I can be cheap, and I didn't feel up for spending $36 on an appropriate carrier to use for one day. I almost never need to take both cats anywhere at the same time. So, Meep got the carrier, since I cannot feel remotely safe with her anxiety attacks, crawling in and out of every crevice of the car, and YOWLING for any period of time. Tiger, on the other hand, was reduced to a harness and a leash. (Don't judge.) He's fairly mellow in comparison and generally opts to lie on the car floor instead of wandering around in a moving vehicle.

Have I mentioned that my cats are indoor only? They might not agree, but they are. Every time they manage to sneak out of the house, they find the LEAST appropriate plant to eat just to throw it all up back in the house. Lucky me, this time they did not disappoint. I caught them feasting on the day lilies outside our front door only moments before being loaded into the car. Yay.

WARNING: The following image may be considered graphic.

that's vomit at the bottom of my laptop bag, and if you look close, you can see my day lilies mixed in...

I know full well that these pictures are blurry and not of the best quality, but I was reaching my arm back phone-in-hand taking pictures without looking (because I was completely focused on the road, of course) just so I could see what in the world was going on. I'm amazed the pictures turned out this well, to be completely honest.

And this is how he chose to spend the rest of the drive until I was able to catch up to my husband and get the car somewhat cleaned:

I don't blame him for tucking his head away like this, the smell was horrific. I was driving in cold, cold weather with the windows rolled down just so we could all breathe.

Once I got things taken care of, I pulled his bed out of the trunk and smushed it between N's carseat and Meep's carrier. And there he rested very well for the remainder of the trip.