Home Sweet...Park.

One of my childhood imaginations came true this weekend.

And it wasn't as exciting as I expected.

When I was really young I used to wander around outside pretending to be a little homeless girl. I'd stand under the pine tree in our front yard and practice crying on demand so people would give me their excess change. Sometimes I'd sneak up to our house, peek into the kitchen window, and pretend to stare longingly at warmth and comfort. There was even a bench in our backyard where I'd store berries and saltine crackers for the hard, lonely winter ahead.

This weekend I really was homeless.

I slept in a park.

In the rain.

My bed's on the right. 

My roommate, Alyssa, slept on the left.

That's Alyssa.

She's pretending it's not cold.

Such a soldier...

And that's me.

I think my eyes were swollen from all the "practice crying" I was doing.

We had to move out of our old apartment Saturday morning and couldn't technically move into our new apartment until that night. But we were exhausted. Only three hours of sleep plus hours of cleaning and heavy lifting will do that to ya.

With no where to go and our whole lives jam-packed into our cars we decided to take a nap in the park while we waited.

An hour later I woke up, poked my head out of my covers, and groaned.

"Alyssa, wake up."

"Hm."

"It's raining."

She turned her head and looked out of her hood. "Really?"

"Yeah." I peeked out of my blanket again. "I think it's snowing a little."

She moaned and rolled onto her belly. "Maybe we should go." 

"Yeah."

"I think we're scaring those kids over there."

I pulled the blanket off my face. "Where?" 

"The ones under that tree."

I looked where she was pointing and noticed several little boys peering at us through the tree branches behind us.

"Yeah, maybe we should go."

"Want to wander around Walmart?"

"Nah."

"Let's sit in our cars for a while then. It's cold."

I wiped the grass off of my jeans. "Yeah. Okay."

So we sat in our cars in the parking lot.

Man.

Too bad I didn't have my old stash of berries and saltine crackers handy.