Camping in my house

People who play Texas Hold 'Em poker know this phrase: All you need is a chip and a chair.

Essentially this is what people who are winning are saying to the people who are losing, to supposedly give them hope... or to keep them at the table so the rest of their small chip stack can be extricated from said loser. And, I suppose, this is true. If you are really good at poker, you could take that chip and leverage it into many chips after several winning hands. However, this is difficult and probably a myth. I have no evidence that a person who merely had one chip has ever won the World Series of Poker. And the chair part, well, that's obvious: One must be seated at the table in order to be dealt any cards. A chip and a chair.

In Abode Guthrie these days, it's two lawn chairs, a bar stool and a cardboard box. That's our version of 'a chip and a chair' when it comes to living these days. The movers removed the last of our furniture from our house yesterday at 4 p.m., leaving us with the items we plan to store with/give to Rodney's family in Illinois (pictures, Marble the dog, the Explorer, liquid items that cannot be packed, etc.), and the luggage we plan to take with us on the planes.

Once our chairs and sofa were loaded in to the moving truck at around 11 a.m., Rodney and I wandered around the house, trying to find ways to get comfortable. I opted for the air mattress for a short while, but that just wasn't conducive to laptop usage. Rodney sat on the floor, but after awhile the butt ache required him to abandon this position. Eventually, when we were trying to straighten out our travel arrangements the government gave us (this is a whole other story that I may get in to some other time), Rodney and I used the guest bathroom as our office. He was seated on the toilet lid, writing notes on a paper pad balanced on the sink, and I was perched on the edge of the bathtub. Truly, this was the best we could do with the non-furniture we had on hand. But this would not do for TV watching, breakfast eating or laptop using. A trip to Wal-mart was needed!

Rodney modeling our new furniture

At Wal-mart, we acquired a bar stool and two lawn chairs (to also be used at the family barbecue in Illinois on the 4th of July). Little did I know, but these items, coupled with a cardboard box I found in the garage, and the air mattress we already owned, were all we would need to survive camping in our home for the next 4.5 days.

Yes, I called it camping. I am a woman who appreciates the comforts the 21st century has afforded me. Like a pillow top mattress. An easy chair. A vacuum cleaner. I am not being afforded those comforts at this time, so, therefore, I am camping. Every campsite should have running water, electricity and internet access, as far as I am concerned, so those features available in my home at this time are considered standard.

It's amazing how truly adaptable and creative humans can be. I say humans collectively because Rodney and I are not extraordinary and I have seen much more creative uses for items on the internet. Simply Google search images for "creative uses with duct tape" for a sampling.

In the mere 18 hours since we acquired our new survival gear, we have found countless uses for these items, some of them illustrated below:

Replacement bar stool/office chair

Night stand

End table and coffee table/ottoman

Entertainment center and easy chairs

So, I think we will manage to survive the next few days of living in Pensacola, thanks to our new furniture. Well, those and the local restaurants. Don't even get me started with what Rodney had planned for cooking. Let's just say it included the use of aluminum foil, a brick and a lighter. I nixed that PDQ. That just sounded way too 'campy' to me.