When I woke up this morning, one line kept ringing through my head. Today we get to go home. Today we get to go home.

As we packed everything into the car and checked out of the hotel, I made an extra reservation for tonight, just in case things ran late, but even as I did so I crossed my fingers and made a wish that I'd be able to cancel it.

We drove down the road, finally tracking down a coffee shop (I've had no coffee all week, people. No wonder my brain is so addled) and then to the training site. This time Richard was with me, since he was done in his part of Santa Barbara County yesterday. The three of us (Richard, I, and the regional manager) trouped upstairs toting laptops and boxes and then sat down to wait.

The last day of training is always a bit of a letdown. There are three pieces on the last day, and all of them are rather vague and unstructured. Luckily, however, none of them take nearly as long as they're scheduled for. And this is what we all were counting on.

The last session started at 1, and ended three hours early. We took one look at the time and knew we could cancel that reservation. The drive home is just a bit over 300 miles, but this gave us plenty of time to make it.

We did, unfortunately, manage to hit the San Jose area right at 5pm, when the traffic is the worst, and so eventually gave up and pulled over in Concord to get dinner and let the traffic subside. But then once back on the road, we didn’t stop til we got home.

Richard says the cats won't come out for him like this when he's the only one home, but they still do it for me, pouring down the stairs with little cries, twining around my feet the minute they realize that I'm back. We left all our luggage in the car overnight. We'll deal with it tomorrow. For now, it's enough just to be home, and to know that we don't have to go away again for the rest of the month.

Once again I am taking part in Holidailies, and have thus made the commitment to try to post every day this month. You can find guaranteed reading material from all of us participating at the Holidailies portal.