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Seven weeks, two days. This is what home looks like. Officially, it is still homelessness. That is what it will stay. It is still better than being on the streets. 

Living in a hotel, with a few remnants left from a former life I can barely recall. 

This is living high, because it only goes down from here.

I painted this collage painting of the Santa Monica Pier at sunset, one of my favorite places,

to put up on our bare walls. I hate having to just look at generic hotel prints all day long. I don't even have any photos of my own children to put into frames, right now.

Everything is about the money, money, money.

Still, I try to make this room feel like a home using all the brightest colored things I can find. We packed up bright colored blankets and a string of Christmas lights. I have carried my mother-in-law's lamp in my lap on every trip we have moved. This one was no exception.

So many random bits and pieces of nothing 'decorate' the counter tops and window sill. I have picked up a couple cheap herbs to try and get the heavy smell of cigarette smoke out of our non-smoking room.

It works only so-so.

We have two electric hot pot burners to cook on. They do not get hot enough to boil water. But, we can cook our own food, which is important. We also, surprisingly, have a teeny tiny dishwasher, which leaks. Still, who knew homelessness came with a dishwasher.

And, one of the most important things that happened this week was, for my birthday, my family got together and brought me my baby. My daughter and my husband each drove 8 hour round trips and met half way to transfer the cat from her world up to ours. 😊❤️️

When the kids ask why we would 'choose' to live like this, I make up a chipper, "This is what we have chosen, for now," story. Instead of the truth, which is we have fallen into a hole that we will never climb out of and have no other options.

As long as we don't turn to them for help, that is the story they want to hear.