It has been quite a week! We pulled out of town for the last time just after lunch on Tuesday. My husband spent that morning cramming, jamming, wedging, edging, pushing, pulling, forcing our remaining belongings into our small car so we could get the rest of our too many things to the city. There is still a load of topographical maps and assorted other items sitting in the church basement waiting for his first return service as their Executive Archdeacon. Fortunately it is a small load of "stuff".
Our trip down was a bit dicey for road conditions. The second half of the trip included ice covered highway where we slowed to a crawl in order to stay on the road. In between long stretches of ice were shorter stretches of clear, dry road and about the time we would think there was no more ice, there another few kilometers of it would be, just waiting for the unsuspecting and unprepared drivers to hit it at speeds that would send them spinning off the road and into the median. Fortunately most of that second half of the trip is divided highway with a very wide median between. We witnessed a 3/4 ton truck attempting to pass a semi rig while on the ice. They were just ahead of us and as the truck started to pass the semi, the semi spun out and began skidding sideways down the highway, clipping the front end of truck. That sent the truck out of control and the driver ploughed right into the deep snow in the median, crashed through the drifts and into the oncoming lanes of traffic. Fortunately the oncoming cars were able to get out of the way as he skated between them and no one was hurt. Vehicle damage was minimal. It scared us almost as badly as it scared the two drivers involved. The closer we got to the city the more vehicles we saw in the median, up to the car hoods in snow drifts. Hopefully there were no serious injuries. What a way to travel!! Hope the winter driving will be over in a few weeks, but it has been cold enough here to make us wonder if we aren't in for a very long end to this season.
So now we are living in complete chaos, surrounded still by the mountains of boxes the movers delivered a couple of days ago. They did a great job, but did have one mishap: one of the fellows fell off the ladder as they were unloading and landed butt first on the main box of my Japanese dishes. Everything in the box shattered and I am left with only 2 out of 9 sushi plates, 2 out of 6 soba bowls and a couple of small soy dishes. I should be devastated I suppose, but it was a complete accident and he felt terrible. We are not requesting reimbursement from the moving company. The loss of investment is emotional, not financial. I am very sad to lose my favourite dishes, but I am experiencing the freedom of not being angry about the loss....a relatively new experience for me. Usually I fall apart when something is taken from me unexpectedly, but not this time. Perhaps I am growing stronger emotionally. What a great feeling.
I suspect we would be completely unpacked by now if we had realized just how few storage cupboards this place had. However, we have had a ton of fun shopping for china cabinets and portable kitchen islands, thermal curtains to keep the draft from the huge windows from freezing us solid right in the suite, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Even my husband has gotten into the shopping mode with this wide array of choice compared to our last town of residence. We have not bothered to track how much we have spent making this old place comfortable for us. In our entire marriage we have never gone shopping together for 3 days in a row for anything, not even groceries. I used to see couples shopping together and feel rather envious. Now I too have had the fun of shopping with my husband and enjoying making choices together for our new place. We have so rarely been able to be in the same city at the same time until the past few years and we are enjoying having the normal daily experiences that most couples take for granted. It will all end again next week when my husband begins his incredibly busy job, but this week has been almost like a holiday: moving, chaos, shopping and all. So grateful for all the places that sell various kinds of storage cabinets and bins etc. that make life in a small place comfortable and enjoyable.
Tonight I hung up the first 2 pictures on the walls and used them as part of a small artistic arrangement on one of the stair landings. That made me feel even more like I actually live here and got my mind off the seemingly interminable mess around me. Once the rest of the furniture is delivered on Monday, along with the assistance of the phone/internet company tech, we will have everything in place to finish the unpacking and feel like we actually live here. To be honest I all ready do feel that way despite the lack of order and cleanliness, the mess and the confusion. Sometimes a person just feels instantly at home in a space and I feel that way here.
The building has some interesting issues, such as the fact that the insulation has never been brought up to code despite major renovations. The basement walls are concrete...that's all, just concrete. There is no insulation, no weeping tile, just concrete. The cold air rushes in there through the porous cement and the furnace runs constantly. I don't want to see our first natural gas bill, but fortunately there should only be a few more weeks of extreme cold to deal with. We are in the process of getting thermal curtains hung up to decrease the draft from the windows and my husband is hanging his packing blankets over the basement walls. In the spring he will do some foam insulating in the worst spots and no one from management here will notice or care, that is for sure. They have been very good about fixing the other problems in this space but seem to have no clue about how to really make the tenants comfortable and warm. The management company would never want to spend the money to insulate the over 100 units in this complex but we are very surprised the building inspectors have not forced them to come up to code on this. Once again....a big difference between one province and the next. The last place we lived in where we were this cold indoors all the time was in the 1970's....also 1940's army issue housing. Guess they figured that army wives and children would have to toughen up in order to cope with their husbands being gone elsewhere as international peacekeepers!!
Tomorrow my husband has his second interview at the church where he may be doing the job share part of his new position. They seem like nice people, and are certainly gifted and keen lay leaders, but not sure how this 1/3 time business is going to actually work out. Hopefully this entire new job will not overwhelm him and his health issues will not start up again. In that respect the past 5 years have been marvellous. I admit I am a bit concerned about this entire venture when it comes to his health.
Time for an early attempt to get to bed and get some sleep....another big day of unpacking tomorrow. Will it ever end?? hahaha Will be interested to see how things go here. At least I was allowed to have my quarterly blood work done prior to finding a new physician. That is a relief....although I don't want to know how much my A1C has risen this past quarter with all the stress and the icky restaurant meals and all the farewell potlucks where I cheated badly and tried to blame it on stress! Aiii yiiii....
Welcome to our new home!
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