We're home

We've made it to Hinton. We managed to get all our stuff off of the truck in record time, with very little help from anyone else! (We planned it that way. Not only does it seem to go smoother, but then we can organize the boxes into rooms as we unload the truck.

I've had to start using my athsma inhaler regularily, as I am supposed to, because of the kittyness of the house, which is minor. Sid (ze kitty) is mostly an outdoor cat. He comes in to eat some kibble, drink a little water (if he can't find any outside) and sleep. Oh, and he seems to prefer his litter box which is indoors, to the great outdoors where he can do his business wherever...

Yeah, so besides all of that, he's out terrorizing neighbor's animals, I imagine. (Or being lazy and smugly laying in the shady grass watching us unpack the truck for 2 1/2 hours). His excuse for not helping? "I'm a cat." I know, pretty lame excuse, hey?

Anyway, the Reactine seems to be working, besides the occasional sniffling and mostly non existent other symptoms: throat itchy-hasn't yet happened- and ears feeling itchy deep inside where it's not safe to stick mini cotton balls on a stick...

So, besides my sinuses working overtime, and taking my athsma meds as per docs orders, life is normal.

Oh, and I went from 100mg to 75mg of my antidepressants today.

That's how good I am feeling, and have been since the first morning here (yesterday). The second Chris or I notice a difference in anything, I will go back to normal. Oh, and if we notice nothing, I will stay lower...

So far, this move has been totally different from any other one I have had. In what way? In all of these ways:

- There was more than enough room in the U-Haul truck.

- Loading up the truck was easier than we expected. (Especially the emptying of our rented storage space. Only took Chris and I about an hour and a half, and that's with slacking. That was about half of our stuff.)

- The drive was nice. Long, but nice. Towards the end, the last 2 hours or so, I started getting really tired, and so kept myself loaded with sugar (bad) and stopping every half hour or so to stretch my legs and breathe in some fresh air (good). Oh, and get a hug from Chris. (good)

- When we pulled up the U-haul, Jason and Kellie were at the house, and immediately helped us to get the car off of the trailer, get the trailer unhooked from the truck, back up the truck, and then start off loading stuff from the truck.

- We stopped unloading after we had enough stuff unloaded to survive the first night. (Bed, clothes, bathroom kits, valueable/breakables from the cars.) Jay and Kellie were offerring to help unload more, but we decided to quit while we were ahead. We relaxed and chatted together over beer, and we learned a LOT about the neighbourhood.

- We were somehow motivated enough the first night to get a lot of stuff unpacked or at least a little better organized, and basically, all of the boxes that had filled the kitchen area were gone.

- In the morning when we started unloading the truck, we managed to keep it somewhat organized, and kept the more important things to the side.

- Everytime we needed something, or went looking for something (ie: vaccuum bags/ shelf for a glass topped A/V stand that was stored away from one another), we found it almost immediately. Seriously, it has started to creep us out a little, in a good way, I guess, that things are going so smooth.

- We were motivated again last night, and we somehow managed to unpack almost all of the kitchen stuff. Anyone who knows me knows that's a lot of stuff. We went through almost every box we had in here, and of course the ones we didn't go through had the stuff we were wondering where it was.

- By about 9 p.m. today, we had all the kitchen stuff (minus the HUGE box of plastics we still need to sort) organized, cleaned, put away...

- Jay and Kellie left a lot of their stuff here until their house is finished, including the satellite receiver/satellite and their internet modem and cables. (That's how I am here right now). All we have to do is switch out the receiver with ours, and get internet hooked up. Surprisingly, we haven't sat down and watched any tv yet. Well, not me. Chris was watching some discovery channel while I had a shower this morning. I've only been listening to music, thank g.o.d. for satellite and the like 40 channels of music. Most with no commercials. PLus I can get Edmonton Radio stations on the tv, too.

- As a result of the discovery that we had about 8 large-ish boxes of dry pantry type foods to unpack, and not much in the line of places to put it all... we went out and bought a pantry from Hell-mart. There isn't that much available for shopping here in Hinton, and Canadian Tire didn't have any. We don't have enough cash to go to the Brick, the Sear here is appliances only, and the Liquidation World (1st choice) is closed. Paper on all the windows. I assume renos, but there's absolutely no signs saying what's going on. Not even store hours. Just a "Help Wanted: Apply Within" sign posted on locked doors. No wonder no one works there. Can't apply if they want to!

- Whew, we got the pantry home and set up in record time, and unpacked the food boxes and organized the food in even better time. We've got almost the entire kitchen done.

- Considering we don't have access to one of the bedrooms, and the addition/den, plus there are a few other things left here we kinda have to set up around, the place is starting to take shape pretty quick.

- The other room, the one we want to set up our computer(s) in, is full of our stuff, because we need a place to put it until Jay and Kellie are able to move their stuff into their new place.

- Jay and Kellie came by today to clean out the fridge/freezer of their food so that we could put stuff in there. Kellie was apologizing for having all of their stuff here, and I told her it's no big deal. I think she felt bad mostly because she saw we got a lot of stuff done already, and she thought she was restricting our unpackingness. Which isn't true. We are more concerned about the kitchen stuff and our bedroom (lots of clothes and 3 dressers) than we are about setting up the guest room (will take 15minutes) or the computer(s)-maybe an hour- and the den-25 minutes.

- It won't take us very long to set up the other stuff. Today was a good day. So was yesterday. Tomorrow will be a good day. So far, we plan to go buy some smokies and buns, grab some packets of mustard and relish (from sev) while we find out what time Chris has to start work on the 4th.

We're going to go to Wildhorse Lake. So. Freaking. Unbelieveably. Gorgeous.

Everyone who comes to visit will be personally brought to Wildhorse Lake at least once per visit.
Hint. Hint. It is so gorgeous out there, I will refuse to let you leave without having seen it.

I am going to go now. Tired. Hungry.

Happy Anniversary to Chair and Jason! Hope you happy many many more! (I know you will!)

Congrats to Craig on getting your own class! Hope your first year goes great!

Hope you all do great in Red Deer!

Love ya, will miss ya, you better come visit.

:) T.A.K.