![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, right, last weekend. Not that this weekend hasn't been busy, but I don't like to fall behind too much. Even though I do.
Last Saturday I helped my dad move a bunch of his stuff out to Westlock. He's got a job out there now, selling insurance. He just finished retraining--he used to sell insurance when I was in junior high school, I remember. He had one job that was actually closer to our house, but that fell through. He's been living in an apartment in Edmonton and commuting, an hour each way, which was obviously a pain, and not that desirable in winter, either. So he's made the commitment, finding a place in Westlock. It's part of a house, I think a "fourplex".
Anyway, he'd asked me to come over and move a few boxes in my Jeep. I figured, go over in the afternoon, pack a few boxes of records or books or something, drive out to Westlock with my dad(so he could show me where it is and unlock things), and then drive home, probably by around 4:00. He'd also mentioned my uncle Merril coming out with a trailer, but he wasn't sure when that would be.
Turned out Merril was getting the trailer when I got there. My dad packed, and me and James, an old family friend, and a neighbour who was also moving, sat around and shot the breeze until Merril arrived. Then we hauled furniture and boxes out through the ground-floor patio to the trailer. By the time we finished that, it was already past 4:00. I phoned Nicole to let her know I'd be a little later than I thought. Merril drove off with the trailer, I loaded a dozen or so boxes of records into the Jeep, and then Dad and I set off for Westlock. I'm a faithful follower of the speed limit, and my dad is not, so I expected him to beat me there.
I'm used to going to Westlock on Highway 2, but that goes through St. Albert, which slows things down a bit, so Dad recommended taking Highway 44 instead. It's not as busy, but it is a two-lane, and not very scenic. The rain which had been threatening all day, and which had thankfully spared us while moving stuff out of the apartment, proceeded to dump on me several times throughout the trip. I hate highway driving in the rain.
We'd been supposed to meet at the Westlock Inn, which was at the intersection of the main highways through the town. We went through Westlock when we went up to Hawk Hills, a drive we thankfully don't have to endure any more. I pulled into the parking lot, which was fairly large, since there's a small shopping centre there as well. I didn't see Merril's truck or trailer, I didn't see my dad's car. I parked, got out, and looked around in the restaurant and the hotel lobby. No luck. I had thoughtlessly forgotten to bring a book to read. Silly me. (I had brought enough listening music for the drive, luckily.) I waited outside the hotel, where the clouds were clearing up, until my dad came back. I guess he'd taken Merril and the trailer out to the house to begin unloading. It was 5:30 by this point, and I admit I was peeved. He's got a cell phone, but whenever I actually want to bloody get ahold of him, it's not on. It's frustrating. I had been tempted to just drive back home with the boxes, but I didn't want to have to drive out to Westlock again.
So I went to the house, following Dad, ending up in the back alley because the street out front was under construction. I unloaded my boxes, not volunteering to help with the trailer because by this point I was hungry and wanted to go home. After talking to Nicole on the cell, we decided to have supper separately. I found a KFC on the way out of town, and had a quickie dinner there(the Westlock Inn service is quite slow, so I'm glad I didn't have to go there), and got home by 8:00. That was more of my day than I had been prepared to donate, frankly, and I'm still annoyed at having been underinformed.
Sunday we went out to a picnic at a campground in Devon. Dad and Merril were there, as well as my grandma, her two sisters, and some other relatives. They'd rented the gazebo, which was a little nicer than just sitting around near their trailer. (Not the rented U-Haul, a proper camping trailer. Simon was quite impressed by it.) The kids had fun running around in the playground, and we had fun playing fetch with Merril's dog, Shilo. We had a nice supper, with most of the food brought by Grandma, and went home with our hair and clothes smelling very smoky from the fire they had burning in the gazebo's firepit. I'm not sure why the fire was there, actually, since it's not like we roasted weenies or anything.
Monday we stayed at home, thankfully. We did get around, finally, to installing the extra shelves on our new bookshelves. We'd borrowed Nicole's parents' drill(which I just remembered that we forgot to bring back to them tonight--oh, well, I think we can be excused), and I spent a while mapping out where the holes should go before actually drilling them. I've never drilled before, I don't think, but I guess it's not that hard. The hardest part was figuring out how to change the drill bit; the actual drilling was fairly simple, once I had the holes marked. We put in the pegs, and voila, two more shelves. That felt like actually accomplishing something. Not that it makes me feel like going household-maintenance crazy, of course. If you ever see me with a paint roller in my hand, check for the mind-controlling alien on my back.
Last Saturday I helped my dad move a bunch of his stuff out to Westlock. He's got a job out there now, selling insurance. He just finished retraining--he used to sell insurance when I was in junior high school, I remember. He had one job that was actually closer to our house, but that fell through. He's been living in an apartment in Edmonton and commuting, an hour each way, which was obviously a pain, and not that desirable in winter, either. So he's made the commitment, finding a place in Westlock. It's part of a house, I think a "fourplex".
Anyway, he'd asked me to come over and move a few boxes in my Jeep. I figured, go over in the afternoon, pack a few boxes of records or books or something, drive out to Westlock with my dad(so he could show me where it is and unlock things), and then drive home, probably by around 4:00. He'd also mentioned my uncle Merril coming out with a trailer, but he wasn't sure when that would be.
Turned out Merril was getting the trailer when I got there. My dad packed, and me and James, an old family friend, and a neighbour who was also moving, sat around and shot the breeze until Merril arrived. Then we hauled furniture and boxes out through the ground-floor patio to the trailer. By the time we finished that, it was already past 4:00. I phoned Nicole to let her know I'd be a little later than I thought. Merril drove off with the trailer, I loaded a dozen or so boxes of records into the Jeep, and then Dad and I set off for Westlock. I'm a faithful follower of the speed limit, and my dad is not, so I expected him to beat me there.
I'm used to going to Westlock on Highway 2, but that goes through St. Albert, which slows things down a bit, so Dad recommended taking Highway 44 instead. It's not as busy, but it is a two-lane, and not very scenic. The rain which had been threatening all day, and which had thankfully spared us while moving stuff out of the apartment, proceeded to dump on me several times throughout the trip. I hate highway driving in the rain.
We'd been supposed to meet at the Westlock Inn, which was at the intersection of the main highways through the town. We went through Westlock when we went up to Hawk Hills, a drive we thankfully don't have to endure any more. I pulled into the parking lot, which was fairly large, since there's a small shopping centre there as well. I didn't see Merril's truck or trailer, I didn't see my dad's car. I parked, got out, and looked around in the restaurant and the hotel lobby. No luck. I had thoughtlessly forgotten to bring a book to read. Silly me. (I had brought enough listening music for the drive, luckily.) I waited outside the hotel, where the clouds were clearing up, until my dad came back. I guess he'd taken Merril and the trailer out to the house to begin unloading. It was 5:30 by this point, and I admit I was peeved. He's got a cell phone, but whenever I actually want to bloody get ahold of him, it's not on. It's frustrating. I had been tempted to just drive back home with the boxes, but I didn't want to have to drive out to Westlock again.
So I went to the house, following Dad, ending up in the back alley because the street out front was under construction. I unloaded my boxes, not volunteering to help with the trailer because by this point I was hungry and wanted to go home. After talking to Nicole on the cell, we decided to have supper separately. I found a KFC on the way out of town, and had a quickie dinner there(the Westlock Inn service is quite slow, so I'm glad I didn't have to go there), and got home by 8:00. That was more of my day than I had been prepared to donate, frankly, and I'm still annoyed at having been underinformed.
Sunday we went out to a picnic at a campground in Devon. Dad and Merril were there, as well as my grandma, her two sisters, and some other relatives. They'd rented the gazebo, which was a little nicer than just sitting around near their trailer. (Not the rented U-Haul, a proper camping trailer. Simon was quite impressed by it.) The kids had fun running around in the playground, and we had fun playing fetch with Merril's dog, Shilo. We had a nice supper, with most of the food brought by Grandma, and went home with our hair and clothes smelling very smoky from the fire they had burning in the gazebo's firepit. I'm not sure why the fire was there, actually, since it's not like we roasted weenies or anything.
Monday we stayed at home, thankfully. We did get around, finally, to installing the extra shelves on our new bookshelves. We'd borrowed Nicole's parents' drill(which I just remembered that we forgot to bring back to them tonight--oh, well, I think we can be excused), and I spent a while mapping out where the holes should go before actually drilling them. I've never drilled before, I don't think, but I guess it's not that hard. The hardest part was figuring out how to change the drill bit; the actual drilling was fairly simple, once I had the holes marked. We put in the pegs, and voila, two more shelves. That felt like actually accomplishing something. Not that it makes me feel like going household-maintenance crazy, of course. If you ever see me with a paint roller in my hand, check for the mind-controlling alien on my back.
