Well, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year all in one. Looks like I’m technically about 8-9% late on this one, so I had better at least write a quick little tale about what I got up to over the holidays! After all, it turns out I’m also two race reports behind as well, and by the looks of things, may very well be three race reports behind by the end of the weekend! Eek. My sincerest apologies to one and all. That being said, my reasons are good, and I do plan to rectify that and fill you in on my happenings, beginning with this little post. Every year, we make Christmas wishes for what we’d like, and this year, rather than really wish for any tangibles, my wish was more of a desire. Most importantly, it came true! You may remember in the last post where I talked about Deanna’s interview with a local law firm. As luck would have it, a mere few days later she got an offer… and accepted! This was in November, so from then on, it was scramble time to get ready for the move. For a few pics of Christmas, clicky the linky, then read on for a bit more colour around this!
2010 was the first time in my whole life that I’ve actually lived all on my own in my own place. I didn’t realize that fact until it was finally determined that Deanna would be moving in over Christmas. Although I’d spent most of my year living at the new house alone, Deanna has been a big part of it, but it was really me on my own! Although it was bearable, there was definitely something missing in my days and nights, and once this move was confirmed, I knew what it was. The past few months had been getting increasingly annoying as far as the commutes to/from Toronto went, and we had made a decision that it was time to move to the next step, but it still seemed to come suddenly.
Once the job was accepted, we realized we basically had only a month to get everything in order, including booking moving vans, deciding what to bring and what to leave, deciding when and how to do the move, quit jobs, set up insurance etc. etc. Although Deanna may have lived in a relatively small apartment in Toronto, that didn’t mean there weren’t some logistical challenges. In the end, we settled on just booking a cargo van instead of a truck. It cost us waaaay less, but meant she had to pare down on some stuff. Like her bedroom set and some bookcases, which were all sold in Toronto.
We also settled on moving over the Christmas holidays, specifically, on Christmas weekend itself! In the lead-up to that date, I made two more trips to Toronto, and she made one more train trip to Ottawa. Knowing that these were the last few trips made them even more difficult as we just wanted to be together for good! However, with each trip I made, I’d bring back a full load in the car and start gradually moving her in, so when the actual move date came, we would hopefully have an easy time. Originally, the idea was for me to drive to TO after work on the 24th. Then we sleep there, pack up in the morning, and head to Trenton on Christmas, and then probably head to Gatineau on the 26th or 27th at the latest. However, that didn’t work for Deanna’s dad, so instead, I drove up on the 24th after work, we packed all her stuff in the cargo van, then headed straight to Trenton to spend the weekend, heading back on Monday the 28th.
That way we were able to bring the van back on time, and even stop at Ikea to buy a new bedroom set for our guest bedroom. That was interesting to cram into the van along with everything else, but we made it work 🙂
While in Trenton for Christmas, it was a full house. There were us, her parents, her sister and boyfriend, an aunt, her nanny, and an uncle! We ended up sharing a single bed for 3 nights. Not the most comfortable, but an upgrade from the air mattress Deanna had been sleeping on for the last couple weeks. On the plus side, we knew we’d be heading home to sleep in our own bed and not have to face the weekly ‘commute’ to be together anymore! Happy thoughts indeed. We spent a good deal of time hanging with family, eating well, and doing things like playing with an Xbox kinect, and even building gingerbread houses.
Well, actually, Deanna and her sister Cheryl built a gingerbread house. On the other hand, Adrian (Cheryl’s boyfriend) and I were given a tray of rice krispie squares, which I decided would make a great pyramid and sphinx (seriously, have you seen the sphinx I crafted?!!). The wine definitely helped in the construction phase, but I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was crazy.
In order to not let myself go too much over the holidays, I also managed to get out an squeeze in a couple runs that weekend. 10km on Christmas day, then a 26km run on boxing day. It was COLD, and I really think drinking hot chocolate and eating my sphinx might have been a better use of my time. However, given that the snowshoe race season was already underway, it was somewhat necessary that I keep in some sort of shape.
To keep this post somewhat short and readable, I’ll close it pretty much there. The rest of our holiday week (which I took off work) was spent getting Deanna settled in and getting things like bus passes and a library/activity card for Deanna so she could get free ski / skate / snowshoe rentals. After all, now that she is residing in the region, it was high time to introduce her to what winter is all about, and she’s really taken a shine to it 🙂 We also had a few friends over for New Years, and drank far too many bottles of wine and rang the new year in with high spirits. Honestly, we basically sat down to eat, and didn’t leave the table till after 2am, enjoying bottle after bottle of tasty wine and playing silly games. Originally, we had hoped to have a big party, but frankly, this was perfect!
Apologies for the delay in posting this, and now I have only 3 more race reports to put together! Oh, and at some point I should talk about other things Deanna and I have been up to, but I think I’ll just pepper those things amongst the race reports. Here’s hoping you all had great holidays; that you got everything you wanted, and that you are looking forward to another amazing year of life! My love to you all 🙂 I’ll try to keep the blog a bit more current than I have of late!
