Home sweet Home? where's that?

Alright its been a long time since I blogged, but I've been busy! I'm begining to think I must have some of my sister Amy's self-proclaimed Gypsy blood in me. Its been so long since I lived in the same place for more then 8 months, I can't even remember! The events of the last couple weeks have included packing and moving back to this wonderfully COLD land of Manitoba.
One of the feed truck drivers from the feedlot made us a big dinner with turkey and homemade buns and all kinds of salads, etc. It was a nice farewell.
As we were leaving, all the co-workers kept saying, "see ya in the fall" and "don't forget to come back" and the day before they were even scheming to kidnap my dog or my saddle so we couldn't leave. I was pleased when the Foreman came and shook my hand and said "It was a real pleasure working with you, if you ever want to come back, you're more then welcome"
Looking back, it was a good experience, but as always it was a case of, "If I'd known then what I know now...." but how else does one learn?
I'm afraid I was somewhat negative for the last week or so that I was at that job, but knowing that you won't be there much longer doesn't help you to make changes to the things that bother you, and I guess that was my biggest problem!
So - we finished work on Wednesday the 28th - I had a record number of hours - 231.25 for the month of March! I figured out I worked almost 1100 hours in 5 months, and spent about 200 of those hours in the saddle, and the other 900 in the processing barn! Wow....that sounds like a long time doesn't it!?
Thursday we spent gathering our belongings from all over the feedlot and packing up our belongings. I was somewhat pessemistic about the prospect of everything fitting into our truck and car, but it did, with some fairly creative and I might say, almost expert packing. I guess a person gets better at moving by the 19th time - wow, thats 19 times in 18 years, thats not a very good record is it?
We stopped at the feedlot on Friday morning to pick up Sneef (my dog) and have morning coffee (which is from 6:30-7am) with the crew and we were off by 8. One of Trevor's co-workers gave us a set of 2 way radios to keep in contact during the trip.
The trip home was mostly uneventful, until we reached the Manitoba border. At this point, freezing rain/snow/sleet ensued and coupled with fog, it was not a pretty sight! We trudged onwards, hoping to get home, but after fishtailing a few times, and narrowly escaping the ditch, the hotel room my mother-in-law had promised for a birthday present was a welcomed thought. When we hit Souris and stopped for fuel, I was somewhat ready to stop and sleep, but Trevor wanted to keep going, partly to get his expensive tool box under cover and out of the WET. About 2 hours from home we hit a sign saying our highway was closed, so we decided (over our lovely radios) to head for Brandon. We had forgotten however that it was the weekend of the Winter Fair - and when we got there, there wasn't a single hotel room to be found. Being about 11pm, we were tired, and the roads were in no shape to go anywhere, so we shuffled the stuff out of the cab of the truck into the car, pulled out or sleeping bag and pillows and tried to get some sleep. I didn't sleep much, thanks to an oncoming cold and probably being TOO tired to sleep.
Around 6:30am we headed to Tims for some refreshment and headed for home, by this time the weather had cleared - as far as percipitation goes, but dense fog followed us down the slushy roads for the 2 hours to home.
What a nice feeling, HOME! I had almost forgotten what Home was?!
After quickly unburdening both vehicles we went out to the farm to put the prized toolbox under cover and sneek in a quick visit with my brother-in-law Andrew who was on the last day of his week-long trip home to renovate the house he and Jaime will be moving into at the end of this month. Trevor and I snuck out of the renovations and went to the farm to get some much needed sleep, but once again I didn't sleep much.
That night, my mother-in-law ordered my favorite food from my favorite local restaurant - Siggis. We had greek salad, ceasar salad, chicken wings, carnivore pizza and hawaiian chicken pizza - with a Reese's peanut butter blizzard cake for dessert. Can you say Calories?!?! It was delicious, but I probably gained back half of what I lost all winter :P

We helped strip some tape from the painting projects at Andrew's place and then headed home to Crash....and literally - my lack of sleep caught up to me and I wasn't able to get up until 5pm on Sunday night - I was exhausted and had a full blown cold. I'm still kind of clogged up, but I'll get over when I start painting with oil paints I'm sure :)

So, needless to say, my birthday wasn't very happy, being in bed half way between fever and chill, but by Monday I had somewhat recovered and we started to put this little house back in order. It was a challenge to fit things into their places again, since my belongings had somewhat increased in Alberta, thanks to many wedding gifts. We're about 90% unpacked now, but we'll leave the bulk of the bedroom unpacking for later, as I plan to try and prep and paint that room this week/weekend. We spent most of Tuesday out on the farm but with bitter cold weather, we were inside most of the time - in fact I haven't seen the cows or my horse since we arrived here!
Today we did the necessary yearly evil of preparing our Taxes, but its a good year, we will both be getting substantial rebates!! Thanks to school and farming at a loss..... We also did some home renovation shopping - picking up paint to finish up the house and few litte things at Rona thanks to a gift card from the wedding. We even found a nice little light fixture for our bedroom on clearance for $15 dollars!! We priced out a few things that we'd like to do - subflooring and rug for the basement, laminate for the living room/dining room, new doors for the closets, a range hood, faucets for the kitchen, a new sink/toilet/tub surround for the bathroom. Who knows what all we'll end up doing, but the list is pretty long once you start on what COULD be done. I think we've taken care of most of the NEEDs but now its just the things to make it nicer and/or improve the resale value. One step at a time I guess - I've got paint for the upstairs and downstairs bedrooms - a sandy, almost goldish color with a rusty red/brown for trim. I'm also going to paint some of the panelling in the living room to match what I painted green last year. My third painting project is to add some more blue in the kitchen/hallway/stairway - there were some pieces that I didn't get painted last year - so presto, I won't run out of things to do any time soon - I almost wish I had another week off before I start work, but I guess the pocket book wouldn't like that too much!
Wow....a that was a windy post - sorry ya'll - I'll let ya get back to your life now - hopefully you still recognize your relatives when you get back to them...
Oh and one final piece of news (which Jody beat me in announcing) Dad and Diane are engaged...Yeah, don't ask for details on the when/where, etc, because they don' know - but there is a ring and a "plan" as far as dad can plan..... Congrats dad! Love ya both!