an epic week

Things could always be worse. Sometimes this is an encouraging thought. I write this because I realize that what seems like an epic week could have been much worse. However, there is no way that the phrase "things went smoothly" could be applied to my week.

It started Monday when I was supposed to fly from Toronto back to Thunder Bay. I had Teagan the dog and too much luggage. The flight is about 75-90min - nothing too bad. We flew from Toronto to T-bay no problem, started to descend, then all of a sudden the plane shot back up. It turned out there was too much ice on the runway, so after circling for a while we flew to Sault Ste. Marie (about a 45min backtrack) and landed. We waited 30-60min there in the plane on the runway (one of the pilots actually went below and checked on my dog Teagan), then we were off to Winnipeg (which is 45-50min west of Thunder Bay). To make a long story short, I convinced them to let me stay in Winnipeg and take a flight the next day to T-bay. (They sent most people back on another flight to Toronto to do it all again the next day!).

It was 5pm before I got my luggage and dragged everything including the dog to the hotel (via shuttle).

So the next day it was load everything up again, shuttle to the airport, and fly about 50min back to Thunder Bay.

Then Wed. involved unpacking piles and piles of boxes which seem to be never ending. They are piled everywhere throughout the house leaving only a few small walking aisles.

Thurs. Sue and I went to the cabin (40min from town) to finish packing the remains only to find the pipes all frozen. She had a flight to catch (to a funeral) and left me while I cranked the heat and kept the wood stove burning. Of course once the cabin warmed up, several cracked pipes were spraying water - I had to frantically find all the shut off points I could and close them while the bathroom flooded, with water pooling up from under the floor and out of the walls.

Joe came to get me after dropping Sue at the airport and after about another 1/2 hour of dealing with packing, loading and pipes....well we decided to drain what we could and leave. That's when I shed a few tears (which was needed) as it had been quite the week, I was exhausted.

So this morning we get up here at the new (old) house and not a single tap in the place works - the pipes froze here!!! Can you believe it? Joe and I almost started laughing it was so ridiculous or ironic or something of the sort....

Thanks to a couple space heaters and a cranked thermostat, though, we didn't have any cracked pipe epics to deal with. There was even enough water in the Brita to make a few cups of coffee while we waited for the thaw.

We're supposed to have below -20 every night until Tues. next week, but we'll keep a space heater running at night in the freeze zone and hopefully that does the trick.

Well, I'm amazed I'm not curled up in a ball in a major relapse after this week, but really I'm not. I have a small fever and a bit of a throat-ache (the blisters are gone) so hopefully no serious repercussions of great magnitude from the stress and energy output. My arms are very weak and feel jelly-like from all the unpacking. That M.E./CFS muscle weakness that really doesn't relate to anything I had as a healthy.

And thankfully I don't have any school type work until Monday, so I have a weekend to settle in here at least a bit.