Breaking the Surface

I am finally able to lift my head above water, breathe the fresh air and smile.
I’m back.
These last two weeks have been… well, busy to say the least.
Work was… stressful. I had fun, don’t doubt that. It was nice to be able to talk to everyone in such a relaxed manner. When you are out in the open as I was in the receptionist desk, everyone stops by to talk to you about this and that – usually things that have nothing to do with work. In the two weeks I sat at the receptionist desk, I met many new people and grew to know the company that I work for much better than I did from my own desk. In my office, if someone comes in to talk to you, it is much more strained, and focused only on what they need you to do. It feels much more formal and restricted. It was nice to have the opportunity to get to know my co-workers in the manner that the receptionist desk allows. But today I’m back at my own desk, and boy does it feel good. I can work at my own pace again, not encumbered by the daily mail schedule, or by thousands of other tasks getting in the way. I have enough space to think.
School also added a few degrees of stress to the mix. As of August 2nd, I had two weeks left until my final exam, and had three units in the course that I had left to even look at, and do the assignments for. Then of course, I had to study for the actual exam.
It took far more willpower than I thought I had to complete those three units. Homework was the absolute last thing I wanted to be doing – I was thinking about everything else that needed to be done. But I worked on my homework during my lunch breaks at work, and for a minimum of three hours every night. I had to drag myself by my own ear to do it, but by the time the final exam came on Saturday, I was ready. I’m sure I did well on that exam.
Of course, moving also added stress to the pot. Gilles’ parents arrived in Saskatoon on August 6 to help us move, so that weekend was a write-off for getting anything else done. I had hardly packed when they got there – I had been too busy working on homework. To make matters worse, when we showed up at 8AM on the Saturday to pick up our U-Haul, there was no one there, and no contact information to find out what we were supposed to do. At 8:30, I tracked down the other U-Hauls in the city. The first two on my list to go to were the same story. Their hours said that they should be open, but the door was locked and there wasn’t a soul in sight. At the third U-Haul we were much luckier. We could see people milling about, and it looked as though they had a truck in the size we needed. We were about to walk in and rent one of their trucks when my cell phone rang. It was the U-Haul we were originally supposed to rent from.
The employee informed me that he was very sorry that he wasn’t there when we arrived, that he had managed to get food poisoning and was very sick all night, but that he was there now. (Likely store, but whatever.) He told us that if we would still be willing to rent from them, he would let us keep the truck until Monday morning at no extra cost. !! We went for it.
It was a good thing we did too. By 6:30PM, a half-hour after we were originally supposed to return the truck, we finally had the truck fully loaded and ready to go over to the house. Thankfully, the truck took much less time to unload than it did to load, and we were able to call it a night at about 10PM.
Unfortunately, neither my big, old, tired couch fit into the house, nor did my poor, old, dilapidated entertainment centre. (Fortunately as both were old and well worn-out, I wasn’t exactly sad to part with either of them). We left them in the truck overnight, and brought them to Value Village the next day. We also went to the Brick and did some shopping in their clearance centre. Gilles’ dad managed to wrangle us a deal on a small, reclining couch that had some structural issues and torn fabric. What was a regular $700 couch, we got for $150. Gilles’ dad will fix the structural damage, and I’ll re-upholster the places necessary.
Through all of this going on, I also had a heck of a cold. It began like every other cold. Earache, watery eyes, stuffed nose. This one has run the gamut though. It remained in its first stage for the first week. Then last week, I began to lose my voice. (Yeah, fun mixed in with the receptionist duties). Now this weekend and now, I am fighting a wicked cough. Seriously, this cough is rivaling the one I had when I had whooping cough.
However, I can now breathe. I don’t have to worry about school again until my classes start up on September 7th. I am back in my position at work. All the moving is complete. Colds pass.
It is time to buckle down and work on what’s next: namely, giving the apartment a good thorough cleaning so that I may get my damage deposit back. I also have to unpack. But I can honestly say that it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders; that I am able to actually enjoy a few weeks of true summer. Freedom.

**edit: I wanted to add pictures to this post, but wasn’t able to access my phone’s online album for some reason. I’ll post photos at a later date to make up for it.