April 01, 2014

On unicorns

Karl and I realized something this weekend: We are unicorn hunters. Kind of. Figuratively. If we saw a real unicorn I think I speak for the two of us when I say we would want it to run free and would do our darndest to point it away from Regina, although I guess there are a lot of fields it could frolic through. Maybe I'd point it to the north where I hear there are a lot of lakes. I bet unicorns like lakes. When it's sunny they could all sparkle together, but not like vampires because cannibalism isn't very nice. Unicorns, like arcs of the covenant, should not be in museums, Dr. Jones.

Anyway, Karl and I realized on Saturday that we're chasing this figurative unicorn called "Lazy Saturday." We've officially been here a month and we keep thinking that we're going to spend our Saturdays relaxing, being lazy, and doing whatever we want, much like we used to on the island. It's weird, even though there's more sun here I'm pretty sure the days are shorter in the sense that the clocks move a lot faster because holy cow there is never enough time for anything. Especially laundry, but I guess the world's dinkiest machine might have something to blame for that. I have two towels and four face cloths in there right now and I'm worried I've overfilled it. Can you even wrap your head around that? Maybe it's a safety feature, because I definitely know people who have gotten stuck in the dryer before (could be easily confused with a front-loading washer) and I'm confident my four month old nephew couldn't fit in there. His cheeks would definitely get stuck on the threshold. What use is an extremely energy efficient washing machine if you need to do four times as much laundry to get anything done?

So, time flying. (And, for the record, I'm talking non-work time. Obviously.)

Last week was a challenging week. It rained a lot last week. And then it poured. Figuratively. It was way too cold to rain, so it just snowed because what up, Spring? It's all pretty much sorted now, but things kept coming at us that made me want to crawl into bed with the duvet over my head until Lazy Saturday came along.

Even though last week had its frustrations, there were many high points. Our sister in law and nephew came for four nights to hang out. My brother in law had to go away for work so I invited Natalie and Michael to do the nine hour drive and hang out with us. And they did!

We've never had family aside from our parents geographically close to us and it was really nice to have them as house guests. It was also really, really easy. You wouldn't even have known there was an infant in the house except for when I was trying to fit him in the dishwasher.

After they left on Friday morning I was looking forward to a lazy Saturday. The morning was going to consists of Karl giving blood while I supportively drank juice and ate cookies on the sidelines (I'm stocking up on iron for our next visit) then we were going to look at houses in the afternoon.

Giving blood took longer than anticipated, then we had to go to the bank before rushing across town to look at houses, hitting up Superstore (chocolate!), shopping for a car, getting a flat tire, going to the bank, buying a car, and did I mention that my mom's cousin and his girlfriend were in town and called me while we were at the blood clinic?

Anyway, we were out from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. when we came home and had lunch. We would have died without our trip to Superstore and the mammoth chocolate bar we consumed.

As we were sitting in Applebee's with my mom's cousin and his girlfriend at 10 o'clock at night, and I realized I would not be watching a movie that evening as part of the Lazy Saturday agenda because I was about to fall asleep on the table, I felt really content. There's something nice about having people that will randomly show up in town and want to hang out, not because you know them really well, but because they're family. And they didn't have to call us and let us know they were in town, either. They wanted to.

While we don't have any friends yet (frankly, I'm not sure how we'd make time for them) and we're still chasing our Lazy Saturday unicorn, one thing that Regina has brought is the opportunity to have family around us, even if they live several hours away from us. And it's nice. Not that I don't miss my immediate family back home, but it's nice to experience what a lot of other people have. Family.

And, in case you're wondering, we had our most relaxed Sunday yet. Instead of having the usual meltdown in the grocery store (WHY DON'T THEY HAVE GOAT YOGURT?), like I have every week before, we had a very relaxing time shopping at Superstore of all places (the one at home is so dirty I can't even look at their produce) and were home by 12:30 after going to church AND Home Sense, too. Boom. And it was good.

3 comments:

  1. I'm looking for that unicorn, too. I'm on spring break right now from school and I swear it doesn't exist! Let me know when you find it? Maybe I can coax it over here with some rainbows.

    I'm glad you guys are doing well over there and are surviving and thriving!

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  2. So Isaiah and I quit eating sugar as of April 1st (well, most sugar...fruit and most breads are still okay) and I had a hard time getting past the word "chocolate" in this post.

    Moving on.

    Here's a unicorn for you: http://lolzombie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/purple-unicorn.jpg

    Enjoy.

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  3. I'm so glad you're near family! I haven't lived near mine since I was little, and I desperately miss it.

    As for the lazy Saturday, I hear you. I spent mine at work yesterday.

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