Slow Recovery, Second Winter.

I went home for the first time in nearly two years over Reading Week to visit my family, and unfortunately, instead of enjoying non-snow, and non-minus-thirties, going for walks on the beach, and generally enjoying not wearing Sorels for a while, I caught the flu. So did my Mum. A really, really, bad flu. I was so sick, I wasn't even feeling well enough to mope about my bad luck until my last day in town, when I realized I was going home again.

Then I started to mope. Oh no!

It's been a bit of a crappy week back.

I've decided I'm not going back to University next year (I have a whole diatribe to unload on that subject, though that's for another day), but haven't determined whether I'm willing to go further into debt in pursuing something technical institute related (read: with gainful employment attached at the completion end), or whether I just want to work my ass off so we can get back to the right side of the Rockies as soon as humanly possible.

It's -31C with the windchill today, and my Farmer's Almanac predicts snow and frigid temperatures into April.

I'm generally pretty upbeat about being here- the third of the year that there isn't snow is actually pretty nice. I've kept a smile on my face through the winter, but I think I've reached the end of my tether. I can't imagine growing up, let alone growing old here. I haven't even entertained the idea of putting down roots, so I haven't, and in doing so have wound up in limbo.

Sorry for the bummer post. Woe is me! I feel like this is the second winter of the year, and spring is way overdue.

Men with backhoes making loud noises.

Last Thursday I came home to unannounced traffic signs being piled on our front yard. Upon asking the sign man what was going on, he informed me that starting tomorrow, the city was ripping out our sidewalk and large chunk of front yard in order to repair a sewer connection. Thanks for the notice guys.

Lo and behold, the next morning at 8 sharp, we had backhoes, jackhammers, and a crew of 6 to 10 guys on our front lawn, and as the day progressed, a 10 foot chasm opened where our minuscule front yard used to be.

About 2 pm yesterday, Shawn and I were coming home from lunch and upon skirting the crew to get to our front door, they announced that in getting to the sewer they had broken our water intake line.

Pardon me? Not only were we given no warning as to what was going on, everything WAS in fine working order up to this point- and now you're shutting our water off? Thanks guys. Again.

I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth- we DID had lead intake pipes (as I'm sure the vast majority of the aged and aging houses in our neighbourhood do, and they are now shiny new copper- but as 6 o'clock rolled around, the crew informed me that they were done for the weekend, but weren't going to insulate the new pipes so, you know, your pipes might freeze. Sorry. See ya.

Again, for the record, we had NO PROBLEM before you guys showed up. Now we may have frozen pipes and potentially no water- not to mention our water pressure is "unexplicably" less than it was before?

Now (upon the advice of the city crew and Epcor) we have to leave water running in our house ALL WEEKEND. Let me just state for the record that our house is tiny, none of the rooms have doors, and the only faucets we have are directly next to our bedroom. Let's not even get into what a HUGE waste of water this is. Needless to say, it was a restless, drippy night, and we have two more to go.

Not impressed.

All I have to say is that we had better be accumulating some SERIOUS house karma points for when we actually own our own house.