No I'm not going to bust out in the National anthem, I was going to reiterate the appropriate parts of Jason's Canada rant yesterday.. haha!
Well as I'm sure you know we are pretty use to being in the States and therefore coming to Canada there is less of a variety when it comes to certain things and although that's hard to get use to we can cope for the short amount of time we are going to be here.. but yesterday was a cluster screw of massive proportions!
Jason didn't have to work yesterday so we thought we would do some running around and get some stuff done while enjoying the nice day! We got up and went to breakfast at Humpty's, we don't have Humpty's in Ontario... I believe it is actually only in the western provinces and we use to go all the time when we were in Saskatoon and they just put a new one in here we thought we would check out. Breakfast was good, although we had 12 waitresses haha! With a full belly we were on our way to check off our errands! We went to room by room furniture as we are still on the hunt for a cheap coffee table and although we didn't find anything we did do a lot perusing for ideas for the new house!
So with no coffee table we headed to our next venture of finding a suitable gym that didn't have an outrageous membership fee! No dice. We tried to gyms and although we are going to have to go with one of them we are paying over 5 times what we paid in Alaska for the two of us! Everything here is beyond expensive and because there is no chains for anything people can charge whatever they want!
Next mission.. hair cut.. for Jason! Of the two options in town we thought Dolly Sue's sounded a lot less metro sexual if you can believe it than the other place! Well long story short the girl butchered his hair, she basically shaved his head.. he looks like hes 12.. we both hate it! On a good note I managed to get some good shampoo to hopefully solve my dry scalp problem! Truth be told the water is the biggest problem here but there is nothing I can do about that!
Last but not least we really needed to get some groceries for the week as Jason was going to be working today! We had thought we would make calzones for dinner and so we definitely needed to get that stuff! Well long story short we couldn't get a damn thing! I don't get it, they only have 3 kinds of salad dressing, 3 kinds of cereal, etc... Well Jason went on a tirade! We were walking through No Frills with Jason ranting louder than I care to admit about how he HATES Canada! He went on to say that he was calling Charlie and telling him that he is NO LONGER working anywhere but the States, this is basically a third world country and he absolutely cannot tolerate it!
I figured at this point we were best off just going home before his mood and the situation escalated.. On the way there he decided that a few beers may help the situation and really it was a beautiful day for it... well... who knew the worst was yet to come!! Naturally beer is more expensive in Canada but good lord.. Jason came flying out of the beer store with nothing but a sour look on his face! Apparently a 15 pack of Budlight is $34.00 plus tax! So apparently we are never drinking here! I tell ya!
So now that Jason and I are on the same page about the hole of a town we are counting down the days until our roll out! We will head home early on the 31st and be there for the weekend and then head to North Carolina on Monday until Thursday to do our studio visit and pick everything for the house and of course see Evan and Brianne and meet Miss of Amelia! We will return late on Thursday night and then fly back to Saskatchewan Sunday night! Its going to be a busy trip but we are looking forward to the great escape!
I wish I had more to tell you about us, I swear there is absolutely NOTHING to tell about here. I feel like such a hack, I have nothing to write about, no pictures to share, no post cards to send... I mean its pathetic!
Hopefully I will have better things to chat about after our roll out!
On a good note the highlights of my week are as follows... delivery from David's Tea - I need something to perk me up! I ordered a pretty mug and some tea. My Tshirt should be here from Women's Running Community and its suppose to be nice weather. Exciting eh!
Alright I hope all is well with all of you, feel free to write with ideas of things for me to write about.. haha
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Our new apartment aka the shit hole
This is after the company had it "cleaned"...
Ya... welcome to my life...
Friday, April 19, 2013
Can you keep a secret?
Alright, I know I haven't been around much but truth be told on a day to day basis there really just isn't anything to tell. Its cold and miserable here, we often still wake up to a couple centimetres of snow and then it melts away throughout the day.
Now we have some mixed news so as promised I thought I would stop in today and fill you in on the recent changes in life! I will start with the bad news!
So SaskPower has pulled the plug on commissioning on this project, which isn't necessarily bad news because what it means is there is absolutely no possibility of us being here past the summer! I don't know exactly what happened, I believe a huge part of it is that there is no housing! Again its not really bad news because we really had no intentions of staying here past the end of summer anyways.
However this is the bad news. Apparently Jason's boss was evaluating the budget and basically said that we cannot stay in the hotel for the duration of our stay! He said that it was too costly and that the SHIT HOLE apartment we came here to and hated has to be our option. Honestly I cant even tell you how absolutely incredibly pissed off I am. They are having someone clean it and the carpets are being cleaned today but still its bullshit! So Jason will get the keys tonight apparently and we will move on Monday.
We have absolutely no furniture besides an air mattress and we obviously don't want to spend the money on a bunch of stuff we know were not going to keep for 3 months. So we will use the air mattress and probably by a cheap futon and go from there. We at least brought our kitchen stuff and blankets so on that front we will be fine.
Basically I'm mad because I feel like that job is such a mess and they are treating Jason like they are doing him a favor by having him out here.. they need him out here!! I'm not being bias but the Canadian division ALWAYS relies on the American division to come in and fix what they cant do. The guys out here don't have any field experience and not a clue as to what they are doing. I'm mad.
BUT! Here is where you need to keep a secret. As most of you know my blog is private and in order to read it I have to send an invite, so when I say what I'm about to say PLEASE do not comment on facebook where everyone can read it, feel free to comment here until we share this news with everyone else.. and when we do you will know.
After a lot of though, talking and consideration Jason and I have decided to take the big step of buying our first home :D:D:D:D:D Actually we are not buying an existing home we are building one!
I'm not sure how much I have talked about this before on here but Jason and I are building a beautiful just over 2434 square foot home in BEAUTIFUL Raleigh, North Carolina! We signed the papers yesterday and sent them in with our deposit! On our first roll out we will head down to North Carolina for a couple of days and sign the rest of our papers and view the lot as we ended up going with a different one than we had looked at when we were there in March.
All in all the house will be completely finished at the end of September or the beginning of October and we couldn't be happier. We will get to pick the colors, flooring, granite, cabinet types, carpets, fixtures, you name it we are going to design it. We couldn't be more excited about having our own home, designing it... basically just having our own space.
We aren't keeping it a secret really, basically we just started the process and although we did a pre-qualification when we were down there and were fine we just want to make sure we get everything started running smoothly before we tell everyone!
So that is our big exciting news, I'm going to attach the link to the home and you can do the virtual tour of the model we viewed. Our home will look exactly the same just different colors basically. Same layout! Please tell us what you think, this is definitely a HUGE stepping stone in our life and towards are future we are so excited!!
Hope all is well with everyone, we have nothing exciting planned. Going to probably take a few things over to the apartment tomorrow *GAGS* and try and find some furniture and move on Monday. Once we are in there I will let you know how things are going!
http://www.kbhome.com/new-homes-raleigh-durham/brandemere-and-the-glen/plan-2434-modeled#planDetails
Now we have some mixed news so as promised I thought I would stop in today and fill you in on the recent changes in life! I will start with the bad news!
So SaskPower has pulled the plug on commissioning on this project, which isn't necessarily bad news because what it means is there is absolutely no possibility of us being here past the summer! I don't know exactly what happened, I believe a huge part of it is that there is no housing! Again its not really bad news because we really had no intentions of staying here past the end of summer anyways.
However this is the bad news. Apparently Jason's boss was evaluating the budget and basically said that we cannot stay in the hotel for the duration of our stay! He said that it was too costly and that the SHIT HOLE apartment we came here to and hated has to be our option. Honestly I cant even tell you how absolutely incredibly pissed off I am. They are having someone clean it and the carpets are being cleaned today but still its bullshit! So Jason will get the keys tonight apparently and we will move on Monday.
We have absolutely no furniture besides an air mattress and we obviously don't want to spend the money on a bunch of stuff we know were not going to keep for 3 months. So we will use the air mattress and probably by a cheap futon and go from there. We at least brought our kitchen stuff and blankets so on that front we will be fine.
Basically I'm mad because I feel like that job is such a mess and they are treating Jason like they are doing him a favor by having him out here.. they need him out here!! I'm not being bias but the Canadian division ALWAYS relies on the American division to come in and fix what they cant do. The guys out here don't have any field experience and not a clue as to what they are doing. I'm mad.
BUT! Here is where you need to keep a secret. As most of you know my blog is private and in order to read it I have to send an invite, so when I say what I'm about to say PLEASE do not comment on facebook where everyone can read it, feel free to comment here until we share this news with everyone else.. and when we do you will know.
After a lot of though, talking and consideration Jason and I have decided to take the big step of buying our first home :D:D:D:D:D Actually we are not buying an existing home we are building one!
I'm not sure how much I have talked about this before on here but Jason and I are building a beautiful just over 2434 square foot home in BEAUTIFUL Raleigh, North Carolina! We signed the papers yesterday and sent them in with our deposit! On our first roll out we will head down to North Carolina for a couple of days and sign the rest of our papers and view the lot as we ended up going with a different one than we had looked at when we were there in March.
All in all the house will be completely finished at the end of September or the beginning of October and we couldn't be happier. We will get to pick the colors, flooring, granite, cabinet types, carpets, fixtures, you name it we are going to design it. We couldn't be more excited about having our own home, designing it... basically just having our own space.
We aren't keeping it a secret really, basically we just started the process and although we did a pre-qualification when we were down there and were fine we just want to make sure we get everything started running smoothly before we tell everyone!
So that is our big exciting news, I'm going to attach the link to the home and you can do the virtual tour of the model we viewed. Our home will look exactly the same just different colors basically. Same layout! Please tell us what you think, this is definitely a HUGE stepping stone in our life and towards are future we are so excited!!
Hope all is well with everyone, we have nothing exciting planned. Going to probably take a few things over to the apartment tomorrow *GAGS* and try and find some furniture and move on Monday. Once we are in there I will let you know how things are going!
http://www.kbhome.com/new-homes-raleigh-durham/brandemere-and-the-glen/plan-2434-modeled#planDetails
Friday, April 12, 2013
ITS NOT GETTING BETTER!!
I’m just throwing it out there right now, for those of you who are offended by swearing, log out now! I try to be as respectful as I can although in all fairness any of you who know me well know how much I love to curse, but I try and be respectful... at this point that’s just not going to happen. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
As if it couldn’t get any FUCKING worse.. What did I blog about last time? My list of why I hate small towns... let’s start by adding to that list.
#4805805 - Everyone parks like an asshole!
#4805806 - You can’t buy stamps ANYWHERE... Good lord this is something Canada totally has going for it... you can buy stamps at the convenient store on the corner... NOT HERE!
#4805807 - Everything closes early... Come on, you don’t need to close at 5pm... YOU HAVE NO WHERE TO GO!!!
#4805808 – Everyone thinks common sense is GENIUS!
So naturally it’s not like anything is different here in the day to day… I wake up and go to the gym and then spend my day looking for a place to live and planning an elaborate dinner because what else do I have to do with my time right? Obviously Jason isn’t complaining. Jason spends his day trying to fix a mess that is his job and hating every minute of it… SWEET!
Well yesterday instead of sitting in the hotel all night we decided to walk over to Wal-Mart and print our pictures we took in Hawaii for an album, so we have dinner and head on over and what do you know.. THE PHOTO CENTER IS CLOSED! It didn’t even close at 5:00pm which I would expect from any small town… it closed at 4:45pm?? Pardon me? Did you get paid for that last 15 minutes or is your pay per half hour? 15 minutes? Minute? What the fuck? Why would the rest of Wal-Mart be open until probably 9:00pm but the photo center closes at 4:45pm? Riddle me that! Not only can you have no assistance or pick up pictures but they turned off all the machines so you can’t even pick your pictures and do everything so they could be picked up the next day. If it wasn’t for the fact that let’s be honest that is the only place in town to get pictures printed I would never go back, and while I was doing other stuff in Wal-Mart I would flip them off!
So we figured we would see if the trip didn’t have to be a total bust and maybe we could get stamps, so we head on over to the check out and I proceed to ask the girl, “Excuse me, do you by chance sell stamps?”… well she looks at me for a minute as though what I have said makes no sense at all, gets a stupid look on her face with her ridiculous blue hair and face piercings and says “Umm… I don’t know, I don’t think so… but… umm… I don’t know??” – Hmm… well thanks for the insight... Ps – you’re going nowhere in life, obviously.
Patience obviously isn’t my strong suit but come on! It never ever occurred to her to find out, or ask someone… she seriously thought this was a viable, appropriate answer! Good lord!
At this point I figured our best bet was to go back to the hotel before I spit at someone, but I really need stamps! Naturally I have no hope that somewhere that should have stamps actually will but I figure the corner store is my last hope besides the post office, which probably isn’t even looking good at this point. So we stop in at the corner store and stand there waiting for someone because there is no where behind the counter… turns out we stood there for 5 minutes and this MORON standing beside us was the attendant and never said a damn word.. I mean, COME ON! No stamps. We leave. Angry.
I should have known at this point this was not our night and we really just needed to go back to the hotel room… but no. Jason insisted on going to the front desk to see about getting a receipt to submit for expenses and to talk to them about staying… WELL… if you thought that the rest of the night was good… wait until you here this one! WE CAN’T STAY!
Yes you read that right, we have to be out of the hotel by May 15th because apparently due to a language barrier and bad fucking communication a very well prepared and competent oil company did their research and booked the hotel for their guys coming in May for 6 months! So we have to be out of here unless someone cancels and she said she would put a note on our account, but she also said that she would do that before so we would have first priority if someone cancels but she didn’t. Not to mention the fact that for all I know there is 50 people ahead of us on that list. So Jason yelled at her, and kept asking the same question over and over because he was clearly furious… well if you know Jason as all you know he is not a yeller, nor does he argue with strangers, apparently the stress is getting to him.
We came back to the room and called every hotel in town… nothing will be available when we need it. This morning Jason sent me a HUGE list of people to call about apartments, I sat and called every person on that list, nothing is available. I called Mel to tell her if she got the same list not to bother calling anyone because I already had and there was nothing and she said that she had dealt with 13 different realtors this week and they all gave her NOTHING!
So if this all isn’t clear basically were fucked! I don’t know what we are going to do; realistically we can’t live in a hotel without a kitchen because we would have to eat out 3 meals a day! It’s really not worth us being here if we aren’t going to save any money, isn’t that the point of working?
On top of all of this we have really been going back and forth about our decision not to buy the house and I think a lot of that is because of how miserable we are here! So I emailed the builder Wednesday and asked if the lot we were looking at was still available and thought if he wrote back and said no than obviously that was a sign… well its available. But now that’s irrelevant because as of May 15th if we don’t have anywhere to live I don’t know if Jason will have a job!
So that’s where we stand… in small town hell with nowhere to live and nowhere to go! YES!
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Hell?
Well lets just say I no longer wonder why so many commissioning guys get divorced.. it has to be jobs like this! Good god this place is an absolute freaking nightmare! There is absolutely nothing here and let me tell you things are looking up since Jason started work yesterday.
Jason got up early yesterday morning and headed to work, its not like the first couple days on a new site are very exciting on account of redoing all your safety training because its usually site specific and drug testing and all that jazz but this site seems to be a bit ridiculous! Jason spent over 3 hours yesterday in safety training and then had to go for drug testing, they are trying to make him have a complete physical which seems crazy because apparently no one else on site has had to do that and now they want him to go for an HIV test.. wtf? He finally talked to his boss yesterday and he said that he would look into it on account that he actually thought it was illegal to ask them to do all this stuff. Its so strange because SNC had done 3 other Sask Power jobs and nothing like this was ever required!
The job site is a mess of mud and crap everywhere.. which I know is not a lie because its all over the flippin' floor this morning. He said that nothing is organized, none of the paperwork makes sense and really nothing is done. He said that the client wont communicate or commit to anything so things are basically up in the air and in complete shambles.
To be honest I always have a hard time starting in a new place, its just getting somewhere new and finding a routine and making friends and finding a job, all off that stuff.. its hard at first. When we come to a place Jason has a job with people he knows and everything is fine.. usually Jason is the one being positive which makes me want to be positive.. NOT THIS TIME!
Jason hates it here more than I do, that or hes mocking me and I don't realize it. He doesn't like the town or the job, this morning it was 0 degree Fahrenheit with a wind chill making it a balmy -15F.. STELLAR! We both keep saying we just want to go back to Alaska.. and that we made a huge friggin' mistake not buying that house which would have given us a reason to get the hell out of here every chance we got. Its not like buying a house now would require us to change our lifestyle at all.. I mean really what lifestyle are we going to have here in small town rural abyss?
Living in the hotel really isn't all that bad though to be honest. Someone makes the bed everyday and cleans, there is always free coffee and tea, not to mention popcorn at night. I don't have to go outside in the miserable cold to go to the gym or the pool.. no where here has in suite laundry anyways and if something is wrong with the washer or dryer here someone will fix it right away. There is no mints on the pillow at night but I made friends with the maid yesterday and gave her some magazines so maybe tonight!
That's really about it, I wish I had more to report but expect my blogs for the next 4 months to be rants about crap... cant say I didn't warn you.
For all of you enjoying spring like weather to today.. shove it! ;)
Jason got up early yesterday morning and headed to work, its not like the first couple days on a new site are very exciting on account of redoing all your safety training because its usually site specific and drug testing and all that jazz but this site seems to be a bit ridiculous! Jason spent over 3 hours yesterday in safety training and then had to go for drug testing, they are trying to make him have a complete physical which seems crazy because apparently no one else on site has had to do that and now they want him to go for an HIV test.. wtf? He finally talked to his boss yesterday and he said that he would look into it on account that he actually thought it was illegal to ask them to do all this stuff. Its so strange because SNC had done 3 other Sask Power jobs and nothing like this was ever required!
The job site is a mess of mud and crap everywhere.. which I know is not a lie because its all over the flippin' floor this morning. He said that nothing is organized, none of the paperwork makes sense and really nothing is done. He said that the client wont communicate or commit to anything so things are basically up in the air and in complete shambles.
To be honest I always have a hard time starting in a new place, its just getting somewhere new and finding a routine and making friends and finding a job, all off that stuff.. its hard at first. When we come to a place Jason has a job with people he knows and everything is fine.. usually Jason is the one being positive which makes me want to be positive.. NOT THIS TIME!
Jason hates it here more than I do, that or hes mocking me and I don't realize it. He doesn't like the town or the job, this morning it was 0 degree Fahrenheit with a wind chill making it a balmy -15F.. STELLAR! We both keep saying we just want to go back to Alaska.. and that we made a huge friggin' mistake not buying that house which would have given us a reason to get the hell out of here every chance we got. Its not like buying a house now would require us to change our lifestyle at all.. I mean really what lifestyle are we going to have here in small town rural abyss?
Living in the hotel really isn't all that bad though to be honest. Someone makes the bed everyday and cleans, there is always free coffee and tea, not to mention popcorn at night. I don't have to go outside in the miserable cold to go to the gym or the pool.. no where here has in suite laundry anyways and if something is wrong with the washer or dryer here someone will fix it right away. There is no mints on the pillow at night but I made friends with the maid yesterday and gave her some magazines so maybe tonight!
That's really about it, I wish I had more to report but expect my blogs for the next 4 months to be rants about crap... cant say I didn't warn you.
For all of you enjoying spring like weather to today.. shove it! ;)
Sunday, April 7, 2013
PS - I forgot!
So today we come out of the grocery store and go to put the groceries in the truck and turns out it wasn't our truck! haha.. Jason opened the back door and when he went to put the stuff in there was a man and his wife sitting in it! Luckily they thought it was pretty funny and said they had done the same thing themselves! HAHA! Poor Jason's face! It was hilarious!! I can honestly say if I was sitting in the truck and someone opened the back door to put groceries in it would have scared the shit out of me! haha! All these look-a-like dirty trucks! Good lord!!
Greetings from the West!
Well its been a lot longer than I thought since Ive blogged! I thought I might have blogged before we left Maine again but it doesn't look like that happened so I will back track a little bit and fill in the piece and let you all know how we got to our current location, Estevan, Saskatchewan!
So we were in Maine until Wednesday, we went for my biometrics which was easy, dealt with the DMV and then saw the Goodwin's before heading back to Jason's parents. We had a good visit with Jason's parents Monday night and than while everyone was at work on Tuesday we packed the truck and got organized. Tuesday night we went to Jason's cousins sons basketball game in Perry Maine and then came back and got it all together to head out early the next morning. We decided that we would try and get out around 8:00am so to avoid all the Toronto traffic we usually hit when we leave Maine at 6:00am. BAD PLAN! We woke up to a snow storm and the roads were horrific, Jason's Dad called from work to tell us to take Route 1 instead of Route 9 like we usually would because there were cars off the road everywhere and things were a mess. GREAT!
So we got on the road and it took us a lot longer than it usually would because of the crap weather and road conditions! On top of making back time because of weather the GPS was being a bitch and took us in the wrong direction more than once.. talk about a good drive! Finally we made it to the border where Jason intended to get his work visa but that didn't happen. The only thing we accomplished was declaring my pepper spray from Alaska and them confiscating it on account that apparently pepper spray is illegal in Canada? Who knew!
We finally made it home around 11:00pm, it was a long friggin' day let me tell you!! If I didn't mention it before we really bit off more than we could chew with all of the driving this time, it was miserable.. but none the less we were happy to be home!
We really enjoyed our time at home although in the end we really didn't get to see everyone, spend as much time as we would have liked to or get to all the places we wanted to. Not being home for a year and a half and then only getting to go back for a week really doesn't leave enough time for anything!
We left home this past Thursday morning and landed our first night in Wisconsin! I think you should all go back and read through my blog and count all the states we have visited in the last month.. haha! We have been in Wisconsin before, actually in the same place about 4 years ago on our way out here last time! So we ate at the same restaurant and found a hotel and went to bed for the night!
Friday we drove on to Minot, North Dakota where we had high hopes for a semi big city.. no such luck! So we had dinner and walked around the mall a little and then headed to the hotel! We knew we were going to get up semi early to get to the border at a decent time and get into Estevan by noon! Well we woke up to ICE FOG! Good lord I swear mother nature is following me with crap cold weather, I was so unimpressed! The whole drive you couldn't see more than 5 feet ahead of you! We got to the border and they were nice and Jason got his visa and we were ready to head to the apartment.
I'm not going to lie driving into town it took everything I had not to cry, it was everything I feared and worse! Its honestly what I feared Anchorage would be like.. right now Anchorage is looking like New York City compared to this place! No word of a lie this place is a hole! So much so that even Jason said he wishes we never came here.
We got to the apartment and met Gary to get the keys and went on in. First I should say that the parking lots were not plowed and it was like driving through the woods to get to a parking spot.. ridiculous! When we walked into the apartment building it smelled of bad apartment and food.. I hate that about apartments, and really we have been lucky to not have ever had to deal with it.. little did I know when we walked into the actual apartment it was going to get a hell of a lot worse. We walked in and I walked through the kitchen into the dining room and absolutely sobbed.. that hysterical cant catch you breath, life is over sob! I begged and pleaded with Jason not to make me live there before even looking at the rest of the place. He hugged me and said we didn't have to stay! The apartment was absolutely disgusting, completely unlivable! There were holes in the walls that had been terribly patched, the base board heaters were falling apart everywhere, there were no blinds, the paint needed to be scraped off everything and redone, there were holes that weren't even patched. The carpets were DISGUSTING, HUGE stains everywhere and just plain disgusting.. I was afraid to open the cupboards in fear of finding bugs.. all of this for the very low price of $1500.00 a month.... not happening! So we left.
We hit the first hotel we saw and no luck! Honestly not only are all the apartments shit holes they basically told us some hotels we shouldn't even look at because they too were shit holes! So when we came across the Best Western and they had a room available for a month and it was brand new, clean and had a full kitchen we took it. We really didn't have a choice, we weren't staying in the apartment and when Gary gave us the keys he told Jason that people sleep in their cars because there is nothing.
At this point I really don't have high hopes for finding a decent apartment, but I also don't plan on living here long.. because I think I would die!
Anyways we really didn't have a ton of settling in to do yesterday and what we did we accomplished quite quickly so last night we headed out for dinner and a movie. We actually got to see GI Joe in 3D which Jason was very excited about.. and well me, I think Channing Tatum in 3D is good no matter what! Haha!
So we are now on day two in Estevan and I have absolutely a million percent remember why I hate small towns..
1. There are no options
2 . There is no Starbucks
3. People stop in every ones way to chat with their neighbor about what they had for lunch.. MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!!!!
4. The movie theatre is small and shows one movie at a time.
5. There are no options
6. People park like assholes.
7. Grocery's are expensive.
8. There are no options
Basically there are too many to list, I already want to leave.
All is probably worse because I have a chest cold and feel crappy.. well no its definitely that bad.. never mind.
This morning we took a drive to the new plant Jason will be working on and its massive! Was good to see it and for him to get a feel for how long it will take him to get there and where to park and all that good stuff. I took a few pictures so you could all see too!!
So we were in Maine until Wednesday, we went for my biometrics which was easy, dealt with the DMV and then saw the Goodwin's before heading back to Jason's parents. We had a good visit with Jason's parents Monday night and than while everyone was at work on Tuesday we packed the truck and got organized. Tuesday night we went to Jason's cousins sons basketball game in Perry Maine and then came back and got it all together to head out early the next morning. We decided that we would try and get out around 8:00am so to avoid all the Toronto traffic we usually hit when we leave Maine at 6:00am. BAD PLAN! We woke up to a snow storm and the roads were horrific, Jason's Dad called from work to tell us to take Route 1 instead of Route 9 like we usually would because there were cars off the road everywhere and things were a mess. GREAT!
So we got on the road and it took us a lot longer than it usually would because of the crap weather and road conditions! On top of making back time because of weather the GPS was being a bitch and took us in the wrong direction more than once.. talk about a good drive! Finally we made it to the border where Jason intended to get his work visa but that didn't happen. The only thing we accomplished was declaring my pepper spray from Alaska and them confiscating it on account that apparently pepper spray is illegal in Canada? Who knew!
We finally made it home around 11:00pm, it was a long friggin' day let me tell you!! If I didn't mention it before we really bit off more than we could chew with all of the driving this time, it was miserable.. but none the less we were happy to be home!
We really enjoyed our time at home although in the end we really didn't get to see everyone, spend as much time as we would have liked to or get to all the places we wanted to. Not being home for a year and a half and then only getting to go back for a week really doesn't leave enough time for anything!
We left home this past Thursday morning and landed our first night in Wisconsin! I think you should all go back and read through my blog and count all the states we have visited in the last month.. haha! We have been in Wisconsin before, actually in the same place about 4 years ago on our way out here last time! So we ate at the same restaurant and found a hotel and went to bed for the night!
Friday we drove on to Minot, North Dakota where we had high hopes for a semi big city.. no such luck! So we had dinner and walked around the mall a little and then headed to the hotel! We knew we were going to get up semi early to get to the border at a decent time and get into Estevan by noon! Well we woke up to ICE FOG! Good lord I swear mother nature is following me with crap cold weather, I was so unimpressed! The whole drive you couldn't see more than 5 feet ahead of you! We got to the border and they were nice and Jason got his visa and we were ready to head to the apartment.
I'm not going to lie driving into town it took everything I had not to cry, it was everything I feared and worse! Its honestly what I feared Anchorage would be like.. right now Anchorage is looking like New York City compared to this place! No word of a lie this place is a hole! So much so that even Jason said he wishes we never came here.
We got to the apartment and met Gary to get the keys and went on in. First I should say that the parking lots were not plowed and it was like driving through the woods to get to a parking spot.. ridiculous! When we walked into the apartment building it smelled of bad apartment and food.. I hate that about apartments, and really we have been lucky to not have ever had to deal with it.. little did I know when we walked into the actual apartment it was going to get a hell of a lot worse. We walked in and I walked through the kitchen into the dining room and absolutely sobbed.. that hysterical cant catch you breath, life is over sob! I begged and pleaded with Jason not to make me live there before even looking at the rest of the place. He hugged me and said we didn't have to stay! The apartment was absolutely disgusting, completely unlivable! There were holes in the walls that had been terribly patched, the base board heaters were falling apart everywhere, there were no blinds, the paint needed to be scraped off everything and redone, there were holes that weren't even patched. The carpets were DISGUSTING, HUGE stains everywhere and just plain disgusting.. I was afraid to open the cupboards in fear of finding bugs.. all of this for the very low price of $1500.00 a month.... not happening! So we left.
We hit the first hotel we saw and no luck! Honestly not only are all the apartments shit holes they basically told us some hotels we shouldn't even look at because they too were shit holes! So when we came across the Best Western and they had a room available for a month and it was brand new, clean and had a full kitchen we took it. We really didn't have a choice, we weren't staying in the apartment and when Gary gave us the keys he told Jason that people sleep in their cars because there is nothing.
At this point I really don't have high hopes for finding a decent apartment, but I also don't plan on living here long.. because I think I would die!
Anyways we really didn't have a ton of settling in to do yesterday and what we did we accomplished quite quickly so last night we headed out for dinner and a movie. We actually got to see GI Joe in 3D which Jason was very excited about.. and well me, I think Channing Tatum in 3D is good no matter what! Haha!
So we are now on day two in Estevan and I have absolutely a million percent remember why I hate small towns..
1. There are no options
2 . There is no Starbucks
3. People stop in every ones way to chat with their neighbor about what they had for lunch.. MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!!!!
4. The movie theatre is small and shows one movie at a time.
5. There are no options
6. People park like assholes.
7. Grocery's are expensive.
8. There are no options
Basically there are too many to list, I already want to leave.
All is probably worse because I have a chest cold and feel crappy.. well no its definitely that bad.. never mind.
This morning we took a drive to the new plant Jason will be working on and its massive! Was good to see it and for him to get a feel for how long it will take him to get there and where to park and all that good stuff. I took a few pictures so you could all see too!!
So that's our scoop right now! Jason starts work tomorrow and I'm on my own! Where the hotel is I can walk to a few things which is good, not that there is a lot to walk to but whatever.
Honestly another hard part of this move is that we've been in the states for so long that they don't have any of the stuff we like here! I cant get peanut butter cheerios! How will I survive!
I WANT TO GO BACK TO ALASKA!
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