The Big Move, 2010

It's done. Christina has moved in.

Er, no, not really. Not quite yet. Yes, most of Christina's stuff has been relocated from Calgary to Regina, but the majority is still occupying my garage, and Christina won't be back in Regina to start unpacking until Monday. She's back in Calgary cleaning her old place right now and is going to spend the weekend with her mom in Hanna before heading back.

The move itself went reasonably smoothly. I drove to Calgary on Tuesday, leaving Duke and Daisy in a kennel in Regina. With some help, and over the course of a few hours, we packed most of Christina's stuff into her mom's horse trailer on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, we finished the last of the packing, and then hit the road. Christina came with me in my car, and Christina's mom drove the truck and horse trailer with one of Christina's younger cousins that came along to help carry the heavy stuff. (Aside: I did not appreciate the "Here's something light for Scott to carry" meme.) In Regina, we unpacked most of the trailer into my garage. And while Christina and her cousin assembled her bed, her mom and I sat outside and enjoyed a fire pit.

When I first mentioned that Christina was going to move in with me, I noted at that point that it could only be derailed by something crazy. And something pretty crazy did happen in the last week. But it derailed nothing. Our arrangement is on solid ground until September of 2011, which not coincidentally is the same time that my financial obligations to her will end.

So, what does this all mean for me? For the next year, I will benefit from the following life improvements: more diverse and interesting meals, because left to my own devices I eat sandwiches and hot dogs almost every day; someone to watch my daily TV with, which helps it feel a lot less empty; a dogsitter for Daisy to minimize her destructive tendencies; a partner for exercise activities and ballroom dancing classes; and a subject matter expert of sorts to help me once again navigate the soul crushing world of online dating. On the negative side, there will always be a part of me that is frustrated that we can be such good friends yet fail at marriage.

I will have no shortage of alone time, something that I think everyone needs every once in a while, because Christina will be spending a third of her time not in Regina. I will, more or less, spend both my alone time and Christina time doing the exact same things I've been doing over the last year. There really wasn't much difference between the last year and the one before, other than population. I'm ultimately completely content with the ways I choose to spend my time at home.

I am less content about how much time I spend at home. And I don't mean just getting out of the house to go to a restaurant or bar or club or whatever. What I really need to do is get the fuck out of Regina more often.

So, as silly as it seems to drive to Calgary one day and drive back the next, I actually quite enjoyed the trip. And I definitely made it worth my while. While in Calgary, I visited Zyn, an awesome booze store near downtown, and spent $140 on thirteen big bottles of beer (including one growler). I picked out ten beers from Rogue, two from Tree, and one from Cannery. I've had a couple of them before, but most are beers I've never seen in my life. I'll work my way through them slowly over the next few weeks. Awesome.