The weekend from hell

This title of course has nothing to do with Amber. Unless it’s me selling a kidney due to vet bills but thankfully, nothing horse-related went wrong this weekend. No, this was a specifically non-horsey weekend. The news I was going to tell you guys last week?

I got a new apartment!

That is, my best friend and I decided to room together. This has been a pretty gradual process, starting from when she moved up here from Phoenix and we actually planned to make this step December of this year. As things started to work out – or actually, they DIDN’T work out – we realized that rooming together earlier would be beneficial to us both. Those hectic weeks of little blogging and little riding were due to apartment/house hunting, until we randomly decided to pop into one place on a whim and it was seamless. So, we put down a deposit, and planned. Our walkthrough was just last Thursday, and it was gorgeous. We both loved it. It’s on the second story, but it has vaulted ceilings, a gas fireplace, a cute little patio, and bedrooms with attached bathrooms and walk in closets.

We’d planned to drive down to Phoenix to get my roommate’s things from storage, and had everything planned. And about 2 hours down the road we realized that I’d forgotten my overnight bag. Everything basically went to shit from there. The rest of the drive was great – my truck was her usual badass self (I mean, only using a half tank in 6 hours? I just love her). But we get to the U-Haul, and suddenly realize that though their website said they had trailers with ramps, something somehow got mixed up and the size we were looking at didn’t have a ramp. She has a super cute upright piano that we were going to move – no way in hell were we going to be able to move that thing into a trailer without a ramp. So about an hour and a half later, we manage to find a Penske which had a truck with a ramp available – for half the prices U-Haul was quoting us. Great – we head over. Only, they don’t have furniture dollies. Back to the uhaul to rent utility and furniture dollies.

We’d made the drive in good time, getting there around 2:30 as was our plan, but getting everything worked out meant we didn’t even get to the storage unit until about 6:30 in the evening. By this point both of us stressing because the hotel we’d reserved was all the way back in Kingman – about a 4 hour drive from Phoenix. The piano itself was the first thing, and it took us a solid 45 minutes to load that thing. But let me tell you – us two girls loaded it. A 400+ lb piano and we were able to get it up that tall-ass ramp and into the truck. We were basically prone on the floor but hey lol. From there, everything else was easy and took us about 2 hours. I made a Walmart run to grab us some energy drinks and water, and considering I didn’t have anything for overnight bought a few items and a shirt that defined the whole trip to that point (it said Nope across the front).

We finished packing the whole thing by 9:00 pm. Then the lock we’d brought didn’t match the key, so back to walmart we went to get a lock. While there, we were updating the hotel again and letting them know that we’d be there pretty late – probably 1 in the morning. The lady then proceeded to cuss out my roommate on the phone even though we weren’t obligated to let the hotel know when we would be checking in. We wanted to make sure someone would be there to let us check in around that time, and she wasn’t giving us straight answers, kept cussing us whenever we’d try to mention getting in very late. And we even had a credit card on file and she basically refused to let us come in so late, so we cancelled the reservation.

We then spent the next hour finding a different hotel room. We must’ve hit the one weekend or something but EVERY hotel was booked. It was ridiculous. We guessed it was partially because it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, but are thinking it was more spring season/practice (something to do with baseball and it’s apparently very big). We FINALLY found a room – one with a king bed that we’d share. And the bathroom tub was atrocious. Like, dirt, hair and whatever else backed up from the pipes. There was trash still in the room. I mean, wow. I have never had a hotel room that was that bad. By the time someone came to clean it and we were actually going to sleep, it was 1 am.

Thankfully, the drive back was uneventful. We made good time, got back to the place by 4:30, and had a few extra hands helping us unload and carrying stuff up the steps. We could finally relax that evening. It took a bit Sunday morning for me to pack some of my stuff into my truck before heading over there and putting together my Ikea bed. Of course I had to use my new Dachshund stuff! It’s adorable and I love it even more off of the hanger.

I’m surprised I’m not sorer from the trip. I am certainly not in good shape, but I really didn’t have hardly any aches or pains – much to my roommate’s annoyance haha. But I’m glad that none of my stuff is really packed at all right now. I’m doing a whole “purge” type thing – going through a lot of my stuff and deciding whether I need to keep it or toss it. Of course most of my horsey things are freshly bought, so those clothes/tack items aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, but it feels good to get rid of clothes I don’t wear, random papers I don’t know why I’ve kept, old mementoes that I’ve kept that I really don’t want to keep (my 7th grade yearbook? Yeah no I don’t want to keep that lol). I’ve boxed books that I won’t be reading anytime soon but will still be kept whenever I DO decide to read them, and I still have a desk to go through, painting supplies to sort, craft items and a lot of things to go through but so far, my clothes purge has been the most rewarding. Even though Friday was certainly not the day we were expecting, I can tell I was ready for this change. Everything else has been easy, uneventful, and not stressful, so I’m pleased with the move. True, no more free rent, but it felt really nice to sip wine in our own space and watch a bit of Spirited Away before calling it a night.

I got absolutely no horsey time this weekend, which I’m sad about, but I’ll try to ride tonight and I have a few days I’ll have plenty of time in the afternoons to dote on her. She actually looked very pleased to see me Saturday evening, and I scratched her withers which made her happy. I’ll be able to ride soon, though, and now comes readjusting my days/times. I’ll still be going over every evening at least to do chores – hopefully ride depending on my work day, but I’m excited for the change. I’ll miss not being able to see her when I look out my window, but I’m only 8 minutes away so it’s going to be pretty easy, I think. I hope everyone else’s weekend went well!