End of Craziness

And back to routine.

Our trip down south was very busy and ultimately successful. We had the wedding we dreamt of. It was beyond perfection and we wouldn’t have changed a thing. Even the weather cooperated; we had unseasonably warm temperatures for our outdoor wedding.

We spent a week relaxing poolside and oceanside in Jamaica. It was exactly what the doctor ordered considering the changes in our lives over the last six months. The doctor didn’t order the nasty cold that ‘he’ picked up though!

We planned our trip home to include an overnight in Winnipeg, since catching a flight to make the connection onto First Air is a bit difficult. It’s even harder when travelling with the dog.

‘He’s’ been back to work for a week now, while I’ve been laid off by the company I was working for. I’m planning on hitting some of the other offices around town to see if I can pick up something else. It gets a bit boring and lonely being a housewife in Baker Lake.

It’s definitely been nice to be back home and get back into a normal routine. We’ve been marvelling at the changes up here in Baker.

First, we’re up to a crazy amount of daylight! We now wake up to sunshine and ‘he’ comes home from work in sunshine. And we’ve had so much sun! The weather’s been unbelievable, fairly warm (around the -10 degree mark). There was one day where it was pretty windy, making the temperature around -30, but we haven’t seen much new snow at all.

We managed to get together with a group last weekend to play poker. We hosted it at our place (a first) and it was success. We have a busy weekend planned – ‘he’s’ boss has said it’s a requirement that he attends his party on Friday, and we have another game of poker on Saturday.

I found it harder to leave this time, since there is no real timeline for our next visit, but we are happy to be back in our own place.

Blizzard Day

Today is our first official blizzard day. (The blizzard that kept us in Winnipeg after Christmas doesn't count, because we didn't experience it!)

Both of us are home for the day, listening to the wind roar and blow the snow around, while the sun shines happily.

I'm not spending much time outdoors... the snow is drifting up on the porch, and by the time I get shovelled out, Squire is done peeing!

Yesterday there was a lull in the storm, so they started clearing the snow away. With a loader and dump truck....

And the wind roars

I should've know while enjoying the abnormally warm temperatures this week, that there would be a price to pay.

Yesterday we had a lovely snow fall. Actual snowflakes - not just dried out snow granules.

Last night the wind kicked up from the North, and started blowing that snow all around. It's windy enough that here in town, there's no hiding from it. When taking Squire out to pee, there was no way to keep the wind from blowing cold snow in my face. We can hear it roaring out there over the tv!

I snapped a quick picture when the sun came out. It actually looks picturesque... oh, did I mention the -40 windchill?

A month and counting!

A month to what you may ask?

Our wedding is officially a month from today. I've been pretty preoccupied lately with all things wedding, bridal, and honeymoon related. It doesn't seem to matter how well I prepared over the last few months, there's still going to be a major push at the end.

We leave to go back home in 20 days.

I'm hoping that the four day delay in Winnipeg on the way back up after Christmas satisfies the weather gods and we get to all the places we're going without delay or incident!

Foodmail

I mentioned in the last post that we had to do a foodmail order once we got back to Baker. The fridge and freezer were pretty bare; we had no fresh produce, were pretty low on meat options, and were down to making homemade bread in the bread maker.

We try our best to do a foodmail to last a good 4-6 weeks, and are starting to get it down to a fine art. We scan the local flyer (available online) for weekly specials, and there is an online form to fill out of all the options available. We generally keep a note on the fridge to mark stuff down when we run out.

This week, the order came to $461. Which, when we figure we spent about $100/week on groceries down south, doesn't seem like too much. (Keep in mind that our barge order to fill our pantry was about $2000.) Included in the $461 is a $5 delivery fee to take our food to the airport for transport on the plane, a $20 or 10% fee for having the store "shop" the order for us, and air freight of about $100. Interestingly enough, foodmail has priority over just about anything else that goes on a plane; passengers' luggage can and has been bumped for foodmail, and foodmail was part of the delay in getting our personal items up here from Ottawa.

Included in our order this week was (from memory) two roasts, four packages of stewing beef, four packages of ground beef, two whole chickens, two packages of pork chops, hot dogs and buns, two packages of bacon, three packages of breakfast sausages, hashbrowns and hasbrown patties, four 4L jugs of milk, four dozen eggs, four loaves of bread, four frozen pizzas, a lasagna, a 10lb bag of potatos, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, romaine lettuce and ceasar salad dressing, apples, pears, two bunches of bananas, green peppers, celery, cereal, cans of soup, cans of beans, brown sugar, ground mustard, steak spice, and rye and whole wheat flour.

So many items to go in the freezer, I have to cook a roast tonight that wouldn't fit, and I'm hoping the hot dog buns won't go stale too fast!

Foodmail is our preferred option of grocery shopping - prices for fresh produce can be outrageous at the Northern - but it's not without it's problems. For one, only 'nutritious' food is deemed foodmailable (stuff like cleaning products, baby items, pharmaceutical stuff is also allowed to be sent as foodmail.) Pop, chips, breaded chicken, cookies, and cakes are all not foodmailable and instead of paying a discounted freight of about $1/lb, you'd pay the basic freight at about $4/lb. And there seems to be some loopholes.... for example, CoolWhip= not foodmail, DreamWhip = foodmail... frozen pie crusts = not foodmail, Pilsbury refrigerated pie crusts = foodmail. It's kinda silly that all the items to make chocolate chip cookies are permitted as foodmail, but actual chocolate chip cookies are not. Oh well, fresh baked is always better anyway!

Also, if the plane gets delayed because of weather conditions... they store your food at the temperature per the labels on the boxes when possible. So you do have a chance of all your meat thawing and having to cook it or risk it spoiling. Also, fresh produce can freeze on the way up, making it into a sloppy mess. Neither has happened to us *yet*, but someone at Safeway mislabeled a box on our last order and our frozen pizzas and hashbrowns were sent as 'Dry Goods' instead of 'Frozen Goods'. However, it's winter up here, and although they were quasi thawed, it wasn't a disaster.

And, I think we've all probably gone to the grocery store and forgot to get something, even if it was on the list, but I'm paying for the privilege of having someone shop for me, so things shouldn't be missed. This week, garbage bags, salami, provolone cheese, and chicken thighs were missed. I *really* needed those garbage bags! Also, sometimes you get some bizarre choices of brands. A colleague has sworn off a particular store because they sent her 'Weight Control' Oatmeal for no apparent reason.

We still go down to the Northern for 'party' items like chips when needed, and occasionally pick up the makings for a meal when a craving hits, but by and large we wait for the next foodmail order.

I've read some criticisms online that the government should not be subsidizing the freight on foodmail orders to Northern and other isolated communities. One person even went so far as saying 'they chose to live there, they can deal with the consequences". To them I say, fine, invest the money in building and maintaining an all season road to each community, so that we can get regular transport rates on our food (any EVERY other sell-able good that we do pay regular freight on) and we'll see how the dollar signs add up then.

Foodmail really is a lifeline for us to the south. It allows us to feel like we're still 'home' and to get some of the food and brands we're used to and at decent prices. Without it, we really would be at the mercy of the stores up here who would be able to charge whatever they wanted.

By plane and by car

So it's quasi official, we logged close to 10K km's, by plane and by car, to get down south, and all the travelling we did down south.

We did a lot of visiting with family; it was really awesome to see how much our niece, Leigha, has grown. We did family Christmas dinners all over Ontario, and introduced my family to "he's" family's traditional Mashed Potato Stuffing. We did A LOT of shopping ("he" nearly fainted when he saw the Visa bill.) We were able to schedule (literally) some time between visiting, shopping, and wedding plans to have some nice dinners out at our favourite restaurants and got to go see 'The Road' (a fantastic movie, but depressing as hell.)

We stayed mostly at my mom's house, and it was great to have mommy take care of us, and let us steal her car all the time!

And so, after all that, we were *fried*.

The night before we left, I had a pretty nasty stomach bug, and that combined with getting up at 4:30 am to head to the airport, made for a super happy girl :S

So maybe, just maybe, it was a good thing we were stuck in Winnipeg for four days while the north experienced the longest blizzard of the year so far. We were able to catch up on some much needed sleep (in fact, it's all I did for about the first 24 hours) and we took advantage of the time to do some of the 'extras' that didn't get done during our scheduled vacation. We both thought it was weird that we felt we were missing out on something special!

We were able to head out to the mall in Winnipeg, and between shopping, and eating out, we got to see Avatar. I'm glad we did, because we wouldn't have an opportunity to see it at a theatre up here, and definitely not in 3D (which is wicked, btw).

It was awesome to see Squire, who, incidentally, We just did another thought it was pretty awesome to see us. (Although, I think she really loved staying at Nina and Wayne's!)

"He's" been back to work for a couple of days now, and I get back in the swing tomorrow. We just completed a big food mail order (to the tune of of $461, but the freezer was looking pretty bare), which, weather permitting will come tomorrow. Other than that, we're mostly working on finalizing wedding plans, as we're about six weeks away from the big day.

Oh! And of course! We'll be cheering from the North as our Juniors face the Americans for the gold medal. Bragging rights against family in the States is on the line... so Go Canada Go!

He wears the red pants and other randomness

Well, the red panties anyway! This was part of his bid to win a DVD player to go along with the TV I won at my work Christmas party. (For those keeping score at home, he came in third to two women!)

We've been busy socialites heading off to Christmas parties around town. It was great to get together with our new friends and share some food and laughs!


We've also been busy preparing for our Christmas trip back south. I'm embarrassed to say we do have a schedule, but it's necessary to finalize all our wedding plans. We're looking forward to movie theatres, restaurants, and oh yeah, seeing our families and friends!

Even with the somewhat miserable weather (lows of -46, blowing snow) we've managed to get all our water deliveries. Our water is delivered directly from the lake, via tanker trucks three times a week, and is stored in our crawlspace. (A different tanker comes and pumps the sewage from the holding tank three times a week as well.) The driver just backs up to the house, and hooks up. There's an alarm that goes off when the tank is full, and a red light comes on to let them know. I felt awkward asking why all the houses on our street had red lights, until I found out about the 'No Fill' lights.



Although surprising to some people, we do still get hours of daylight even with the soltice just around the corner. 'He' says he's not noticing the lack of sun, since during the winter down south, he was at work during any daylight hours anyway. We do take the dog out during our lunch break to take advantage of the sun's weak rays. Here's a picture of a sunset over the lake.



We've managed to parcel out our pets to our friends up here, and are secure that everything will be fine while we're gone. We've paid homage to all the weather gods, and the forecast seems ok for getting out of here on Thursday. We're looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone at Christmas.

In case we don't post again before Christmas, and aren't going to be seeing you for whatever reason, we wish you all the happiness the holiday season has to offer.