A New Beginning

These last few years I have been thinking a lot about 'what would my life be like if...'  One of those 'ifs' was university.  How different would my life be now if I had gone to university instead of college.  My goals and interests now are very different  than they were when I was 19.  At that age I would have entered university to become an archaeologist.  Being that I was too shy to leave home, I instead went to college to become a secretary.  My shyness and lack of self confidence even then did not allow me to pursue the field.  Instead, I worked in a call centre.  When it closed its doors, I took a job in a factory.  During this time, I met my husband who was in college taking an electronics course.  It was the 1990's and the field was booming.  I signed up with a little encouragement from him and graduated. I was an electronics engineering technician.  I worked as a technician for a wonderful company for three years, then the market tanked.  Nortel sold our facility to another company.  Withing two years we were closed and I was out of work.  Luckily, I found another job as a technician in my home town.  I worked there for five years always afraid of lay-offs, with good reason.  Such is the nature of the manufacturing world. After being off work  for five months due to an illness, I was laid off. That company is still struggling but is managing to stay open.  I would never work in contract manufacturing again.  I have overcome my shyness and enjoy working with the public very much.  And so, I've decided it is time to go back to school.  I will be taking my courses part-time and online, working towards a Bachelor of Social Work, so I can still hold down a full-time job and pay the bills.  I am happy I won't be retiring and still saying to myself  "I wish I would have..."

On a lighter note, I took some pretty pictures outside today and here they are.  It's a beautiful clear day and I'm hoping tonight we can see the Northern Lights.  We'll see!

Procrastination

I have just spent the last couple of hours deleting over 2000 emails.  I have signed up to so many newsletters, get jokes forwarded to me, confirmation letters from eBay, Amazon.ca, Chapters, etc. I've had this email address for several years now and every so often I'll sit down and delete a pile of emails, yet I still have so many that I 'save' to read later.  Of course I either never get around to it, or neglect to delete it once it's read.  I'm down to about 300 emails now, I'll get around to sorting through those another time.  I am such a procrastinator.

At Last

I finally got my tank filled at 4pm.  I think they finally broke down after 8 or 9 calls.  Now the task of cleaning three days worth of dishes.  Better pour myself a tall glass of wine.  I've been saving it all day just for this, lol!!!

Day 3, Still No Water

I am STILL out of water.  It's been three days and I am still waiting for the water truck to come.  Every dish in the house is dirty and I've resorted to melting snow in a roasting pan to flush the toilet and wash my hands.  At first we had no water because the sewage tank was full.  The truck finally came after a few calls and so we had the water running for half a day until we actually ran out of water.   What a pain in the butt.  I know they are backed up because of the blizzard, but I NEED to clean my house! 

No Water

I've been out of water since yesterday.  Not because there is no water in the tank, but because the pump is broken.  Great.  I hope it's not a part they have to order.  In the meantime, I scooped a pile of snow into my roasting pan and let it melt so I can wash my hands.  I really need a coffee too (sigh).

Weather Update

I took another picture of the view out my window this afternoon.  It's a little brighter outside and visibility has improved some, but it's gotten colder.  At 2pm, it is   -25C , and -44C with the windchill.  Wind gusts up to 80km/h.   The water and sewer trucks are not running.  The city is shut down for the day.  Hope it clears up enough tomorrow to open the daycare and the store.

Blizzard in Baker Lake

These last two days have been blustery, to say the least.  There's been a blizzard the likes of which I have never seen.  The wind gusts were at 100km/h last I checked yesterday before bed.  This morning it seems to have 'calmed down' some, the wind gusts are at 78km/h and the temperature is at -40C with the windchill.  Brrrr.  They even closed the Northern store at least until noon. The daycare and schools are closed too.  Oh well, I'll get some housework done this morning.  Here are some pictures I took this morning. 

Back To Crafting

I have to admit, the original purpose of this blog has seriously gone to the wayside.  I haven't been using my free time very efficiently.  Mostly tv watching, obsessively monitoring Facebook and doing housework.  I need to snap out of 'getting-through-each-day' mode and get back to creating. 

I love to see what's new (to me) in the world of arts and crafts so I've been looking around on Etsy and came across some super fun crochet projects that got me excited about learning this craft.

Check out this link

Of course this project is way out of my league but it serves to inspire me to get started creating something fabulous.  So maybe I'll start here .

I thought this was so adorable, and something I could use for my coffee at work.  I am always using the cardboard coffee sleeves so as not to burn my fingers.  This little reusable cozy will do the trick!  I think my coworkers will get a kick out of this too!

Wow, Amazing Steak

I bought this 1 1/2 inch tenderloin steak from Rick the butcher at the Northern.  Sadly, we are losing his services to the store in Cambridge Bay.  We'll miss you Rick!

My Daughter The Extrovert

My daughter loves to get her picture taken and is not shy when it comes to drawing attention to herself.  Here are some pics we took while out shopping today.  She is with my husband doing the 'Ta-Da!' pose.  The other looks like a move from a tap dance routine.

Can 'O' Chicken

We were shopping at the Northern today and came across this can of chicken on a Christmas display.  Thought I would share this with you since I have never seen this before. 

Around Town

Here are some of the landmarks around Baker Lake.  The pictures are not very bright, they were taken at 8:45am a couple of days ago.

This is the Northern store.  This is where you shop for clothes, groceries, electronics etc. The  post office is also in the Northern as well as a KFC and PizzaHut.  This is where people come to cash their cheques since there is no bank in town.

The Jessie Oonark Centre.  They sell locally made arts and crafts including jewelry, wallhangings and stone sculptures.

The Catholic church

This building houses the town's pool.  It is only open during the summer.

 The community centre, sorry it's a little dark.  There is a hockey rink in here (I'll post more pictures later) as well as an indoor playgym like you would find at McDonald's only twice as big.  The kids come to play here every day after school.  Each age group has a time slot.

They are building the new Co-op store here.

The rear view of the new highschool

The Iglu hotel

On my walk to work, a view of the main road.

The 'Dirt' on Baker Lake

I was pleasantly surprised when I first move to Baker Lake with the colour of the dirt roads. I would describe them as being a nice Salmon Pink. Not quite PEI, but pretty nonetheless. Here are some pictures I took before the snow fell, in the beginning of October.

On To Baker Lake

After a hiatus of many months, I am finally able to blog again. Due to a coffee spill (my husband's, not mine!) I was no longer able to use my laptop, many of the keys just didn't work. I tried cleaning it and made some headway, but was still missing my letters T,Y,G,H, the backspace and tab. I tried cutting and pasting updates on Facebook for awhile but that is way too much work to post updates on my blog. Anyway, I was finally able to afford a new laptop, so here I am.

In October, my husband and I moved our family to Baker Lake, Nunavut. I have to say I am enjoying my job very much here. I do miss Iqaluit though, it was much more of a happening spot.

My daughter has gone from an all-French school to an English-Inuktituk school. There are no bars here as it is a dry town. Not much opportunity to socialize in an adult only setting. Lots of opportunity to meet other moms though when I pick up my daughter from school, or go to the indoor play gym at the community centre.

This passed weekend, I took my daughter out for Halloween. It was cold, but not too bad. Up here the kids either wear their costume over their winter gear, or trick or treat with a mask or makeup. Sarah had a long princess gown peaking out the bottom of her coat and a princess crown over her hat. Didn't take long for people to run out of candy, some kids were shuttled around by their parents on skidoos or 4 wheelers. We were travelling behind the mob, so many of the houses were tapped out by the time we got there! No worries though, Sarah had fun and still managed to get quite a bit of candy. She has enough to last her a few weeks at least!