holly wind batman!

Had the day off today, spent the morning cleaning the kitchen and wandered off after lunch
to do some grocery shopping and attempt to find pants. $250 later, no pants. After putting away the groceries I figured I would go for a stroll, it was pretty nice out, I even got to the leave my hat home. Mother nature had other plans:

Cloudy. Becoming cloudy periods this evening. Blowing snow at times early this evening. Wind northeast 40 km/h gusting to 60 becoming light this evening. Low minus 28. Wind chill minus 45 this evening.

I'd flip her the bird but I can't see 2 feet out my window - mother nature's cloaking device is activated. (and I have been watching to many SNG reruns). 

In other news I did get around to taking some shots, the camera just does not do the north justice, but I picked the best few of the bunch - I'll keep practicing I promise. Once the wind dies down and the internet can handle uploading pics, I'll add them :)

Day 7 - The Northern Plauge

Just a quick post before heading off to work

 Poor Matt has already been hit hard by some sort of bug that has confined him the the couch. Apparently everyone gets hit hard their first few weeks here, adjusting to the climate & new strains of germies floating through the air. Delightful.    Lucky me gets to work his shift today in his absence.

-27 cloudy (35 w/wind chill) maybe some fluffy stuff.


A

turn up the heat - turn down the suck

we awoke to a very cold house this morning. I assumed we just ran out of oil, no one had been living here for a while so it probably did not need to be topped off that often.  I called for oil and within 5 minutes my tank was full, alas no heat. Fiddled with the furnace, restarted a few times, still nothing.

Its been a balmy 17 in the house since about 7am. standing in front of the oven door has provided some relief until now. Bundling up and heading out to working hoping to come home to a cosy warm house tonight.

Day 6

Ladies and gents,

Today's forecast calls for -24 and sun :)

We've been quite preoccupied with work, unpacking and tracking down packages with canada post ( we have a guitar that seems to have disappeared completely) so with that we haven't had the opportunity to bust out the camera yet, but I have a day off soon - pictures I promise.


We are starting to settle in to our cozy new home, the cat still loves us, and I just spent a small fortune ordering pet supplies, tofu, soy milk, advil etc, and books. Thanks to well.ca and amazon for the free shipping, the will be seeing a lot of me.

 Although I can find the most outrageous sizes of coffee mate (no flavored - boo), and did stumble across a $15 tub of Ben&Jerry's, I can not locate any plain yogurt or any decent coffee. Hopefully I can order some in. I packed some beans that I picked up before leaving Montreal, but the magic bullet has vanished. I'll have to be creative and bust out the rolling pin, I will have decent coffee damnit!

These petty culinary grievances are outweighed by the beautiful picture I see out my window every morning, the friendly folk, and the pack of dogs I found under my house yesterday ( that I didn't dare start to play with for fear I would have the urge to take one in).

Off to work, pictures soon, promise!

A

we made it!

Me, him and the cat made it in one piece to Pond Inlet!  With only 5 stop overs, 1 weather delay (nearly missed our connection in Iqaluit) Laavie was quiet the little lady, just calmly hanging out in her carrier, with the occasional meow for attention. She was promised lavish gifts would be ordered for her on account of outstanding behavior.

Our manager picked us up and helped us lug what luggage had arrived with us to the airport.  We got a quick tour around our new 2 level 4 bedroom home, and the cat was more than happy to get out of her carrier and explore her new home.  She has already picked out her new bedroom (spoiled) and started meowing at the storage room door.

Matt ran out to get a few items to tie us over for the night, then it was a long hot bath and a good nights sleep. Luckily we had today off to settle in.

When the sun started to show are the "fog" started to lift, I spent a good hour just staring out the window at the mountains and the dogs and sleds on the ice (photos soon I promise!). We took care of the internet (that put a big 'ol dent in my bank account) and picked up a few groceries and a much needed new pair of winter boots for me. I still haven't found a scarf though, so tomorrow I'll be busting out the balaclava. Our manager took us for a tour of the town and then dropped us off with our groceries and mail.  The ice and the mountains are just beautiful, the air is clean, crisp and quiet but for the hum of ski-doos and the odd truck. The people have been so friendly and welcoming. The afternoon resulted in a mild cleaning spree and nap fest, interrupted by the delivery of our delayed baggage. Hoorah for warm gloves and xbox! Also my tripod so I can take some sweet shots for you very very soon.

PS, it was about -30 today, but no wind, so all in all a nice sunshiny day in le pond.
ttfn,
A

The final countdown

I must say (while knocking on wood) that the last 2 weeks have gone by relatively smooth considering all we had to accomplish leading up to this move. In just 10 hours we will have boarded our first plane and will spend the next 11 (maybe more) hours counting the moments until we land in Pond Inlet. The rest of the post will be all over the place cause I'm exhausted, my friend Nancy pants is on her way and I wanted to get one last post in to keep you up to date - who knows how long it will take to get the internet hooked up.

We managed to sell off all the big stuff, and store the rest (although there was some last minute scrambling at 9pm (thank you Rose!) with stuff that was forgot in various nooks of our 3 bedroom flat. I will miss the brick walls and hardwood floors dearly, the random craziness that is the village, and my  crazy friends,  but am so excited for something new and so happy so many of our friends have been supportive.

We had quite the gathering on Saturday ( thanks to everyone who could make it!) did not plan accordingly and ran out of food and booze way to earlier.  A colonel sanders looking fellow somehow knocked down my mailbox and there was a piece of the railing sitting with the trash, all in all a good evening, and some friends even acting a little bitter, but all in all a good evening with some fine folks.

Sunday we had a very hungover sister and her better half help us move all our boxes to storage. I love you even though you reek of garlic, you should have been home studying you silly fool.

We shipped the rest of our boxes today with good ol canada post.  We made 3 trips in vain this morning to the post office a block from us as they were having issues with software or something so we had to give a cabbie 20 bux to drive 7 boxes and a guitar 4 blocks to a pharmaprix. It left $1000 dent in my bank account.  ( not to mention the $200 I spent last week). We had to bust open the box of records as they were too heavy for the scale to weigh - even after weeding some out they still cost $200 to ship. And Holy Shnikies do people stare at you when you have 2 trolleys full of rubbermaid containers. One particularly elderly fellow was just having a field day pointing and staring at the mess of totes mumbling something in a particularly strong Quebecois accent . It was a process, but I digress.

Surprisingly made it to Wal-mart, stocked up on wool socks, thermals and sweaters that did not consist of cotton. One last trip to Canadian Tire and the pharmaprix for hair elastics because he can not live without them.

Lucky for us Laavie cat has nestled herself in her brand new carrier (okay maybe the cat nip helped) so this should soften the blow when we actually leave the house with her still in it tomorrow morning.( I can hear her screams in the taxi now)  I still suspect she will not be pleased with the whole "flying" thing, but mommy has gravol for worst case scenarios ( for you fellow cat crazies, yes I checked with the vet).

 I think this is all I can muster at the moment, spell check is working at a feverish pace and my luggage will not pack itself.

Good night all,
A

and SOLD

Yeahhhh the place got rented for March!
We sold all our appliances today!
Packing is almost done!
Snow storm coming!
update soon!