Taking Inventory

We received some disappointing news last week, and although we weren't entirely sure we'd hear good news, there was always a sense of hope that maybe the stars would shine down on us. Hearing a definitive negative response is always hard. So that's really been weighing on us both. I'm not going to lie. Last week was tough.

It also feels that time is speeding by much too quickly as we near our moving date. Whole days will pass and we look in exhaustion/bewilderment at each other and wonder where the time went. Work has been busy for both of us as we prep to make our respective departures, and we have had something to do/somewhere to be almost every night. Our weekend was also packed with seeing friends and family, which we absolutely want to soak up every single second of, but it feels like we haven't been home for anything other than sleep these days. Not that I'm complaining - there will be plenty of time to sit around just the two of us on our own when we get to Baker Lake - so I often find that if there's a gap in our schedule, I'm trying to squeeze in an extra visit here and there with whomever is available. Exhausted by bedtime, yes, but thankful for every moment we have here with our friends and family.

We are rapidly heading into July, which means we are quickly approaching our move date (granted, it's not set in stone yet - but it looks like we're going to aim to fly out of Ontario on July 30). With things taking some time to get up to Baker Lake, we need to move pretty quickly on getting our stuff ready to go. The moving company sent an estimator to the house last night to see how much stuff is coming with us and how much stuff is going into storage. It's sad to know that in 22 minutes our lives can be assessed by a stranger and compartmentalized into two lists.

Our things will actually be driven from Ontario to Thompson, Manitoba and will be flown into Baker Lake from there. I was pretty surprised when I heard it was being driven - I don't know why, but I just assumed it was going to be flown from here all the way up. Shrug. Either way, due to the nature of how it's being sent up, the packers/movers will probably be coming next week or the following week to ship all of our stuff up North and then come back closer to the end of the month and take the rest of our stuff into storage.

It all seems very, very real now.

We have been scurrying around trying to stock up on our items from our lists but have mainly been focusing on the food and such. Remember our first shopping trip not even three weeks ago? Our stock pile was so sad it didn't even qualify as "stock." Fast forward to today and how our front room looks now:

Sadly, as much as it feels like we cleared out Costco and our surrounding grocery stores, most of the items on the list are still not purchased. How is this even possible you ask (it's ok to ask that, I look around the room and ask myself that often)? The majority of what you see here are: household items, a couple of things from IKEA and the rest of it is food. (You'll note that there are four bags of rice, totalling over 100 pounds, and my mother still insists that it won't be enough. Eek! There's going to be a lot of carb-eatin' going on. At least some of it is brown rice, so I can pass it off as healthy?) My rationale has been that food is going to be so extremely expensive and such a necessity that we should stock up on as much as possible here - but at the same time, I am perplexed at how much it *feels* like we are buying and in my head I think, no, there's no way we need more than 24 packages of pasta or 12 jars of tomato sauce, etc. Although I've read some blogs/talked to some people who purchased thousands of dollars worth of food before moving up because it worked out to be such a cost saver (no, this isn't even close to that much), I want to buy more stuff, but I don't know how to wrap my head around it. I just don't want to get up there and regret that we didn't bring enough because I feel weird about buying it all now. I think the moral of the story is that I think we need more food, even though our front room looks like we're prepping for Y2K right now.

All I can say is, thank goodness for packers! :)

-L