Monday Musings

Mother Nature has flicked on the a/c in Baker Lake it seems. Last Thursday we walked out of the house and it was significantly colder than it has been. Before we moved up here I had wondered what anything colder than -25 felt like, and let me tell you - it sucks. I think the temperature has been hovering around -38 the past couple of days...-53 with the windchill was the lowest I saw. It's a type of cold that the minute you step outside, not only does your nose hair freeze, but you start coughing because it punches you in the lungs for trying to breathe.

Yeah, it's a jerk.

Needless to say, I've been keeping a close eye on our fuel tank because we're in big trouble if our furnace won't run!

Aside from the cold, we had a lovely weekend filled with plenty to do. We had a pizza night with all the neighbours on Friday and I had fun playing with the kids. Little ones seem to really like me up here; I think it is because we are so close in height they think I'm one of them. :)

Saturday we had a work party to go to, and I spent the afternoon baking a carrot cake (yum!) to bring as a dessert. I sprinkled it with cinnamon after I whipped together a cream cheese frosting and it turned out to be a good decision on my part - cinnamon and cream cheese are a good pair!

As always, there was so much food at dinner...but I'm a huge sucker for turkey, so I ate my heart out. A few of us have also gotten into the habit of having "second dinner" as the night goes on (and there's still always a bunch of leftovers) so you get to prolong the meal and enjoy it twice! Win-win for all!

We slept in on Sunday which is such a nice change from getting up crazy early on weekdays. I actually spent a good portion of the day cooking a turkey. (So much turkey going on this weekend!) it wasn't for us though - the RCMP does an annual dinner for the elders and those less fortunate in the community, and had around 30 turkeys sent up - so they were looking for volunteers to help cook them  for the dinner and we stepped up to the plate and took one home. There was some slight miscommunication between Jeff and I because we put it in the oven with the thermometer and were wondering why it was taking so long for it to cook...then Jeff looked at me and said, "you know that was Fahrenheit right?" Oops. The thermometer we borrowed was set to Celsius...so it was cooking a bit longer than it was supposed to! Thankfully it was on fairly low heat and I had re-tented it with foil so it wouldn't dry out/burn, so it was still moist inside. It actually turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! Hopefully it tastes as good as it smelled, because it was torturous to have this beautiful bird sitting there and we didn't eat any! :)

Other than that, I've been drowning myself in shopping for Christmas gifts for people at home. I think it makes me feel better to think it somehow makes up for us not physically being there if we have a bunch of packages sent home. I don't know if it's making me wish we could be home even more (probably), but I've been having a lot of fun finding presents for people! Jeff and I agreed we weren't buying each other gifts this year (our trip to Winnipeg was our gift to each other) so I need an outlet to share my Christmas spirit!

On tap this week is getting our cards written and mailed out, finishing the rest of the shopping and doing an inventory of what needs to be ordered for Christmas dinner. The weather is supposed to be sunny but cold, so at least blizzards (hopefully) won't be ruining holiday plans! Only a few more weeks before Santa!

-L