Nunavut Essentials - Part Two

Today, while walking Pepper, I saw something that left me momentarily stunned - here's why.

Lily's Top 10 Must-Haves for Living in Nunavut

If you do any search for tips on living in Nunavut/the arctic, etc. you'll find any number of lists of essentials that you'll need. We've talked about them here, and I'm sure there's nothing on that list that is going to be a surprise. Everyone knows they need to buy a good parka and stock up on all the food they can possibly pack...but what about the other things? What about the things that you don't necessarily realize how awesome it is to have until you've already shipped off your belongings?

Well, I was thinking about this the other day as I was using some of my top items that make my life better here, and decided I'd share with you my list of the top 10 things I didn't think would be important, but have turned into items I use almost on a daily basis.

Hopefully it helps you to think of what your list would entail if you were to move to the north! :)

Lily's Top 10 Must-Haves for Life in Nunavut

Online Shopping Guide

With Christmas around the corner, and a distinct lack of physical shopping at hand, we've (let's be real here, I'm the shopper in this family!) had to learn to be resourceful at using the internet to find sites that offer online shopping.

The trick is to find retailers that offer reasonable, or even better, free shipping. Some sites will do shipping for free in the South and because Nunavut is considered "remote," we may not qualify for these deals.

I thought it would be helpful to list some of the sites that I have found really useful/helpful/lucrative for our shopping needs. Mos of the Christmas shopping we've been doing for friends and family at home have come from these retailers. *I will update the list as I discover more sites I like.

List: Random Thoughts

Since it's Wednesday and a blog post should be posted, and I come to you fully unprepared, here's a list of random things on my mind today.

It's Beginning to (Not) Look a Lot like Christmas

With Halloween out of the way, Christmas commercials everywhere you look on TV, and snow falling and/or blowing pretty much at some point every day, it's no wonder I'm itching to prep for the holidays. Since we're not going home this year (super duper sad faces!!!) I want to try extra hard to make it feel Christmasy at our new house.

Unfortunately for me, my husband (and sister...and parents...and friends) have this weird notion that the first weekend in November is too early to decorate for Christmas. I know, right? How unreasonable! He said I should try to wait until after American Thanksgiving but that's AGES away!! Boo!! I promised there would be a plethora of pouts until our decorations are pulled from the closet and I can deck the house out. You've all been warned!

Wish List

We're blessed to have so many awesome people in our lives who care about us and are looking out for us, and we appreciate every single one of you!

Quite a few people have asked us to post what sorts of things we would like/could use in a care package if one was being put together, so here is a list of things that we can always use/need/would like/miss from home (we will likely add to/edit the post as time goes on):

Essentials

I started looking into weight restrictions for our luggage when I heard that our stuff didn't get loaded onto the truck until this morning (ummmm, we're definitely going to beat it at this rate??). So I started thinking about stuff that we should bring to hold us over until our things arrive...and the list felt really long in my head, but now that I see it written out, I feel like I'm forgetting key things.

Since we are flying on First Air, the baggage restrictions are pretty limited because we're going to be on a smaller plane. Basically, if we don't want to have to pay for any excess fees (though they may be cheaper than paying to courier/ship things up separately and we'd be guaranteed to have the baggage with us), we both get 2 bags at 44 pounds each. That sounds like a lot, but after going through the process of packing up our house and under-estimating our belongings, I don't want to take any chances.

I think we're going to have to borrow someone's scale next week and do "practice packs" to see what we're looking at in terms of weight.

Below is a list of things that I can think of as essential to get us through the first while that we're there in case our things haven't arrived yet.

Packin' Up

It has been a busy week so far! We spent a day sorting through things into different piles, and then the packers came by yesterday to start boxing everything up. Who knew we had so much stuff?? The moving company sent two people and one man spent the majority of the six hours they were there, packing up my kitchen. Not including the food, just dishes and small appliances and everything that wasn't the kitchen sink. It was getting pretty ridiculous. He estimated that it was probably about 800 pounds or so of just those things.

Oops. I guess I really have no excuse to keep buying dishes (but I love buying dishes!). It also turns out we have 9,893,238 glasses (thereabouts, anyways.) Add in the food and supplies we've been buying and we're probably at about half our weight limit already! I had no idea things were that heavy; I thought we'd be struggling to reach our limit! Now I'm hesitant to bring some of the "nice-to-have" pieces of furniture that we were contemplating because I don't want us to go over and have to pay for the shipping.

Lists

With being so overwhelmed and having a lot to do over the next couple of weeks, I thought I should write everything down in lists - maybe if you're looking to make a move (big or small) these might trigger you to add things to your list too! Our lists may be a little different because the new house will be fully furnished, and our current house is going to be rented out so all our utilities, etc. aren't being cancelled...

I'll keep adding things as I think of them, but it's a good start I think. (Please comment and add things if you think I'm forgetting them)