Growing Accustomed

Apparently, posting pictures on my blog is not something worth doing. It took nearly an hour to upload 3 pictures out of 9. If you're interested in seeing pictures, hopefully you're one of my friends on Facebook, because it looks like this will be the only place I post my photos. *Sigh... Northern Living :)

I've been here three days now, and there is something to be said about the passing of time here. Every morning I wake up and don't feel any real pressure to get anything done. I look at the clock and it'll be 9:00 am and then what feels like minutes later it has somehow become into noon. And honestly, if I hadn't looked at my calendar, I wouldn't have even been able to tell you how many days I've been here for. I feel like every day I decompress a little bit more. People are friendly here. It doesn't matter who you pass - they wave and smile, and no one looks like they're rushing frantically to get something done, they're just sort of... getting it done.

The kids are finally calming down as well. They seem to really love the house and the big open space to play. Soph colours and reads and Seb just rolls his trucks around and seems to think everything is the funniest thing he's ever seen.

I had the pleasure of having dinner with one of the girls Phil made friends with in his time alone here and it's always so nice to hear that someone has come out here with the intention of being here only a short while, and somehow years have passed and they call themselves a "lifer" even though they joke about being in denial about what they just said aloud. I also had an opportunity to meet one of the teen boys that moved here with his parents and enjoyed getting his perspective on life in the North as a teenager, and he was quite the academic. I don't know whether it was his up-bringing or a behaviour that has come about  from living such a unique life; but his patience with the kids and his maturity spoke volumes to me about the positive aspects to a life outside of the hustle and bustle of city limits.

Some crazy things about being out here:

A 12 pack of water - $43.99!!!
A small (and I mean small) bunch of Asparagus - $19.99 Apparently this is a good price for it right now.

The sun is literally so bright off the snow that looking out my window at the horizon with no shades caused white fog hazes over my eyes. Clearly snow blindness is the biggest risk here at this time. (at least for my family)

Yesterday we took a tour around town and drove down by the water's edge and the ocean was covered in snow and ice. Today we drove by again, because we had dinner at a house overlooking the water, and the melt was crazy. There was so much water rearing it's head and people were still ski-doing on it. I would've been way too scared to be out on the water with one of those machines right now. It was melting so fast, you could literally see the changes from the time we started dinner to the time we left.

Some adjustments have been:

Our water is delivered to us, so this means we have to use it sparingly. We don't get tiny amounts to the point we can't really do anything, but showers need to be short, laundry is better timed with water delivery days and our sewage gets cleaned as well so we live by the saying "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown let it drown". There's no recycling here, no composting (however, people are interested in trying), and I can see how if you didn't make friends and have social events you could go crazy and become a total hermit.

All in all, things are really good though, and I look forward to seeing how the rest of our days unfold. Monday, Phil goes back to work and we have no vehicle, and Tuesday, the kids and I are going to check out the daycare. It should make for an interesting week.

Until next time...