One of my favourite things here as of lately is walking to and from work. I absolutely LOVE being outside and have made friends with some of the dogs that sleep and spend their days outside - especially on my street. There's a a row of houses a few down from mine and every morning on my way to work I take a few minutes to give them all rubs and say good morning.
It feels like a mini-hike every morning because there's no pavement anywhere and because of the dust and dirty ground, I am usually sporting my hiking boots. So the fresh air, my backpack, and hikers make it feel like a mini hike to work.
Everyday, I'm still blown away by how nice people are. I was walking to work yesterday morning with a tray full of leftover cupcakes from my birthday Monday, and it was a little trickier than I had anticipated because the cupcakes were too big for the slots and this lady who I've never seen before, pulled over and offered me a ride to work. She didn't know me at all, but saw me walking slowly and steadily and just offered me a ride. There are not many people out there that would do that; but here, people are just like that.
Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Monday was my first Arctic birthday, and it was such a great day. The nurses threw me a little surprise birthday party and got me a cake. One of the nurses who's become my lunch buddy was nice enough to wish me a happy 15th birthday party over what he thought was the PA system of the hospital, but it turned out he punched in the wrong numbers and ended up wishing some man in one of the government buildings a happy birthday instead. After my day at work, I headed home and had a wonderful potluck style dinner with our close friends and had such a great time! I even got to open our "June" bottle of wine. Yes, that's right, we bought 12 bottles of wine before we came up and have designated months for them. It was amazing how hard it hit me. I had 2 sips and my legs started to feel super warm and I quickly decided to stop. The last thing I wanted to do was get drunk on my birthday, make a fool of myself, and then feel awful at work the next day. Everyone brought such great food and I was more than happy to supply cupcakes and cake. One of the girlfriends of Phil's colleagues is celebrating her birthday Friday, so we decided to have a joint birthday party since she's leaving town Friday to go back home for a month, so she came Sunday night and got a lesson in decorating and helped out with the production of our birthday cupcakes. It was so nice to have some company and someone to help to get them all done. It is by far the most expensive and time consuming craft I've taken to, especially since everything has to be gluten and dairy free and I make everything from scratch. It was probably the most simple birthday party I've ever had, and yet it definitely fell into one of my favourites. And to all of you who sent me wonderful birthday wishes, thank you so much!
Another crazy thing I've decided to do is go back to school! I swear I do this every couple of years, but I'm hoping this schooling and the work afterward will satisfy me enough to never go back again. I've enrolled with Thompson River's University to start my nursing degree. I've done a few courses already when I did my Medical Office Administration program that I'm hoping will transfer over, but my plan is to do as much of it as possible through distance education and when we are finally done our posting in the North, I will finish my program in Kamloops. The school is probably the easiest school I've ever dealt with, and even though I'm studying from afar, you have the option of doing your courses online or you can have them send you the books and you just submit your work via email. So in July I will be starting the summer semester and I will be starting at a very slow pace. I'm just going to take one course a semester until we make our next move to Iqaluit and then I will pick up the pace. It'll be easier because the kids will be a little bit older. Right now, I just want to get my head back into school mode so I think one course is plenty. I've got a lot of time before we're out of the North, so I can pace myself for the time being.
Phil managed to get a trip out today to Yellowknife for some work stuff and when opportunities like this come up through his work, everybody is sort of crossing their fingers that they get to go. A trip like this is an opportunity to pack empty suitcases and fill them up with fresh produce, cheaper groceries and other things you may need (like a garbage can that never made it). It also gives someone like Phil, an opportunity to hit up Canadian Tire (his second wife) and take a look around. Yellowknife trips are another example of how people here look out for each other. When someone is going to Yellowknife they let people know and ask for lists so that they can pick up things other families might need. Like last week one of the guys Phil works with went and filled up an entire suitcase full of Rice Cakes, gluten free/dairy free snacks, and gluten free bread. It was awesome. The suitcase was packed full and he got our stuff more than half off what we would've paid for. He paid something like $1.92 for a bag of Rice Cakes, whereas here, they are $6.00! The other cool part, is unlike flying with someone like Air Canada, or West Jet where you're limited by weight and baggage, flying around here you can have more bags and it's a 70 lbs limit. It's really catered to people who want to stock up when they can.
So tonight the kids and I are hanging out on our own, and I closed the blinds at 6:30 and gave them dinner in a dark living room and started winding them down really early and read them TONS of stories. It is now 9:00 and they have been in bed for a half hour, haven't come out and I'm hoping will sleep well tonight.
The nanny hunt still continues and is feeling a little depressing at this point. I haven't heard back from the people I messaged (so much for being interest in "any city in Canada") and the only person who showed interest in my job posting, I'm pretty sure was the dumbest person I've ever communicated with. She said she was interested in the posting because the family she was working for was moving to Edmonton and she didn't want to move with them, and her profile said she wasn't willing to relocate and when I brought this up to her she said that no she didn't want to move, and no matter how many times I tried to point out to her that we were not in Ontario, that we were in fact, in the Arctic, she kept saying ya, it's fine, I want to be a live-in nanny, I just don't want to move that far. So I stopped communicating with her in fear of having a brain aneurism from her stupidity. So I press on...
Canada Day is coming up this weekend and Phil is partaking in a golf tournament at our golf course - it's called "Many Pebbles Golf Course" meaning, don't use nice clubs, don't expect grass, and spot the flags amongst the pebbles. Hahah! The kids and I will be spending time with a girlfriend of mine and her cousin, checking out the festivities around town and I'm looking forward to taking pictures of some of the local drum dancers and the music and stuff. I have a huge batch of pictures to upload, but by the time I get home from work each night, the last thing I want to see is my computer. I'll try and get them up this weekend. I think that's all for now?...
Until next time...
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