Packers become Movers

I’m exhausted, drug out and rung through the ringer, and all I did yesterday was run 5K and watch packers = pack my house.  I didn’t lift a finger or offer up any lifting help – I just sat down and offered them coffee and cookies every couple of hours. (Well once an hour for three hours).  I love to move, to purge, to clean and reorganize but I find the Pack/Load day to be the worse.  Not that I mind people packing up my worldly goods – I just rather do it myself (and get the insurance coverage..).  I find it hard to justify that we had two men fly up from Edmonton, stay over night in our Inns North (I’m hoping they shared a room) and then fly back this afternoon with all our goods on the plane.  It would have been so much easier to allow me to pack up my stuff over the last couple of days and have it placed on the plane.  Although, with that said I’m sure I’d be complaining about packing myself vs allowing someone to come in to pack for me.  C’est La Vie…

So after all the curling brooms and 4-bags of dog food are packed we end up with 35 boxes, approximately 15 boxes less than what we arrived with.  Like I said, I love to purge.

One big negative to all this, my house doesn’t feel like my home anymore – so I’m definitely ready to head to NS now!  4-days until we head home…5 days until I can grab a Grande Non-Fat Latte!

Trials Tribulations and ____

As I sit here covered in dog-hair (Yoga pants love dog fur )I can’t help but feel a excitement burning in the pit of my stomach. I’m finally happy with the amount of clothes and accessories I have semi-organized in my two pieces of luggage.  The movers arrive on the plane tomorrow and will spend at least an hour or two packing up my house.  If I had to guess I would assume there would be at least 25-30 boxes full of household effects that will be making its way down from Kugaaruk to Nova Scotia.   I use to feel apprehension with random strangers coming into my house touching my “stuffs” but not anymore, I guess it comes with the territory – once you get through your first Government move all the rest are just formality – something you accept and love, as you don’ t have to do it yourself.  My favorite part of moving is the purging that I can get away with – I’ve thrown out so much stuff this weekend I have filled my garbage bin and still have 5 garbage bags sitting in my cold-porch.  I’m sure over the next 24/48 hours I will fill a couple more bags of stuff that no one wants..or at least never asked for.

At this point, I don’t think there is anything left to do with regards to our official move South.  We have all our move organized as well as our airplane tickets – we leave on Saturday!  (I did a quick overview of our route in my last blog).  Our house possession will take place a week from Tuesday, all we have left to do at this point is the final walkthrough and to pay for our down payment…Then we will have the KEYS!  There is lots to organize with the actual house, we have started an Excel file which is basically 3 lists in one, trying to figure out what we need ASAP, not ASAP, what is in our household affects that have been in storage for the last 18 months.  I look forward to having a big yards ale to get rid of all the “University” style furniture we have gathered over the years.

I have a busy week forthcoming, although once our household goods are packed and gone there isn’t much for me to do but do a major clean of the house.  I’m not sure how much I’ll be blogging in the near future.  We have Eastlink coming by our place on the 7th – so hopefully I won’t be away from the Internet for too long.   I’m also changing the name of my blog..to Trials Tribulations and ____________.  I need a new word that starts with the letter “T”.  If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

Long Walk Home.

I promised myself I was not going to do the official countdown anywhere, either on my blog or on Facebook but I’m biting at the rope that is holding me in Kugaaruk.  Everyday is stretching into the next compounding the amount of paperwork that needs to be completed in order for us to be free.  It doesn’t help that I’ve been having a fascination with any song that has the word HOME in the title – and  last night while watching the NHL Award (Congrats Sedin!) one of my old favorite bands, who I saw by  complete accident when they opened for Bon Jovi in Toronto 6 or 7 years ago (I know I’m getting old when I don’t remember official dates) – Goo Goo Dolls; and they just released a new song..HOME, CD is to be released the end of August.   

I guess I’m not helping matters as I’ve been downloading all songs (that fit my genre of music) that have the word HOME in the title.

Carry Me Home - AC/DC             

Home – Goo Goo Dolls

Home – Daughtry

Mama I’m coming Home – Ozzy

Home Sweet Home – Motley Crue

Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd

He calls Home – Candlebox

Home Tonight – Aerosmith

Long walk Home – Bruce Springsteen

Welcome Home – Metallica

Who says you can’t Home – Bon Jovi

**You really don’t realize how many songs have the word Home in the title until you start looking, but with that said…..

I haven’t blogged in over a week, with so much going on in my life I find it hard to sit down and put my thoughts in order.  Should I be sad or happy…should I be happy or sad – it is a double edge sword.  For so long I wanted out of this town, and I was almost willing to jump on the closest dogsled and mush my way out of town – but now that the time is rolling to a close I’m wondering why I wanted to leave so badly.  It is funny how a stretch of nice weather combined with a relatively _uiet town makes you forget about all the shit you’ve dealt with in the past.  The winters are long and harsh on the head.  They can mess with your head – and no one is really to blame but yourself.  Thank god we are moving in the Summer.

We are almost ready to book our plane tickets – we were very happy to see a direct flight from Edmonton to Halifax, although it is the red-eye, we should be able to get some sleep enroute to Halifax.  It will be much easier on the dogs too – we leave Yellowknife at ~7:30; have a hour and a half layover in Edmonton and then onward and upward to Halifax where we would arrive in the wee-hours as the sun is rising at 6:30am.   We haven’t booked it yet but it automatically lowers our stress.  Our dogs are our fur-kids, we treat them as they were two legged vs four legged, well almost …they still have to eat out of a bowl on the floor.  Sekaya doesn’t so much mind flying as she was kennel trained from day one, but Chakotay as he is getting older he is getting “set in his ways” and he prefers to have all four paws firmly planted on the ground.  {I’m not sure he forgives Hughie for lifting him up last night to weight him….and low and behold, he has lost 5lbs! prior to moving up he weighted ~60lbs, he is now ~55lbs!}

He seems happy about the weight-loss

               

We celebrated Aboriginal Day this past Monday as well as Summer Solstice – I’m not a Pagan but I just feel a shiver of joy course through my soul on Summer Solstice.   

Aboriginal Day - National Aboriginal Day is a day recognizing and celebrating the cultures and contributions of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

We celebrated by the guys getting dressed up in their finest and serving Hot Dogs/Juice/Cookies to the town and chatting with all the parents/kids that came along for lunch.  It was a great time, but WOW the amount of people that turned out this year compared to last year was fantastic.  It was nice to see the community come together. 

*I’ll post some pictures soon, either on here or on Facebook.

I look forward to a few more blogs over the next couple of days – I’m hoping to get outside for some photo-walking over the next couple of days, I just keep waiting for the “perfect” day…

Spring 2010

For those who are living south of Nunavut, I’m sure you are all shocked to find out that YES we still have snow on our ground, and on occasion we do get the odd flurry in June.  However, to us Great White Northerners this is as much Spring as we will get– with Summer looming just around the corner.  However, with that said the amount of snow still lingering around – I will not be surprised if there is still snow on the ground as we leave in July. 

 

(June 8th, 2010 – approximately 4:00pm)

 

(June 8th, 2010 – approximately 4:01pm)

(Taken at 12:19am June 12th, 2010)

Things have been definitely warming up, when I can go for a walk with just my cap on my head and my gloves stored in my pockets not my hands – I realize that Spring is definitely here to stay.  I look forward to warmer weather over the next couple of weeks – but I rather not have to deal with all the Mud – thankfully though, we have laminate floors throughout the house (minus the bedrooms, but those each have doors that can be shut). When I venture out this afternoon for a walk to the office to jump on the Elliptical – I will take photos to show how much difference a week of sun-like weather can do to really kill the snow piles up here. 

I can’t wait for Summer weather, where I can sit on my deck with a grape popsicle in each hand (for the dogs of course) and bask in the warmth. [18-more days]

**Addendum – the better-half (or other-half) took the camera with him when he came home for Lunch; so there will be no “can you see the difference” photo’s taken today.

I’ve been Meme’d!

 

I usually don’t do these things when asked – but considering Lindsay is within a snowball-throwing distance from my house, I better do as she asks of me. 

1. Favorite age you have been so far?

I wish I could say that there was specific age that I keep in my memory recall so I can pull out random images when I need a little uplifting in my life, however, there is not.  However, if I could turn back the hands of time I would love to be jetted back to a random age in the 20 bracket.  I loved that inner-psyche battle of misguided youth vs young adult.

2. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?

I would love to be fluent in Gaelic.  I’m a huge Scottish-folklore history buff so to be able to speak the language of Morrigan, Dagda and Cúchulainn would be a great privilege.  I’m hoping that now that I will be living in Nova Scotia that the opportunity may unveil itself and I’ll be able to take classes.

3. If you could have something right now, anything, what would it be?

A Grande Non-fat Latte from Starbucks and/or the same thing from Caribou Coffee.  There are just some mornings my perked Tim Horton’s just doesnt’ cut it. 

4. What is one aisle you always have to walk down when you go to Wal-Mart?

It has been so long since I’ve been in a Wal-Mart for pure enjoyment.  Usually they are a hustle/bustle in and out – got to catch my plane in 45 minutes kind of visits.  Although, now that I think about it the one aisle I always walk down would be the candle aisle – I hardly, if ever, purchase candles from Wal-Mart but there is just something that draws me to that aisle. 

5. What is one thing your spouse/partner does that drives you crazy (don’t worry, we won’t tell:)?

There are a million little things that bother me, and he is quite aware of them, so I know he does them pretty much on purpose now just to see if he gets my goat.  Although the two major things (I know you only asked for one) is…

1.  Leaves the cover off the toothpaste 2.  Fidler-Time

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There ya have it, 5 answers that I’m sure I’ve mentioned a time or two or complained about in random blogs – but now I have just saved you some past-blog entry reading.  I’m not going to continue this Meme – as I’ve only had one cup of coffee today and I can’t really think of 5 more questions to ask.

Home Owner

It is hard to believe that in just under a week the snow has went from high and mighty to low and slushy; but with that said, I find it also hard to believe that in only a week I went from a home renter to a home/truck owner. (Although my husband would say that he is the official owner of HIS truck, I just get visiting rights..and I’m okay with that logic too)

We left last Sunday for the long trek to Nova Scotia – one that was made longer by the fact that we ran into some mechanical issues with our Air Canada flight leaving Yellowknife.  We were pretty organized this vacation making sure we had plenty of time between layovers but a malfunctioning gas regulator on the plane had us scrambling just to get to Edmonton.  I was very impressed with the Stewardess and the pilot for keeping us informed.  The only negative aspect of the whole situation was that we were required to remain sitting on the plane for well over an hour without air conditioning.  Normally that wouldn’t been an issue – it is Yellowknife, but the temperature was a sunny warm 23 degrees!  After meeting up with Security three different times.. (The third time they were just making it “look good”..) we made it to Edmonton.  Since it was mechanical Air Canada took care of our food vouchers (Mmmm party platter with way to many calories to even count) and our Hotel (Nisku Inn).  So with all that trouble behind us; we left Edmonton early the next morning (Tuesday June 1st and made our way to NS)

We arrived in NS – I was nearly in tears with happiness; there is just something about the deep salt air combined with lush green trees and grass. We grabbed our rental and off we went driving off into a Monsoon.  After a long wet trip (with a few hydroplaning incidents – I’m so glad that Hughie loves to drive) we made it to the Best Western Aurora.  (Not a bad little place).  With nothing left to do when we arrived we took a tour of the area as well as stopping long enough to hit up the local NSLC.  I toasted with a bottle of Boones (I couldn’t believe they still made it…and it is still delish!) and Hughie was very happy to see Keith’s light – he basically did his version of the “Dance of Joy”.

We only had a few must haves with our houses that we were looking at: 1.  2-bathrooms; after getting the stomach flu (or food poisoning we are not sure) together back in January – 1 bathroom just isn’t enough. 2. 3-bedrooms – a must for all our friends that will be visiting us. 3. A completed basement – for Hughie’s Man-Cave. 4.  Privacy.

The next couple of days are a blur, we saw 12 different houses on Wednesday and while some of the houses were a complete shock others were not so.  I find it hard to look past all the fluff – thankfully Hughie is just the opposite so I’m thinking we complimented each other well during the day of house hunting.  After much discussion (over DQ…yes another healthy lunch..mmm Calories).  We cut our list of 12 houses down to two.  We looked over my notes that I had took during our initial walk through and decided to take another run through our 2nd choice house (Our first house that we were really excited to see fell flat…quickly).  After our 2nd walk through we were sold!  Now we just had to finalize all the paperwork….and holy crap there was enough of it.  Luckily they all seemed to take pity on the property virgins..and we got walked through it all nice and slowly. 

The only one of the four must-haves that we faulted on with our future home was the privacy – we have a few neighbours and were are in a subdivision (a older generation).  The final decision factor was the resale value.  If we were planning on staying in the area for the rest of our life, then I could actually see us purchasing somewhere out in the country…but for now this will be the perfect little starter home for Hughie and I.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house is officially ours – the SOLD sign should be gracing the sign sometime this afternoon/ tomorrow.  I can’t wait until July 6th – when I can walk into my house and get to work decorating.

I would never recommend purchasing a house and a truck within a 72-hour period but it can be done with a little bit of luck and not giving into the growing frustration and hunger.  I’m hoping that the next time we have to purchase a house, we have a least a full week to play with.

Oh, would you believe when we were flying back up to Kugaaruk after our exciting/stressful week we ran into Electrical mechanical failure on yet another Air Canada flight coming out of Toronto – luckily we didn’t have to spend the night, yet again, in Edmonton…. …..

Now that we are back I can relax and catch up with the laundry, because I know there is still so much more that needs to be done.