I think about my family every day. At some point during the day, one or a number of my family members will cross my mind. I might wonder how things are going for Em at school, or how one of my nephews are faring. Just little thoughts that plop in. I took that photo a few years ago, when the boys were willing to listen to what I was saying when I said "stand still!!".

Now, though. Photos aren't coming so easily. I couldn't figure out for the longest time what it was that was different. Then I figured it out. Turns out the Arctic isn't so inspiring most days. I mean, unless you're out at the floe (flow?) edge or gliding on a boat past huge glaciers....there isn't a whole lot to photograph. Especially in Hall Beach. I could point the camera in all directions, and it would look the same. Flat, white, blowing snow. I imagine it will be even more difficult once the dark descends on us full time.

Speaking of dark. Since we turned the clocks back, I am cranky that I am sitting in the office when the sun sets and I have to have a lamp on to see what I'm doing (I abhore flourescents). It's almost dark out there! It just feels weird. And of course, the village is alive with people and kids walking around and doing stuff.

Even though I'm not supposed to be eating this stuff, I made fried bread again last night. It didn't turn out as awesome as the first batch but it still tastes like home. In fact, all I want to do now is go back to the house and eat fried bread and watch a couple of episodes of CSI. Bailey is currently upset because I ran out of his favourite dog treats (but to be fair, so did the store) and so he has to settle for dog biscuits which I suspect is hard on his teeth (I think he has lost a few).

News on the CBC about work conditions right here in Nunavut:http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/04/nu-social.html

It will be pretty stressful for the time being. In the meantime, I'm doing my best to lower my blood sugar count so I don't go blind by the time I'm 40. I stopped drinking regular pop and switched to diet. I've also been trying to make better food choices (although I sometimes slip hence the fried bread). I don't know if it's doing any good since I don't have a blood sugar tester yet, but hopefully it is doing something. It's a day to day thing to deal with, and kind of tricky, from what I gather from other's blogs.

I guess we just have to wait and see.
Until then, I suppose I'll see you later,
G.

Labels: Arctic, Arctic Circle, blood sugar, diabetes, family, food, photographs, photography

I've been surfing sites for easy dinner recipes and alternatively, Flickr for inspiration and other things. Then I stumbled over some sort of application site that generated all of the tags I've used for my photos at Flickr. It was interesting to see them. More interesting was the fact that several of the words were very large, and others very small to denote how often I use them.

As for the recipe action, I've decided that enough is enough and I can't go through the rest of my time in the Arctic by eating stuff like Instant Noodles. So I decided to look at what ingredients are available to me in this little town and see what I could possibly make out of them.

I found a few recipes for Ziti, which I totally have on the brain but no actual Ziti noodles so that will have to wait until I can order them. Last night's dinner consisted of chicken, cream of mushroom soup and sour cream over egg noodles. Sounds kinda gross all typed out like that, but it was really good. And even though I had to stand there at the stove, actually cooking (and kind of bored by staring at the cupboards), I was happy that I got to eat something I had actually made.

I also made some fried bread (called scone by us Indians...and remember, only other Indians are allowed to call themselves Indians) which I brought to work with me, this morning. I know the Inuit make their own form of Bannock (scone/fried bread) but I figured mine might be different.

My cooking fried bread is usually a 50-50 thing. It can go either way. I might add too much flour, or too much water, or forget the baking powder, who knows. But sometimes it works. Last night was one of those nights. Well, I thought it was pretty good.

No real cooking tonight. Just reheating leftovers, and making this mexican layer dip thing for the weekend (a non-cook dish that I used to make all the time). Also, my old roommate and I are going to mass produce perogies this weekend. She knows how to make them, I'm just along for the ride (for help and company). Seems like a good alternative to my usual laying around-doing nothing sort of Saturday afternoon.

My idea is to start cooking a bunch of stuff on the weekends that I can reheat during the week. Healthier stuff than the Instant Noodles, and real meals so my mom can stop worrying that I'm existing on rice, etc whilst living up here. Emboldened by my moderate success of dinner last night, I think I can actually make myself learn how to do things correctly and (hopefully patiently) in the kitchen.

As for Flickr, I'm trying to make my photography better and want to be inspired by *something*, anything, so I've been looking for assignment groups to join. The idea is that if I have an assignment or homework to complete, that I will be inspired to take more pictures. For instance, I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr in almost 3 weeks. I used to do it daily. I want to do it that way, again.

The weather is calling for a huge winter storm for Hall Beach starting tonight and lasting all through the day tomorrow. Apparently, 10 to 15 cm of snow and Winds gusting at times to 70 or 80 km/h which will create near-zero visibilities in blowing snow. I mostly copied that from the weather page *grin*. We already have snow on the ground here. We had a nasty winter storm last Sunday which made my entire house move with every wind gust. It doesn't really bother me. As long as I can stay inside.

Still with me?

Labels: Arctic, Arctic Circle, cooking, food, photographs, photography, weather

there's a town in North Ontario...


I love the scent of the blossoms that floats around me when I'm sitting on the front steps of my parents house. It occurs to me that I took everything around for granted. Everything. The sharp blades of green grass, the budding leaves and the falling-open blossoms of the apple trees and lilac bushes. I knew that nature was happening around me, but I didn't pay any attention to it. And how much I liked it. Especially flowers. I just can't get enough of the scent of fresh lilacs in the vase in front of me.

I'm just enjoying it now.

I even cooked dinner for my family this evening. I never cook, anyone who has read this journal knows I'm no genius in the kitchen. It was just burgers and pasta salad with sugar peas but it was good and it was satisfying to sit down to eat. When we were at the grocery store, I had to force myself to not buy too much, reminding myself I could come back to the store and all the fresh produce would still be there. Crazy how much my perspective has been scewed since moving to Very Northern Canada.

In a fit of I-Don't-Know-What, Chunk and I bought a big box of fireworks. Stay tuned for either a very sad accidental dismemberment or fabulous photograhs.

Labels: family, food, homesweet home, music, nature, Northern Ontario, vacation

Ok. Sometimes, I pretend I'm singing when music is playing in my office. I do this partly because I'm bored out of my skull right now, and also because the music is pretty damn good. Right now it happens to be Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Simon and Garfunkel. I mean..how could you not pretend to be on a stage, in a spotlight, singing? Well, in my case lip-syncing.

A week from now I am to start a two week vacation. This seems like such a short time for me, at my old job I am used to having a month off at a time, but only because I scheduled it like that. I'm sure I could have a month now, but I guess I never really thought about taking a whole month so soon after starting. I know, I know..inane details that no one really needs to know.

well here's some more.
I was craving fruit juice this afternoon. So, I went to our little store and bought two bottles of juice, then a bottle of flavoured milk..I have no idea why other than the bananas looked appealing on the front of the bottle. I don't even like milk. I only have milk when I'm eating Lucky Charms. Weird. Anyhow, I came back and downed the two bottles of orange juice and craving is satisfied.

Nice that I can still do some things around here, even though I am starting to think Whoppers from Burger King are sounding really good about now.

I stayed up really late last night, downloading music like a fiend. I've been meaning (for like, two years) to get some of the songs from the Six Feet Under soundtrack, but never got around to it. Luckily, the songs are listed with each scene they were played on, at the website. Very handy.
Then I got distracted by old Joni Mitchell songs, so I grabbed a few of those. Then more Bob Dylan. Then I discovered a whole untapped resource of Ryans Adams stuff when he was with Whiskeytown, so of course...got some of those as well. There's so much great music out there that it's almost overwhelming.

I'm just going to go straight to bed after dinner tonight. If I even have dinner. I feel like such a pig because I bought this thick sliced bacon yesterday and had two bacon and tomato sandwiches. They were so good, and the tomatos were awesome, I am really into fresh produce of any kind when I am here. I wonder if that means I will be gorging on it, when I'm down South. Possibly. Just big bites of juicy dark pink watermelon flesh. Just before bed, it's the best snack.

Anyway, got distracted by food again. Gotta go.

Labels: food, music, Ryan Adams