Impulsive changes

I have always been the kind of person to make impulsive decisions that end up changing my life dramatically. Just over a year ago, I made the radical decision to move to Nunavut to be a daycare manager in a small hamlet.  Over the last year, I met an amazing man, made tons of awesome friends and have learned an enormous amount about who I am personally and professionally. I have developed many new skills, improved my ability to adapt to new environments, and learned that I can't do everything, I don't know anything, and with an open mind, life can take you anywhere. 

Despite all of the things I have learned, and of all the ways I have changed, I am still one impulsive girl. 

Over the last few weeks some major changes have taken place in my life. 

I decided to sign a new contract with the daycare, this time with changes to my position.  My new title is the Administrator. After spending a year being responsible for all administrative, operational, human resources and programming duties, I learned that it is too much for one person to handle and to maintain any sort of life outside of work.  I was taking work home with me every night, constantly feeling stressed and that there were never enough hours in the day. Now, I'm responsible for the administrative side of management, including bookkeeping, payroll, invoicing, developing policies and procedures, researching and completing funding applications, and ensuring that we are in good standing financially as well as complying with all legislation and regulations. It has only been 2 weeks since I started in this position, and I every day it's is becoming more and more evident to me that I have a passion for policy development at the organizational level, but also territorial and federal levels. The contract is for another year, ending July 7, 2015. 

Another big change that was also rather impulsive, was to rent a beautiful 3 bedroom house across the street from where I'm currently living.  My nephew is just abou big enough to be needing his own room, and I have been craving to have a space of my own. The lease lines up perfectly with the end of my contract, and the house is close enough that I can still see my family whenever I feel like it. Though I will be seeing them every day, as my nephew will be attending the daycare full-time starting in August! 

Joining me in my new house will be this adorable pup (and major impulsive decision #2):

He's a mini schnoodle (schnauzer poodle x). Right now he's living in Hamilton and will be ready to come home to me August 2nd....

...which leads to impulsive decision #3:

Instead of simply having him shipped up in live cargo, this girl decided in the spur of the moment to book a two week holiday to go pick up little McGuff. As a bonus, I'll get to see most of my immediate and expanded family, a great number of friends, and run some errands that are impossible to run in the Arctic! 

I take off the 27th and can't wait for my summer getaway from all the mosquitos and limited bandwidth! 

Arctic Experience

Tonight I had my very first truly arctic experience out on the ocean. A friend of my brother-in-law took us out to do a little bit of fishing. We went to 3 different spots. The first 2 we abandoned by other fishers and all fish. The 3rd spot was swarming with fishers, char and mosquitos! I can't express enough how awful it would have been had I not had my bug jacket with me.

Anyway, I'm not great with words, so here are some pictures from the evening.

As we were leaving the dock, some of the kids were swimming (it was only about 15 degrees outside)

Off we go...into the rain!

Yay, the first sign of fishies!

Even Chevy wanted to get a glimpse of the first catch of the night!

The sun starting to set.

This char photobombed my picture of the sunset.

This is what I wanted the real picture to look like..

I was really digging the silhouettes of the other fishers. These guys had their tent out to camp for the weekend.

If you look closely, you can see the robot-esque Inuksuk on the island.

I thought we were leaving the setting sun behind us.

See the mosquitos?

Can you really blame me for staying up late to see this?

I don't think so!

Oh yeah... I did catch my very first arctic char, which I will post about tomorrow after I've had the chance to cook it and taste it!

Nunavut Day

With the baby we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend in celebration, but this is a glimpse of the party and culture up here. 

My sister and I looked snazzy with our bug jackets on:

The first contest was a fish filleting contest. Two winners were selected: the fastest and the nicest. There were ten competitors. Of course, the goriest of the  competitions was the only one I thought to take pictures of!

There were also contests for cake decorating, tea boiling and duck plucking, along with some Inuit games. 

The mosquitos weren't too much to handle, so surprisingly it was my hungry little nephew that signalled that it was time to head back home. 

This is my home: