The Moon and Venus at Sunset

Just a second picture of the sunset.

Women of the Sky, chatting

Well, everyone else posted one... so I thought "me too, me too"

Happy Milestone Blog

I forgot to mention that I hit the 25,000 hit mark... granted that I'm guilty of probably at least 30-40 % of those hits and granted that I installed the hit counter originally on my old blog somewhat after I started the blog - so the number is kind of meaningless in some ways .... still.. its makes for a cool milestone. So - "so long and thanks for all the" hits.

Jennith

The World Spins On

This is one of my "blizzard" pictures. I just liked it, even though I don't know why it came out the way it did. The weather actually hasn't been bad... or its the same and I've simply gotten used to it. I'm noticing the cold less and less.

I am guilty of reading the newspaper again... and yes... the stupid comments that people make on it and as usual... it has merely left me feeling that there isn't so much hope for our species as I hoped there would be. But I'm sure that there are lots of good people out there with more dignity than to make ignorant comments on news items that seem to serve no other purpose but to give the writer a chance to say something inflamatory anonymously... I do have to give Ignatieff credit for insisting on reading and discussing the budget before giving his opinion... imagine that - a politician thinking before doing something. Even if they already have their minds made up, they at least have the sense to pretend to make an informed decision... the other two parties are guilty of being blatently and shamelessly irresponsible. If they want to vote down the budget, they should have at least pretended to consider its contents first... better still- they could have actually considered the contents first. But most of the comments have next to nothing to do with the article. Its just a convient place to bash the opponents to their favoured political party. Sigh.

I played Badminton for the first time in nearly 20 years on Sunday and was surprised in two ways... First, it turns out that some part of my brain still remembers how to play - so as long as I don't think, I seem to do okay. Second.. its 3 days later and I still ache... who knew that something as tame looking as badminton would be such intense exercise...

I may be somewhat more sparse in my posting in the next few weeks/months as I'm going to have to save up all my inclination to write and funnel it into finishing my thesis. I'm so close to done and my choices are write it now and enjoy a summer of visiting people from coast to coast or... spend my summer tethered to my computer, inside and miserable. Then again.. it might just drive me to post more... I guess we'll see... wish me luck though.

Trillium Socks

After being very excited about all the new knitty projects... I decided to do one that I've had in my head for nearly a year. It is also important that I get my two-handed knitting down pat so that I can start my sweater kit that I've had nearly a year.... So far I'm very happy with them... I'll keep you posted so to speak on their progress...

The pattern is from Sock Hop, by Joseph Madl. Its based on the trillium sweater pattern that was designed by Philospher's Wool.

Ikea Okay

The first time I saw this material in their online catalouge I knew I needed to have it for curtains. Its is as bright and cheerful as you could hope for - but its even cooler with the sun shining through it.

B's Building in a Blizzard

I warned you that these pictures were going to be a little bit bland.... :D

Get my drift

This is our garbage box... fortunately we normally use the one closer to the road that we share with our neighbours. I love the way that the snow makes such interesting drifts.

Treerific

One of the few things I miss in the north is trees... one of the somewhat little known facts about me is that I complete 4/5 of a degree in forest engineering before switching to civil, so I could fit all the civil electives I wanted to take into my schedule. I guess it is just as well, my knowledge of forestry is largely useless up here, but my knowledge of municipal infrastructure and construction actually fits quite nicely into our science curriculum here. Still, I do love forests - and trees - in all seasons. This is a particularly special tree. Anyone who spent any serious time at this place would recognize this birch, most with fondness. There is a folk tale that this birch has magic invisible bungy cords that it sets in the hearts of anyone who spends much time near it... they may leave this place for a while, but the bungy cords will always pull them back. I have to admit to being one of the trees victems, although its more of a comforting tug..... its hard to begrudge a longing for such a beautiful place.

Fortunately for me, in my new home, my second favourite ecosystem, after the boreal and maple beech forests is.... the bog. So, I'm not feeling too deprived. It is certainly beautiful here, but I may have to have people send me videos of walking through the forest in the fall every few years with an envelop of aspen leaves just for effect and I really hope I manage to visit this tree at least for a bit of an afternoon or maybe Friday night campfire.

We've finally been hit full force by the blizzard. Visibility is definately below 0.2 km, but the weather station isn't updating environment Canada, so I can't give any accurate information save that the outdoor temperature is currently -27.6 C. I'll try and take some pictures, but I fear that they will look...um... rather bland. I think there will be some neat snow drifts once the sun comes out on the weekend.

On one final note, thank you to everyone who gave me your vote of confidence for best New Nunavut Blog. I am pleased to announce that I came in second in my Catagory. Congratulations to the winner, Cindy, Matt and their Furry Friends. Congratulations also to TownieBastard for winning in the Best Post Catagory. The Best Blog contest ended in a tie resulting in a run-off vote between TownieBastard and Port Town Ghosts.

Well... I suppose I could post just one more picture

This really is my last post before the Voting for the Nunies 2008 is over.... Its just so bright and summery and even though the "Blizzard of Dire Warnings" is late in arriving, the warning has if anything become more dire than before and contains an unusual amount of information about the meteorological conditions they believe will cause a multiday blizzard - I guess I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I should be glad that my mail snuck into the north before the conditions made it impossible to land....

As a final aside, to this aside, Kara mentioned that there is somewhere in the Yukon where you can buy Fireweed Honey... doesn't that sound amazingly good.

I'm Not Fuzzy, Really!

Ah.... I just finished writing a post. It was a good post - I even read it over and editted it... and then it disappeared into the neverworld of nowhereness when I pressed publish post. It was mostly a lot of rambling about my sleeping bag upgrade - so I guess you are all saved because I don't have time to rewrite it.

This is my last post before the virtual polls for the Nunies close in 2 hours. Vote for the blog you truely believe is best!

In the meantime.. Enjoy the arctic plant above. I don't know what it is.... but it was one of the first pictures I took when I arrived in August.

Winds of Change

I felt the dire weather warning of "Persistent Blizzard" required me to post up something bright and happy and cheery. So take this picture of summer - ye olde nasty blizzard! Actually, I'm still hoping to experience a full-fledged-visibility-reduced-to-zero kind of blizzard and with the recent snow fall, we finally have something for the winds to pick up and blow around up here.

When I first arrived here I was charmed by the abundance of Fireweed literally painting swaths of town in warm shades of purple. Today I was charmed by weather so balmy I nearly could have walked to the store without my coat - well, I certainly did not need a full fledged parka at any rate. This will change quickly as the snows set in an the winds pick up - assuming that they don't chance their minds and do something entirely contrary to weather predictions. But, its nearly a given that that it will get cold again. The mean temperatures for Jan., Feb., and March are all just slightly below -30 C - but it quickly warms up to more pleasant winter temperatures come April and by May its nice.... I've heard so many things about how amazing the spring is here. I do remember April in Repulse Bay and I do remember being amazed by the 2 am sunrises and 11:30 pm sunsets.

So much living to do and not enough hours in the day to live it all at once.... so for now I will go back to enjoying my rare and costly treat of a can of diet coke and just enjoy all the looking forward there is to do.

Final Hours to Vote for the Nunies

The Nunies are coming to a close, with polls shutting down tomorrow (Tuesday, Jan. 20th, 2008 near midnight - Eastern Standard time.)

There are 3 polls - Best Blog, Best New Blog, and Best Post 2008. You can vote for them at Nunavut Blogs or at The House and Other Arctic Musings.

The Bog Blog of the Tundra has been nominated for Best New Blog. But I think that all of the nominees, especially some of the posts, are worth investigating.

The Scope of my Horo

Almost anything you could wish for is available now, apart, perhaps, from the opportunity to do what you think you most want to do. Don't be fed up when so much else of a positive nature is offered.

What I most want to do is go outside and play and take pictures... definitely not in the cards today... but maybe there is hope for the things that I don't want to do getting done soon. I guess the upshot is that even if I've been working all weekend, I really have little call to complain. I have an amazing job and I live in an amazing community and really after I get all this stuff done and squared away - it'll be smooth sailing. I just need to get over this hill.

I don't know how the guy at the paper manages to create such creepily accurate horoscopes. Maybe there is something to this science of interpreting the stars...

Winter Wings

I was randomly visiting some old pictures and I found this [chickadee] Red Breasted Nut Hatch from Erb Settlement.......

Update: I have to admit my embarrassment to have mislabeled this bird. While my repertoire of birds that I can recognize is somewhat limited, both chickadee and red breasted nuthatch are included in it. I didn't really look too closely at the bird, I sort of recalled (from 2005) watching a chickadee, however, we visited the camp often enough that year that the chickadee must be another time and picture...

Thank you for the correction Clare.

Meanderings of the Mind while Marking

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/images/OOMfaceshotBIG.jpg
I just wanted to post up this link for anyone who'd like to learn how to knit Muskox Slippers

I've got the tunes going to keep me running in overdrive and I'm finding myself in a total Sarah McLaughlin mood tonight. I have a very small and odd selection of music here - a bunch of Bare Naked Ladies and Arrogant Worms mixed with various old mix CD's, 2 new exercise mixes and the 2nd Volume of the Due South Soundtrack.... Nothing like going from Carrot Juice is Murder (Arrogant Worms) to Nothing Else Matters (Metallica) to a dance mix of Clocks(Coldplay) to Ice Cream (Sarah McLaughlin). The Sarah McLaughlin songs make me think wistfully of my new guitar which I've only had time to take out twice. I just have too many neglected hobbies.... like the watercolours that I haven't even taken out once since I've gotten here. I stumbled across the above picture the other day and doesn't it just beg to be painted in water colours? (Sunday Creek - August 2006 - Algonquin Park)

I am camping in Algonquin this summer. I don't care how busy I am.... it'll be over two years since I've camped there (the last time I spent overnight in Algonquin was in April 2007 - we camped at Grand Lake (Archay Campground) - but I think I need to do some serious hiking - well I guess I could give up Algonquin in exchange for a 5 day trip through the Cloche Mountains, although chances are that its too late to book any interior sites and too early for me to know when I'm free.... ah well, one bridge at a time.... and its clear that if I spent less time rambling along on my blog I might have more time to paint, knit and play guitar... but alas... I enjoy blogging too....

Well, we're onto Finger 11 I think..... or Daughtry maybe... and I hear a faint clamour from that desk over there - "mark me, mark me, mark me..."

Tagged - 6th Pic Meme

I was tagged by Kennie of Tales of the Arctic along with 5 others. I was to take the 6th picture in the 6th file folder in whatever folder my photos were in.

Of course, the way my photos are organized... I seem to only have 4 folders in a lot of directories. So I went to Picasa where I deal with all my photos put them in order by name and took the 6th picture from the sixth folder.

Here is a picture of me taken on Halloween in 2004 by my roomate. I was a half-elven Ranger, for all of you D and D folk out there.... Wait a second... that looks shockingly like the costume that I wore for Halloween this year, and last year and the year before that.... Actually, I've been a half-Elven Ranger for the last 8 Halloweens, in 2000 I was a backpacker, and I worked the 4 proceeding Halloweens as Student Security or a First Responder and my first year at Lakehead I went as genetically defective smurf because I'd had a midterm lab exam on Halloween and they were nearly out of blue face paint when I got back to my residence. I wonder what I did with my smurf hat......

The Cloak I'm wearing in the picture is kind of special. I bought it on a spontaneous road trip to an SCA event in Maine. I had been thinking about going, but not really planning on it when I discovered a paper I really wanted to read for a project I was working on at work was in the Orono Library of the University of Maine.... so, armed with that excuse I convinced my boss to let me have Friday afternoon off if I'd work Sunday afternoon in Maine.... and so at lunch I raced home, threw a random assortment of camping gear into the trunk of the dragonfly - a much beloved and long deceased 1993 Grand Am in Teal and I was off. I stopped in Houlten to buy food (easier than trying to get fruit or meat over the border) and drove south on the I-95 past Mount Katadyn (everyone should go visit there if they love amazing, beautiful, rustic, challenging hiking), past Orono, past Augusta in a rain storm so intense that I couldn't see enough past the end of my car to pull over and stop for fear that someone would hit me from behind, and to a campground located somewhere in hilly, green country that is nearly as breath-taking as Mount Katadyn. I was immediately directed to the part of the campground where the Fredericton people had set up and immediately people just made me feel included. I didn't know anyone before I got there and I never had much chance to take part in the SCA once I got back... but I had an amazing time. I met a zillion people eager to show off their Armour or their hand sewn costumes or their latest bit of craftwork. I watched archery, I learned some calligraphy and some sewing skills. I spent a weekend camping in a skirt and a blouse. At night, a new friend and I wandered from camp fire to camp fire (or from kingdom to kingdom) and listened to folk play instruments both historical and more recent, sometimes singing, sometimes just learning about where people were from or hearing stories about other events. Extremely cool... Perhaps one day I'll make it to Penstock.

And that ends the tale of the 6th picture in the 6th folder... here are the official instructions to be modified as needed depending on how you house your pictures.

Here are the 'rules'

1. Go to your documents. (or if you are a mac user, go to your pictures folder)
2. Go to your 6th folder.
3. Go to your 6th picture.
4. Blog about it.
5. Tag 6 others to do the same.

I shall tag Shelley of the Big Move, Treena of Treena's Travels, Lizard of Lizard Knits, Geoff of Araska, Colin of Grog, and Gabriel of What a Life?.

Phase two of the Nunavut Blog Awards

The first phase of the Nunavut Blog Awards aka "The Nunies" is complete and the nominations have been tallied and the 5 blogs in each of the "Best Blog" and "Best New Blog" Catagories have been posted. There are also 8 author-nominated posts that are competing for "Best Post of 2008". If you are interested in discovering some of the best of what the Nunavut Blogging commuity has to offer... here is the link to the contest. The last day for voting is January 20th, 2009 at 11:59.

I had intended to write a longer post, but my 20 minutes of Yoga was dominated by relaxation, namely one of my poses twistings itself into a comfy curl up on the floor post and wisely, I decided it was best to pack it up and actually sleep in my own comfortable bed rather than wake up in the middle of the night half frozen and sneezing from the carpet.

So good night, with one eye too sleepy to stay open and the other one struggling to pretend its not.

Jennith

Blizzard Day 2

Well, I managed to catch the winds in a bit of a lull. Sadly, I don't think I'll ever know what the winds were last night, but at least our weather site is back up again. I can just make out the snow fence from the kitchen window or the shadow of it.

I woke up feeling kind of off. Not quite sick, but groggy, faintly congested and feeling as though I was running a bit of a fever. I seem to have shaken most of it off, but I thought a bit of something liquid would help in the off chance that I'm just dehydrated. I've just started running my new humidifier, but still I've found that I've really been dry since coming back. My milk gave up the ghost on Sunday - so I decided to crack out some of the powdered milk I ordered this summer and make a smoothie with that. (I do have enough sense not to drink powdered milk straight - but I thought all the other parts of the smoothie would overwhelm the processed overly sweet taste.... obviously... it has not. This is by far the grossest smoothie I've ever eaten - although B. says she puts spinach and flax seed and maybe fish oil in hers... so its not that gross... but I see most of my skim milk powder being donated to the school or the food bank. I'll keep a bit for emergencies. But real milk is not that expensive... not for the 1 L I drink a week and I'm sure there is someone out there who will bake it into something that isn't nearly so revolting. I think it is the sweetness that is grossing me out - I'm going to finish the smoothie since it does contain an entire precious banana and a cup of frozen fruit and lots of nutritious goodness that I'm sure my body will appreciate even if my mouth doesn't.

On the heels of my powdered-milk smoothie mishap, I had a jello disaster. I opted to use a dish that was shallow and just big enough and spilt half the jello on the floor. I hope I got most of it off the outside of the dish before putting it into the fridge as it'll be a pain to clean the fridge otherswise and I managed to pick the one box of jello I possess that isn't sugar free... sigh.

I was writing posts in my head last night and if I hadn't fallen asleep accidentally I might have even posted it then. It was the first time in a long time that I actually did yoga. I frequently do bits of yoga as part of other exercising, but its been a very long while since I did the kind of yoga where you think about relaxing and breathing and exact positioning. It was incredibly nice and while I did the best to clear my mind of thoughts outside the exercises themselves... I found myself reflecting on my relationship with yoga instead. My first encounter with yoga was through my drama teacher - who taught us (among other important lessons) how to do the salute to the sun cycle. I learned it in a classroom with at least 20 others. We frequently started drama classes with it... and I've probably used this skill more often than anything I've learned in Math or Science even. Its a good way to warm up when I get cold from sitting too long or stretch when I'm stiff. I often use it as a warm up before exercising in general since it stretches most of the important muscles... and likewise the other skills I learned from Mrs. LeRiche.... How to project my voice, how to perform in front of a crowd, how to apply make-up (stage anyway), how to organize other people (as a stage manager), how to communicate with others,.... especially as a teacher, but even in many of my other roles, I've used my drama skills every day. The math and science is important - I'm the last person to argue that they aren't - but honestly, in terms of useful life skills drama really has all my other subjects beat. The rest of the yoga I taught myself from a library book during my second year of university - thus I'm certain that I probably do half of the exercises wrong, but they feel correct, which is good enough for me. I guess I went to a handful of yoga classes through parks and rec and with my mom. So, my methods are completely out to lunch, just my repertoire is limited to the poses included in "Yoga:Mind and Body" so it'd be good one day to take a few weeks of classes to improve my skills, but in the meantime - I'm going to try and spend at least 20 minutes each day running through my set of exercises - its kind of an experiment to see how much I can improve and how quickly.