Weekends of Goodbyes - part 1

It feels like time is passing faster than normal. I suspected this was going to happen as we got closer to our official departure date. But that doesn't make it any less weird.

We have officially entered the 'Weekends of goodbyes'. I like to think we had the foresight to actively plan things like this, but realistically its just how it worked out. The weekends leading up to our departure include a going away party, a weekend away with family, and a weekend for Justin & I to say goodbye to Halifax. This weekend was the first of those, our going away party.

The going away party was the only thing I was interested in thinking about when I first learned about my scholarship results. All I wanted was a big party with all kinds of strange social mixing - friends, coworkers, family, all together in one place. That is exactly what we got, so thank you all that were able to make it. What I was not expecting was speeches. At the risk of sounding trite, we are so grateful to have so much support from friends and family. When I think about everything we are leaving, it gives me such pause. I think I have to re-frame what leaving means. We may not be physically present in Canada, but we still have our community with us, supporting us. We aren't leaving that behind.

One more soppy comment before I move on to more exciting this. As we are in the last few weeks, I know that some of the goodbyes I'm saying are the last ones I will give before we go. I'm consciously stopping myself from 'doing the math' when I say goodbye to someone. As best as possible I'm suspending my own reality, and pretending that all goodbyes are normal goodbyes. It (mostly) worked in Toronto over Christmas, hopefully it will (mostly) work now.

Moving on. The flour challenge has really thrived with all the social events happening. Now more than ever I have call to make sure there are all kinds of baked goods in the house. I actually had to go out and get more sugar and butter so I could use up more flour. I recognize how counterintuitive this is, but as long as I use up the additional ingredients in their entirety, I think its allowed. Unfortunately the Sobeys near my place only sells bags of sugar in one size, so I now have an additional 1.4 kgs to use up.

I'm now in kind of an opposite flour situation to where I started - I have baking to do for next weekend so I have to ration what I'm doing this week. Except for cake flour. I am working hard to sneak it in all over the place, but I'm still looking for recipes (preferably ones that don't require me to go out and buy strange ingredients).

AP flour:

Starting weight (SW): 4.272 kgs

Previous weight (PW): 2.013 kgs

Current weight (CW): 0.619 kgs (-86%!)

Bread flour:

SW: 1.245 kgs

PW: 0.330 kgs

CW: 0.330 kgs (-73%)

Cake flour:

SW: 1.951 kgs

PW: 1.442 kgs

CW: 0.696 kgs (-64%)