You know you live in Alaska when….

I had no idea sugar could freeze. 

And when I say sugar - I mean the whole 5 lb. bag!

Since we have to order a month's supply of everything, that tends to leave us with extras. 

If we order right, that is.

Well, before break, we had ordered a 5 lb. bag of sugar because we were running low on the one we were using. And with items like that, it could go fast or slow depending how much we make coffee, tea, etc.

We put it in the arctic porch because we didn't have enough shelf space in our house to sit until we actually needed it. That was my first mistake…

Our arctic porch is not insulated.

The walls glisten because water is frozen on the walls.

When it snows, it drifts inside and I will walk out to piles of snow inside the porch.

I completely forgot about it, and left it there sitting, and apparently freezing, during my three week Christmas break. 

I just had no idea it would freeze.

I figured if moisture got in it could, but it was an unopened bag.

Yet, I still came home to a frozen 5 lb. bag!

My first thought when I came back was that if I had it sitting inside the warm house it would thaw out some. Wrong!

I know this because I had it "thawing" for over a month.

So I decided to look up 'how to unfreeze sugar' online.

I got this advice I thought I would try:

*This is on the Domino Sugar website*

>Preheat oven to the lowest temperature, 150-200 degrees.

>Remove sugar from the package and put it in an ovenproof container that will hold the sugar.

>Place in the warm oven for approximately 15 minutes.

>Tap sugar with a spoon. If it starts to fall apart, turn oven off and leave the sugar in the oven for an hour or two to completely dry out. 

So that is exactly what I did.

I opened the sugar.. well actually ripped/cut it out of the bag.

Laid it down on an oven proof dish...

And set it in the oven, at the lowest temp, for 15 minutes.

I then tapped it with a spoon, and actually some did fall off! So I turned the oven off and left it there for an hour and a half. 

I opened it back up and this is what I saw:

Needless to say, this did not work for me. 

It burnt the top of the sugar, melted the bottom to a sugary confection, and was still hard as a rock.

So what did I do? 

I threw it away and ordered another bag off of Amazon.

Now, I could have saved it. I really didn't like throwing it away. After being here, you really do learn not to waste anything and get your money's worth. But there was no way I was going to take time scratching and chiseling the softened sugar off of the hard parts.

So, lesson learned. I had no idea sugar could freeze into a huge 5 lb. block. I won't ever leave it in my arctic porch again.

But now I think it is safe to say… 

You know you live in Alaska when….. your 5 lb bag of sugar freezes in your arctic porch.

Or if you even have an arctic porch for that matter….