give me your tips for living a winter without running water!

If you do some googling for "Alaska dry cabin" you'll be able to find plenty of blogs by people who live like this year round and should have some good tips, like https://otadventurer.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/my-alaskan-challenge-living-in-a-dry-cabin/.

Unless the place is actually uninsulated, you should be able to keep unfrozen water inside the house once you get it. Cold enough to freeze pipes is a different situation than cold enough to keep water in a mostly-heated cabin. Why are they turning the water off if you are there to keep the pipes from freezing? If there is electricity you can keep a small heater on in an area where there will be water. I assume money is a concern but you should be balancing whatever your money situation is with the absolute hassle of some of this stuff. If you can run a microwave, you can microwave ice for water, for example. Boil anything straight from the lake unless you are sure about pathogens. Invest in a http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/camping-toilets of some level (depending on your cashflow). Even a little toilet seat stand with kitty litter is going to be a ton better than a bucket. Hobo baths with warmed water in between showers. Wear your hair up or get it cut short.

Get a couple 30 gallon trash cans to hold H2O? Might be handy. That fire stove will eat those paper plates I suspect

I think a quick-heat electric kettle and a hotplate will serve you well within the limitations you're describing. Do you have a big plastic drum or other covered container to store water in the cabin? You can ladle the water out using a small saucepan. That way you can cut down on the daily schlep of hauling water. Use a rubbermaid or similar plastic bin and put a small amount of water in it (cold is fine) and some dish soap in it. Place dishes in it throughout day, top up with hot kettle or stove water at end of day and wash all. Just rinse-reuse utensils and glassware throughout the day rather than reaching for a new one. Alternately, if you're cooking a lot one day, start with hot water and just wash/top up as you go. Don't sweat "rinsing" the dishes, this is a weird hangup that seems to have afflicted Americans and Canadians. You can also bathe standing in a largish plastic pan or container with some hot water in it. Use dry shampoo between showers at the gym.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00955DUHQ/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ might be a good thing to have on hand. Just add boiling water and eat it right out of the bag; all you have to clean is your cutlery. Stuff like http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00S5M3LF6/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ with http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0005XODPU/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ is a good combination of convenience and flavor. Another good tip I saw online to minimize dishwashing (albeit for camping, not long-term living) was to line your plate or bowl with http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0025UV6JC/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, so all you need to do is peel off the plastic and discard it when you're done eating. Unless you have a local waste disposal plan, I'm not sure a bucket with sawdust in it is going to be adequate in terms of sanitation. If you get something like http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001123ATE/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ or http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0024O0W94/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, you can just seal up the bags and put them in the trash when you go into town. You'll also need to do laundry, unless you're going to bring that into town as well. http://www.yourownhomestore.com/best-powerless-laundry-option/. Keep a store of potable water and/or a no-boil purifier/filter -- maybe http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001QC31G6/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B006QF3TW4/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/? -- so you don't have to go without drinking water if the ice freezes.

I had to smile reading your post. I've done this many times , and not in a cabin with electricity.( Luxury, luxury) Tents. At the simplest use a hole in the ice and use metal pails Place metal pail on wood stove and you not only have available warm water, you have an humidifier for the dry cold winter months. Get a plastic garbage can with lid, place inside, fill with water. I've used a metal garbage can with an immersion heater hooked up to a small generator to melt ice for fresh water. Nowadays kids got it easy with their electricity and cabins. lol Get a camping shower from REI. Uses a small propane cylinder. Not expensive. People only got electricity a hundred years ago. Municipal water about the same. Be happy you have indoor plumbing. An outhouse is miserable in the middle of winter. You don't have to move to paper plates only.

You should be able to cook soups/ stews on the woodstove, and pancakes, bread, etc., are not out of the question. Be on the lookout for some gallon jugs; it's nice to be able to bring drinking water in. Keep a pan of water warming on the stove a lot of the time for washing dishes or yourself. You'll develop efficiencies as you go. Food - Make a batch of soup, eat for 2 meals a day with crackers, bread, pasta, until it's gone then make some stew, etc. Polenta with cheese, rice & beans, lentils with butter, rice & wheat pilaf, there are lots of one pot meals. Kitchen sink drainage may just work. Water in drain pipes doesn't sit still and is less likely to freeze up. This is not true of toilets; water stays in the looped area, and if it freezes, it cracks the porcelain. You need a real plan for human waste. You produce a fair amount, and it smells and it must be disposed of properly. There may be an area of woods where you can dispose of urine, which is generally not full of too much bacteria, and degrades pretty fast. You need a place to get rid of poop without contaminating your well or anybody else's.

If there's a Planet Fitness in town, there's also a place you can buy 5+gal water bottles (probably with their own refill station, probably inside a grocery or convenience store) and get a gravity bubbler or a http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001OBRKXO/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ for potable water.

Usually on camping trips we've had two rubbermaids for washing dishes - the first was filled with water and detergent, the second was filled with water and some kind of food safe antibacterial rinse. The water in the first bucket would get dirty pretty quickly, so it was nice to be able to rinse off the dishes. I'm not sure what that rinse was exactly, but I feel like you could use white vinegar for the same effect.