Halloween -- Alaska Style
Tess and Alicia went trick-or-treating with a couple of Tess's friends. (Donald had to work.) Once again, we forgot Alicia's mittens, so she had to wear the "too big" gloves to keep her little popsicle hands slightly warm. They were out from about 5:45pm until 7:15pm. I think the temperature was around 20 degrees or so.

Alicia May was ready to quit the minute we let her open one of her Dum Dum lollipops. She loves those.... She'll be swapping Super Sissy for some of hers!

Here are a few of the quilt blocks I completed at last night's class. So far I have 14 of the necessary 30 blocks completed. Don't you just love the fabrics? Very prairie. :o)

General updates: It seems I've been slacking on my follow through on interesting topics. I'll try to catch folks up.

I got my studded tires on this past Saturday morning. We bought a set of tires off of craigslist for $80. Awesome deal! Someone had dropped these off in these folks' yard, so they sold them online. Yay for us! We called the tire place Friday night to see about having them put on the next day... No appointments given, but they opened at 8am. So we got there at exactly 8am and found we were about 10th in line. Dang! We were told it would be a 6 hour wait. So we left the van there (we had brought both vehicles) and headed over to the half price sale at the thrift store. ;o) We parked outside the front door of the thrift store in the dark waiting for it to open at 9am. [We know we have a problem... and that's the first step, right?] For the record, we got some great deals!

In the end, we got the van back with it's new studded tires after only 5 hours and $64. Stephen bought himself a set of studded tires on rims off craigslist for $700 and swapped them out himself on Sunday... just in time for Monday morning's snowy commute.

As for daylight hours and temperatures, with daylight savings time over, it seems to get light at around 9:30am or so and then the sun goes down at like 5:30pm I guess. We really don't notice it at this point. It's super overcast today and snowing. But it's still daylight. No daylight-deprived- depression as of yet. But we make an effort to be outdoors in the daylight each day for at least a small period of time. Supposedly that's part of the trick.

Today's highs are around 32 degrees, I think. Relatively warm. But it's supposed to get much colder after today.

I have my 2nd and final quilting class tonight. I meant to get all my blocks put together this week so I could move forward during the class tonight. But I was only able to put together 4 out of the 30 blocks! So that's what I'll be doing at class this evening. The quilt pattern is called Crazy Eights and works with squares and rectangles from fat quarters of fabric. It should turn out to look like randomly placed pieces. I'm using fabric that looks like old-fashioned calicos which I find very attractive and comforting. (Little House on the Prairie-ish). I'll take some photos when I have a few more blocks done and post them.

Guess what! It snowed today! Imagine that!
Donald had to work, but the rest of us went outdoors for some snow play. Alicia May took some test runs on her new sled and was then pulled up and down the street by alternating family members. We're trying to figure out how we might train Bit to be a mushing dog. Hmmm.




Tess used my old cross country skis and made a snow angel. The first of the season!

She wanted to make a snowman, but the snow wasn't the sticky sort, so we're holding off on that for now.

Happy 21 Month Birthday to Me!

We are planning to have my studded snow tires put on tomorrow. Even with this small amount of snow, the van is having a difficult time on the slick roads. Not many plows around. Stephen claims to have seen one on our road, but I haven't seen any yet. I've heard they just toss gravel on the roads, let it freeze in the ice, and that's the road surface for the winter. Hmmm. We'll have to see how well that works....

We got our first snow today. At least the first that stuck around for any length of time. The picture of the road was taken on my evening commute home. The morning commute was considerably longer...

Alicia May loves snow and all things cold. She left her mittens at the daycare today, so she had to borrow this pair. She's been dying to wear her snow boots outdoors in the snow. I think she's going to have a great winter! We have to get her a sled for Christmas. Plenty of slopes in the yard.

Well, we're sitting here trying to enroll Stephen at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. They apparently have lots of good online courses you can take to get your degree. He's hoping to enroll in at least one class for the Spring semester just to make some progress in finishing his degree. The deadline for enrollment is November 1st.

Tess is at cheerleading practice and Donald is probably on the bus on the way home from work at this point. Tess won't be home till after 9pm. She's getting a ride home from her friend.

I picked up a light green recliner at the Thrift Store today for 40 bucks. This gives us something else to sit on in our living room. Previously there was only a rocking chair and a horsehair sofa. I'm convinced those horsehair sofas were designed to make unwanted guests so uncomfortable that they would not stay long. As for our sofa, my family bought it when I was in high school at an auction for $50. My father reupholstered it. But it's still pretty uncomfortable. My parents would make my dates perch on the edge of it while they waited for me to be ready... Maybe I should keep it in a convenient position for when Tess starts dating... Hmmm.

Tonight I have my first quilting class. I hope I can locate the fat quarters of fabric I bought for the class! I'm really looking forward to it. Not just for the chance to learn how to quilt, but for the potential of meeting some new people with similar interests.

Today, and all this week at work I'm taking a 40 hour course on reading Master Title Plats presented by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Being from the east coast, it's all very alien to me the way surveys are done and maps are drawn out this way. I guess most of the US does land mapping this way, just not the states in the east. Go figure.

Turns out, the whole state of Alaska is divided up in to little squares called townships. These townships are approximately 36 square miles a piece. So basically, they're comparable to your average "town" boundaries back east. The town we lived in back in central NY was 50 square miles (a 5 mi x 10 mi rectangle). Anyway, there are around 19,500 township squares covering the state of Alaska. Just imagine any other state with almost 20,000 towns! That's huge! Much of that (about 8000 townships) is owned and mapped by the State. The feds manage more than we do at the State. And the rest is managed by other municipalities and native corporations (I think!). Suffice to say, it's far from cut and dry! There is no one land parcel map available for the whole state. It's all piecemeal and fairly frustrating actually.

Once you come to terms with the inability to map land ownership, you might then struggle with the even larger barrier of finding aerial photography for the state. It just isn't out there basically. At least not at anything close to a useable scale.

Anyway, it's very interesting. And it gives me a greater appreciation for geographic data availability in the rest of the U.S.

We have arrived squarely at the crossroads of parenthood. On one end, Donald has begun officially dating, now that he’s sixteen. He went out on his first one-on-one “date” on Friday evening with his girlfriend, Corina.

On the other end, we have begun the long road of potty training with Little Miss Alicia May. She has her own little Winnie-the-Pooh potty which she has sat upon on several occasions, but has yet to do anything more than push the little flush lever to hear a little voice tell her she’s done a “good job!” and hear the water flushing noise.

Tess, of course, became our “middle child” as of Jan. 2005. She’s striving hard to follow in Donald’s freedom-seeking footsteps. But she also seems to enjoy being a goof with Alicia May (much to my dismay when they start their wild rampages at 9:30pm on a school night…).

We had the chimney sweepers out on Wednesday. Only one of the chimneys actually needed to be swept as it turned out. Better safe than sorry… lest we have another New Year’s Eve chimney fire like we had back in 2002. We were the first call of that year for the Groton VFD in New York. As a matter of fact, one of the volunteer firemen had just left our house not an hour before with his family. We had ushered in the new year together. Good friends, good times…

Stephen immediately started a fire in the family room fireplace on Wednesday evening. It grew pretty toasty in there. Once it really starts to get cold, I think those fireplaces will be a great asset. Thus far our overnight temps only occasionally dip to the freezing mark. Generally they’re around 40 degrees. Daytime highs are in the upper 40’s at this point. No snow yet at our elevation, but it’s coming.

Tess got her hair cut yesterday. We’ve noticed that most girls here have bangs. Her hair had been all one length. So now she has bangs and layers and we both agree it looks very nice. She took this photo of herself yesterday evening.

At some point during his kittenhood, Fat Bub must have had a bad experience with seafood. I think he’s the only kitty on the planet that does not like fish. In the past, this has not posed a problem because I have just bought him cat food in beef and poultry flavors.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like seafood flavored kitty foods are more widely available here in Alaska. Even the beef & poultry flavors are combined with some form of fish… Chicken & Tuna in a delicate wine sauce… Beef and Crabmeat with butter for dipping… Okay, I may be exaggerating. It’s probably my paranoia, but it seems no matter what the label on the can says, the food has a fishy aroma. Fat Bub seems to have adapted to the dietary change, however, so I suppose all’s well that ends well.

Today is Alaska Day. It's a state holiday and our offices are closed. I've opted to work so I can use the floating holiday to take off the day after Thanksgiving when our daycare will be closed.

I got an email from the Governor yesterday telling me what Alaska Day is. Back in 1867, the Russians closed the deal with us on the sale of this Great Land on October 18th. The Russian flag was lowered over Sitka and the American flag was raised. This was of course all facilitated by William Seward in what would be referred to as Seward's folly... $7.2 million for that giant hunk of ice? What are you thinking, man? In my opinion, that was a perfect example of the term "foresight". In his honor, they named a cruise ship dock with a little town attached to it after him.

I miss pumpkin patches. Although Alaska is known for it's gigantic vegetables and scale-tipping state fair pumpkins... there's nary a pumpkin patch to be found.

For that matter, there are no cornfields either, which means there are no corn mazes... No hayfields, so no haybale forts.

I suppose it's a trade off. What we lack in fall harvest vistas, we make up for in towering mountains and glacial streams. I guess no matter where we go, there is always something beautiful on which to rest the eye.

But I still miss pumpkin patches. ;o)

We celebrated Donald’s 16th birthday this weekend. He shared this candy-laden cake with his buddies while playing video games. They also took a brief trip to two different malls in Anchorage to hit the Gamestop and Hot Topic.

Sunday, his actual birthday, we gave him our gifts and went out to dinner at Red Robin. Part of our gifts was a $1000 gift certificate to be used toward the vehicle or driving expense of his choice. He’s really shown little interest in driving. But he’s starting to mention it every now and then. I think because people are discovering he’d turning 16 and asking him if he’s going to get his license, etc. Fact is, he hasn’t even gotten his permit yet.

We (Tess & I) tried our first local church yesterday. We hope to try several to find the best fit. This one was a Church of God. One of Tess’s cheer buddies attends there with her family. Next Sunday I think we’ll be going to the church of another cheer buddy.

Earlier this week I took a stroll on my lunch half hour. This mural, one of many in Anchorage, is half a block from my office on the side of the 5th Avenue Mall. Just the other side of the whale is JCPenney.

Tomorrow, Tess and I and a bunch of other cheerleaders will be at Elmendorf Air Force Base as a community service project. The girls are helping out at the Officers’ Spouses’ Craft Bazaar. I’ll be helping out by browsing the booths. The base is open to the public for this special event. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve finally begun to personalize my cubicle. I’ve never worked in a cubicle environment before… but it’s clear that folks like to decorate their cubes to make them both aesthetically pleasing and to display their own personal charms.

While I’m not going so far as to practice feng shui in my little 9’ x 9’ space… I am trying to declutter (some my stuff and some my predecessor’s) and make it a comfortable place for me.

I’ve brought in some pretty fall linens to drape over my file cabinets. And I have some Halloween décor including a foam, light-up, jack-o-lantern. He seems to be pleasing passers-by with his toothy grin.

My next plan of action is to rid my cube of a gigantic, old drafting table. I’m hoping to acquire a much smaller, lower surface space that’s more functional. I find that the more surface I have, the more clutter I contrive. If there’s a surface… I will fill it! I’m an over-achiever in that sense.

Alicia May helped her daddy chop birch logs for the fireplaces the other day. She was mostly there for aesthetic purposes and supervisory support. She loves these snow boots and tries to put them on whenever they surface. She’s actually pretty good at it. Not that they’re a necessary wardrobe item at this point. But one can’t be too prepared!

I added a couple new videos to the dropshots page. (See link at right.) One is much longer than the other and will take a while to load on dial-up I think. The other is just a quickie of Tess doing her roundoff back handspring at practice last night.

I finally discovered I could turn the minivan around in the driveway and drive out forwards. It’s so pitch black when I leave for work in the morning. Yesterday I barely side-swiped the giant boulder near the end of the driveway as I was backing out. The other day I came close to backing into the ditch across the street…

I wanted to include some photos just to spice things up. All text looks boring. So here are a couple of the kids (+1) in the entry of Blockbuster in Eagle River which has been decked out with black lights in the spirit of Halloween. Donald had his friend David over this past weekend and we all went out to Arby’s for dinner and stopped by the video store to grab a movie. I got Season One of the Amazing Race, which I’ve never seen. 4 DVD’s containing the full season, for 5 nights, all for 99 cents. Yay!

I’ve been listening to books on CD as I commute in and out of Anchorage. Last week it was “Circle of Quilters” by Jennifer Chiaverini. I enjoyed it so much, I signed up to take a beginner quilting class at a local quilt shop in Eagle River. I’m looking forward to it immensely! The class is just 2 Monday evenings later in the month. We stopped by the quilt shop over the weekend while we were out yard saling and running errands. Tess seemed very interested. So we’re going to sign her up for a beginner evening class in November, after cheer season dwindles down.

Speaking of yard saling, Stephen found some nice things this past weekend. His bounty included a rabbit fur hat with the ear flaps for $1.50, some Swiss military wool pants (new) for $20, and some great wooden snowshoes with bindings for $10. He’s well on his way to looking like a real Alaska Man.

Okay, so back to the books on CD… This week’s book is “At Home in Mitford” by Jan Karon. It’s based in the hills of NC… the country life. Last night’s commute contained mention of homemade apple pies… So I baked one up to follow our dinner of Dot Cook’s mushroom chicken recipe. I should mention the crust used Sandy Gregory’s pastry mix recipe as derived from the best pie makers in New Berlin, NY… That along with the two big red apples left in the fruit bowl and a bunch of cinnamon sugar made a very tasty pie. I even have a wedge in my lunchbox today! [Had to get that food talk in!]

Monday morning. Yee haw.

We had a decent weekend. Didn't seem to get much done... although the intentions were there. We successfully talked about most of the stuff we should be getting done. So that's something, right?

Oh, I've been meaning to mention that Stephen did enjoy his day at work on Friday. Largely because he wasn't actually at work but out in the field. He and another fella went about an hour's drive north to inspect 3 houses which are about to be washed away by a meandering river.

He really liked the area. One house he particularly liked. Big house, good spaces... for family, hobbies, workshops, etc. Plus, it had a rebel flag hung somewhere. And it was chock full of firearms! He said the husband had 4 gun safes side by side in a room upstairs. This would lead one to believe that he was a careful sort of fellow who went to great lengths to keep his arsenal under lock and key. But then Stephen went on to say that because they live right next to a river (you really couldn't get much closer!), they are able to hunt from their living room. So there's a gun on every windowsill...

I can just imagine it...

Hey, honey, what's for dinner?

Hold on, let me see... (opens windowshade, takes aim.... BLAM!) Looks like moose tonight!

The sun has set on Tess's football season... I thought the light was great for this shot.

In addition, I've put lots of new additions on our dropshots page which can be linked to on the right hand side of this blog... There are a few short videos and some photos going back to our ferry trip in July.

I left work pretty early yesterday as Donald needed an emergency dental appointment to remove a disintegrating wisdom tooth. Apparently, he was in a lot of pain. But the dental encounter went very smoothly and within 2 hours of me getting the call from the school nurse, he was holding what was left of his tooth in his hand. Given that this was the first time we'd ever set foot inside that dental office, I thought this was just a great experience. Very professional, very accommodating, and very friendly. If it weren't all the way in Anchorage, I might consider going there from now on. But we had planned to go to a dentist in Eagle River which is also highly recommended. (They weren't able to see him on such short notice though.)

Tess had her 1st choir concert(s) last night. We went to the 6pm show. They had another performance at 8pm. She's enjoying that group and from what I was able to see at the concert, they're doing a great job. (I spent about half of the concert chasing Alicia around the lobby. Par for the course.)

So is it a bad thing to email your boss telling her you're stretched too thin? Especially knowing full well that she's so overextended you can almost see through her!? Hmmm.

Hope not. Because I did this yesterday. She seemed to take it in good humor and immediately relieved me of several lower priority (and admittedly not much fun) projects. So that's a good thing. She also informed me of exactly where my priorities should lie and that all other requests should be considered secondary.

According to her, my top priorities are the land sales auction and staking brochures, staking maps, and the upcoming Willow Sub-basin Area Plan project. These are all fun tasks for me. So yay! In addition, I'm working on setting up a Title Report mapping template using GIS, putting together a Projections for Dummies class and a presentation on projections to do with another girl at the GIS Day event at the University of Alaska in mid-November. So my plate is now full of fun stuff.

As far as the other folks in our family are concerned... here's a brief update:
Stephen-- Still bored at work, but coming to realize that all the employees there felt the same way when they were new... It's apparently the nature of the beast.

Donald-- Preparing to celebrate his 16th birthday in a couple weeks. He's inviting some guys over to have a video game extravaganza at the house. Something like 4 TV's, lots of controllers, etc. Every now and then he talks about heading over to the DMV to get some info, but I don't think he's actually done that yet. And he's decided to do basketball tryouts instead of bowling because they are at the same time....

Tess-- I think tonight might be her last regular season game. The squad has already begun training for competitions. I believe they have 2 this Fall... one at the end of October and the other at the beginning of November. She has apparently mastered her roundoff back handspring which brings her no end of joy. She'll be doing it in the competition routine. Her grades remain good, so when I ground her for being a pain in the butt, I generally relent due to her continued scholarship...

Alicia May-- Learned to say "milk" yesterday. She's getting good at that ending "k" sound. She also said "book" yesterday. She know what sound cows make... Unfortunately she claims all farm animals make the same sound... Her favorite song to sing is E-I-E-I-O. Heavy on the E-I's and light on the O. When she sees a picture of farm animals, she starts singing it.

Several meetings on the agenda today. I was just telling Stephen this morning that my work life seems to be a series of steep heights of activity followed by deep lulls. Sometimes this can be disconcerting. I've never been a fan of roller coasters...

Unfortunately, Stephen's work life is currently in a long lull. I guess it's the slow season for them and that is compounded by his newness in the position. So he's at a loss for things to do sometimes. And that really doesn't sit well with him. Hopefully, his employers will figure this out sooner than later and at least toss some "busy work" his way.

While we're on the topic of Stephen... his 40th birthday fast approacheth. I've got a month to come up with something memorable and meaningful to give him for this delightful event. Don't get me wrong... I have lots of great ideas. I just can't seem to focus on making any of them happen. Some thoughts include: fly-in fishing trip with a buddy, motorcycle trip (on rented bike) someplace scenic, hunting charter, etc etc. Hmmmm. Guess I'm still pondering.

Today's food topic: In about 15 minutes, I'm heading down to the Federal Building, 2 blocks away, to buy a giant cookie out of a basket for a buck. The basket of goodies gets replenished (according to the metal detecting security guards at the front door) each Monday afternoon. If you come later than Tuesday, things are pretty well picked over and potentially starting to stale. The goodies are sold as a fund raiser for some needy group in town. So really, I'm buying the cookie for someone else's benefit... not just because they're really yummy.

We are having a lot of difficulty renting out our Virginia house. So at this point, we're paying an astronomical rent in Alaska as well as our mortgage payment in Virginia.

I'm in the process of switching property management companies. I discovered today that our current one is simply handing the keys to the house over to interested parties (which I send their way) and having them go look at the house on their own.

This is becoming quite the headache for us. We worry about the house a lot, not to mention the financial strain of it all... So, if you know anyone in central Virginia who's looking for housing... let me know!