Thoughts on money

Here's something I've been thinking of - I may offend some people, and that is not my purpose. I don't really know what my purpose is...but it's not to offend.

Today on "America's Court" (what?!?! I had the week off - daytime television is interesting when you're scrubbing the house) a woman was suing her church for $5000 that she gave toward a building project. She wanted it back because she had recently found out that her pastor was performing wedding ceremonies between homosexual couples. She felt that the church was not following the original plan God had for churches and in addition, she thought that this church in particular had drifted from what the original founder's ideology had been. She did not want her money going to support that ideology and only wanted the special project gift back, not her tithes.

I thought her request was reasonable and wondered at why the church didn't just give her the money before it went to court. I mean, seriously, did she go to him, tell him that she was leaving the church and why, and then ask for the money back and he said no?

This got me thinking about an agenda for more money. I think lawyers are behind the push to have marriage between homosexual people made legal.

Among heterosexual couples, the divorce rate is just about 50%, let's assume it is the same among homosexual couples - this gives the divorce lawyers all kinds of new clients for divorce cases. Have you known someone who has gone through a divorce? In many cases (if the couple has any money at all) the lawyer is making some dough.

Let's also consider churches. I believe in the institution of the church and am a regular church goer myself. I am totally aware that churches are full of humans, and mistakes happen, feelings get hurt, sin goes on. And - I think of how much more tithe and giving churches could 'make' if they embrace the homosexual lifestyle and include marriages among those that are officiated. I could see how a humanistic pastor could look at the controversy about homosexual marriage and see dollar signs.

I am sure that there are more ways that this could be a money making opportunity - I just have to think some more. And like I said, I'm off this week, so thinking time is very limited.

Dump of Long News

As you can tell by how sporadically I write in my blog...not much goes on in our world! :) but that's okay - it's better than having lots of drama (I suppose)!

Let's see, since September what' happened in our lives. We finally finished up (mostly) our energy rebate update and got our first winter bill. We saved $200 over last December, wowzer...we're shaking our heads at why we didn't do this years ago! There's a new boiler, new water heater, insulation in our heated garage (yes, we heated an uninsulated garage), and the crawl space is all sealed up. We'll get on the list soon to have our blow test redone, and hopefully we'll get back most of what we spent to update our house. We are so green.

In October we took a short (and I mean S H O R T) trip down to CO to pick up meat. My uncle is a rancher in NE, and my parents buy beef from him and shared a half with us. It's great meat, and we have a freezer full of love!

In November, we went on vacation. It was a wonderful 2 week cruise to the Caribbean, and I'd do it again next week if I could. YAY! Then we came home to subzero weather...and into the funk that is winter in Alaska. I'm pulling out of the funk, and looking forward to spring. I think spring is coming in more ways than one in our lives, and I'm looking for signs of green. We're planning another trip in April so we have something exciting to look forward to.

I have some exciting projects to do including a bedroom makeover, so maybe I'll post some pictures of that...maybe not. Depending on how good it ends up looking!

Learning to Slow Down

Well - the title of this really should be: Forced to slow down. I had a couple of surgical procedures done on Tuesday of last week. I got pretty sick and my husband was very bossy about what I was and wasn't allowed to do at home. I am notoriously bad at "being sick" and almost always end up relapsing because I think I'm better before I am. John wasn't going to let that happen this time.

A week of doing nothing can start to wear at you - especially when you're used to running around with little down time. This past week was good for me. I learned that I am capable of sleeping during the day when my health requires it, and I also learned that, indeed, the world does not fall apart if chores have to go a few days without being done. Amazing, right?

Here's to good health, husbands who work hard and take good care of their wives, and to our God who heals.

Canada and Alaska vs. White Fang...part 3

The third and final (almost) post about our wonderful trip. Seriously, this was a great trip - and I didn't even have to fly anywhere!

Thursday morning after dealing with the bees, we headed up the Yukon Loop Highway to Dawson City. It got warmer and warmer as we drove and we estimated it to be in the 80s by the time we got to Dawson. We checked into a hotel (that's right folks, I got one night in a hotel) and hung out around the hotel going for a couple of walks and playing cards.

Friday morning we got up and headed to Claim #6 where John and Dan panned for gold and Stacey and I went for a walk. I felt like a new woman - clean hair two nights in a row and a bed to sleep in! YESSSSSSSSSSSS! We played around in the mining area for a few hours and then headed into town for, get this: a walking tour! YAY!

We walked around Dawson and noticed that some of the sites had a fancy stamp you could use. We asked about it and found out the the Yukon does a passport every summer and if you get at least 20 stamps you're eligible to win 5 ounces of gold. What? So we got a passport and got all the stamps we could in Dawson. I got to looking over the passport and realized that had we had it at the beginning of the summer (when we were driving all over Canada) I could have most of the stamps! What a bummer. I guess that means I'll have to do more traveling!

After our fun with stamps and walking tours, we headed to our campsite and played Frisbee and made dinner. We ended up staying up really late that night having a great conversation and slept like little rocks when we finally crawled in our tent.

Saturday morning we head to have a bit of a schedule. We were to meet the convoy across the Taylor Highway and we had to be there at 2:00 when it left. We headed out of Dawson on the ferry and drove on up the Top of the World Highway.

If you haven't yet traveled on the Top of the World...it's a must in Alaska. It's a great drive with lots of little hikes to stop at along the way. At the Y where the Top of the World meets the Taylor, we had to wait for the convoy. There were lots of blueberries around, so we spent our time picking berries until the convoy left.

Following the convoy was not so fun. It was too hot not to roll down the windows and dust came in whether you had them down or not...so the right side of my hair was so dirty with dust that the water from my shower on Sunday literally ran dirty. It was so gross. But I digress. The Taylor has been washed out with all the rain we've been getting (don't get me started) and you could see the areas where the road had sloughed off.

After the 1.5 hour drive on a dirt road behind 7 or so other cars, we made it to Chicken and continued on to Tok. We stopped at our same spot for camping that we stayed at on the first night and headed in Anchorage Sunday morning.

This was a great trip with wonderful pictures. I plan to post photos soon - when I get around to it - with all of the fun captions you're waiting for! :) John and I thoroughly enjoyed the company, the weather and the spots we visited.

Canada and Alaska vs. White Fang...Part 2

We spent Wednesday mostly doing walking tours of Skagway and Dyea (yes, for those of you hanging on the question "did she get eaten by the bear or was she able to thwart off an attack with her sledge hammer" I did make it through the night bear-attack-free). We didn't mean to spend so much time on the walking tours...but alas...we did.

It was pretty funny - we went to the townsite of Dyea (what we thought was the townsite anyway) and spent an hour or so wandering around trying to figure out the weird map and wondering what we were supposed to be looking at. We found a stream with spawning salmon and hung out there for a while looking at the totally fresh bear skat and fish parts that had obviously been flung to their resting places by bear. Probably a mom and her cub judging by the also fresh footprints.

Amazingly enough I wasn't feeling scared of these bears. Probably because it seemed they had plenty of fish to eat, and had little interest in us. That and there were tons of people around. We pushed through some forest after our time at the creek and found more fish parts...but still no city. We finally walked back to the trucks and Dan noticed that there was another path. Yes, two paths diverged in a wood - we took the one not to Dyea. So - we did the real walking tour of Dyea, which was very interesting, and headed into Skagway.

We had lunch in Skagway and began the walking tour through that little town. If you don't know much about the Klondike and the gold rush(es), I would encourage you to find out more. It's very interesting and since there are books written about it, I won't plagerize here.

Again we had great weather and no rain to speak of. Our drive out of Skagway was beautiful and we could see so much more now that the foggy mist had lifted. We drove on to Whitehorse, again stopping along the way when stuff interested us.

We got into Whitehorse later than we would have liked and checked out a couple of campgrounds. I don't know if it's just the Yukon Territory, or Canada in general, but they just don't do campgrounds like Alaska does. The two we went into near Whitehorse were the weirdest campgrounds I'd ever been to. We debated staying in one as we were all tired and ready to make camp, but of the four adults there, none of us felt comfortable staying - so onward we went. We decided to stay in a hotel that night and checked out one that looked inexpensive but not gross and learned that it was Discovery Days in the Yukon and if we could find a room, we'd be lucky.

Huh. We needed two rooms.

Onward ho - up the highway to find a place to camp. We headed toward Dawson City in the almost dark and found a great camping spot along the way. There were hardly any bugs and it was a beautiful clear night. The next morning we found out that we must have camped near a bee hive of some sort because they were out in masses. We ate breakfast and packed up quickly to head on up the Klondike Loop highway.

Canada and Alaska vs. White Fang...Part 1

WOW!

We just got back yesterday from a great camping trip across Alaska and Canada. We had a wonderful time camping with John's cousin and his family - they have a little boy. We hadn't done any traveling with them and you're never too sure how that's going to go (camping can be a bit stressful and we didn't have a solid itinerary) but it couldn't have gone smoother. Great company and fabulous weather capped off a fun adventure.

We had originally planned to drive up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territory, Canada...but alas, the closing of the Taylor Highway caused us to do some rethinking. We regrouped once we hit Tok and realized we'd have to add at least two days to our travels if we went up the Dempster...so we decided to head to Skagway and hit the gold rush towns.

So - here is our route (this blog is mostly for the purposes of helping me remember in the future when I scrap it, I'll add our photos and more information as the week goes by)

We left last Sunday in the afternoon and drove up out as far as the Tok Cutoff. We found a great little gravel pit to stay the night in. To our surprise, we only got the tiniest bit of rain and by the morning our tent was dry. We weren't sure what to expect for Taylor Highway conditions at that point, so we decided to head up to Tok and find out what the road was like.

I love Tok - it's such a cute little town. It's like Delta Junction - feels like the midwest in the middle of Alaska. Does it get any better than that? As I mentioned earlier - Tok is where we made our decision to head on down the road to Skagway and then up to Dawson City. The weather was just perfect and we headed down the Alaska Highway toward Kluane Lake.

We did plenty of stopping along the way and took our time driving across the highway. It was great doing this drive during the day as I felt like I'd missed so much when we drove through in the dark in July. We checked out a campground or two when we got to the lake, and finally settled on a "make your own site" right on the lake. We all slept great that night with the sound of the lake lapping the shore and just a bit of wind lulling us to sleep.

Kluane Lake is amazing. It's 150 square miles on greenish blue lake that just goes on and on. Stacey and I had a great time walking along the shore and the boys played in the dirt with Matthew. Of course we saw these signs at one of the campgrounds we checked out and I got completely freaked out about bears. The sign said that the area we were camping in was full of soap berries which apparently bears really like. Naturally we squatted our tent down right on top of a whole crop of soapberries. UGH! We didn't see any sign of bear (at all at this spot) but I kept my eye out just the same. Why can't bears just plan to stay away from me in general?

Again we were blessed with great weather (though it was a tad chilly) and headed out the next morning for Skagway. The drive down into Skagway is like you're heading into Mordor or some other mythical place. When we drove down, the fog was sitting in and it was getting misty out. I thought for sure we'd have rain once we got into the valley by the water. But once again - I was wrong.

Skagway is a great little tourist town that totally caters to cruise ships. There were four docked when we got there Tuesday evening and four when we left Wednesday morning. We took our time checking out the little town on Tuesday and did a little bit of shopping. Then we headed out to check out the town site of Dyea (the famous Klondike city where the Chilkoot trail begins) and tried to look for a camping site along the less traveled road and came back empty handed.

When we were crossing the bridge to come back into Dyea, we noticed a guy stuck in the middle of the river with his truck buried deep in water. We had a fun 'hero moment' watching Dan pull the guy out with his wench. This of course leaves John with much wench envy (and I'm talking about the kind you mount on a bumper) so we'll probably have one before too long!

We finally settled on camping in a campground and didn't get to unpacking to stay until after 9:00. This south in Alaska, it was dark much earlier than we are used to and we hadn't anticipated that. As we were getting dinner ready (of course we had to have salmon that night) the camp host came around and gave us some information on the area. She also had to tell us (again we had salmon that night) that there had been many bears in the area and one had taken a swipe at a tent two nights before. great. just. great.

Of course this put me in hyper clean up mode and I was cloroxing everything down and looking for little bits of food. We stayed up late talking that night and I think it was because we were a bit scared of going into our tents. Dan had a few hammers for fossil hunting tucked into his truck, so we went to bed each holding a hammer. I had a hard time sleeping that night - every sound was a bear trying to get into my tent and every stick breaking was a bear coming. John fell right asleep and snored away. Sigh.

The Cracked Pot

A recent email forwarded to me had this sweet story:

An elderly Indian woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream, "I am ashamed of myself because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
SO, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!

Hopefully I just look young!

I called a dear friend today in my car on the way to Target. I didn't really want to go in the store while I was speaking with her, and my car was too hot to sit in while I talked, so I sat outside the store on a bench and talked with her.

While I was talking with her, a group of kids (10 or so) walked into Target just as I laughed at a story she was telling me. One of the boys in the group mocked my laughter and I looked up at the kids as they walked in. One of the girls that was in the group said "don't mind him, he doesn't know what he's saying" and I must have been glaring at them because then she says "and don't roll your eyes at me."

Wow - I am at least 15 years older than this group of kids, since when is it okay to mock an adult and then tell them not to roll your eyes at them? Seriously! Maybe being rude to your peers is acceptable, but it seems many of this younger group no longer have respect for adults. I didn't say anything to them, mainly because I was one the phone and couldn't think of anything to come back with that wasn't as rude as what they had done. Weird - I'm hoping that it's just because I look like I'm not much older than they are...but I doubt it as I'm fairly certain I look exactly as old as I am!

I'm going to have to start walking around teaching kids manners. Hmmmm.....where to start!?

Family Trip

John and I got home from our Family Adventure on Monday morning. We had a great time seeing my siblings and parents and several of my cousins and their kids.

We arrived in Denver on Wednesday morning, and my sister Beth and her three girls picked us up and drove us to Colorado Springs where my parents live. We spent the day trying to stay awake and getting dinner together for the little BBQ we had with my other sister Jeni and her boyfriend and his kids.

Here's John with my little niece Amanda - playing at my parent's house.


Thursday we had a good time hanging with the kids and Beth at Whit's End at FOTF and then doing some shopping to get ready for our Nebraska adventure!


Friday morning we got up early and jumped in the car for the eight hour trip to Nebraska. We met my brother and his little girls (YAY!) in Valentine and then headed over to my Grandma's house where we met a bunch of cousin's and even more of our cousin's kids.

We had such a great time catching up with family and floating on the Niobrara River. That was an adventure in itself...making it down the river with our drenched selves and surviving the wind, rain and cold that was the weather!

It's always good to see family and catch up - the trip was too short and we were exhausted on the plane ride home Sunday night.

Alyssa, me, Beth and Anna at Whit's End trying on the costumes.

Bailee being as cute as she can be

The freckle queens together again! Steph and Jayden

Beautiful Weekend

It was a great weekend here in Anchorage - the sun was out all weekend and we hit the high 70's - that ain't bad for May! :) we could definitely use some rain, especially now that there are forest fires and the smoke is getting a little thick, but I really can't complain about the sunshine. I had a great time with family visiting early in the week and then the fun weekend.

My friend and I are planning to walk a 1/2 marathon, so we spent time 'training' for the walk, today we walked 6 miles. The training couldn't have come at a better time since we just started a contest at work. We all bought the same pedometers that can't be cheated and keep track of data to download into the computer. The grand prize for the most steps between now and a date in August is $300 with second place receiving $150. I'm hoping to win - I can think of a few somethings I can buy with that prize money!

I put out my flowers today and it always energizes me for summer. I'm not sure if I'll do my usual baskets in the front of the house, but I bought a basket and window box arrangement for the front of our unit, and filled the pots I have along the side of the house. The pots look cute, and I can't wait for them to fill in. Each year I try to do the flowers a bit more inexpensively, but this year I had a gift card to Bells so I splurged on the hanging basket.

Fun with John

Our 7th anniversary is on May 24, but since John and I both work that day and we have opposite schedules, we thought we'd get away this week. I reserved a room for us at the Lake Louise Lodge for a couple of nights and off we went.

Lake Louise is about 20 miles south and 17 miles west of Glennallen. The night we got to the lodge it was pouring and I thought we might have a "weekend" in just hanging out around the lodge. I've confessed on here that we have a great time at hotels because we love watching cable and get stuck on HGTV and Discovery Channel forever...this hotel didn't have cable let along TVs in the room - so he were forced to talk with each other. What a drag - ha! :)

On Thursday we woke up to a beautiful day and decided to drive to Delta Junction since I've never been there. It was a beautiful drive and Delta was a cute little town - very midwestern which was strange considering it was interior Alaska. We spent a few hours strolling around town and checking out the 'hot' spots and then headed back to Lake Louise. We are addicted to the "Milepost" and treated ourselves to a new copy for this trip. I'm glad we got a new one - there were updates and the one we'd been using was about 15 years old. For you un-Alaskan's the Milepost is basically a bible for traveling on Alaska's roads. As you've probably guessed from the title, it is a mile by mile description of what you'll see on the way.

We headed back to Anchorage on Friday and planned our next trip on the way. We're trying to plan a trip to the lower 48 - driving around the west coast or something. We've got to get serious and decide where we'd like to go and when we'd like to go, etc. We love road trips - good time for all!

Happy Anniversary, love of my life, you're still the best husband I ever had! :)

Psalm 23

Psalm 23 (The Message)

God, my shepherd!
I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
You find me quiet pools to drink from
True to your word,
You let me catch my breath
And send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through
Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
When you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
Makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six-course dinner
Right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
My cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me
Every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of GOD
For the rest of my life.

Bella

I've been making noise about getting a dog for a few months now. I've done my research and have narrowed it down to the perfect dog for us - medium-sized, able to walk for miles, happy with a smallish yard, non-shedding and energetic but not so energetic that it eats my house.

I came to John with the best breed for us and the places that we can buy it and he reminded me we already have a dog. Oh yeah, we already have a dog. Bella. Three years ago, I picked up a Shih-Tzu puppy for my MIL at my mom's house - it was buy one get one free day so I came home with two. Since we were taking care of my sister's dogs (who aren't very dog-friendly) my MIL agreed that she would raise both of the puppies until my sister's dogs moved out.

The dogs moved out.

And Bella stayed at my MIL's house.

I felt so bad about taking Bella from her little sister Izzy - they were attached at the hip and were a package deal. But when I started thinking I really wanted a dog and John reminded me we technically had one, I thought maybe it was time for Bella to come home .

We are at day four of the great dog exchange - so far both girls seem to be adjusting to life as top dog - and are SO happy to see each other at play dates. I don't think they've yet gone a day without seeing each other. Bella will visit my MIL...I mean...Izzy on days I work and John sleeps (this is part of the shared custody agreement). I hope that the dogs don't hate us for breaking them up and that they understand that people need pets. it's the law!

Mini Family Reunion

My family lives all across the US. My brother and bil are both in the military, so this causes lots of moving across the country and the world. Right now, all of my family (John and I excluded) live in square states, specifically: Colorado, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

When my little sister, who lives in OK, is going to be in Colorado, I try to meet her at my parent's house. This is sort of a 'central' place to meet...and Alaska Air flies to Denver (YAY!). She's going to be there in June so John and I are heading down there to be with family. It will be a very short trip for us...but that's nothing new. My sister and I got our brains together and decided we wanted to go visit our brother (who lives in NE) and our grandmother while we were 'close.'

Then we thought to ourselves, why don't we see if any other cousins (all of them live in NE except for our family) want to meet us at Grandma's while we're there. This has turned into a full blown mini family reunion. I am so very excited. So far we know that my sister and her girls, my brother and his family, my parents and two of my other cousins are going to join us in Valentine, NE. We're planning to tube the Niobrara (which I am totally excited about) and just hang out visiting with family.

I LOVE Nebraska summers. Yes, it will be flipping hot (we were there in May a couple of years ago and it was 96, and this is a month later) - but that's what water and sunscreen are for. You just can' t beat those summer nights when it's dark and warm and there are cicadas chirping and lightening bugs flying around...ahhhh...watermelon that tastes like something...warm tomatoes...I could go on. The point is - I'm really looking forward to time with family and time in the sun.

One of those moods

Ever get in a 'mood' that you can't put your finger on? You're not really sad, but not happy; not content, but not discontent; not tired, but not really bright and shiny...etc. I'm there. Can't really label what the feeling is, but just sort of blah.

I did have a good weekend - it was busy, but it was great. John and I went for a bike ride Friday morning and then spent the rest of the day working on projects around the house. We cleaned the garage and worked on the yard...for some reason I really like yard work, can't put my finger on it, but I do.

I was in the Heart Run on Saturday (see my picture here - it was in the paper: http://www.adn.com/2010/04/24/1248735/2010-heart-run.html#id=1248729&view=large_view) and then I had to work on Saturday afternoon at the Women's Show.

Sunday, after church, my friend and I did some shopping and hung out some. Then of course I watched Amazing Race. My cowboys are still in it - maybe they'll win Maggie! Wouldn't that be the best?

Suuuuuprise, suuuuuprise, suuuuuprise!

My friends and I pulled off the best surprise this weekend. My friend, Rebecca, is pregnant and due in July. I thought it would be fun to have a surprise shower for her, but didn't want to wait too long into our summer as people tend to travel around quite a bit and not show up for things if it's nice out. SO, we threw a super early shower and totally surprised her.

My friend, Amy, was in charge of inviting Rebecca to breakfast and then bringing her to the party. She talked Rebecca into helping her carry some stuff into the party and we all did the ole "SURPRISE" act. It was great - Rebecca pointed to Amy and said "surprise!" she thought for sure the party must be for Amy since Amy's birthday is tomorrow. It was too cute.

The party was a success, I think people had fun and Rebecca was blessed with lots of goodies for her new little one...he or she, whichever it may be!

There's more...I met a friend for coffee and then came home for an hour or two. John woke up and we headed off to a birthday party our friends threw for John, Amy and me. It was great hanging out with good friends and having great BBQ!

Alaska Break Wrap Up

John and I went "outside" for about a week. We really had a relaxing time away from home visiting family and other places, and we came back to an Anchorage that was melting away!! YAY!

We started our trip by going to Portland for a couple of days - we attended a conference our adoption agency hosted. The conference was amazing, so many great stories, so many wonderful people - all in the same place we are. There were six other couples at the conference, so it was intimate, and we got to know each other pretty well. We had some one-on-one time with the director of our agency and I feel more secure that we made the right decision choosing the agency that we did.

John and I spent our "off-conference" time walking around to every store we could reasonably walk to - we clocked 2 miles on my pedometer in Ikea alone! :) And of course we watched a ton of TV as we are both hopeless cable addicts (thus the lack of it in our own home - well that and we're cheap). The hotel we stayed in was so nice - probably the nicest we've stayed in, here in the US, and probably the nicest we'll ever get to afford again! :) Once our little one comes to be with us, I'm sure funds will be shifted elsewhere!

After our few days in Portland we head to Colorado Springs to spend time with my family. It was such a relaxing time hanging with my parents and seeing my sister (finally met her new boyfriend) and we celebrated my birthday with brunch.

When we got home, we had a really exciting surprise. Our friends who are moving to Ohio came and stayed with us for a couple of days while they finished some last minute running around. I know that they didn't anticipate the extra day - but I loved every extra minute we got with them.

Not feeling so sorry for myself

John and I spent Friday out near Talkeetna snow machining with our friend. We took a wood burning stove out to his cabin (really it's a house) that has the most amazing view of Mt. McKinley. I'm hoping I can spend some time out there this summer, you can't get there by driving, so it's really off the beaten track and I love going out there.

I was sort of worried about my poor little knee being all scrunched up on the back of a snow machine all day, but it didn't do so bad. I was able to go for three walks over the weekend, so I really can't complain about my knee - and I'm so thankful. Thank you, Lord, for healing that bad ol'e knee...I'm thankful for body parts that work.

We went out to dinner on Friday night with John's parents and cousins for John's 31st birthday. He's such an old guy now! :) I love that he's getting into his 30s along with me, I don't want to be there by myself. We also went out on Saturday night as a church - we all went to the Golden Trough (ahem, I mean Golden Corral). I had a great time talking with so many people that I don't always get the change to spend time with.

It was a great weekend, full of fun stuff and not so fun stuff - we had to officially say goodbye to our friends as they're leaving while we're out of town. I'm trying not to cry about that...I need some more friends! And of course trying not to stress/worry/fret over the decision our government is making with health care. I can't worry - know why? God tells me not to worry, that he cares about the lillies in the field and feeds the birds - he has me in his hands.

It's also important to note that Jeff and Jordan were booted off Amazing Race tonight...so so sad...boo...maybe the cowboys will win!

My Knee

Warning: this is a mostly whiny blog! :)

About a month ago, I injured both my knees. I have no idea what happened to make them hurt so badly, but after a jog/walk at the Dome with my friend, I noticed that both knees were aching. This disintegrated into full blown pain. I had been increasing the miles I was running on the treadmill, and I suspect that the additional running on the hard ground was the culprit.

Anyway...you may not know it by looking at me ;) but I'm a fairly active girl. Being grounded for the last month with knee pain has really been hard for me. I had no idea how much I relied on exercise for stress relief until this happened, and I am so ready to get back to it.

The trouble is that I have a tendency to jump into things and push too hard. When I've been ill, for example, I don't ease back into things, I jump in head first and often crash hard. I need my knees to work for the rest of my life - I need to be easy on them.

This week marks my first 2 real walks since "the incident" and I hope to get in a couple more walks as the week go by. Hopefully getting in a few walks of 2 or 3 miles will help me manage stress, get outside, get some endorphins pumping and ease me back into my normal workout regime.

My friend's moving...boohoo...

Two of my very close friends are moving this spring/summer. One of the families that John and I have grown very close to are getting out of the military and moving to Ohio. I will miss them and their three little daughters more than I can say. At first I didn't want to be friends with them because they were in the military and I knew they would be moving, so I'm sad that I hesitated, because we have found such friendship with them.

My other friend, Mel, is moving sometime at the end of the summer. She has been part of my life for 12 years now, and has been a big part of my personal cheering team for the last few years. She's my biking/hiking/walking/rollerblading partner and I will miss her. For now I'm totally ignoring that she's moving to Arizona...and I'm focusing all my pity parties on the Resz family moving.

So here's my list of things I like about Christan and her sweet family:

1. Christan is one of the most real people I have ever known. She doesn't pretend she's okay when she's not; she talks about real things she struggles with.

2. She listens when I share my heart and offers encouraging words

3. I can hang out with her for hours and even if we don't do anything it's just good to be with her.

4. She's a great mom - I love watching her with her girls.

5. She understands some of the struggles I have because she too deals with them, I feel like I can say anything to her and she isn't going to judge me.

6. She has great hair!

7. She has a sweet laid back spirit that I find myself longing for, trusting that God has things in his hands and she doesn't need to worry about what He is doing.

I know there are more, but since I'm still pretending they are not moving, I'll leave it at that.

Friday Fun Day

Because of John's weird schedule (he works nights and is off of work W, Th, Fr) and I work days and am off Fr, Sa. Sun., you can see that there is a bit of a conflict for us to find quality time together. This leads us to be extremely protective of our one little day off together.

I try to let John sleep in and then we usually hang out in our PJs until 12:00 or so and ease into the day. Today was no different, and I love that about Fridays. We just hung out all morning, planned vacation time in May and did some cleaning in the house. In the afternoon we went to the dog park with my mother in law and the dogs and then did some shopping.

It's just the best hanging out with John, seriously. I'm thankful we enjoy each others company, I guess I'm just feeling all warm and fuzzy that i get to live with my best friend!

The trouble with Facebook

You know how it goes - you want to have a party, but you only invite a couple of your friends. You have a night of games planned, but can only accommodate five people. You would love to host all of your wonderful friends, but don't have the energy to worry about introducing this group to that group.

Back in the old days - I wasn't aware of when I wasn't being invited to social functions that my other friends were going to - and they weren't aware when I didn't invite them. It's not that I didn't want to hang out with them, or they didn't want to hang out with me, and it's not that I wanted to keep events a secret, but sometimes the situation doesn't call for everyone you know to be invited.

Here's the rub with Facebook - I am now fully aware of when I haven't been invited to a social function that everyone else in my circle attended. Bummer. I see the pictures - and even if I don't happen to see the old "had so much fun at _____'s party last night" status roll on by, I might see someone else get tagged in a photo, a wall post about the food or a more general buzz on good ole FB.

Sure - I'm 33 and shouldn't be too offended when I don't get invited to every little thing. It's true that I have had my share of get togethers that for whatever reason, people miss. And it's also true that John and I tend to glom on to particular friends for a while and other relationships miss out on our awesomeness (I am so gonna miss our dear friends that are moving next month and we took entirely too long to connect with, boo). And our weird schedules (well, John's weird schedule) makes it hard to plan for much time with our friends because we're doing our best to make sure we get time together.

So WHY do my feelings till get hurt when I see that a party happened and I didn't even get the chance to say I couldn't come? I mean, at least give me the chance to make an excuse about why I can't attend! :)

Hey - a day off!

I took today off to stay home with John. yesterday was a very stressful day for him. I'd love to go into details here, but I can't really do that, because of the job that he has...so I'll just say it was high stress. He's doing fine, but I thought it might be nice for him to come home to someone, so I took the day off! YAY us!

I slept in - a rare treat since I'm an early riser - and when John got home we headed to the shooting range with a couple of his buddies who graduated from the Academy with him. One of them brought their wife, so we had a good time shooting and trying to pretend we knew what we were doing.

Then we came home and basically napped all day - how do you like that? we are two lazy people...at least we were today. I tried to talk John into doing something (anything) all day long, but for some reason he was really into sleeping - might have something to do with him working all night, I don't really know! :)

Ladies Day

I just had the most fun day with my friend, Christan. We are busy shoving as much time as possible into the next few weeks since her family will be moving to the lower 48 in May or June. I will miss her terribly, and will really miss watching her sweet little girls grow up, and John will miss her husband - his favorite nerdy home school friend!

In light of them moving away from us so soon, we have been doing as much as we can together. Today we met at the salon (where Christan was getting her hair chopped, btw, it looks GREAT), and it took longer to get there than usual because of Fur Rondy...today was the parade and downtown was a complete zoo. After Christan's beautifying, we headed to the mall for some fun shopping. We got in on some great deals at Pennys (I won't say how much I spent, but I saved $93.95!!) and then headed to Glacier Brewhouse for lunch. I was very disappointed in them today, and they are usually by far my favorite restaurant. They were slow and when we finally got our lunch they brought me the wrong thing...they ended up comping our dessert, but neither of us were very interested in dessert ... bah!

Then after lunch we saw Chicago - the Musical! It was so fun. SO not what you'd want to bring your husband to (oops ending a sentence with a preposition). Seriously. Way too many girls dancing around in their not so covering outfits! But for a girls night, it was fun and the music is hilarious, we had a great time.

Now I'm home and John and I are debating dinner - whether or not I'll even eat (I'm still full) and what he will eat!

John got his first beaver out of his traps yesterday. He set 4 traps and only got his beaver, but at least he got something. he's working away at trying to tan it - and pretty darn proud of himself. I'm proud of him too - where else but Alaska can you trap and tan a beaver!?

Oops-a-Daisy

John left last night to head to Cantwell and check on some traps 'we' set last week. I went along with him to set the traps, but mostly stood around trying not to fall on the ice while he and our friend set the traps. This week I didn't go because of work and other obligations, so John headed up all by his lonesome.

Normally, it's a bit depressing being in the house all by myself, but I was sort of looking forward to the time alone to get some cleaning and crafting done. It's hard to do the noisy cleaning with our schedules - my days off are usually spent doing light cleaning and either trying to stay out of the house or trying to be quiet so John can sleep. So - having the house to myself for these projects was something that I thought I'd enjoy.

I had an industrious morning. I got up and got some laundry moving, cleaned the bedroom, did some of the noisy cleaning, and went over to my in-laws to pick up our half of the Full Circle Farms order.

When I got back to our house around 11:30 with the order, I went in and set it on the bench and then headed back outside to get the latest load of laundry out of the dryer. I came back with the load and - wait - what's this? The door was locked. L O C K E D. WhAT?

Okay, I say to myself, calm down, just call John. Oh yeah, he's out of town. Just call your MIL, okay, right I call her. Wait - where's my cell. Oh right - in my house, locked in my house. Fab.

So I walk next door and use my neighbors phone, his phone smelled gross, and call my MIL. She doesn't answer so I decide I'll walk over there. I am SO glad I had my shoes on, and that I'd thought to wear a sweatshirt, because seriously? it was freezing out. I wogged over to her house and she gave me a ride home and unlocked my little house.

It could have been so much worse, she could have not been home...and then what? I walked over there for nothing? Where would I have gone/ I guess I could have sat in the laundry room and waited for...? John to come home in the middle of the night tonight? Crazy...

Before more time goes by

I'm not that good at blogging...obviously. There are lots of things going on right now, but I'm not sure yet if I feel comfortable blurting them out on the internet for eternity. So I've been quiet.

Some things that I don't mind blurting:
- I love my job - I've been here a year now, and I really like what the organization stands for, the work that they do, and the part I have in that work.

- I am way to excited for summer to get here...WAY too excited.

- John is loving his job too, he's getting more and more confident in it each week.

- We have lots of irons in the fire....lots.

- I have theories on things, maybe some day I'll do the research to back them up

- My knee hurts, I've been trying to "take it easy" but it's not as "easy" as it sounds. I walked for 15 minutes on the treadmill yesterday and it's sore today. This is espeically hard when you're used to working out 5 or 6 times a week. But I won't whine...at least I'm still ambulatory.

- I'm hungry.