Too Much Excitement for Small Town Alaska

Today, it was very hazy outside, I assume from smoke. I stepped outside and was shocked at how warm it felt. It was over 60F, and it felt...muggy. It was an odd weather pattern for Homer. It stayed warm like that all day. When I checked the temperature at 7:30pm, it was almost 70, despite the cloudy skies.

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In other news, I am appalled today, at what has occurred in the past 24 hours. The shooting at the Dark Knight Rises showing is horrible. I feel so bad for the families of the victims and wounded. A thought that continued to cross my mind today was also..compassion for the shooter. I expect that is an uncommon reaction to this situation, but what on earth happened to the guy to convince him that what he did was a good idea? =/

And then, in Alaska this week, last week, we had a local man shot to death in his house, and I assume there are no suspects. On July 10, we had a float plane crash into Beluga Lake killing a woman on board. Then, this past Sunday, a lady drove erratically down the highway, and ended up in a shootout with a trooper, and the highway was closed for several hours. Today, a man kidnapped and carjacked an 18 year old in Anchorage, made the kid drive down the highway, and the kid ended up escaping and driving back to Anchorage, leaving the kidnapper there. The highway was on lockdown for a few hours and the kidnapper is still at large at this point in time.

What the heck is going on down here on my peaceful Peninsula?!

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Many evenings in the past several weeks have been spent watching Mases stream on Twitch. It is fun to watch him stream random old games and interact with the chat, including participants we enjoyed getting to know during our marathon. It's been a fun way to relax after a long day.

We went to the beach two nights ago with the youth group. It was lots of fun, and the weather was lovely down there! I love going to the beach when it is actually warm!

The week previous, I played volleyball for the first time in years, and from my first hit, it was a baaad idea. I hit the ball many times in over an hour and by the end, my arms were very red and they hurt quite badly. By the next morning, the blood rushing down my arms when they were below my heart was quite painful, they were still red and covered in small purple dots..apparently a common occurrence when playing volleyball after your arms are not used to it. Over a week later, the pain is pretty much completely gone, but I bruised pretty good in a few places. It looked bad :P

This past Tuesday was lovely. It was really warm (for here!) and the sun was shining! We ended up going to finally see Brave. It was a matinee showing and we arrived later than we planned, but there was only one family inside the theater with us at first....so we grabbed an open couch (yay!) and settled in. We enjoyed it, laughing throughout and crying at the end. I thought it was a bit much for young viewers. I was impressed that Disney actually had TWO parents for Merida, though the men were stereotypically silly. I'm glad we saw it :)

Welp, that's what's been on my mind lately :)

Thoughts from my Weekend in Retail

Ahh life. Today is officially what my boss calls "the halfway point" of the summer season at work. May 1 to July 15 to September 30. Seems much farther along than that, but it feels good to be half done!

Working with the public tends to make a lot of workers cynical and jaded, as well as easily annoyed. I, unfortunately, count myself into this group. But every once in a while, you encounter customers that really make your day great. Yesterday morning, I had two separate, older tourist couples in the same few minute time period that I really enjoyed talking to. They asked intelligent questions and also had a lot of interesting things to say. When one of them came back an hour later, we continued our discussion. Those are the times that I love working retail!

And then you get the weird questions/comments. Here are some from this weekend.

"Is there a deli nearby to get a cup of soup?" Mmmmm...no. The man was genuinely disappointed at the thought of traveling a ways to get to the grocery store, and at the lack of restaurants open nearby. Welcome to small town living :)

Fireweed, our lovely pink weed, can be made into jelly and honey, and both are very good. Apparently there is a plant in the Lower 48 also called fireweed that is named because it burns the skin or something. Completely different plant. But I have had many customers shy away from the fireweed products because they expect that it will be hot and it could not be further from the truth. Fireweed is a very sweet, light tasting flavor. I had someone today decide against trying fireweed because they thought it would be "hot".

There is a caribou head mounted onto the wall in the store and I had a man this morning call out to his friend, "Have you seen this moos?" I suppose it could be an easily made mistake...

"Are the pretzels salt free?" No...isn't that what makes pretzels taste good? And if you are going to eat chocolate, something that isn't super healthy for you, why bother with lower salt content?

On a similar note, if you see chocolate covered bacon, why on earth would you assume it is low fat bacon?

My favorite from yesterday: A customer was asking about food caches, and was curious if they were houses for bald eagles. Funny thought right there!

I noticed a man sitting on one our many "husband" benches around the store, but paid no attention. Several minutes later, I walked by and realized his baseball cap was over his eyes and he was taking a nap :) No one bothered him, and he woke up a while later, and I overheard him telling his family that it was refreshing :)

A saying seen today: "Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?"

I get asked countless questions every day, but there are couple that people continue to ask me and I am almost dumbfounded sometimes by them.

I tell people where the restroom is many, many times a day. Most of the time, it is a generic, "Where is your restroom?" but every once in a while, usually kids but not always, I get, "Do you know where the bathroom is?" To which I sarcastically want to reply with, "No, I just work here."

Along similar lines....I have gotten asked more times that I can count, the genius question of: "Do you work here?" No...I just like to wear this uniform and stand behind this counter for entertainment!!

In other news, apparently this is the coldest July on record so far, at least for Anchorage. Upon reflection, it HAS been a cold summer so far, and pretty dreary. This morning, the clouds were quite oppressive and it looked like a winter morning outside since it was so dark. It poured rain all day and eventually lightened up a bit, but it was depressing for a while!

Rain and Volcanoes

C on the trip home :)

This morning, C was debating about riding his bike to work. I looked outside and proclaimed that it looked like rain. He reluctantly drove as I looked at the forecast. "Chance of showers", which I thought was baloney, looking at the sky. Sure enough, half hour later, it started to rain. Soon, it started to pour. And it continued all day long. A "chance" for sure.

Got off work and proceeded to shoot macro shots of water droplets on flowers and plants. I soon realized that I was getting a bit wet, but continued. I went home and then did the same, but quickly realized that I was genuinely soaked! I'd only been outside 15 minutes tops! I quickly changed into more comfortable clothes, but I was pretty surprised.

In other news, we had this couple in today that were a bit hard to work with. When I was ringing them up, the wife asks me, "Are you from here?" which is a common question tourists ask. My reply of "Yes, I am" usually elicits an exclamation of jealousy or other positive responses. This lady replied with, "Oh" in a rather disappointed tone. It threw me off a bit, but I continued what I was doing. And then she says to me:
"When is volcano season?"
"When Mother Nature decides it is."
"No, really, when is it?"

I managed to keep a straight face as her husband realized that volcanic eruptions are not on a cycle. And then they were gone and I burst out laughing.

Now that it's my weekend (already!) I have been taking  care of things I neglected since we came home - the budget, opening the mail and paying some bills. Nice to finally get some things done, instead of being so obsessed and focused on editing trip photos. Hopefully I can get to blogging those tomorrow!

Back from Chicago

We got home from our much needed trip on Tuesday evening and I immediately hit the ground running with photo editing to get it all done. I had hundreds of photos to edit despite having edited hundreds of other while away. Turns out it is so much easier to edit on a desktop computer instead of a netbook ;)

It was so nice to sleep in our own bed when we got home. We got very little sleep while we were gone and since then, (not sure about C) I know that I have gotten lots of restful sleep, probably trying to catch up, but it's felt super nice. The weeds in the lawn were taking over, so we took care of that last night finally. Our Alaskan summer has officially started...it's been wonderful weather since we arrived home. It was 70F when I got home from work at 7:30 tonight :) Rode my bike to work and it was a lovely, warm ride for the first time this year. I stopped on the way home to take my first lupine photos of the season as well.

I keep gushing to people in person about this, so I have to say it for the record. I am so glad we went on this trip. I needed a vacation so badly, and I didn't realize how good it would be for me to get out of work and this town. A few hours after we arrived, I realized how carefree I felt and the huge weight from work was gone. It was excellent! In fact, the trip was so relaxing (for me at least) that I didn't want to come home. It was a strange feeling to not be looking forward to coming home, but I was content where I was. Once we got to the airport to head home, though, I was ready to be on my way.

The other thing I want to say is that I had a blast. It was tons of fun seeing our internet friends and we fit right into the camaraderie immediately. The marathon event was tons of fun, from the antics of the other people there to the fun chat we had to interact with. After the 5 day marathon was finished, we did all kinds of fun things as a group. It was my most favorite trip, just because nearly every moment was entertaining and fun, and it will be hard to top it, next time :)

I was concerned that I was to be the only girl there. I thought I would be going stir crazy with no girl to chat with all the time, but I was fine. I am usually quiet in groups of more than 3 people, for the most part, but with 9 of us there, I was more vocal than I usually am, so that was nice too.

I will be doing some trip recaps here in the hopefully very near future. The current goal is to get the photos finished and then I can focus on blogging. I've been itching to blog as much as I've been itching to edit the images, but the photos won out because they require less thought :)

It's June Already!

I'm having a hard time believing it is June already! For one thing, our weather has been less than stellar so far this summer. It was nice and warm in April and then May left a lot to be desired. We've had lots of gloomy days since then. On Tuesday, I had my first day off in weeks that was actually beautiful and warm all day. A couple weeks back, it wasn't sunny, but the temperature was nice. This week was warm and sunny with blue skies all day. I watched the Venus transit from my yard with a lawn chair and enjoyed every minute :)

Tuesday morning, I went out on the Spit to explore the shops that were not open a couple of weeks ago. There are some wonderful items that I would love to purchase out there (that I don't need :P) but I went with a mission in mind of getting a sweatshirt and I found one that I adore. I'll post a photo of it soon.

C had a cold over Memorial weekend and I was praying that I wouldn't receive the gift, but I did. *sigh* So I battled it for a week, and I am finally feeling better, but by Tuesday evening, I felt terrible. It put a kink into some socializing plans [:(] but I'm glad that I postponed them, especially because it poured rain on Wednesday!

I had a productive weekend though, getting ready for our upcoming trip and cleaning the house like crazy, which is so satisfying :) More details on the trip to come...

Can't it Slow Down for a Minute?!

It's amazing how life suddenly starts going without any chance of slowing down in sight. For the past month, I have been in a daze of work and life, struggling to stay afloat, really. I was sick for 2 weeks, and it hung on for another week for the most part. I was healthy for a week, and then a week ago Friday, I woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach bug of some kind (I'm thinking food poisoning) effectively forcing me to slow down. I had plans for that day to be going from 9am to 11pm with no breaks in between, and I missed out on everything I had lined up for the day.

I recovered by late afternoon and felt much better by bedtime. I worked Saturday and felt even better as the day went on. Can't really miss more than a day of work when sick pay is nonexistent :)

 My silly pinwheel that turns when the heater is blowing. Puts a smile on my face :P

Last week, we had a family dinner at my in laws' house. My husband's brother was in town for a month and the sibling out of town flew into town for less than 24 hours and we had a nice family dinner with all seven children under one roof for the first time in years.

 When I was sick last week, before I realized that something was wrong with myself, I had two panic attacks, one worse than the other. Looking up the symptoms for a true panic attack, I don't think I was having a diagnosable one, but I was sure stressed out. I thought maybe I had stressed myself into being sick from work responsibilities, but some of my symptoms of the bug were a bit hard to fake :) So anyway, I basically wound myself up pretty good and stayed high strung for several days.

One Lord Sunday - March 18, 2012, Homer High School Gym

Tuesday, I was pretty unbearable to live with, I think. As a child, I would stress over something, and then cry it out and it would all be fine. I was a sensitive one and cried pretty frequently. Growing older, I still cried easily, but not as often. It was when we got married, that C started to pick up on a pattern to it all. If I became more needy for attention, whiny, and downright obnoxious, I probably needed a good cry. Probably hormonal, but it was usually not at a set time every month. But generally every month at some point, something will set me off and I will cry for a while, and then everything will be right again. That was Tuesday. I was being obnoxious, starting to drive C crazy, I think, and we both acknowledged that I probably needed some release. Finally, before bedtime, I finally had a cathartic weeping session that went on for an hour, and got all of my stress released from work, life, housework, etc. I felt much better, and C and I both noticed an impressive change in my mood and attitude the next day. Pretty crazy, really. Since then, I have been much less stressed and generally happier (though I am usually a happy person).

Monday evening, I was waiting for the northern lights to appear, blazing in the sky. They never materialized for me. I went out before 11pm, despite there being some daylight still! It was a rather dark evening and the parking lot I chose to camp out in was a bit too crowded and creepy for my tastes, and also included a motorhome!! NO! I ended up going for a drive to search for a less lighted location to watch for the lights, but they never materialized for me (and did not for anyone else in the state either, but the Lower 48 got an excellent show!) and I headed home around 12:30. *sigh*

Wednesday, we drove out to my hometown to change our snow tires with my dad. We bought milkshakes at my favorite restaurant there and enjoyed them in the beautiful sunshine (54 degrees at one point!). C's car ended up causing us a bit of grief. Last fall, one of the studs connecting the tire to the car broke off. Dad bought a new one to replace it with. But all the remaining studs on that section of the car were ornery as well, and 3 more of 5 ended up breaking off! After doing some calling around, I ended up going back to town on a parts buying mission, and then turned around to go back. But it was a beautiful day for a drive. I even ended up turning the A/C on, and I loved sipping on my shake as I journeyed.

The car was put back together without another problem, and C went home. I stayed for a memorial service for a woman I knew growing  up. Had a nice potluck dinner and then conversation and observing of locals from my hometown. It was a nice service and it made me want to hug my loved ones.

Beautiful dog in town :)

I felt a bit silly, while working on the tires. I watched a guy fly down the road on a 4wheeler and thought about how normal that is for my hometown, but in my new town, 4wheeler's aren't supposed to be driven down the streets in town. A silly difference, but it reminded me of the good times I had exploring the area and living the good life in a tiny Alaskan town - playing in puddles, bike riding through town, etc.

Last night, after work, 2 of my coworkers and I went up to my boss's house for dinner. She's still laid up with her broken leg, so we went to her. My coworker of 6 years is moving this weekend, and I worked with her one last time today and then we had a farewell little party for her. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and I will really miss her. Sad to see friends move on, but she is going on a grand adventure and I am excited for her.

So, all this to say, I haven't had much time to think about blogging. I finally got my house clean after 4 weeks on Tuesday! I keep thinking of things I want to talk about, but I never have a chance to sit down and write it out...so hopefully I can again soon!

4th Anniversary Getaway: Land's End Resort

Tiny bedroom

Tuesday night, C and I took off on a "staycation" for our 4th wedding anniversary. I had originally wanted to run up to Anchorage for 4 days, but C couldn't get the day off, and after my boss's injury, it's just as well. Since our anniversary fell on our weekend, we decided to keep it simple and stay close to home.

Looking to the door from the far wall

I have always wanted to stay at Land's End at the end of the Spit, and so we planned on it :) They run a Getaway Special every winter and that is what we booked: a room, dinner, continental breakfast, glasses of wine with dinner, as well as a couple other services that we didn't utilize.

The balcony!

I initially booked the cheapest room I could get - one overlooking the parking lot! WOO! Justification was that a view was around $40 more, we see the view every day, and it would likely be raining/snowing/foggy and we wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. I stuck to my decision, even though I had little wishes of dealing with it and paying more.

Back of the hotel, on the beach

We left Tuesday afternoon for our adventure on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon, effectively wiping out my visions of cloudy skies. We arrived, and the front desk girl ended up upgrading our room for free, for a reason that I didn't catch!!!!!

Chilly beach walk!

We headed up the narrow stairs and to our room with a view!

I....was less than impressed with the room, to be honest. It was tiny, but all the space was used well, so that was fine. But the decor and paint and such just seemed so out of date, like it had not been updated since the 90s. I really didn't care, but I was surprised at how such an "elegant" resort had such unelegant quarters.

Looking at photos online of the better rooms makes me think they are nice looking, so who knows. The bathroom was very tiny and the lighting was terrible in there.

The wing with our room on it

But we had a balcony! And a view! We headed downstairs and outside for a beach walk in the sunshine. It was a bit chilly and windy, but the sunshine was welcome and good company made it nice.

We came back inside after a bit and went downstairs for dinner in the restaurant. We have both eaten there countless times before, but usually for Local's Night (for cheaper fare).

With dinner included in our room rate, I was happy to not inwardly wince at the prices. C decided on a "petite tender steak" - "bacon wrapped steak with a port demi glaze". I chose chicken gnocchi - "grilled chicken with potato pasta, spinach and mushrooms in a blue cheese cream sauce with spiced pecans".

C's steak, potatoes and veggies

We were less enthused about the wine included...we both hate the taste of alcohol. We both were curious to try something new though, so we asked the waiter for some recommendations. I chose an Alaskan Chardonnay from the local Bear Creek Winery and C got a glass of Marietta Old Vine.

My chicken gnocchi

The food was excellent. C's steak was incredibly tender (like a steak is meant to be!) and the mashed potatoes it came with were just divine. They were both of our favorite parts of the meal! My gnocchi was wonderful as well. The wine....was ok. We didn't drink nearly enough of it (so I'm glad we weren't paying for it outright!) I'm sure it was wonderful to others, but I just can't stand that alcoholic flavor :( It was definitely more bearable with food though!

C at the top of the stairs, overlooking the Bay

We ended dinner stuffed to the max and went back up to our room. We watched our yearly dose of TV (we don't have TV at home) and decided it was bed time after a while. I spent a few minutes taking some night photos from the balcony. I was still in the midst of my awful cold and I ended up coughing so much that I kept both of us up for a long while :( We finally fell asleep, but it wasn't too restful (I hate that about being away from home!)

Us on the balcony outside the room

The next morning, we got up at 8 for the continental breakfast downstairs. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was located in the restaurant, and was a decent spread. When we arrived, there was a group of young men there, laughing a bit loudly, but they were the only others in the entire restaurant, and they quickly departed.

The empty restaurant for breakfast

Muffins, bagels, waffles, instant oatmeal, biscuits and gravy, and scrambled eggs were the main foods available (maybe more?) and so we were satisfied. We ate leisurely, with a few more people wandering in as the morning went on, and then we went back upstairs to get ready to check out.

One side of the continental breakfast

All in all, we had a nice stay. I don't know that we will ever stay there again (on our money at least) but it was a nice experience and I'm glad I can recommend it to others. The food was probably the best part :P

Other side of the breakfast

I will say how happy I was with a view room....I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would...though I really should have known it would be important to me since I was constantly gazing outside for wildlife, and watching the sunset and such.

Land's End

It was great to get away and celebrate our relationship, and I'm glad we did it! I'll post another post hopefully tomorrow of more nature photos I took on our getaway, and not just photos of the hotel!

Attempted Beach Walk

The warmth has continued, and we have continued to see 40F this week.

Huge natural snow berms at the beach

I went to the beach with a friend on Tuesday, but it was a bittersweet trip. The beach was full of snow, and I mean FULL! The waves had created humongous natural snow berms. I have never seen the amount of snow on the beach like that day. It was crazy.

I call it a "sheet cake" of snow....another good size pile!

It was impossible to have a leisurely beach walk, as it was all snow, and soft snow is not easy to walk in. It didn't help that some of the piles were several feet high, resulting in sinking boots :)

My friend brought her new Vizsla puppy with her, and she is darling! Despite the awkward conditions on the beach, it was still fun :)

40F!

That's right!! 40F!! Breakup is occurring, and our mountains of snow are melting, which is annoying because winter is nowhere near finished. But it is also so nice to see the sun again, to have above freezing temperatures, and to not need a coat and gloves to go outside!

I went for a beach walk with a friend this morning, which was lovely with no wind. Then I came home and delighted in the sun shining on my deck!

That's right, I read on my deck for a while today in February!

The amount of daylight is quickly increasing, and I suddenly want summer here, after getting a quick taste! How has the weather been where you all are at?