Snow Day = Spa Day

Today it has snowed 12 inches, with another 6 expected overnight. If I can get away with it, I'm hoping the roads won't be plowed tomorrow and I can call it a snow day. Snow days make the perfect spa days. You can sit on your sofa, watching a movie while the snow comes down and let your nail polish dry, something I would never have time for on a weekend with all of my household work to do. Something about snow days makes them seem like found time. But, with the economy in mind and my love of all things sustainable, I'll be making a few of my own scrubs and lotions sans packaging. Apartment Therapy did a recent roundup of their favorite recipes.

Foot Scrub: Mix equal parts granulated sugar and olive oil and rub. From One Happy Panda: To Exfoliate Elbows and Knees: Cut an orange in half and rub. Avocado Facial: Mix 1 tbsp mashed avocado, 1 tsp honey, 3 drops cider vinegar and a little sesame oil. From Natural Homemade Beauty Bath Soaks: Add a cup of strongly brewed peppermint tea to the water for an herbal soak. or Add a few tablespoons of liquid milk or dry milk for a milk bath From Green LIving or Try the recipe we use (Epsom salts and essential oils and new a little bit of glycerin) For Dry Skin: Rub pure coconut milk (not oil, but milk) into skin to battle dry skin. For Puffy Eyes: Use chamomile, green or black tea bags steep them in just boiling water and then refrigerate. Place them over the eyes

I may make it a spa day regardless of the snow. This week at WW weigh-in I hit 5% loss. I was ecstatic and really deserve a reward.

Image from Martha Stewart

Waiting for a Volcano

My family moved to Alaska in 1990, a year after the last volcanic explosion. I remember the Asian tourists wouldn't go outside for all of 1990 without white face masks and people sold souvenir ash in little jars for months. Alaskans are amazed whenever we see the rest of the country paralyzed by natural disasters or cold weather, canceling school and hunkering down at mere -20F temperatures. We have never experienced runs on bleach and double-A batteries in the face of a hurricane.

Our natural disasters usually are of the Earthquake variety, which you don't know are coming and can't dread while watching them advance. We just keep a few canned goods and our typical "stuck in the ditch" survival kit from the car which we use to survive until help comes when we run off the road in the winter avoiding a moose. The most we prepare for is tsunamis in the coastal areas and where to stand/brace/hide in an earthquake. So, knowing that Mt. Redoubt is going to explode in advance is really freaking them out.

The volcanic ash will probably spew 30-50,000 feet and isn't the silty stuff you find in your fire place, but more of abrasive volcanic rock particles. If it gets into the jet stream it could probably give a few frequent fliers some heart-burn. In Anchorage they are making runs on hardware stores buying dust masks, goggles and tarps to cover their cars so their paint jobs won't be messed up when they wash the abrasive ash off. Its not going to be one of those cool lava volcanoes like they have in Hawaii, *sigh* everything is better/warmer in Hawaii. In Fairbanks we don't have anything to worry about, but a few people who moved up from Florida are buying bleach, just in case.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090130/ap_on_re_us/alaska_volcano

12th Day of Christmas

On the 12th Day of Christmas my husband and I breathed a collective *sigh* of relief as we blew out the candles of our Christmas wreath candles, took down our string of Christmas cards off of the wall and sat down to enjoy some homemade ice cream.

If there is one thing about -45F to -50F overnight lows, it definitely speeds up the creation of homemade ice cream. What normally takes a trip to the grocery store to procure or 4-5 hours to freeze when made from scratch and placed in the freezer can be made simply by sticking milk, sugar and vanilla in a pitcher on the back porch for an hour. It has been so cold this week with temperature peaking at -30F, but mostly staying around the -40F to -45 range. So cold your eye-balls hurt just walking to your car. So cold that we haven't gone grocery shopping in 3 weeks because we just want to race home and climb under our down comforter and watch Netflix on my laptop rather than running around grocery shopping or doing other important things like buying socks and sweaters. As the days drag on and the cold front switches to coming from Canada instead of Siberia the most intelligent thing I have thought/realized is that -40F equals -40C so I don't have to do math to tell my friends in Croatia how cold it is, I can universally complain! My poor brain is frozen.

We have long since run out of groceries that we bought with a specific purpose aka a recipe in mind. We are getting increasingly creative/desperate. Last night we made ice cream from scratch out of sheer desperation from our lack of dessert options. (We were soooo spoiled by Christmas choices.) Tonight we made a well balanced dish consisting of rice (starch) with parsley flakes (that's a veg right) and bacon bits (our protein). Mmmmm... Mmmmmm... Tomorrow we may have to actually go shopping because *gasp* we're out of Bisquick and life without waffles just isn't worth living.

Home made Christmas

Our week was simply crazy this week, getting ready for our family Christmas party and other holiday events. Kept up the good eating and went to pilates class, but missed the WW meeting. Maybe I will go to another meeting later in the week. Oh well. 

You can see our Christmas tree from last year above. When we got it out this year to set it up, it just looked so small. Its about 3-3.5' tall. We looked at about 5 different stores in town for a new  Christmas tree. Apparently there is a lack of normal looking trees that aren't sized for a hotel lobby. A 7.5' tree does not fit in a 8' house very well, or at least not with a star on top and a base to stand it on. The only ones we found shorter than 7.5' were all scraggly or flocked with fake snow and glitter or looked more like a topiary bush. Scraggly, not in a good Charlie Brown minimalist Christmas tree way, but in a cheap Made in China way. 

Some may argue that a real tree is the most authentic tree and far more environmentally friendly. I would tend to think that having one good tree like my parents, which sticks around for over 26 years isn't really that bad. But, you should buy a tree that you're willing to stick with if you're going fake. Don't buy a fad blue tree, an upside down tree, a half tree, corner tree, black tree, or fiber-optic tree unless you really really love it. You'll end up throwing it away.

Ultimately, the search for the 30 year tree ended up nowhere. We were so frustrated that we decided to try a real tree this year. We were always scared of real trees, thinking that they cost like $200 and that the cats would drink all the water and after like 3 days we'd be left with a pitiful skeleton of a tree and a pile of needles to vacuum up. I didn't want to put up the tree and then have nothing but ornaments on a sad little dead bush. But, we went to Home Depot and dicovered that their normally $200 trees are on sale for $30-$40 and that each different variety has different characteristics, like how long they retain their needles and how they smell. We'll find a friend with a truck this weekend to go pick one up.

The idea of having a real tree this year is putting me in a mood to make our whole house feel more home-made and traditional. I found patterns for cutting complex snowflakes out of paper and will be spending some fun time tomorrow night snuggled up on the couch with a pair of scissors and my favorite movie at Christmas time White Christmas. If I get tired of snowflakes maybe I'll whip up some popcorn and make some garland. Heh, we'll see how far the home-made Christmas goes.

See Our Brain Cells Aren't Frozen

Election night was miserable for Republicans: They lost the presidency, at least five seats in the Senate, and around 20 seats in the House. They are officially out of power. But for those of us who considered Obama a shoo-in and a democratic wave inevitable, the Republican showing seems almost impressive.


I'm just glad that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska didn't retain his seat long enough to get expelled, because we poor Alaskans are having a hard time convincing our Southern friends/fellow bloggers/anybody that our brain cells aren't frozen up here after exporting Gravel (running for Dem presidential nomination), Palin, and having Stevens and his temperamentally challenged porkmate, Don Young in the news so much.

Don't get me wrong, I love Ted Stevens. Uncle Ted has been good for Alaska. But in the same way that I'm ok with Obama winning even though I didn't vote for him, I'm ok with Steven's not winning even though I voted for him. What? How could I vote for a guy convicted on 7 counts in federal court? Well, the election was only 3,000ish votes apart so I wasn't the only one. To explain to our Southern brethren who think our brains are frozen, I voted against his competitor and for a do-over. His conviction didn't matter. I can ignore it in fact. If I don't want his competitor I should vote for Ted because either A) He is innocent and it would be stupid not to vote for a guy who could appeal and win and retain the only semblance of significance Alaska has or B) He is guilty and he'll be expelled and I'll get a do-over on my vote with better options rather than being stuck with the other guy for 6 years. Alaska law was changed after our last retiring Senator Murkowski ran for Governor, won and appointed his daughter Lisa to his seat. Claims of nepotism abounded and Alaskans said, uh uh, not again and changed our laws so that in case of a vacancy a special election would be held to fill the post. So again, didn't like Begich, so I voted for Stevens assuming I'd either keep an innocent Uncle Ted or get a do-over. Yes, you probably have to be an Alaskan to understand how much the man means to us. Well, actually you could be a West Virginian and think about it in terms of Senator Bird. Ultimately we'll have less powerful representation, but hey, maybe we got a little national cred back when we lost Stevens.

Sarah Palin in Fairbanks

Ok, this is just strange. All the news when I got home was a bunch of reporters waiting in parkas for Sarah Palin to arrive. Hello people, its September not December, the leaves haven't even finished turning. It was colder in London when I was there. The big parkas look ridiculous! It's also a tad surreal to see all this coverage from my home-town which is actually quite small. If you took away the University and the military there would be almost nobody here.

On the way to the wedding this weekend we drove through Wasilla, just like we always do anytime we go through Anchorage. Blip, it went by in less than 10 minutes, but along the way we saw no less than 4 scrolling marquee signs with "Go Sarah!" signs on them. That is one excited town.

I keep getting questions about how we as Alaskans feel. It's not like we all vote as a block and feel the same way about things so I can only speak for myself. I'll do that post soon, when I've had a chance to digest a little more. Oh, and please stop talking about the stupid bridge to nowhere, and if you do please mention that Biden and Obama voted for the funding for the bridge and when given the option to redirect the funding to Katrina relief by Sen. Tom Coburn, they didn't do so. Palin might have originally supported it, but at least she was the one who killed it. Ok, nuff said about stupid bridge.

Surreal about Palin

We returned home Tuesday after what was essentially a media fast. We got the newspaper only twice during our trip to Europe, didn't bring the laptop with us, and didn't activate our cell phones for data. So it was much to my surprise when I walked into the Chicago airport and saw CNN news anchors blathering about Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol being pregnant. Uh, who cares about Alaska all the sudden? I soon found out and have been caught up in the perfect storm of media coverage ever since. It's like if a tiny country in Africa was suddenly in the running for the World Cup being in Alaska right now.

I wasn't really surprised she was chosen as VP, the Russian bloggers have predicted it for at least 6 months. She ticks off a lot of boxes for McCain: conservative, pro-life, pro-NRA, female, known for being anti-corruption, known for being pro-business, and totally non-oldschool Washington. If you were evaluating the ticket as a total package, rather than a "What happens when he keels over?" approach, you would definitely have filled in the gaps with Palin.

I'm still digesting all of the attacks, the weird media coverage (can't they intelligently ask someone who knows how to pronounce simple things like her name or hometown before making yourself look like an ass?), and the fact that my candidate who everybody wrote off last year is at the top of the ticket and my governor is in the #2 spot. It's very surreal, like watching somebody you went to High School with on the news. (Trust me, she's way older, but the analogy holds.)

Weirder still is that watching the convention turned what was a blah election for me, with the presumed election of Barack Obama to look forward to at the end into something exciting to watch. I have a team to cheer for again. I may not agree with my team on several key issues, but its like a family, we talk bad about each other within the family, but we'd never say a bad word and become very defensive when it comes to outsiders attacking. I still think I'll give my honest opinions and disect the ticket later.

And um yeah, vacation blogging didn't happen. We couldn't find free wi-fi except once so I journaled the vacay and will do some posting later. We were moving around so much that it didn't make sense to pay 10 euros every day for wi-fi for our entire stay at a hotel which we were only staying at one day. I have to drive 10 hours to a family wedding this weekend so I'll use that as a chance to catch up with my blogging and picture processing.

Why I Love Expensive Gas

As an Alaskan I enjoy the second highest gas prices in the nation next to California. I currently have a heating oil bill for the months of March, April and May sitting on my desk for $1,510.94. (I'll scan it in if you don't believe me.) And yet, I am happy about the price of oil. I still try to conserve. By biking to work every day I save $2.00 more per day this year than last, but overall that's still money in my pocket. I wanted to do a post on my reasons for loving high gas prices, but the Times already did one for me. So here you go, my top 10 reasons for loving high oil prices. Yes, I acknowledge that there are many negative reasons to hate it as well.

Spring Fever

As I was driving to work yesterday I realized that the sun was shining right in my eyes and I actually needed to put the visor down and was wishing my sunglasses were in my purse. Wow, what a difference an hour makes. I usually head to work at 8, which is still before the sun is up at this time of the year. I worked out on Friday morning so I was heading to work right before 9. It was like plugging my body in and feeling my batteries recharge. I love this time of year when the days are visibly getting longer and I actually have some daylight left after I get off of work. One of the things I miss most about being in college is having time during a weekday to be out and about in the winter, enjoying the little sunlight that we get.

The other impact of all this unshine is my annual spring fever urge to purge has hit. I want my house to feel less like a cacoon which I curl up in to keep warm and comfortable all winter and more like a zen chic, clean modern home with no clutter, no mess, and far less stuff than I currently own. We're still purging items that we inherited over 2 years ago from hubby's Grandmother. After cleaning random bits of the house and setting Roomba to work I had a box of paperbacks and a trash bag of clothes to purge. Probably not enough for a garage sale so I'll be taking them off to charity on Monday. I also got a magazine today which had all sorts of articles on living in smaller spaces and making the most of them. Rather than having a McMansion with lots of space that never gets used with rooms that you barely see week in and week out (aka our current office and laundry/bonus rooms) these homes were designed to be utilized thoroughly with thoughtful design making each space an important part of the house. When I visualize my "dream house" this is totally what I picture, smaller, cozier, and with a very thoughtful design aka The Not So Big House books style.

I kind of have to keep my stuff to a minimum with the move to law school not too far off in the distant future. There is no way I'll be schleping shelves and shelves of paperbacks, engineering textbooks, or outsized clothing with me half-way across the planet. Of course, it pains me to admit defeat and get rid of my skinny clothes, so until the time that I actually have movers at my house giving me an estimate on how much it would cost to bring it all with me I'll probably still have an itty bitty sundress from Senior year of highschool.

I've always loved small spaces. I have a friend with a 600 sq-ft condo in D.C. which I love. Her house has only things that she really really loves. She'll never have a reason to go on the show Clean Sweep to cleanse her house of clutter. When she gets the shopping urge she doesn't stock up on cheap tank tops at Old Navy, I on the other hand have a whole stack of them. Instead she impulse buys beauty products which get used and thrown away and her clothes are minimal because she only buys really nice stuff. I have a really hard shoe size so whenever I find a brand that has my size I go nuts and buy way more than I need. As a result, I have more shoes than people who have easier to find shoe sizes because I impulse buy them. My friend with the tiny apartment doesn't buy crap, instead her closets are full of a few very expesive Louis Voutton's, Jimmy Choo, etc. shoes, nice suits, and very classic clothes, which in comparison to all my bulk (current and already donated) probably cost the same, but look way better. I'm hoping to be more like my D.C. diva and stop buying crap. To that end, I have the annual spring fever purge ahead of me. The days are getting longer and it is getting easier to have the energy to excercize, so maybe this will be my year to fit into the sun dress again. Hmm...come to think of it, that dress isn't that great, I'll probably donate it as soon as I fit back into it. Perhaps its time has come.

Screaming Down the Bunny Hill

After reading all of the other holiday and New Years posts of the other bloggers I read, I realized that I haven't posted anything myself since before Christmas. We kept out Christmas low-key this year spending more effort into preparing Christmas dinner than in shopping. Little kids are more fun to shop for and watch their sheer delight. We don't have kids yet, so low key was great. All was as it should be. We went to Christmas Eve service as a family and as the bells tolled midnight we walked out over the glaciated parking lot to our cars, the crispness and newness of the evening air making the day seem more special. On Christmas day we had the traditional coffee cake and opened presents. After last year when I got my iPod and hubby received a very nice GPS among a big pile of other things we kept things much more simple this year. Fore awhile I was tempted to run out and grab a few more things just to make the pile under the tree larger and more exciting, but in the end our carefully thought out presents were far more meaningful. I got a few cds from his parents which I have wanted for awhile and my present from hubby was a pair of wonderful Ugg slippers which are just perfect.

After Christmas we hopped a flight down to my parent's house in Palmer. My brother is a cadet at West Point and invited us to the All Academies ball for all of the family and friends of cadets and midshipmen and the 5 service academies. It is always a bunch of mixed emotions when I see him and hubby dressed up to the 9s in their uniforms. They look so incredibly handsome and I am so proud of them, but sad at the same time. What really choked me up was the table for 1, which symbolizes the absent or killed soldiers who aren't with us for the occasion. The military has a lot of ceremonies and this one is present at every formal military ball. The photo of the soldier at the table for one was my cousin. I burst into tears when I saw it. Apparently his photo was taken for use in a Nascar add and they are still using it! The organizers were sent a copy of the poster by a recruiter, trimmed it down and edited it and used that as their photo. It is a good photo of him. Good thing I wore waterproof mascara. It's also a good thing we had our photo taken before that, because I still managed to wipe off and streak most of my foundation after I finished tearing up. It is our first family photo since I have been married, and I've been married 3 years now. For one reason or another one of us was always missing, so it was nice to have us all eight of us together and all dressed up.

The day after the ball my family decided they wanted to go skiing. Now falling is like my #1 fear so I was rather reluctant to go, but hubby decided he wanted to. Alaska has a really nice ski resort called Alyeska which is about an hour away from Anchorage. It is relatively unknown to the outside, mostly because it is almost all black diamond and double black diamond skiing with very little beginner or intermediate level slopes. It also doesn't have the typical shopping and restaurants surrounding the resort so it is mostly for serious skiers.

The year after I started college, the rest of my family got into skiing in a big way. Even my littlest sister who is 10 can ski quite well and all of the rest of my siblings could be ski instructors if they wanted to. So with great trepidation I let my little sister take me up the smallest lift. I signalled the guy in the booth to slow down the lift as we approached the top, which he obligingly did, assuming that I was signaling for the little kid sitting next to me, when in reality I was worried I would fall on my backside and have the next 4 chairs worth of people jumping over or on top of me. I made it off of the lift ok, bribing my sister with the promise of a Popsicle not to tell the rest of the family that I made the lift slow down. I shouldn't have bothered trying to save my dignity. I promptly screamed my head off and went careening into the nearest ditch. Skiing lesson #1, how to stand up after you've fallen down. This took approximately 20 minutes the first time. Ultimately it took, hubby and both of my sisters to get me down the easiest hill with a proper lift. An hour later I stumbled into the lodge sore and grumpy. My Mom said she could hear me all the way down. I was definitely the biggest baby on the mountain and ready to give up for the day.

Hubby in his infinite wisdom went and got me a lesson. Rather than starting on the easiest regular hill of the mountain my lesson started on the bunny hill. By the end of my two hour lesson I was the queen of the bunny hill. I could go, slow down, stop and turn. My confidence soared when my ski instructor pronounced me to be the best in my class of 5 and ready to progress to level 3. Level 3 is the hill which I almost killed myself going down in the morning so I was pleased. Teaching a fully grown adult to ski is like teaching them to swim. I know this from experience because I used to give adult swim lessons. Convincing a fully grown adult to put their face in water is like telling them they should jump out of a perfectly good airplane. It should not be done by a friend or family member or any frustration will come out as anger. It must be done by a 3rd party to get around the authority issue. Still it was hard for me to get over my fear of falling and realize that snow is for the most part a soft object or as my transportation engineer husband says, a good crash attenuator. He tried to make me feel better by pointing out that in winter less traffic accidents are fatalities because the snow acts as a cushion crash attenuator and its the same thing with skiing. Somehow his comments didn't help, but Angel my ski bum Latino ski instructor with his loud praise and infinite patience got me doing the impossible, enjoying skiing. It was the best $35.00 my husband has spent in a long time getting me that lesson. It will probably be awhile before I ski again, but I will hopefully remember enough to conquer the hill that had me screaming when next we meet.

Oh and for the person who asked, my LSAT score this time around was the exact same as last time. Very dissapointing. Actually I improved a lot in all categories except games, which I didn't finish.

Now It's Advent!

My birthday has passed and its beginning to feel like Christmas. It is -31F outside and my steady stream of packages and cards have begun to arrive. Now that finals are over I have a chance at a life again. We went to Church on Sunday and it was beautiful to see how the holiday season decorations were up. Episcopalians have a tradition of the nativity wreath. Each Sunday of December we light one candle out of 4 which form a circular wreath and the center one is lit on Christmas. Our own nativity wreath has gone unlit this Christmas season with all of the hub-bub of family matters and stress of finals. After the service on Sunday I really felt the joy rather than the hassel of the season.

On Sunday night we had friends over to make Christmas cookies and homemade carmel corn. My brother-in-law brought over his XBox and we played Rock Band. I am generally a musical person with quite a few years of piano under my belt, but I admit defeat when it comes to drums. I was appointed lead singer and did much better on vocals. Hubby was actually quite good on drums. Much fun was had by all. it was nice to think, hmm... we could do this again tomorrow if we wanted to, we don't have any classes! In fact, the only thing I have to do right now is get up and go to work. It is a nice feeling. I still would like to find Christmas presents for my two brothers, but that might have to wait. Right now, I'm reveling in the freedom of having no obligations. The only thing I have to plan for is our Christmas party. Since Christmas day is traditionally a family thing for us we are having a Christmas party to celebrate the friends in our life. Mostly they are hubby's guy friends, I don't really have any girlfriends, oh well, maybe next year. With so many guys attending the main event will be the food of course, so I'll have to go grocery shopping soon. After finals the only food in the house was spaghetti. It will be nice to cook for pleasure again rather than scraping something together for dinner with no enthusiasm.

Finals are Upon Me, Oh No!

I can't believe my last post was November 21st. I have pretty much been in a funk ever since I heard about my cousin's death. We went to the funeral in D.C. I may blog about that at some point. (The Secretary of Defense was there!) Other than that I've been working on passing my classes. After this week I will be out from a crushing amount of work and better able to focus on fun things, interesting things, and future things. Tonight is my last traditional final. I still have a correspondence final due on Saturday. Tonight's final on Contract Law for Engineers is the culmination of a great course. Unfortunately I've learned so much I don't have a clue what the test will be on. I'm just hoping that knowing the cases, reading the book, reading the slides and remembering the IRAC model will get me through. My term paper was due last week and thankfully that is out of the way. I did an analysis of the new Patent Reform Act of 2007 and its impacts on science and engineering.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I always prefer to turn odd years, they make me feel younger. Unfortunately the forecast for my zip code is: (0° -27°) so my chances of doing anything other than snuggling up at home are minimal. I hate going out to eat and dreading the ride home in the cold car. I'll probably postpone my birthday until this weekend and try and get my correspondence final in Mass Media Law out of the way, that is unless hubby has sweet birthday plans that he has been very good at concealing.

Having all of my classes out of the way will be a big relief. Then I can try and be happy about my birthday and begin to get in a holiday spirit. For me, Christmas officially begins after my birthday. I usually refuse to do more than put up my tree in advance of December the 13th. This year I broke my rule and shopped ahead of my birthday. This was done partially to prevent mental breakdown by doing all of my shopping for 4 siblings, one sibling in law, and 4 parents all in 12 days right before Christmas. I shopped online and will hopefully see a steady stream of packages arriving at my doorstep over the next few days. I highly recommend online shopping to law students. It can save money if you use coupon codes which give a percentage off and free shipping, plus you can do it during your few free moments that come here and there rather than having to plan shopping around your studying. I use www.mrrebate.com, which gives me a % cash back and coupon codes, usually get a 25-30% off code and free shipping and then pay with my credit card which gives me 2% back. I almost never pay more than 70% of an items cost using this system. It's worked out well so far. All I have to do is wrap things when they arrive. This leaves me plenty of time to focus on more important things like the government's role in regulating advertising. Hmm...that's even sort of related to Christmas. I wish they'd regulate that Christmas ads can't run before Thanksgiving, but I guess I've learned enough in my class to realize why that isn't possible.

The Perfect Snowflake

As you can probably tell from my last post, life has been sucking a lot lately. I have been so demotivated. Then on Tuesday it snowed. Being an Alaskan, this is nothing new to me, it snows all the time. But the snowflakes were different than I've ever seen before. The snow was huge, so large that you could count all 6 sides of each flake and watch them come lightly to rest on your sweetheart's hair before melting. So large and fluffy, not slushy at all. They were perfect, beautiful snowflakes, and after 17 years in Alaska, the prettiest I've ever seen. They were beautiful enough to break me out of my self-absorbed thoughts and look around me again. Here is what I saw:

I didn't have my camera with me, but I found these on another blog. They capture what I saw beautifully.

"Holiday" Weekend?

Aside from the geese making all sorts of racket as they catch up on a summers worth of conversation as they fly over my house at night on their way south, I really do like this time of year. There is still sunlight out when I get home from work. If you're not from a northern climate you can't understand how depressing it is to have the sun rise after you go to work and set before you get into your car at night. I also like the fact that I can wear cute fall sweaters without roasting under the office heaters which will be turned on in a couple of weeks. I always find it strange that they blast me with AC all summer and roast me with the heaters all winter. Why can't they turn the thermostat to 70 and leave it alone! There is no need for 75 in winter and 65 in summer. Said sweaters are also not yet covered up by heavier parkas and other layers. This is the perfect in between time when I can actually enjoy my cute fall clothes. They are much better than summer clothes, which always fit me wrong. I'd much rather wear a cashmere sweater and cute khakis than skirts and tank tops.

But Labor Day really does signal the beginning of the end for me. I better enjoy it while I can because by this time next month all of the leaves will have fallen and there will be snow on the ground. Don't believe me? I'll post pictures. Speaking of labor day, why does the phrase 3-day-weekend suddenly inspire people to get projects done? More than likely they will only work hard 1 out of the 3 days and they could just do that on a normal weekend. Oh well, I may as well join them and have weekend plans. I'm not doing any labor day shopping as I don't really need anything and no matter how good a deal it is it's not a good deal if I don't need it.

1. I am putting all of the left-over garage sale items on Craigslist, Freecycle, or donating them
2. I will take two full LSATs, one timed and one untimed
3. I will submit the stack of health care stuff to insurance and finally get reimbursed
4. I will try and clean the house, find more stuff to get rid of and repeat #1
5. I will spend at least one out of the three days out of doors, because by this time next month there will be snow on the ground and I should enjoy it while I can
6. I will attempt to kick hubby's but fencing, or at least maintain respectable form

AK License Plates

Makes people think when they drive by you!

Strange, our state is so small that I've actually seen quite a few of these driving around. I used to live near the school that the CHOCLT license plate drove her kids to. The Anchorage Daily News has a whole website for them, but here are my favorites.

Who wouldn't want to say this to their fellow drivers occasionally?

Showing their support for life's most important dessert

As read in the rear-view mirror "Smiley," cool huh?

Valdez Trip

Whew, that was a lot of driving. Here's our route. But, the trip was beautiful and well worth it.

We went from Fairbanks to Copper Center Lodge on the 4th where we stopped for the night at the historic lodge. Apparently back in the day they created lodges that were about a day's travel apart so that travelers could stop for the night. With the advent of cars and a more developed train system many of these lodges have closed, but those that remain have a lot of historic charm. We stopped there for the night, had dinner and then took a walk together to look at the area and watch some of the locals try to blow themselves up with fireworks.

The next day (5th) we visited the Cooper Center museum, which was basically a small collection of leftover paraphernalia from the gold rush era. The historic photographs and maps were interesting to hubby who is a big history buff. I was content to look at the old miner's cabins and wonder how people had their whole lives year after year in spaces smaller than my first dorm room.

After stopping at The Fishing Widow coffee place for my mocha and hubby's hot cocoa we hit the road again and drove the rest of the way down to Valdez, down through the mountains and past the waterfalls to our hotel. On the way down stopped for a short hike up to Worthington Glacier. After getting into Valdez we stopped at our hotel and then went to lunch at the Valdez classic Mike's Palace. I remember this place from when I was a little girl. My parents would always order the cheese pizza and I would sit at the counter and watch the Italian family make the food. All of the people who worked there were family and during the summer the extended family would come from Italy to work at the restaurant, or that is my recollection. I remember one of the guys that worked there giving me a little bowl of peperoni to put on my cheese pizza. Strange, the memories that stick with you from when you were a kid. Not much has changed, the same family still owns the place and the pizza is still great. I will say though that a large pizza is too large for two people, even when one of them is a 6'2" hungry man who has been driving and hiking all day.

Next we went to see the Valdez Museum which I also remember from my childhood. Actually I remember only one thing from the museum, the fur fish. Until I went back as an adult I believed that the fur fish was real. Alas, like so many childhood fantasies, the fur fish is not real. By reading the caption this is now obvious. In addition to the fur fish the museum also boasts the following: archives, maps, photographs, newspapers, an exhibit on the Pipeline Construction, an exhibit on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, an exhibit on the World Extreme Skiing Championships and several exhibits on the gold rush and Valdez as an all-American town up until the Good Friday earthquake wiped it out.

The next morning we took a Stan Stephens cruise through Prince William Sound for a 9.5 hour tour. We saw every type of wildlife advertised on the brochures, except for the mountain goats and bears. All of the white specks that I saw turned out to be snow when viewed through the spotting glasses. Mountain goats are now beasts which have now reached mythical status in my book. All throughout my growing up years in Alaska my Mom would insist that she saw Dall Sheep or Mountain Goats on the mountain, but I can't actually remember ever seeing one. I've seen plenty of them mounted on walls, but until I see one myself I have relegated all Alaskan sheep and goats to mythical status, like unicorns or fur fish.

But, to make up for it we saw 5 humpback whales, 29 baby seals, 107 (before I lost count) sea otters, too many sea lions to count, an eagle's nest, arctic terns, puffins, dall porpoises and so many others. On the drive we also saw moose, eagles and squirrels in addition to lots of beautiful fire weed and other wildflowers. Oh yeah, and the typical nature stuff: mountains, glaciers, forests and the like.The cruise was well worth the money, especially with the 10% off for Alaskan residents.

The rest of the trip was pretty laid back, we drove from Valdez to Palmer to visit my parents, went tent shopping at REI (still haven't found one, although I did get a sleeping bag) and then drove back through Denali Park to Fairbanks on Sunday. A lot of beautiful scenic driving and over 500 songs later on the ipod we arrived safe and sound home to two cats who wanted a lot of attention. Once I upload the rest of the photos on Flickr I'll have to add a slide show. There is a limit to how patient I am in uploading through blogger.

Things You Don't See in The Lower 48

The bear appeared to be chasing the wolf in slow motion with the wolf waiting for the bear to catch up, then it would sprint ahead. After about 15 minutes the bear gave up and went another direction. Definitely something you probably don't see on the side of the highway in CA. I'll miss Alaska.

In other news I made the Law-School Roundup, cool! I was wondering if there were other Pre-L bloggers out there, looks like there are. Or at least for another 6 weeks, then we'll all be 1L bloggers and I'll be able to lament the lack again.

Ice Park 2007 Pictures

I forgot to post these back when we went to the Ice Park. These are from March 28th. There were many more sculptures. These are just our favorites.

Ice Park (2), Movie Reviews

We didn't make it to the ice park until yesterday. This is typical for me who does everything at the last minute. (The park closes this weekend.) The weather was perfect for it, around 25 above and not too windy. Unfortunately I was still wearing business shoes from work. If I had been in my nice warm boots I would have probably been cuter and warmer. As it was, we had to stop halfway through and go to the snack-shack to warm up my poor frozen toes. My hubby, boyscout that he is, is always prepared. He enjoyed the park a little more. I even have video of him using the kiddy slides, which are made totally out of ice. Unfortunately I took them with the camera oriented portrait-wise instead of landscape-wise, so he appears to be sliding horizontally. Any idea how to rotate a video?

It was unfortunate that we waited until so late in the season to go. Several of the sculptures had warmed up to the point where they lost structural integrity and broke apart and several of the finer more delicate pieces were not as good. However, instead of going in -40F weather, I went at a balmy 25F, it was worth the difference in comfort level. I still think that the exhibit is overpriced at $8.00, but we still enjoyed ourselves and you can see from the pictures how beautiful some of the sculptures were.

Overall it was a great date night. Ice Park, fancy dinner on the frozen waterfront, and a dvd (Holiday). The movie turned out to be surprisingly good. It surprised me in a way like Love Actually did. It was a romantic movie, but not overly cheesy. Two women who are both dissatisfied with their love lives switch houses over Christmas for two weeks and find life, love, and a part of themselves again. Good movie for when you want to believe in the good in life while snuggled up with hot tea or cocoa. It was a little unbelievable that everything happened over the course of two-weeks, but hey I got my romantic movie and hubby didn't complain once. I still think he preferred Stranger Than Fiction, our choice from earlier this week. I think we were both prepared to hate that movie, considering it has Will Farrell in it, but it pleasantly surprised us and turned out to be a great movie. This movie was well written and funny and despite its implausible nature, we enjoyed suspending belief and thinking that this IRS agent who was breaking out of his logical cocoon and beginning to enjoy life was actually a character whose life was in the hands of a novelist desperately trying to kill him off. Still, they couldn't resist putting ugly naked men in the movie so it was a Will Farrell movie after all, eck.

Ice Park

Every year Fairbanks hosts the annual ice art competition. Up until now it has always been so cold that going to the ice park has been quite a miserable expereience even with the beautiful sculptures. The weather tomorrow promises to be 22 above, so I think we'll head over and check out the ice carvings. This is assuming that I get my latin homework done in a timely manner.