Two Standing Ovations

The crowd didn’t hesitate: as soon as the last notes rang out, they were on their feet with thunderous applause. What an amazing concert that was!

We’ve been to several of concert this season:

        Mark Chestnut

        Tim McGraw

        Pam Tillis

        The Duhks

        Lunasa

        Julian Lange & Chris Eldridge

But I have to say, the Steep Canyon Rangers were by far the best! If you are at all a fan of bluegrass, I can highly recommend that you check them out.

They consist of 6 players, all of whom are superb musicians. Charles R. Humphrey III played upright bass. Graham Sharp not only plays the banjo but has also written over thirty of their songs. Michael Ashworth played what they called a Cajon Percussion Box. Mike Guggino was smokin’ hot on the mandolin. Woody Plat was the lead vocalist (although most all of them sang) and also played guitar. But Nicky Sanders completely stole the show on his violin. Good lord, was he ever good!

As their website says, “These days, it’s hard to talk about the Steep Canyon Rangers without mentioning Steve Martin. After meeting at a party and clicking immediately, Martin invited the band to tour and record with him. 2011’s collaboration Rare Bird Alert was nominated for a Grammy, and later that year, they won IBMA’s Entertainer of the Year Award.”

In fact, some of you may have been lucky enough to see them all (Steve Martin included) play a few years back right here in our very own Performing Arts Center in downtown Anchorage!

Sadly, I missed that.

Motherly Advice

“You gotta stick your tool in there and wiggle it around.”

That’s the advice my Mother gave Bryan the other day. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing! Taken out of context, it sounded quite racy – and I just knew Bryan heard it that way, too.

What we were actually doing, however, was prying little glass tiles off their display board using screwdrivers and elbow grease.

Mother has literally hundreds of them in her back shed, thanks to the salesman who found out that she would take all of his discontinued boards. She uses them for all sorts of projects, from mosaics to garden pathways.

I’m not quite sure what I’m doing with them, yet. I have a vague idea in my head that involves copper wire, glass tiles, and driftwood.

We’ll see what that turns in to! 

My Next Earthwatch Expedition

Purchase Tickets: 

     Check!

Make Hotel Arrangements: 

     Check!

Fill Out Paperwork: 

     Check!

Take Care of Inoculations: 

     Check!

Create Packing List: 

     Check!

Get Uber Excited: 

     Check! Check!

The 10-Minute Meal

Who knew you could cook an entire meal in just 10 minutes! And it’s a nutritious meal, too – not some burger/fry thing out of the freezer.

It goes like this: you come home from a hard day’s work. You take your pressure cooker out of the cupboard. You put some chicken pieces (or fish, or beef, or what have you) in. You chop up some veggies like carrots, potatoes, and onions – and throw those in. You pour some wild rice in there, and top it off with some water. You heat it up and get it to the right pressure. Then you head off into the bedroom to change into something a little more comfortable, like your sweatpants and a t-shirt.

By the time you get back to the kitchen, your meal is done.

The fine people at Zucchini’s Cooking Store cooked several such meals for us, to demonstrate the ease and convenience of the pressure cooker. By the time we all gathered round to eat the results, Bryan and I were sold.

The only thing left for us to do is figure out how we’re going to pay for the pressure cooker, because of course we have to have the most expensive one out there. Only the best will do, you know!

No, seriously – there’s a range of prices and sizes available. We just have to pick the right one.

The Aces Hockey Game

Me: Why are you cheering? That’s the other team’s goal, wasn’t it?

Him: No! That’s our team! We’re the ones in the blue shirts, not the black shirts!

Me: Oh.

Me: At least we have a cool mascot, like a wolf. Not like it’s a chipmunk or something.

Him: It’s a polar bear, not a wolf.

Me: Oh.

I’m not sure if he’ll take me to another game ever again! I can’t count the number of times I ended up saying “oh.”

On the plus side, we did win!

Bowling with the Family

The parking lot at the bowling alley was completely full when we got there, and inside was no better. I had apparently neglected to call before arranging this family gathering, or I would have known that Saturday morning was League Bowling.

Thankfully my family is always willing to go eat something regardless of the time of day, so we reconvened at The City Diner just down the street to while away a couple hours. A cup of tea, a veggie omelet, a piece of toast, and before you know it it’s time to head back again.

This time, we were able to get our shoes and head off to our assigned lane. Out of the five of us there that day, two of us had not seen the inside of a bowling alley in well over 25 years! The other three were definitely the ones to watch.

Hank started out strong, leading the pack with Mother coming in a close second. Lauren started out mid-range but by the end managed to pull herself up to first place! Bryan and I both bounced around switching places back and forth at the bottom of the list, but we had fun regardless.

I actually surprised myself by getting more than just a few strikes, but I was not consistent enough to hold on to any lead I might get. Each strike I made was inevitably followed by a gutter ball to the left side. But hey, I did occasionally get the ball right down the center!

The Anchorage Transportation Fair

Walking in to the room, the first thing we saw was a sea of people. It seems that everybody wanted to find out what was going on in their particular corner of the city!

Information was certainly available! There were over 50 tables laid out end to end, curving around the room like a big snake. Each table had at least two or three projects displayed; a few even had eight to ten. They all had information brochures printed out with maps and pretty pictures, as well as an actual human being or two, standing by to answer any question you might have.

The kid’s activity table caught my eye, so that’s where we started. From there we just went from table to table, stopping to talk to this person or that one, and gathering up a bag full of fact sheets on each project.

In no time at all, I was completely overwhelmed. Who knew there was that much going on in this city! And to think that somewhere, somebody had to have some sort of control over it all, to ensure that it all got coordinated properly.

Anchorage does love its road construction, I guess.

The most important project in my opinion is, of course, the O’Malley Road Upgrades. I got to spend quite some time at that particular table, going over the maps and talking about what they had in mind for the area. I spoke with the girl sitting there about the schedule of events to take place, the plan for the intersection right at my house, and the other properties involved.

Strangely enough, however, the project we spent the most time on was for the Port of Anchorage. The Engineer manning that particular table talked to us for quite some time, explaining in detail what went wrong with the original plan and outlining the current revised plan. It will certainly be an amazing project if they can get the funding for it.

The whole evening was very interesting, and as a bonus I got a huge boost to my step count that day!

More Love Letters

As part of the ongoing effort to keep my New Year’s Resolution (specifically, the one that has me writing at least 4 actual letters a month) I came across this website that is pretty amazing.

It’s called “More Love Letters” created by a girl in New York City.

https://moreloveletters.squarespace.com/

In her own words: “I started More Love Letters three years ago and we’ve become the only global organization out there that blesses individuals --young and old-- with bundles of love letters during a time in need. We basically want to create the most miraculous experience for people when they need it most: hundreds of letters of support and encouragement showing up at someone’s door all because someone in their own life loved them enough to just ask for those love letters.”

Pretty cool, huh?

Each month, I plan to check this site to see who has been nominated for a bundle of love letters. I will then make the cards to send to those people; I will write letters of encouragement & love to them; and then I will pop them in the mail.

I have to admit that it’s a bit self-serving here, as it not only uses up some of my cards (I only have about 300 or so of them already) but it will also give me a mental/moral boost at the same time that it hopefully helps somebody else when they need it the most.

Not a bad deal, I think.

Weekend Retreat

I got to attend another Scrapbooking Retreat this weekend out at the Pioneer Ridge Bed & Breakfast (www.pioneerridge.com) and had such a good time.

Erica, our event coordinator, provided excellent meals: homemade chicken pot pie, scrumptious sandwiches with fresh veggies, amazing salads with candied pecans and blue cheese, and deserts that completely blew everybody’s diet out the window.

Attendance was a bit smaller than the last one I went to, but we still had at least 15 ladies there. This just meant that we all got a table to ourselves to spread out and work on our projects. Most people were scrapbooking, but some had their sewing machines going on quilts or their knitting needles clicking away at lacy scarves. For me, of course, it was cutting paper for my cards. In fact, I got 22 of them made!

My friend Heather and I carpooled in from Anchorage. It was a bit of a challenge getting all our gear into my tiny little car – but after three tries, we finally got it to fit. We also ended up sharing a room together, way down at the end of the hallway. It was good to catch up on all her news, what with two kids, a husband, and a home renovation project going on.

Unfortunately I had a migraine going on, so was not in the best of health throughout the weekend. But no one seemed to mind that I would excuse myself periodically to lay down in the dark for a while. I went to bed at 10:00 each night (the others didn’t get to bed until well after midnight), and since I was up each morning around 6:00 that gave me several hours of quiet time by myself before everybody else woke up.

All in all, I had a wonderful time – and look forward to our next one!

Cheese Cloth

So I’m at the grocery store last night, looking for Cheese Cloth.

I looked all over the Kitchen Accessories isle, multiple times, and did not find it. So then I went to the Baking isle and looked all over multiple times, and did not find it there either.

Eventually, I gave up and actually asked somebody.

You want to guess where they put Cheese Cloth? 

In the Freezer Section, right alongside the TV dinners and the Ice Cream!

Yeah, that’s a logical place to put Cheese Cloth.

Remedies in Your Own Back Yard

Bryan and I took a class the other night at Zucchini’s Cooking Store, in South Anchorage. They periodically hold classes on anything from Pasta Making to Hors-d'oeuvres to Fermenting Vegetables.

This class was on Alaskan Herbs and was presented by a Lithuanian woman named Gdaiva Gaulyte.  Gdaiva ia a Certified Nutritionist who owns and operates Alaska Island Retreat on Kalgin Island, where she teaches people (in her own words) “how to eat to be healthy using local whole natural foods; fermented vegetables, fish and bone broths, teas from the forest, and more.”

The class was a good one. We learned about natural teas, tinctures, infused oils, shampoos and tonics with a focus on local Alaskan herbs such as goldenrod, nettle, horsetail, dandelion, clover, elderberry, devil’s club, bluebell, yarrow and more. She explained how to collect, prepare and how to store what we’ve gathered. She offered us samples to taste and/or smell. We even got to make our own herbal tea using herbs she brought with her.

I do have to admit to some familiarity with the subject – but it was still a very interesting class.

Cirque du Soleil: Dralion

Well, that was certainly worth the price of the tickets: wow, what a show!

It was so exciting I quickly forgot that the seats were too close together and were hard plastic (not even remotely comfortable). I also forgot that the music was really loud, the lights were bright and flashing, and the acoustics were pretty much non-existent.

But wow, what a show!

Parts of it, I have to admit, were a bit of a let-down. There were a lot of people running around stage just waving their hands in the air (artistically dancing, you might say). I mean, give me an incredible costume and even I can do that!

The people actually doing the acts more than made up for the ones who were there to support them, however. There were truly some fantastic feats of aerial acrobatics. The troupe certainly lived up to their reputation, and then some.

A few of my favorites:

- The lady in red who came down from the ceiling on a metal hoop and then proceeded to swing around by her toes, hang from her neck, or “fly” through the air.

- The guys jumping through a series of hoops which were attached to a circular base that was rotating in a circular motion.

- The juggler who danced around stage keeping up to 10 (at least) balls flying through the air.

At one point, they had this guy standing on top of two “dragons” (the dragons were made up of two people in costume) and the dragons were each walking on a large ball about 4 feet in diameter. So, they had two large balls, each with a dragon on top, with a guy standing on top of them straddling the dragons. All walking across stage!

It was pretty amazing. I only wish I could have gotten closer in to see the costumes: they looked pretty amazing, even from up on the balcony where we sat.

And this is a paperless job!

Typical Office Procedure:

- A submittal comes in for review

- The Architect reviews it and accepts/rejects it

- We fill out the paperwork

- We keep one copy and send the rest back to the client, both electronically and physically

However, there’s been so many changes of key personnel on this particular job that the current person in charge asked us to give him a copy of everything that’s been done so far.

So, I spent two days making copies and organizing them so that they are all in the same order as our originals are. Then I made file folders for them (I even made rainbows using red-orange-yellow-green-blue file folders, alternating in that order until I got to the end of the submittals) with labels and everything, and put them into a Banker’s Box.

That was last week. 

This week, he wants us to send him a copy (both electronically AGAIN [for like the third time] and physically) of the form that states what the status of each submittal is. So I have to go back through every submittal I just put away – unstaple everything – copy the top sheet – then restaple everything back together again.

So now – somewhere over there across town, they have close to 4 complete sets of every submittal (going on 42 of them so far) that has to do with this project.

Oy.

Antarctica

I calmly walked up to the ticket counter and said “I’d like two tickets to Antarctica, please.”

I was the very picture of Cool as I handed the lady my credit card – but all the while, that little voice inside my head was jumping up and down with excitement, shouting “Antarctica! Antarctica! Antarctica!”

Actually, if you think about it – that’s a little strange. I mean, how can the voice inside your head jump up and down, anyway? It’s a voice, right? 

No body…

To be quite honest though, the “Antarctica” I was speaking of was a movie and the ticket counter I was standing at The Bear’s Tooth.

Still, it was pretty darned exciting. The movie’s full name is “Antarctia: a Year on Ice” and is a documentary about the every-day people who work down there (as opposed to the scientists who go down to study their science).

But just think how amazing it would be to ACTUALLY buy two tickets to the ACTUAL Antarctica!

Rovers of the Red Planet

I have to admit I was not all that excited about the lecture. It was to be on the Mars Rovers, and I’ve been to about 5 of them prior to this one. I figured I was pretty much Rover’d Out, you might say. But it was part of a series so, since we had the tickets anyway, I pretty much had to go.

Turns out, it was really good: I am so glad we went! The presenter was very engaging, clearly excited about the topic, and was a good speaker, too.

The series is a new one for Anchorage: the museum has partnered with National Geographic to bring “dynamic and proven speakers, considered among the best in their fields. Using award-winning photographs and video, these modern storytellers share amazing adventures from the field, reporting on a wide range of human-interest and conservation topics.”

1. POLAR OBSESSION: PAUL NICKLEN, PHOTOGRAPHER/BIOLOGIST

Acting as a personal guide, photographer and biologist Paul Nicklen takes audiences to the vast polar regions of our planet. Nicklen shares the stories of his work capturing images of life in fragile, frozen ecosystems. His book, Polar Obsession, is a pictorial celebration of the polar ecosystems where Nicklen has spent his life.

2. THE LENS OF ADVENTURE: BRYAN SMITH, FILMMAKER

Hiking for miles laden with gear, trusting rigging on sheer vertical faces, and paddling waterfalls with a camera between his legs are all part of filmmaker Bryan Smith's adventures. While the footage he captures makes your heart race, the story behind the camera takes your breath away.

3. ROVERS OF THE RED PLANET: KOBIE BOYKINS, NASA ENGINEER

A dynamic young engineer at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Kobie Boykins is on the front line of Mars exploration. Boykins designed the solar arrays that power the Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity landing on Mars on January 25, 2004. Boykins shares his passion for space exploration by recounting the design and construction of the rovers and the story of their successful missions.

4. CONNECT WITH ANYBODY, ANYWHERE: ANNIE GRIFFITHS, PHOTOJOURNALIST

Known for her sensitive nature and ability to bridge the divide that sometimes exists between people of disparate cultures and beliefs, Griffiths has been connecting with her subjects for nearly three decades. Journey alongside her as she finds common ground in uncommon places.

My Voo-Doo Doll

Migraine.com is a website I go to quite frequently. It has good information and enlightening blog posts by people like me who are afflicted by the little bastards. 

Sometimes it’s just nice to know I’m not alone, you know?

So the other day, somebody posed a question: 

If you could make one symptom magically disappear, which one would it be?

I've been thinking about this; not obsessively or anything, it’s just been in the back of my mind, quietly simmering and stewing. 

Finally, the other day, the answer just popped into my head: 

I would make my Voo-Doo Doll disappear.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about: there are times where I could swear somebody has a voo-doo doll of me, and they’re taking out their frustrations by randomly jabbing me with a needle. The pain is amplified by the time it reaches my body so that it now feels like a spear has been thrust into various locations all over me and not just in the head. It’s very random and can strike with no warning, and then vanish again for no apparent reason only to return again when I least expect it.

Yeah, that’s the one I’d choose to magically disappear.

My Oh-So-Exciting Life

Okay, so I’ve already modified my resolutions for the year. But I did not remove one – I actually added one!

The original four are:

     1. Loose as much weight as possible

     2. Write at least 4 letters each month

     3. Cook at least one new recipe each month

     4. Renew contact with lost friendships

To which I have added the following:

     5. Write at least one new blog post a week

I will do my best to make sure they are “fun” and/or exciting posts – but quite honestly, you may end up with a lot of boring so-so posts.

To start off the year, I’ll just do a recap of the first few weeks. (yup, you guessed it: this is going to be one of those boring ones!)

2015 started off with a bang (no pun intended) because my Guy cooked me a King Crab Dinner! I haven’t had King Crab in over a year, and boy was it good. We ate so much we had no room for desert. A few hours later, though, we went ahead and ate our Lemon Mousse along with a nice shot of Whiskey.

The following day, he again cooked for me – this time making an omelet by cooking the eggs in a Mickey-Mouse Waffle Maker! It was really simple and easy to do: mix up the eggs as you would for “normal” omelets (red & green bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and lots of cheese) then pour it on to the waffle maker as if it were batter. Not 5 minutes later, you have waffle-omelets! The Mickey Mouse design is not required, but is rather a bonus.

That was pretty much the highlight of the past two weeks. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor for my hip (a swollen SI joint is quite painful, let me assure you). I work out at the gym as much as I can. I’m reading some really good books. I’m making my cards, as always.

You know: life.

The next few weeks, however – now, those posts will be much more exciting!

Happy New Year!

One of my goals – or resolutions, if you will – for 2015 is to write at least 4 letters a month. I make so many cards; I really do need to start using more of them. Plus, as an added benefit I get to renew some friendships I’ve let fall by the wayside.

One can only hope they return the favor!

Speaking of resolutions: do you do them each year? What sort of goals do you have? Do they tend to be the same ones over and over again each time? Do you ever actually achieve your goals?

For me, the New Year is a time of reflection; a time to review the year gone by and take stock of where I’m at as compared to where I hoped I would be.

Well, actually no – that's not true. I try not to focus on any sort of negative, as in “Oh, I wish I had done that…” or “Darn, I’m not as as BLANK I wanted to be.”

Instead, I simply take stock: this is who I am, this is what I accomplished, and this is what I think I’d like to try this year. Sometimes it is the same thing over and over again. Sometimes I realize that I no longer want that old thing and have instead set my sights on a whole new thing.

The rest of my goals for the year are as follows:

1. Loose as much weight as possible

2. Cook at least one new recipe each month

3. Renew contact with lost friendships

Granted; if I do write my 4 letters a month, that pretty much guarantees that I achieve item number 3. But that’s the beauty of this list: Simply by doing one item I get to knock two items off!

It’s my own little BOGO event, you might say.

One Has to Keep One’s Wrist Happy

Several months ago Bryan got a pair of Garmin Vivofit Wrist Bands, a black one for him and a teal one for me. This is a device by which one can keep track of how many steps one takes throughout the day, and is really pretty cool.

With just the push of a button, I can switch between the Time, the Date, How Many Steps I've Taken, How Many Steps I Have Left to Meet My Daily Goal, How Many Miles I've Gone, and How Many Calories I've Burned.

If I have been inactive for too long it has a band of red lights that blink at me. It starts out with just one light, but the longer I sit there doing nothing, the more lights it adds on until I end up with the entire display blinking at me. To get the lights to go away, I have to get up and walk around a bit: the more lights I have blinking at me, the longer I have to walk around.

As I always say, “My wrist is yelling at me to get up and walk!”

There is a program online that I log in to where I have created my own page to keep track of my progress. I can adjust my band to my personal step size, give it my height & weight, and even keep track of my sleep patterns and moods.

A typical day for me has my goal set at around 4850 steps. If I just go to work and then home afterwards, I have to really work at getting to my goal. If it’s one of the days I go to the gym, I usually go over my goal by about a couple thousand. On my recent vacation, I had about 5 days in a row with around 10,000 steps a day – as opposed to the sick day I had to take once I got home, where I logged in at barely 500.

Originally, the goal was set at a random number based on the information entered in to my website page – but the longer I wear it, the more it adjusts based on my history. Which basically means, the better I get at meeting my goal, the higher my goal becomes!

It’s been pretty fun, actually, and really has encouraged me to be more active throughout the day.

Scrapbooking Conference in Bellevue Washington

Yes, I know. I am not a “scrapbooker” – I’m a card maker. But they had classes on all sorts of paper crafting things, so I was able to keep busy the entire time.

Thursday night was a 12x12 Layout Workshop from 6:30 to 8:30 pm which I basically took just to get a feel for the place so that I’d know what I was doing the next two days.

Friday was my busiest day with 7 classes (1. All About Cards, 2. Newest & Coolest in the Scrapbooking World, 3. Designer Cards Featuring Simple Stories, 4. Pop-it-up Pivot Cards, 5. Shake It Up Shaker Box Cards, 6. Celebration Wine Tags, and 7. Trendy Card Creations) leaving no time to shop the vendor faire or even lunch break.

Saturday was an easier day for me, since I only had 4 classes (1. A Full House - Cards for Every Occasion, Trunk Show, Sun Kissed Fleur Cards, and Cards Full of Sunshine). I had plenty of time to eat lunch and go shopping and even rest for a bit; sadly a necessary thing by that time, since I was really not feeling good at all.

The hosts of the convention had drawings each hour for various door prizes. I got a ticket for each class I took plus one for each day that I was there: in total I ended up with about 20 tickets. Out of the thousands (only a slight exaggeration, there) of people who attended = my name actually got drawn not once but TWICE!

Woo-Hoo! I ended up getting a free stamp set from Heartfelt Creations (worth $18.00) and $20.00 worth of free paper from Keller’s Creations.

In addition to the door prizes, each class had their own give-aways & drawings – so I ended up coming home with way, WAY more stuff than I arrived with. In fact, if I were to add it all up, I bet I ended up “winning” crafting supplies worth more than what I paid to attend the conference!

Plus 54 cards!!!

Am I going again next year?

Hell, yeah!