Weekly Posts

Hello all,

January was a month full of stress for me at my work. So far February has also been stressful at work but I'm making a greater effort to separate my work life from my real life. I work full time at a very popular retailer. My job there is not the typical job you might think of when you think of people that work there, I'm the person who gets to pay all of the bills that come to the store. I have found that many people at my work consider this an important job and a good career, I disagree because I think a career is one in which a salary is paid and not an hourly wage. So I, in all of my glory, have been for the past few months preoccupied with worry over this piddly job - to the detriment of my health and happiness.

February, I believe, is far enough from the holidays to have returned to a normal course of life and close enough to the new year to still work on resolutions. I have many. But I feel the most important one to mention at this point in time is my resolution to post weekly on this blog. Be warned, I lead a fairly predictable and somewhat boring life these days. Searching for new and interesting things to share is difficult for me, but I will strive to do this for the few friends and family members that actually view this blog. I find that a big reason why I refrain from posting regularly is lack of visual aids, I apologize for this. I will post weekly with or without photos of our life and I hope that this will be sufficient for our readers :)

On another note, after living here for half a year W and I have learned that Alaska is not our dream state to live in. This experience has been good for us. I think that moving to an entirely new place without work, friends, or family has helped us grow as a couple and it has also helped us learn more about ourselves and what we want in our life together. That said, we have bought tickets to move back to the contiguous United States in July. This will allow us to witness Spring and more of Summer before moving back. I am hopeful that many picture opportunities will occur in the coming months because we will have more daylight hours outside of work to go out and enjoy the nature around Juneau. But, truth be told, I am really looking forward to moving back and being closer to family and friends. I love you all and miss you all very much. I hope that this February can be a time of renewal and refocus for all of you who wish it.

P.S. Happy belated Valentine's Day!

Happy Twelfth Night!

Our yule celebration this year is now done. W and I celebrate the twelve days of Christmas beginning on Christmas Eve and ending last night. We both had a lot of fun this yule. We played a lot more board games together this year and loved it.

I think my favorite moment from our whole celebration was the moment that W opened his ninth gift. I bought him the game "Dark Tower". It was released in 1981 and shortly after that it was taken off the market because of a lawsuit over who really created the game's concept. W first wanted this game when he was four and, due to its scarcity, has now finally received it (I love ebay). He was so full of joy when he opened it! It made me so happy to see him finally getting something that he has wanted for years.

When I look back on this yuletide I will be able to remember wonderful times spent with the man I love and the excitement I felt, and continue to feel, about sharing my life with him.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Moved!

Well, W and I moved! We're finally going to see if we can live in a place that we've been dreaming about living in for a few years. Where? Watch this youtube video for a BIG hint!

P.S. Pictures to follow!

On the Move

What a long trip!

We wrapped over 40 hours of travel yesterday afternoon when we arrived at our motel in Bellingham. We had hardly slept during our two nights on the bus and we had eaten only one meal, so we were pretty beat. We ate, we slept, and we slept.

Now we're up and getting ready to board the ship tonight. This is getting exciting.

So far it still feels surreal. To me, it almost feels like we're watching this happen to someone else instead of experiencing it ourselves.

Today, though, it's starting to feel more real. Sleep probably helps that. So does food.

But perhaps another big factor is the weather. When we got to Seattle, it was sunny and hot — nothing like Seattle is supposed to be. This morning, though, it's overcast and cool. And I feel like I'm really here making this journey after all.

Upsetting Alumni Mail

So I graduated from college with a BA in 2008. I have a diploma and transcripts to prove it. But a while back in the mail I a postcard from my university, addressed to me, which displayed a picture of a person in graduation cap and gown and a diploma - only the person's face was a white blank space that read "your name here" and the diploma displayed these words. The rest of the message on the postcard read, "What's stopping you from filling in the blanks?" I saw this and began to worry, had I just imagined it? Was I lying on job applications? I rifled through my papers to find my transcripts and checked my graduation status online - yes I really have graduated.

Well, two weeks ago I was looking through the alumni directory and thought that it would be fun to see what other people see when they look me up, they had me down as a member of the non-degree alumni. BING! The light turned on and I gave the alumni center a call to set them straight. The girl I talked to said that since I got married and changed my name during my time there my credits probably didn't transfer. I got married really young and changed my name long before I declared my major so I highly doubt that's what happened, but now they at least know that I did fill in the blanks and am an alumna.

Moral of the story? Make sure that when you graduate you talk with the people in charge of alumni stuff at your school so that you don't receive any letters or postcards that could cause a heart attack! ;-p

A New, Small, Addition to the Family

Recently a friend of ours left a comment, similar to the title of this post, on another post in this blog. I have been waiting a while to post this, about a month and a half. To clarify our friend's comment and share the good news I just have to say . . .



























WE BOUGHT ANOTHER NOOK!!!

That's right W and I are now a TWO Nook family instead of just a one Nook family and we love it. Now we both can read to our hearts content with our fairly large digital book collection. Welcome the our family my little nookie Nook, you've been a long time coming! ;-)

Great Basin

W and I went to Great Basin the weekend after Father's Day. We didn't hike to the top of Wheeler Peak again during this visit or see the Bristlecone Pine Grove. They had more snow this past year then they have had in a long time and most of the higher trails were too snowy to hike on or find. We did however take another tour through Lehman Caves, which was fun. Tara was our tour guide and we became such good friends with her during the tour that she suggested we take the Lehman Caves candlelight tour and even squeezed us in when the tour list was full. It was awesome to see the caves in a way that the first tourists might have seen them over one hundred years ago. I have some pictures, but I can't find the camera that has the pictures we took in the cave, I'll post those later. (I'm beginning to notice a bad pattern here, one of these days I will find all of my camera stuff and keep it close to my computer ;-) ).

Behold Wheeler Peak!

W built a snowman while we were out hiking at the end of June!

This is a picture of the first campfire I ever built by myself!

More fire!

Check out this cool fungus we saw on a hike!