I. Love. This. Necklace.
September 13, 2009 at 9:42 PM | Posted in Adventures in S-Land, I made this. | Leave a commentTags: Alaska, Winter
I always create with an eye toward what I think is beautiful, so it’s usually hard to let go of my pieces. But this one, oh, this one! I think I will cry and eat ice cream when it goes. I love it. I love everything about it. I love the layers of black wire and black seed beads with interesting black vintage beads scattered throughout. I love the peace dove in the cameo and the companion dove adding assymetrical surprise and interest. Here’s the background story:
When I was a little girl, one of my mom’s friends would tell stories to my sister and me about the lady who lived on Warehouse Mountain–a mountain we saw everyday from our home–and about wood-dwelling animals doing things and having adventures. We loved her stories because she made most of them up, and the stories always reflected what was going on in our small world. One particular story involved a dove bringing light to Alaska’s dark winters by putting stars into snow-covered spruce trees. We don’t have white doves in Alaska, so I remember being entranced by the miracle of a sun-white dove carrying a brilliant white star against the black sky and black spruce trees dusted with sparkling snow. To this day, it’s one of my favorite memories, and now it’s in a necklace!
This one is special. I can’t wait to see where it flies!
And we hit fast-forward…NOW!
August 28, 2009 at 8:08 PM | Posted in Another Day Another Dollar | Leave a commentTags: Alaska, food, Making Sense of it All, Teaching
WAKEUPGETDRESSEDGOGOGOTEACHTEACHTEACHCOACHCOACHCOACH!
EAT.
GRADEPAPERSGRADEPAPERSDOLAUNDRYGRADEPAPERSPLANLESSONSBRUSHTEETH!
SLEEP.
REPEAT.
I just don’t have much time for the space bar anymore.
However, there are these points of light:
1. Berry-picking. ‘Tis the season. I was in Cantwell last weekend, and it was glooooorious. Beautifully crisp but with a polished-bright sun strong enough to raise my favorite smell in the world: warm tundra. Bliss. I think that people who actually live in Cantwell probably moved there in August, unaware of the icepick Cantwell always holds behind its back.
2. Grilling. The birthday grill and I are finally beginning to cooperate with each other. It lights when I want it to, and I’ve stopped overcooking everything. It’s a symbiotic partnership like fungus + algae = lichen 4-EVER! I want to be the fungus; a little red toadstool with those cute little white spots. I will be featured on 1970s stationery everywhere.
By the way, I finally figured out how to remember which form of stationery/stationary is the one for all things lettery and desky and papery. StationEry is the right one. Because “letter” has e’s in it. I have made my life’s greatest discovery.
And now I’m out of points of light beyond the big ones: I’m healthy and securely employed in this economy. And boy, are those big ones. They almost make time for the space bar seem frivolous and unimportant.
Butnotquite.
The Early Birds can Eat Worms Elsewhere.
February 8, 2009 at 9:26 AM | Posted in We Have a Bear on our State Quarter | Leave a commentTags: Alaska
I’m not one of those winter-crazy people. I mean, I choose to live in Alaska, so obviously I don’t hate the snowy season, but I have to make purposeful effort to find things that I like when it’s cold and dark and then colder and darker. That part about thawing the door lock with a blow dryer sucks too.
However, here’s one thing that makes the like list: mid-morning sunrises.
It’s a quarter after nine right now, and golden glow is just starting to rim the mountains east of my home. You don’t have to be an alarm-clock-friendly-early-bird to catch the sunrise here. In fact, during the week, I typically miss the sunrise since I’m at work by six.
So, on the glorious weekends, I get to sleep in and still experience motivational-calendar-picture mornings.
Seize the day, Everybody. Go hack icicles off the roof.
It’s really totally inconvenient.
January 31, 2009 at 10:55 AM | Posted in We Have a Bear on our State Quarter | Leave a commentTags: Alaska, Redoubt
Before we left work yesterday, we had to cover the entire school in plastic trash bags. Okay, maybe not the entire school, just all the electronic equipment. Mount Redoubt is annoying me again.
The last time that stupid volcano decided to burp ashes everywhere, I was in middle school and living in Dillingham where, with the exception of the barge in the fall, residents rely almost completely on planes to bring the necessities of life: groceries, mail, and newspapers. With ash in the air, there were no flights. So we spent weeks making meals out of what we had in the pantry and living without our bank statements and magazines. We didn’t even get our town newspaper since it was printed in Anchorage and flown in once a week. And, this was all happening pre-Internet, so it wasn’t like we could hop on Google and search, “volcanoes are dumb” or “101 things to do with canned spinach.”
Of course, if Redoubt decides to interrupt my life with an eruption again, there won’t be a way to access the Internet anyway, so it might as well not exist. Guess I’d better go run my searches now: “Etsy withdrawal symptoms” and “eating canned asparagus for fun and profit.”
Eew.
January 18, 2009 at 11:44 AM | Posted in We Have a Bear on our State Quarter | Leave a commentTags: Alaska
My yard looks like the sky rained trash. The high winds this week apparently decided to bless me with the gift of a dumpster. Some assembly required.
Cold, cold, colder…
January 6, 2009 at 7:18 PM | Posted in We Have a Bear on our State Quarter | Leave a commentTags: Alaska, Winter
The bathtub drain froze yesterday. The laundry drain is frozen today.
This follows the coldest summer on record.
This is not fun.
Hawaii, take me now.
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