Channeling Pollyanna

The shop has no bathroom.  Let me just put that out there first.

I know - I'm obsessed.  I'm sorry.  I don't mean to be.  It just is what it is, I guess.


Anyway, not having a bathroom necessitates a daily, if not more frequent, walk from the shop to our house (which is why we are so determined to live close by).  Happily, most of the time, the house is only a block away.  There are days, though, when that block feels like miles.  And miles.

When I'm at work, our black lab, Carbon, believes firmly that anytime I stand and put on my coat, I am taking her for a walk.  Period.  There are no exceptions to this rule.  So she walks with me and I use one of those "chuck-it sticks" (because I totally throw like a girl - a toddler sized one at that) and she chases the ball all the way home.

Yesterday, I threw the ball and heard her feet thunder past.  The first throw is the best as she runs the fastest for that very first ball.

I love that sound.

And it got me thinking. 

I've been here for more than a year and while I've spent a great deal of time bemoaning the move and missing my home of 9 years in Oregon, I haven't really praised my current home.

Well, in Oregon, we only had a small yard and we lived in a fairly busy part of town so it was not possible for me to let my dog off leash and let her chase balls.  In Alaska, I do it daily and I LOVE the sound of her running.

I love having water just out my front door.  I love the reflections on the water, the boats, the calm seas, the rough seas. . . . I just love having water right. there.

I love the wind.  We get these gnarly winds that roll off the ice fields and glaciers and blow so hard that I can't breathe.

I love that.

I love watching things blow by in the wind . . . leaves . . . sticks . . . grocery bags . . . small children . . .

Once, when we were kids, my older brother taped cardboard to his arms and the wind picked him up and carried him a foot or two.

I love all the mountains and seeing them slowly morph from summer green to fall gold to winter brown topped with snow.  Right now it's perfect; no snow on the ground and just enough on the mountains to make them look interesting and majestic.

I think that's all.

I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with my positivity and gratitude.

But I did want to let you know - it doesn't completely suck up here in the north.

Lenten Learnings

The drought has ended and I can now begin to write all the random thoughts that pop into my head on an hourly basis.

Easter was fabulous; General Conference was amazing and it was a lovely way to start Easter - lounging in our pj's, kids blitzed out on chocolate and prophets and apostles speaking in the living room; I love cable.

My Lent experience was different than I expected.  I learned something about myself and about Lent.  First, I love facebook.  I have missed hearing about my friends and connecting, even in just short little blurps.  I also missed all these darn blogs.  I miss my computer friends.  In all, I don't think I'm going to give up all my internet passtimes again, but I think it was a good thing to give up once.

Secondly, I have learned that Lent is a lot like fasting; it's less about what you're giving up and more about what you are replacing it with.  While I found that I had more time in general and my husband complained less on my being plugged into a computer, I didn't feel more overtly spiritual than I do on any other given day of the year.  I found that I need to be better about adding the spiritual components to my life - in particular, regular prayer and scripture study. 

Thirdly, I discovered that the pangs of Lent are similar to the pangs of fasting in that they remind me, "Hey - shouldn't you be thinking about God?"  And I loved that.  I find myself having more conversations with God throughout the day and I have found myself - while not quite perfectly regular in regards to the prayer and scripture study - more attentive to that part of my life.

So, moving forward, I am back on Facebook and back here and even back robbing people on Mafia Wars - although I must admit that some of the appeal of that game has waned.  And I am still having convoluted and dramatically crushing thoughts that I would love to share....but not this morning.  I'm finding myself a bit to drained and I'm sure that whatever I typed would come out being overly maudalin, even for me.

Gifts from Heaven

I was rifling through the pantry to find something to make for dinner when I stumbled across a bag of Ghirardelli's dark chocolate squares with caramel.

*mmmm*

Better than finding a random $20 in my coat pocket.

The Obligatory Post

I am thankful for glazed ham and other fine smoked pork products.

I am grateful for my Chevy Astro van with AWD. Mostly I am grateful for the fact that my deep and abiding love for my van has rekindled a long dead relationship with snow; I am coming to appreciate the winter wonderland of the north.

I am thankful for tampons and all sorts of modern feminine hygiene products.

I am grateful for the wide variety of food available, even in Alaska, even in the dead of winter. I'm sure my ancestors could not have made a chocolate haupia pie for Thanksgiving even if they had wanted to.

I am grateful for bedtimes and that every day ends.

I am grateful for Facebook and the easy way I can now breeze in and out of friends' lives with just a few keystrokes.

I am thankful that my husband loves bright sunny yellow (you'll never guess the color of the new flooring at the shop....) and I'm equally grateful that we currently have no home of our own to paint.

I love the rain. I love the fact that rain melts snow.

I love watching the winter storms, knowing I am warm and inside and dry and safe from all the fury of the outside.

I am thankful for family and for the joys of family living blocks away or hundreds of miles away. I am grateful for phones, computers and other technologies that make moves to Alaska less isolating than they were 50 years ago.

I am grateful that the power of the sun can now come in a small, convenient to carry box.

I am equally thankful for happy meds and pain killers, without with, I might just be single.

I am grateful for God and the fact that He has more patience for me than I do for myself.

I am grateful for blogging and for comments from random strangers. (ahem. hint. NUDGE.)

And I am grateful for tryptophan (although I wonder if they make it in pill form yet....).