Your friendly Friday update

Our days are getting warmer (mid-40's today!) and longer (gaining 5 minutes/day!) so no complaints there. Next weekend I'm doing the Heart Run, a 5K run to raise funds for the Heart Association -- generally accepted as the first major race of summer season.

D is going out bear hunting via snowmachine this weekend with a friend, so I'll have time to clean, do laundry, take the dog for a wet spring walk and maybe tackle a sewing project.

Sometime this summer I'm hoping to convince D to install a rain barrel (or two) underneath our gutter spouts. Rain barrels are used all over the US, but I haven't seen too many here in Alaska. They are great for capturing water that usually goes to waste -- I'm thinking of using the runoff for watering my summer plants and D's veggies.

Work is still turning my hair gray, but I'm getting better at saying "no" to requests. It's nice to have a sympathetic boss.

Must clone myself ASAP

Work is so busy I can barely breathe. I stay up til at least 1 am every night because my brain will not TURN OFF ALREADY! Did I send that email? Can I make that deadline? Is it rude to keep my office door closed all day and not answer my phone so I can get a tiny sliver of work done?

I even cried sad little tears of frustration last week (behind closed doors of course, I'm a professional!) during an especially busy day. My coworker took one look at me and asked what was wrong (she's very in tune with my moods, apparently) and then my mom called. There's nothing like a sympathetic mom phone call to make you lose it. :-)

The situation is the result of a perfect storm of many things, with no end in sight until the end of May. But I'm trying to put my big girl pants on and suck it up, because in the end it all boils down to the fact that I HAVE A JOB. Period. Last week a good friend found out that she will definitely lose her new(ish) engineering job of about 6 months, so it's a scary time. Plus I am quite sure that D is SO over hearing about my daily trials and tribulations!

Bathroom completion

As promised, here are photos from our newly completed master bathroom. I am so, so happy with everything that D did with this space!

Before:

And after:

Oh and we will have all new interior doors -- love the bright white! Such a clean, crisp color.

Alaska Week

It's Alaska Week on the Discovery Channel again! Programming started last night and we caught "Dirty Jobs" and part of "Bear Attack!"

My friend (who hooked Drift up with those nifty TV commercials) works for a local video/documentary production company and helped the Dirty Jobs crew film the segment with Martin Buser (he's as nice in person as he is on camera). She said it was ridiculously cold that day, but such a blast to be around the sled dogs (she has a rambunctious husky of her own at home).

Random tidbit: Martin's Buser's wife worked as a teacher at my elementary school, so we helped "sponsor" him in one of his first Iditarod races in the late '80's. I think he said he has been doing the Iditarod for at least 25 years.

As I expected, the "Bear Attack!" program was quite over-dramatic and went on and on about a "rogue bear" in the Anchorage area, which makes it sound like we're all living in fear of bears and that isn't true. We live very close to the edge of Far North Bicentennial Park and while black bears are sometimes seen on Elmore Road (about a mile from our house), they aren't mauling people left and right. However, inside the park we all know that the bears roam freely and consider the area to be their territory. No one asks to be mauled but it's prudent to be cautious in the wooded bear area, whether it's within city limits or not.

So, we're interested to see the rest of Alaska Week -- I'm hoping to catch the program that has the segment filmed at my medical place of employment. It may be either "Untamed Alaska" or "Mythbusters."

Happy Easter!