Coming clean

Lately I've been thinking quite a lot about thankfulness. It's November and many people on Facebook are posting daily about things they are thankful for, big or small. My heart is full of gratitude for many things...first and foremost, my little family unit: D and Boyd. They are such a blessing to me. We have a small, cozy home and jobs and resources. And we are so lucky to have a wonderful extended family on both sides.

I am also thankful for good health (and insurance coverage!) While I was pregnant with Boyd, one of my many tests came back with evidence of severe dysplasia on my cervix, which is a precursor to cervical cancer. We chose not to share this news with anyone because the last thing I wanted was to cause people to worry. I was scheduled to have a colposcopy and minor biopsy on my birthday, but then we found out about my dad and flew down to Tennessee to be with him before he passed. My doctor wasn't happy about rescheduling since my condition wasn't improving, but once I got home I had the procedure done. The results weren't great - the abnormal cells were CIN 3. Left untreated, they would progress to the next stage: cancer. However, pregnant ladies can't have treatment because any trauma to the cervix can cause premature labor. So we crossed our fingers that a natural birth would slough off the majority of precancerous cells. I was nervous that something would happen to cause a c-section, but we were lucky.

A couple weeks after Boyd was born my doctor did another colposcopy, which came back with CIN 3 levels again, and that meant I had to undergo a more invasive treatment. We scheduled a cone biopsy for 6 weeks postpartum. It was fairly painful, especially since I was still recovering from childbirth, but the results came back with good news. The biopsy removed most of the dysplasia and there was just a small area which looked troubling, but nowhere near as bad as before. So now I go in every 3-6 months for a checkup to make sure the areas of concern are not getting any worse. I asked my doc how I could have a normal pap in March, before I was pregnant, and then have a fairly advanced case of dysplasia just a few months later in July. She said that pregnancy causes all of the body's cells to multiply quickly, in order to allow for the fetus to grow.

So that's the story. And my advice? Go get an annual exam, no excuses!

Google Reader

I started using Google Reader a few months ago and it has totally changed the way I read blogs and visit websites. If you are like me and have a long list of blogs to visit every week, the process can be a bit tedious.

Using Google Reader allows me to see which blogs/sites have been updated recently and quickly read through those. No wasting time on blogs that have not been updated since the last time I logged into Reader.

Here is what it looks like when I log in:

It shows me who has new entries to read (and how many) and who has been lazy about posting. Ha! So, although it may take some time to add all of your favorite blogs to your subscription list IT IS TOTALLY WORTH IT in the end! Take my word for it.

Another year older

No blogging yesterday because it was my birthday! Yup, I turned the big 33 and received many wonderful birthday wishes from family, friends and coworkers. Thank you to my in-laws, Don & Mim, for treating D and I to a very yummy dinner at the Snow Goose downtown. It was such a lovely evening that we took a short drive around town to enjoy the sunshine.

My boss, two coworkers and a friend from Washington brightened up my office with bright summery blooms. The hydrangea is actually a plant so I hope to keep it alive and see it bloom next year too! 

What the...?!

Who steals an organic food box? Well apparently, someone at my workplace does! I always pick up our box as I leave for the day and ours was missing. I emailed the company to see what their policy is in this type of situation and also notified our security department. This sucks - $41 down the drain!

**Update - the company is refunding me my money! Excellent customer service.

St. Pattie's

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Snow snow snow

Third day of snow flurries. It's like our own watered-down version of snowpocalypse! Temp is around 10 degrees, which is not unbearable by any means but something in the low 20's would be perfect.

For your viewing pleasure -- a photo of a small-ish moose helping itself to a branch snack a few blocks from our house...

Monday already

Did you watch the Academy Awards last night? I didn't, but was very happy to hear that "The Hurt Locker" won a couple awards. D and I watched that movie on Saturday night (thanks Netflix!) and thought it was really good. I can't speak to the level of realism because, uh, I've never been part of an EOD unit that responds to bomb threats in Iraq, but it was a powerful movie.

I realized this weekend that our wedding invites need to go out sometime this month. They are halfway finished (I'm designing them myself) but there are a couple things that I can't decide on -- the font being one of them. I go back and forth between a coupled different options.

D worked all weekend on the laundry room. Walls are painted, shelving is up, new electical outlets are in. I picked this bright yellow color for the walls and it's so bright and cheery. D is not convinced, but I think once everything is placed in the room the color will be toned down.

And here is what happens when I get bored and the dog is too tired to run away...

Housekeeping

Please bear with me as I make some upgrades to the blog. I found a great template that will allow for publishing of photos in a larger format, but it always takes a while to ensure all of my widgets make the conversion.

Made it to Friday

Still here, still alive -- just trying to keep my head above water. I thought that once Heart Month concluded my time would free up a bit, but I forgot that my boss had a 10 day vacation planned. So here we are at the start of March and it's busy once again.

D and I visited Home Depot last night and picked out a happy yellow color for the laundry room walls. It's looking great down there -- new drywall is up and D laid down a coat of primer. We'll also have new flooring and storage options on the two opposing walls. Can't wait!

Oh and after sitting through two days of jury selection, I managed to not get picked for a criminal case. The attorneys found a pool of 15 potentials and the rest of us were sent off to thank our lucky stars. It was a rape case and would have gone on for about 2 weeks, according to the judge. Not pleasant.

Jury duty

My petit jury duty stint began this morning. I got up early, drove downtown and made my way to one of the courthouses. Security only took a few minutes and then I waited in the jury room with over 100 other people. Roll call was called a couple different times and then after an hour or so we were all ushered into a very small courtroom. After 4 hours they had only decided on about 8 jurors, which means the majority of us have to return tomorrow morning and continue the process.

I brought my Kindle along to read before and after our time in the courtroom. It was nice to not have a heavy book weighing down my purse! We were all released at 1:30 today so I was able to come into work and get some things done. My boss is going on vacation starting Wednesday and I really hope I'm not selected for the case or else we have no coverage here at the office.

Dinner, Symphony & Porcupine

This month is just kicking my butt -- I feel so behind on a number of things, one of them being this blog! I thought about blogging last night but then I ended up spending 3 hours in the kitchen, making garlic bread, caribou lasagna from scratch and a very yummy batch of chocolate tarts in coconut bowls. So dinner was tres' delicious, if I do say so myself. I just about passed out from the heat though, with two burners on the stove going strong and the oven working overtime.

The Symphony on Saturday evening was really great. I haven't been for quite a while now and forgot how much I enjoy listening to live music. It was a lovely evening. And my workplace got some great PR exposure! 

I had a request to post some porcupine photos, so Mim, these are for you!

Last month I blogged about D and I having dinner with friends, with an unusual meat as the main course. D shot this porcupine out at the cabin and our friends cooked it up, using a cookbook we also have at home, Cooking Alaskan. What's funny is that I've looked through that book and don't recall ever seeing the section on porcupines!

Both Jay and Sara work for Fish & Game, so they are no strangers to cooking up Alaskan-type meals. However, porcupine was a first for them. Jay says he laid the animal on its back and then started to clean it by going in by the belly (no quills there). After butchering it, Sara let it cook overnight in a crockpot with lots of veggies and bacon. The four of us thought it was good, but really the meat didn't have a strong taste one way or another. The bacon helped to give it a good flavor.

Jay says he'll boil down the skull and use it for education purposes at work. The teeth really fascinate me, look at how yellow and long they are...yikes!

Long claws too...good for digging and climbing trees.

A closer look at the quills, nestled close to the skin.

D kept the frozen porcupine outside until I could take it over to Jay & Sara's for cleaning. As he brought it in, somehow a quill stuck him and you can see how tenacious the thing is.

2009: Year in Review

January
The year started off with 10 to 15 degree below zero weather. D and I finally took our first real joint vacation (after 3.5 years together!) to Mexico and ended up with some bad luck, but had a great time overall. I did manage to come back with bruised ribs. Boo. We all waited for Mt. Redbout to blow.

February
Still waiting for a volcanic eruption. Bought new dining room furniture. Started ordering organic food through Full Circle Farm CSA. Our crazy high gas prices started to come down a bit. D began snowmachining out to a cabin up north and shooting critters.

March
I attended my second BOW (Becoming an Outdoors Woman) weekend. D continued his love affair with his snowmachine. Mt. Redoubt finally blows its top and luckily Anchorage only receives light ashfall. Of course we went to a party that evening and drove my car through the ash cloud. Figures.

April
We had been living in our new house for one year as of April 1st. In that year, D completed MANY home improvement projects (total kitchen remodel, popcorn ceiling scraping, 2 bathroom renovations, painting, etc.) D finished the master bathroom remodel in record time!We participated in a home energy rating in order to get money back from the state. I took a really neat train trip for a work excursion just as the whole swine flu hysteria broke in the US. Breakup hits Alaska -- temps hit 40 degrees and snow starts melting, making for messy streets and cars. We attend the annual Sportsman show and get pumped for fishing season!

May
D, Drift and I take the boat out to Deep Creek for our first trip of the summer. We had amazing weather and 60 degree temperatures, which is extremely abnormal for the beginning of May. D installed a new sliding glass patio door in the dining room and I finally bought a new dishwasher. Towards the end of the month we took a day trip out of Whittier and experienced the most beautiful (and HOT) weather in the Sound ever. The fishing was ok that day, shrimping was great.

June
Summer officially arrives and I get all of our flowers planted outside. D's parents arrive in Alaska after a long drive from Minnesota and the combat fishing season begins in earnest. D turns 35 and I get him the best present ever: a mission style recliner. We replace our 2-car garage door.

July
We continue to have kick-ass warm and sunny weather, and hit summer solstice. The grass grows faster than D can get around to cutting it. In celebrity news, I see Bear Grylls at Humpy's while out for a pint with friends and Sarah Palin resigns the governorship. D fishes every weekend with his parents and I drive down to the Russian and Kenai Rivers when I can. Dipnetting for salmon happens this month too.Oh, I caught a really nice king! We are vacuum-sealing and canning fish like crazy.

August
Best month ever! We celebrated my 32nd birthday, got ENGAGED and I won $1,000 worth of girly gift certificates from a radio contest. Took a wonderful trip to Tennesssee to see my family. Something not so great: one of my cats begins to bring home mice she has caught in the yard.

September
D goes moose and caribou hunting, and comes home with a really nice caribou that may make it into the Pope & Young record book for Alaska! We finally order my engagement ring from Blue Nile online and it is gorgeous. Construction continues on the main feeder road to our house. We take day trip at the end of the month to Lake Louise and Bonnie Lake for some hiking, canoeing and target practice.

October
We take another day trip, but go down south this time to Seward/Moose Pass to look at possible wedding locations and hike out to Carter Lake. I hit the one-year anniversary of my blog! We start wedding planning in earnest; setting the date and location, hiring a caterer, dj and photographer. Still no snow on the ground, which is odd. I work a lot of Saturdays because of health fairs. I help babysit triplets and realize that I do not want triplets.

November
I visit Texas for my 10-year college reunion. We fiinally get snow on the ground back home and have a snowy Thanksgiving. It's cold.

December
Ice fog hits Anchorage and my sister arrives for her yearly visit. D and I decide to go low-key for Christmas and not do presents. Without discussing it, we end up buying ourselves a big gift anyway! Kindle for me, chainsaw and snowmachine bibs for D. Our wedding save-the-dates finally go out in the mail. Risha and I go wedding dress shopping. Winter solstice means we have the lowest amount of daylight all year. We go x-c skiing one last time before the new year.

Another round?

What a great weekend -- it went by in a flash, probably because I was sampling beers the whole time! Friday evening meant it was time for the Beer & Barleywine Festival. One of our local convention centers was jam packed with vendors offering microbrews, barleywines, meads, lambics, and beers from larger breweries.

I didn't get too crazy that first night since I knew I'd be back to work the next evening. Someone told me that an average of 2000 people attend every night. I believe it -- the place was ridiculously crowded, practially shoulder to shoulder.

Our volunteer duties beckoned on Saturday. As "floaters" I figured that my friend Cindy and I would be cutting bread, filling up water jugs and emptying the slosh buckets, but as soon as we signed in a coordinator grabbed us and said we'd be serving beers that night! Apparently they were short-handed and needed bartenders. We were more than happy to oblige.

I worked the Oskar Blues Brewery from Lyons, Colorado. All of their award-winning beers are served in cans, which is pretty amazing because in general bottled beers are the standard with snobby beer types. Oh but we did have the brewery's barleywine on tap -- see that red cooler behind me? It had a tap attached to the front and was filled with ice to cool the lines from the keg below. Most of the breweries did the same with their offererings.

My section had a great view of the band -- not that I had time to watch them!

I had to get familiar with the beers really fast -- took me all of 10 minutes to become an expert! One of the guys I worked with gave me a quick overview and had me taste every offering so I knew what I was talking about: Ten Fidy (imperial stout), Mama's Little Yella Pils (pilsner), Old Chub (scottish ale), Dale's Pale Ale. My favorites were the scottish ale (great smoky aftertaste) and surprisingly, the imperial stout. The stout was so smooth and not overly heavy.

Cindy displaying her commemorative glass

Cindy and I got the hang of the situation pretty quickly and were giving recommendations of our respective beers in no time. We worked straight for more than two hours and time just flew by. A little after 8 p.m. our replacements showed up and we hit the floor for our second night of tastings. It turns out that Friday is the better night to attend -- most vendors run out of things by 9 p.m. Saturday night. But overall we had a blast and would definitely volunteer again!

Bring on the booze

This Saturday night a group of friends and I are volunteering at the annual Beer and BarleyWine Festival downtown. I've been to this event quite a few times...and even remember most of them! Turns out volunteers get free admission ($30 value) to another one of the festival's weekend sessions, so I'll be drinking for free on Friday evening. D is going snowmachining again so no delicious beers for him. Basically volunteers bring out water jugs, make sure the bread bowls are full and help set-up/clean-up.

After walking in the door, attendees are handed a wad of drink tickets, 6 oz. glass and program outlining the beverage vendors and their offerings. I like to take 5-10 minutes beforehand to sit down with the program and mark down my top picks and plan of attack. Lindemans is number one on my list for their framboise and pomme, and Celestial Meads (an Alaskan company) has some tasty and very strong meads. I've learned to generally stay away from the barleywines and anything with an alcohol content of higher than 9%, although I make an exception for Ring of Fire Meadery out of Homer and their amazing fruit beverages. The breweries from England make good ciders as well. Can you see a pattern emerging here? I like the sweet stuff!

Will try to remember and take some photos, but don't hold it against me if I get distracted. :-)

Birthday wishes

My wonderful and lovely mother is celebrating her birthday today. Happy birthday Mom! I hope I can look as good as she does as I age. Must be those Asian genes.

In other news, I'm helping out my production-company friend by appearing in a tv commercial tomorrow afternoon. I've done this before but have never had actual spoken lines -- so I'm a little nervous. The shoot is at the airport and I get to be an airline customer service person. Wish me luck!

Weekend roundup

I can't belive I'm posting this photo, but Risha made me promise that I would. We spent about 90 minutes at a local bridal shop on Saturday and in that time period I was in and out of no less than 15 dresses - that has got to be a record or something.

The following dress is about 4 sizes to big for me and came with a set of detachable sleeves. Soooo not my style! It was also a big poofy ball gown, also not my style. Although I do love the look of a big bustled train.

Yeah, yikes...I know.

This next one was pretty and more streamlined, which is what I'm looking for, but too pageant-like. The beading and crystals were amazing.

The bridal shop discourages photos (they don't want you to take pictures and then have a seamstress recreate a dress) so we had to be pretty sly in the dressing room. We ended up finding a dress that is similar to the style I want and now feel pretty confident that the alterations to my mom's dress will work out for me. Yay!

On Friday, D and I attended his union holiday party at one of the local hotels. It was a good time -- the food was really yummy, but the prices at the bar were ridiculous. $8 for a little cocktail! Afterwards we headed up to the Crow's Nest, a restaurant and bar on the 20th floor. That place is very swank and I would definitely go again, if for nothing else than the views of Anchorage from the big windows.

In the lobby we found a gingerbread village -- created by the hotel pastry chefs. That's A LOT of gingerbread and icing.

Facebook & Craigslist postings

Oh my, some people are not so savvy with the Facebook skills! I got these from HuffPo.

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These are pretty funny too: Crazy Craigslist Ads

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Moose-o-rama

Yesterday I drove by the area where D parks his truck at work (he is currently doing some work at my workplace -- we're remodeling) and out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement...

There were actually a total of 3 moose - mama and 2 calves -- but the other calf was already ahead of these two. They really seem to like this area.

Triple the fun

No health fairs this weekend, but it was busy nonetheless. A going-away party for a coworker on Friday night, then a birthday party for another friend on Saturday night. But for about 5 hours on Saturday afternoon, I had the opportunity to help babysit TRIPLETS! A friend of a friend gave birth to triplets (2 girls, 1 boy) about 5 months ago and three of us went over to give the harried parents a baby-free afternoon off. My friend's 2-year old son also came over to play with the triplets' 2-year old -- so we had five kids total to watch.

It was crazy busy all afternoon. The babies were in good moods for about 30 minutes after the parents left, then they got fussy. Usually two would cry and one would be fine -- then they'd trade off. The baby boy is the smallest of the bunch, but man can he spit up! He's a champion, that one -- I was sporting spit-up all over my shirt. I now recognize the importance of a rag on your person at all times.

After a big meltdown before feeding time we let the babies nap for a bit and then took them for a short walk outside since the day was gorgeous. Oh they looked SO adorable bundled up in the fleece jumpers! I got my girl in a sling contraption and she fell right asleep. We got the 2-year old boys dressed and situated in the double stroller and took a nice 30 minute jaunt around the neighborhood. Another friend who had a baby boy about 2 months ago stopped by and also walked with us. Such a lovely day.

Oh and we found out later that we had been calling the girls by the incorrect names all afternoon! They totally look alike but the parents are not sure if the three are truly identical. I guess there is some test the babies can take but they haven't gotten around to it yet. I definitely came home with a touch of baby fever!

Happy blog-iversary

Wow, today marks the one-year anniversary of my little blog!

 I don't have a ton of readers but the ones who have stuck around are pretty faithful! Thanks to all of you who come back week after week to hear about our adventures of living in Alaska with an animal menagerie. A lot of events, both happy and not, have occurred over the past year but it's been good overall (and cathartic) to use this blog to let everything out. Here's to another year!