Same difference to the dog

Did somebody say HUNGRY?

Get your hardhat, Drift...it's dinnertime! Wait, that's no hardhat -- it's the dog toy basket.

Ah, that's better. Now we can have dinner.

Getting my craft on

Got together with the girls on Friday night for some spiked cider and pumpkin carving. In hindsight, maybe rum, wine and sharp knives were not a good combination -- but we all came through unscathed. Seriously, those are some good looking pumpkins!


The internets came through for me again in regards to my pumpkin - I got the idea from this guy's website. It was actually more difficult to carve that tiny pumpkin than the larger one.

Sara decided to carve a likeness of Cindy into a pumpkin -- we were all amazed by the uncanny resemblance. Here I am holding it in front of Cindy's head:

Drift ignored my creation when I first brought it home, but when I turned my back he tried to eat the mini-me pumpkin. That dog loves putting stuff in his mouth.

Picked up a battery-powered light at Wal-Mart and it works great. Looks amazing in the dark. Now D doesn't have to worry about me burning the porch down. Happy Halloween!

Cruelty to animals

Oh you poor, poor pets...

This costume stinks...

Ride 'em, cowboy!

Really?

And so unnecessary...I can't imagine getting a wig to stay on any of my cats' heads.

NPR

Most days at work I listen to National Public Radio in my office. NPR presents all sorts of interesting programs, of which my favorites are: Talk of the Nation, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Calling All Pets (and Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! on the weekends).

Right now our local station KSKA is holding a membership drive to raise money for the annual budget and it seems that every five minutes they are asking for pledges. And the guilt! They have really perfected the art of making you feel bad about listening without supporting your member station. I feel like I should change the dial when the pledge drive harpies come on. But the tactics do seem to work, especially since I made a donation this morning. Now I can sit smugly in my office and listen to NPR without guilt. Until next year.

Black hole

Why is it so cold in here? Oh, I see, Sammy is sucking up all of our precious house heat for herself. Way to go, kitty.

No, don't get up, I'll just put on another sweater.

FYI, we don't usually have hundreds of power cords all over the floor -- the house is still in remodeling mode.

Oh, rubbish

Last year I jumped on the recycling bandwagon and now I can't imagine how we ever threw away the things that we did. Every few weeks I would dutifully haul our glass, tin cans, aluminum, plastic bags, newspaper, plastic bottles and paper to the recycling center a couple miles from our home, navigate the sea of cars in the chute and elbow my way to the big bins. Doesn't that sound like a lovely way to spend a Saturday?

But hallelujah -- we now get curbside recycling in our neighborhood. I gladly pay the extra $6 a month to avoid the bi-monthly trip to recycling hell. We get to use this spiffy wheeled bin and the best part? NO SORTING! They WANT you to just dump all the stuff in there and forget about it


The only downside is that they do not pickup glass or plastic bags -- I can understand not accepting glass in the bin, because really, no none wants to deal with broken glass -- but plastic bags? Huh. So once every 2 months I still visit the center to drop off these items. Not all centers can accept everything with a recycling logo on the bottom -- ours is no exception, so I feel guilty when throwing away things like yogurt cups or other plastic containers, but there's really no alternative. Although we do save some of those containers to store the shrimp we get from Prince William Sound in the summertime. Along these lines, Real Simple magazine has a great explanation of how to recycle anything.

When we remodeled the kitchen, D worked in an area for my recycling bins -- yes, he's pretty great -- and I sewed a little curtain with Ikea fabric and hung it with some hardware, also from Ikea. It's a great system for me -- when the bins fill up, the recyclables get dumped into the big green bin outside.

My mom has been recycling in her own way for as long as I can remember. In elementary school my sister and I were instructed to bring home our ziploc bags so they could be washed and reused. Hello, my mom is a trendsetter, people! I guess you can say that most Koreans are into reusing and saving -- this post on reusing plastic bags from the blog "Stuff Korean Moms Like" is hilarious but true. And it is truly written with love and respect -- don't send me any angry emails!

Companies even make drying racks for your ziplock bags!

I am truly my mother's daughter -- I save stuff like nobody's business. However it is getting easier for me to purge things and every few months D and I will have a big box of things to donate to charity. This site has some good tips for clearing the clutter from your life, as does this article from Time magazine. Happy recycling and decluttering!

Deal of the day

I debated on whether or not to blog about this deal site I visit -- SteepandCheap.com -- because the more people who visit it may mean less stuff available for me to buy. Horrors!

Steepandcheap offers one outdoorsy-type item for sale at a time (overall quantities of each item varies) until the item sells out. Then a new one pops up and the process repeats. Each item is at least 50% off retail and I've been able to snag some amazing gear through this site. Steep and Cheap is powered by Backcountry.com, an online store with amazing customer service -- seriously, I love those guys.

If you are a gear addict like me, I apologize in advance for introducing you to this site. If you already know about Steepandcheap, I feel your pain...and euphoria, when those packages come in the mail!

Chimps and tigers

Oh my goodness, this story and the accompanying photographs are just too adorable.

This chimp is acting as a surrogate mother to white tiger cubs at a zoo in South Carolina. So sweet!

A long time coming

Dear Target,

Thanks for finally coming to stay in Los Anchorage, even though you are 6 months late -- but don't worry, we won't hold that against you.

Alaskans will turn out in droves for the grand opening of anything (consumerism is alive and well here) and the crowds were predicted to be insane, but I felt the pull of that red bullseye. So much for my promise that I would stay away for at least a month. I told myself that I would just drive by and check out how crowded the parking lot was on Saturday -- holy mackerel, it was like someone announced that Sarah Palin and Angelina Jolie would be mud wrestling for the title of most popular woman on the internets.

Somehow I ended up parking in the football field-sized parking lot (how did that happen!) and walked the 6 miles or so to the store. I hope that the stocking situation has been remedied before I return to you, Target my friend. I walked past many shelves that had exactly 1 item left and two ladies were usually fighting over said item. Big screen tv's were flying out the door and people were seriously on a mission to shop.

When I checked out, the girl seemed slightly unfamiliar with the concept of cashiering and tried to charge me for the lovely Envirosax reusable bags I brought from home. The lady in front of me had to explain to her what a rain-check is. Hopefully, all of these kinks will work themselves out over the coming months.

You're not perfect Target, but you're still better than Wal-Mart. Oh, and thanks for the free $50 gift card!
Love, A

Moolah

A friend here at work gave me one of the new state quarters, which is pretty sweet because so far I've been waiting to get one "naturally" -- you know, change back from a cashier or finding one on the ground somewhere. I suspect that every Alaskan is hoarding our state quarters that they may come across.

Duking it out

Someone asked me if I will discuss politics, and specifically the presidential race, here on this blog. And that's a big no, people. There are plenty of well-written (and not so) sites on my precious internets that can discuss the political arena far better than I can.

And just because Sarah Palin is from Alaska doesn't mean I can tell you whether or not she'll be a good VP. Your guess is as good as mine, really. She seems different on the national stage than when we had her full time here in AK. I certainly have my own opinions but like I've been telling everyone, I'll spare you all from them! I AM happy that the race is getting people more interested in politics -- and hope to see an increased number of voter registrations and a healthy turnout on November 4.

Gray skies

So much for the nice clear day I was expecting. We have an event tonight that is outdoors and it's snowing up a storm. Glad I brought my warm stuff since we'll be outside for 4 hours...

How long until retirement?

Getting geared up to work my third consecutive Saturday (gotta love health fairs) and then realized that with all the other events I'm helping to plan and staff, my overtime will be close to 30 hours for October. Yikes! Deep breaths...

It can't last forever, right?

Warning, shameless plug ahead

My sister Risha and I have opened up an online store to feature some of our handcrafted items. The storefront is hosted by Etsy - a place for independent crafters to show off their wares. Be sure to poke around and check out the other stores...there are TONS of fun goodies!

Sumie & Sukie Boutique can be found here: http://www.sumieandsukie.etsy.com -- there's also a link to the store on the left-hand side of this blog.

Our items are also selling in stores in Alaska, California, Nevada and Tennessee. We welcome custom and wholesale orders. Thanks for your support and for checking out the site!

Drift proves his worth as a Labrador Retriever

Em and Randy got this stuffed pheasant for Drift when they visited in June. It has by far become his favorite toy and we're gobsmacked that he hasn't ripped it apart in a frenzy. I think he loves it too much...although it's now missing a piece or two.

Watched a show last night called "Dogs 101" and learned that labradors are the only canines that can carry an egg in their mouths without breaking the shell. Crazy! So of course I wanted to try it --regardless of yellow goo on the floor. You only live once people! This is Drift at attention when he spies the egg:

D got the egg ready and can you believe it...

Drift did it! He brought back that darn egg in one piece. I think we'll keep him.