Bears and wine bottles

My other half is off hunting bears in the wilderness. And from a garbled cell phone message yesterday, it sounds like he will be staying out there another couple days. I always laugh when people say I'm a "fishing widow" because it's not really true -- D and I usually get to fish together. When he does go without me it's usually only for 2-3 days. But a hunting widow? That's definitely the category I fall into. And it takes at least a week to hunt something, most often longer.

Speak of the devil - D just called and may come home today. Woot! There's a chance he will go out again next week because the bears are still staying out of sight, so I'm prepared for that. If he gets back to Anchorage, we can hit up the Sportsmans Show this weekend.

As promised, here is one of the wedding projects I am working on: wine bottle vases. I first saw this on a DIY website and then got the itch to try it out. The first step is to use a glass cutter of some sort and etch a continuous line across the circumference of the bottle. Um, easier said than done. D and I figured out that you need some sort of holder or vise to keep the bottle steady while etching it, otherwise the glass will spider-crack (during the heating process) wherever the lines don't meet up.

Start with a regular ol' wine bottle. The thicker glass is more difficult to work with. I've noticed that this process has a lot of collateral damage. Thank goodness one of my coworkers LOVES wine -- she is keeping me well stocked with bottles to practice with.

The glass cutter that D already had in his tool arsenal...score!

See the etched line? Didn't match up, despite my best efforts.

The next step is to make slow rotations of the etched line over a heat source and then cooling the area with an ice cube. The heating/cooling process causes the bottle to crack along the line. D and I tried the process before he left to go hunting and he used a propane torch to heat the glass.

Truth be told, I was a little intimidated by the propane torch. So when he left town and I wanted to work on this project, I instead went with the tealight method. My thoughts? The tealight sucks. Holding the glass too far away from the flame means the heating process takes forever. Holding it too close leaves a black sooty mess on the bottle.

The frustration finally got to me and I stomped down to the garage to tackle the torch. Result? Not scary at all! It took a fraction of the time as compared to the tealight and no sooty mess on the glass. You can see one of the finished products in the photo below.

Not sure if these will work out because the tops are not perfect enough for me. I still need to experiment with sanding down the rough edges. It's not like anyone will be drinking out of these but we don't need anyone cutting themselves!

Wednesday update

Wow, sorry peeps...it's been a quite a few days since I posted last. Since that time, D has returned from what he deems the "promised land," aka South Dakota. :-) He brought me a beautiful ceramic baking dish and lots of midwest goodies: walleye fillets, buffalo burger and deer bacon! He was home for one whole day before packing up and heading north for some bear hunting. But before D left, I received assistance with two wedding projects...will post more on that later.

So much for putting the patio furniture out...it started snowing early yesterday morning, and continued off and on throughout the day! Some areas of town received up to 4 inches. I've lived in Alaska my entire life, so I know better than to jump the gun and get all excited about spring -- but I was really hoping to have an early start to the season. Needless to say, my adirondack chairs will stay put in the shed for another couple weeks (at least).

Had to work late yesterday (waiting on a big project to be delivered from the printer) so I took advantage of the downtime to work on our wedding vows. I'm pulling inspiration from different sources and weaving in some personal tidbits. A good framework is in place and after some tweaking, I'll have D look it over and add his feedback. Just from reading it over this morning I started tearing up and getting weepy! I'm definitely going to need some waterproof mascara on wedding day.

Dessert

How cute are these little chickies? They're cake pops! From the genius mind of Bakerella.

And dessert "fast food" too...

Moose & moon

As I was getting ready for work this morning, Drift was barking like crazy outside. A quick peek out the window revealed that he was directing his attention towards a rather large moose in the corner of the yard. I hustled downstairs to let him in the house and we both watched as the moose made his way along the side fence. I didn't see what direction it headed off in since I ran off to get my camera and in those few seconds it ran away. The visit is ironic because I was just telling our next door neighbor the other day that we hadn't seen many moose this year!

We had a full moon this week, so I tried to capture it with the nighttime function on my point & shoot camera:

It was remarkably bright - amazing how much light the moon gives off...

Spring cleaning

I'm slightly overwhelmed by life right now. Spring is a very busy time at work and I have some anxiety about getting things done.

But overall this past weekend raised my spirits quite a bit. On Friday I met up with a couple of my girlfriends at McGinley's downtown and had a chance to reminisce about old times. We talked and talked -- it's interesting to note what different people remember about the same event! At some point during the night, we noticed a big group of Alaska hippies riding down the middle of the street (and past the bar) on bikes.

Saturday was movie night with some other friends, and since the film we wanted to see ("Alice in Wonderland" in 3D) was sold out, we scooted over to "The Book of Eli" at the $3 theater. Movie was so-so. And on Monday evening I visited Blues Central to support my friend who was trying speed dating for the first time! I only stuck around for the first 10 minutes or so, but she called me afterwards to dish about the experience.

The last two weekends have been devoted to spring cleaning. My car has 4 bags of clothes and household items ready for the Salvation Army, and I spent DAYS washing our numerous comforters, sheets and pillows (all 10 -  how can two people have 10 pillows?). Thank goodness for our front-loading washer -- it can handle our queen-size fluffy down comforter. And I managed to get 2-3 pillows in each load which isn't too bad.

I snapped this photo on Friday around 4:30 p.m. after my conference had concluded. It was a beautiful day and Sleeping Lady (Mt. Susitna) was clearly visible across the inlet.

It's hard to tell, but that wide expanse of snow is actually covering a lake. Lake Hood is located near the airport and is the busiest floatplane base in the world. I've never been in a floatplane (see the floats instead of wheels?), but have been on small plane flights before. A friend of mine is a pilot and took me up for my birthday years ago...it was amazing! Well, except for when he pulled the "vomit comet" maneuver.

3 months

D has been out of town for almost a week now -- he flew back to the midwest to spend time with family and surprise his parents. Sounds like they were very surprised! Needless to say it's been very quiet around the house. Drift and I have been on some walks, but mostly he stalks me around the house and watches the wedding craft extravaganza.

I am seriously pushing it with these wedding invitations when it comes to getting them out in time. Note to brides - don't design them yourself!!! It's too easy to get caught up in the little details. And after taking that Photoshop class, now I want to get all crazy with my images and create new ones. I'm getting quotes from local printers to see if they can match the estimates I have received from online vendors. Online peeps are great, but what they charge for shipping to Alaska is ridiculous.

This photo is from sometime last week when I hand-stamped the outer envelopes. The table is now a total mess, so it's actually a good thing D is out of town because it looks like Martha Stewart's workshop threw up all over our dining room.

Blah

Ugh, had a bad day at work today. Sometimes it's just not your day, right? I cannot WAIT to take my 2 1/2 weeks off from work this summer (for the wedding) and see how much I am appreciated when I return!

Signed up for an all-day Photoshop conference tomorrow so I'll be off learning the ins and outs of this program and expanding my skill set. I know the basics now but it's difficult to advance by reading a manual - I need that hands-on experience.

D approved my design for our wedding invitations/rsvp cards and those will be printed shortly. Last night I spent a couple hours organizing and stamping the return address on our outer envelopes. Hands hurt today.

South to Cali

If a person lives in San Diego, is he/she a San Diegan or San Diegoan? Regardless, D and I will be visiting my family in San Diego from May 6-10. Yay! It'll be a short trip -- I had such a hard time planning this one because of scheduling conflicts and work events. It's a little later than we wanted originally but hey, you work with what you have. So California here we come!

My weekend, part 2

The birds are starting to appear en masse again -- especially these crazy birds in blue (below). They are really loud, love harassing the pets and seem to be picking out all of the sunflower seeds from our cabin birdfeeder! I took 5 photos of this guy and in each one he faced away from the camera.

Everybody wants to be outside in the nice weather.

Drift and I went for a walk on Sunday. The weather was pretty enjoyable -- no bright blue skies or anything, but it was somewhere in the high 30's. The snow has cleard out of the roadways and most sidewalks. I'm holding my breath that spring has sprung!

This stretch of sidewalk was a bit icy, but I wore my sister's XtraTuff boots and the traction kept me from slipping a couple times.

Ubiquitous trashy Alaska yard in the next neighborhood over from ours. See the blue tarp? Gotta have one of those somewhere in your yard or garage or you're not a real Alaskan.

The home stretch. This portion is crazy muddy in fall and spring so I usually take the long way to avoid it.

My weekend, part 1

It was hot...

(I know that is a relative term, but believe me, 47 degrees right now is balmy)

The sunsets bathe the mountains in pink...just gorgeous.

I made popovers for the second time...

(they turned out much better than my first go-around)

The recipe is from this cookbook...

I am addicted to cheese so I loaded these babies up...

YUM!

The weekend arrives

Busy week and glad it's Friday! I helped to babysit those triplets again and wow, babies really change drastically in 4 months. The kiddos are about 9 months old now and crawling all over the place -- the girls are even pulling themselves up and standing. They were so much fun and I came home with a touch of baby fever. :-)

Ladies' craft night this month fell on St. Patrick's Day, so my friend Cindy offered up potato/bacon soup, minty green milkshakes and "Irish" guacamole, which isn't Irish at all but we had to justify it's place on the buffet table. Other girls brought along cookies and beer bread. So very tasty. For my craft I worked on those damn tissue-paper poufs -- they're never ending! I need to make at least 90 and the count is currently at 44.

And aren't these little bowls great!?!? My sister's boyfriend is a very talented ceramics artist/professor and he offered to create these as a wedding favor for our guests. BEST FAVOR EVER! Gabe's website is here: http://www.gabetociart.com/ It's difficult to gauge the size in these photos but all of the bowls can fit in the palm of your hand.

St. Pattie's

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

More laundry room

We bought a new sink base from Lowes (matches the hickory cabinets upstairs in the kitchen) and D made a countertop from SCRATCH. He did the same thing in our kitchen. Awesome, no? My parents will recognize the black laminate on top -- we originally purchased it for the kitchen remodel of my condo when my dad made a countertop from scratch too! I had a good amount of that laminate sheeting and couldn't bear to leave it when I sold the condo, so along it came to the new house. Glad we had a chance to use it.

The stainless steel sink is one I found on Craigslist - good price and perfect size. D needs something deep for cleaning his tools after home projects and I love having a sink nearby when I do laundry. Another plus was that the sink came with a pull-out sprayer -- all for $38! I'm pretty sure the paving bricks are there to weigh everything down before D caulks and seals the edges.

The sink is on the left as you enter the room and the washer/dryer are on the right...

D very sweetly switched the location of the washer and dryer since the washer door opens the wrong way. I would have to hoist wet clothes over the door and then shuffle over to the dryer. It was an ergonomic nightmare.

I also asked for a continuous workspace that would span the tops of both the washer and dryer. Since we are still kicking it old-school with the dryer (another Craigslist find: $200 in 2007 and it works great!) D had to cut the plywood to fit around the console. He's going to sand it down a bit and paint it white to blend in with the appliances. The awesome front-loading/high-efficiency washer was my Valentine's Day present in 2008. I love it.

Laundry room reno

We had a busy weekend -- a trip to Home Depot, home projects and a wedding reception for my friend Sandra and her new husband Drew.

D worked nonstop on the laundry room and I'm happy to report that the space is 90% complete! He let me help out with the new flooring on Saturday night. It's peel-and-stick vinyl from Home Depot that looks and feels a lot like bamboo wood. I love real bamboo flooring but after seeing it installed in friends' homes and realizing that it dents like crazy, we went with the peel-and-stick option. This area is pretty high-traffic so we can't afford any dents and scratches. Each box was about $42 for 25 square feet and we used 3 boxes.

Standing on the stairs looking down on the little hallway. Laundry room on left, D's office door in front and garage door to the right. This area is tight on space so D is installing a pocket door in the laundry room. The original door opened into the room and blocked the washing machine.

It went down pretty easily. Each piece sticks to the others, so it floats above the sub-floor. D cut the pieces with a razor blade, we placed them down and then used a mini-roller to ensure the planks stuck to each other securely. D does all the cutting because I cannot be trusted with precise measurements!

I know the yellow looks a little crazy here but trust me, we toned down the bright hue by putting up shelving and getting the new sink and base cabinet in there. 

Almost done:

During demo:

Room view before we moved in:

More photos to come!

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...