Guerrilla Gardening!

guerrillagardening.org I love this! I think we should all participate! What a lovely thing to do. Perhaps it could be done in a forgotten place at a nursing home, church yard, day-care center, etc. Serious Flower Power!

Perhaps not...

Spring is Coming!

The first dandelion leaf is visible! That is one weed that will truly grow anywhere!
Here you can see the ground beginning to show! I'm so excited!

I thought we weren't in Kansas anymore. The wind began to take our "garage" away last night. Lest I start to believe Spring is really here, it also began to snow a bit this morning. Fortunately, the temps are above freezing so it shouldn't stick. This is when y'all can brag about your weather. We are also having serious haze that keeps the mountains from being very visible. The haze is from China & Russia from wind storms in the Gobi Desert, industrial smog, & wild fires. Crazy! Apparently, every spring we collect a vast amount of the world's pollution (yes, even your smog & fire debris make it up here Californians!).

Fabulous Fuel?

The way I figure it, we must have some of the most pristine, high-end, amazing fuel to have it cost this much. This station is one we use that is less than 2 miles from our house and about 2 miles, or less, from the Tesoro refinery from which it receives its fuel. How fortunate we are to have such perfect fuel!

April Showers?

I didn't think it was the snow showers that brought the May flowers...
Still, it was beautiful! I just hope it melts fast. We were just beginning to see the ground in places. Ah, well. This IS Alaska!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Pat can now have his wife back since her Jayhawks have won the National Championship!

Sawin' on

Pat continues to find wood to cut. Saw 0n, my love, saw on.

Wood for...

We've been blessed with an abundance of wood to cut and a free Stihl chainsaw from a friend! Pat has been having lots of fun sawing down the trees and then splitting it with his new heavy wood-splitter! Bella just likes to be in sight of one of us!

CROSSFIRE

Pat has transformed the upstairs "barbie" room into his Crossfire office. He is currently reloading as I type! I think it's his new favorite place to be.

Aerosmith playing in the background...

Heckipotter!

For those non-Penner's, that's what Marc used to call Helicopters! Ahhh, cute!
This is how Pat came home last week.

These are the bright survival suits are called "float coats" since they are used primarily to find bodies if there happens to be a crash. Unfortunately for Pat, the chopper rides are rather anticlimactic compared to the small Cessna planes used to cross the inlet.

Ridin' along in my automobile....

This was a before/after shot of the tile work I did for a couple weeks! Tile-scraping is not fun.

Bella's Box

Pat had a little helper while putting together Bella's floor plan!

I think she already likes it!

It began on the ground level, but since heat rises and the cold weather just sank into her box, Pat revised the plan and put it up a couple feet. She now has this nice rise to her box that keeps her nice and cozy!

Made for each other!

Text Update!

Okay, I'll try to keep up with a picture-less entry. Pat's been out on the King Salmon Platform for a week now, and hopefully will be home this weekend. In the meantime, I've started working at Trinity Greenhouse. I am absolutely loving it! It is so nice to be surrounded by growing plants and thawed soil. It smells so good! In fact, the other day a gal came in and literally sniffed up the soil. Later she did have to blow it back out! My legs, back, and neck are getting back into the swing of work, but not painlessly. I miss my husband's back rubs. I have been trying to give Bella all the attention she needs, but I fear I'm not quite up to par. For anyone who thought our dogs would become our "kids," fear not. I have to clean up far too much hair to get too attached. All that said, she has been doing well. In fact, she just told me she needs to go outside...okay, I'm back. She needed to do her bedtime ritual, and now is in her house under our house! I tried to upload pictures, and it timed-out, so "maybe on another day!" Fortunately, the weather is unusually mild, so my hair didn't freeze while we were outside. In fact, it's been raining lately, and with all the snow-pack, it's making it very slippery. I'm breaking out my kramp-ons - removable cleats for the shoes. I had to borrow a set from by boss today while transporting newly potted roses to another greenhouse. I'm already picking one out to put on the deck. I'm trying to keep a reign on myself for all the potential gardening I could do. I'm not one to go bonkers on yard work, so my plans are actually to diminish the maintenance on the yard by letting about half of it go back to it's natural state. I don't want to mow that much! My biggest temptations will be trees. I have so many that I'd love to try, but I have a limit to my landscaping budget! I have a sneaky suspicion that my budget will be swallowed by a certain garage that has yet to be built. Oh well. I'll be happy that Pat has a place to do his hobbies that is out of the house that I have to clean. I think he will be, too! I have to put in a plug for my sister-in-law, Lesli, as she gave me a tip for quick clean ups with the swiffer-vac. I finally got one, though I had to wait til a friend of mine could pick it up for me in Anchorage. Well worth the wait. It is working fabulously, and it makes me happy! On that note, it is past my bedtime, and I dearly need my rest. Sorry for the lack of photo's. Someday...!

I know, I know. It takes forever! Here's a couple pics of the "Before."

AFTER!

Pat did all the hard painting up high, and I tried to help with the low areas. The big windows had really cheap, poorly installed trim, so we painted it all the same color as the walls. The walls in the kitchen are a deep red, and we actually painted the ceilings a light cream in an effort to eliminate white. Pat painted the beams a dark chocolate color that I carried down through the banister, rails, & stairs. The white stairs were quite the eye-sore! In fact, the entire house feels so much fresher and cleaner. It's also a bit warmer, though we are chilly enough to begin pursuing the installation of a wood stove! Our furniture arrangement is still being worked out, but we hope to have a new couch & chair to fit it perfectly, once we get it ordered. Maybe. As you can see, Bella seems to be adjusting quite well. That is her spot. We pulled out the old rug to help hold her shedding hair in one place so I can clean it up. We are also hoping that high end feed will cut that shedding down to a minimum. It's just so dry here. My cracking hands can attest to that! Maybe next month I can get photos of Bella's home beneath our home!

Hour's worth of uploading!

Here's what we've been up to in the last few weeks. Pat has been a painting dynamo up on tall ladders, making me nervous! He also surprised me by making curtain rods/brackets and hanging them up in the bedroom to finish off our redo! A few more of Pat's art pieces to hang and it will be finished!

Fun in the Snow!

Exercise? Really? Why, when I can get him to take me on a ride?

Merry Christmas!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...!
We are planning to spend Christmas afternoon & evening with our friends, Aaron & Stacey. We'll be feasting on our traditional King Crab, with the addition of shrimp, scallops and bunches more! Somehow I'm getting out of most of the cooking. I think that may mean I'll be in on more of the cleaning. Ah, well. It's really a day to focus on the life that God gave us through our Savior, Jesus. We hope all our friends and family far away have a very Merry Christmas. We love you all and we'll see some of you again soon!

Bathroom Redo, pt.1

The bathroom tile had been redone, but very poorly. There are several cracked tiles, and the grout was sloppily slapped in. The grout is also white and unsealed, which made for some yucky spots! There is absolutely no storage in the bathroom, which someday we will remedy.

After 7 hours of excruciating labor, I finished staining the grout. It took so long because I had to literally paint it in a straight line as much as possible since the grout itself was splattered all over and very uneven. Let's say that I had a very lively chiropractic visit the next Monday.

I spent some time today trying to configure some short-term storage and decor for the bathroom. I've decided that a runner is perfect, and this one even has the right blue in it! Thanks, Linda! We would actually like to use this rug in the hallway, but for now, it's needed more here. Sheet and drape-covered "shelves" will serve until we find those perfect pieces!

Bedroom redo, so far...

Here is the bedroom with the lovely pistachio green color. One cannot fully comprehend the offensiveness of this color unless completely surrounded by it. I think the previous owners thought it would be a bright color to make the room big and open. It was nauseously bright!

We now have a nice warm, dark, cozy den of a bedroom! I still don't have all the bedding or window treatments (haven't decided which color for sure). It is very rich and comfortable, especially with our new down comforter!

King Salmon Platform

Pat went out the other day to the King Salmon platform. I don't think this is that one, but they all look similar, so...! He said it is very much like the drill ship that he was on in Dutch Harbor, only stationary. It didn't feel too stationary, however, when the tide moves. The tide in the Cook Inlet is one of the fastest moving tides in the world, so it really makes it feel interesting. Pat said it was going pretty well, and even had a lobster-tail lunch when he first got there (there was a going away party for a 24-year worker)! I'll be glad to see him when he gets home on Thursday. Until then, I'll be staining and sealing the bathroom grout - fun.