Purple!

The purple mat won !!!! My Agent Ray, came over today to take some photos of the new room in my house. and this is the new photo that will appear on my listing sometime before midnight announcing that my house is for sale again.
my agent rocks, colour is a good thing!!!

( does anyone want a white bath mat??)

Christmas

Yup this is a Christmas post- went out to one friend place for diner and a movie, yesterday.

went out to another friends today for presents and a light dinner. ( and to play with my fav kids )

under the trees for me was some royal Doulton. YES! ....more of my favorite dinner set, old country roses. a cake slicer and a six pack muffin tray that goes in the oven, with thanks for being a great baby sitter.

so there is a big smile on my face today.

My world- today

Some of you may know that last night north America had a Luna eclipse. I too went out to take photos, at - 20 no less. played around with my camera some and even got some reasonable shots.

then today at lunch time i went out with the camera and photographed some of the stuff around, it was a nice day outside. and the light can be quite interesting. this time of year, the shortest day of the year. 2 hours 41 minutes from sunrise to sunset today. This is what my world looks like- today anyway

Solstice- Fairbanks

Solstice, the shortest day approaches, which means soon the sun starts returning rather than going away. ( this was taken at 1:15 pm)

today the 18th its clear mostly , I don't now if I would call it sunny but warmer than yesterday. yes these are some of the roads that we drive on, Most of town is like this or worse. that's ice solid sheet ice.

For 3 days before thanksgiving we had freezing rain, then the temp dropped and it all froze.

then it dropped a whole bunch and we had -30 and -40 this week.

so today it was a nice day and its warm, believe it or not.

Bathroom is done

my bed is round the right way again. it now take me 4 stps to get to the bathroom rather than 10 is was before. Its all clean and done. Bill will be back on thursday, probably to give me a invoice, yes its a duel flush toilet , cause i think people should lerarn to save water. and if sonmeone dioesnt want it they can change it out themselves
I am not sure if there is much else to say. the bathroom is done. that was day 6. just over their estimate of 100 hours of work( my count 104) Now I have to clean the house some more to get it back on the market.
the guys did a nice job vacuming every night and the garage might do with a sweep, they were reasonably clean.

Toilet?

No toilet yet, no taps , but nothing tomorrow wont fix. The floor is grouted and look really cool there are taps on the shower. ( i wonder if i could have a shower yet?)
dam there is that purple rug again.

Purple

I went out today and finished my Christmas shopping ( yes i want the bragging rights.) so thought I'd spend some money on myself. I got some nice cream bath towels and a bath mat for my new bathroom.

Some of you may know that I kinda like bright colours.-

there was this purple bathmat just looking at me. then it spoke to me. it said " if you don't buy me you'll regret it" Now I am not sure if that was a threat or not but since I have never had a bath mat speak to me , I wasn't going to take the risk.

The mat just wanted to hang out with my blue one.

Saturday's Bathroom progress

I left to do my usual running around I got back to this. This tile looks pretty cool no grout yet,and green paint on the outside.

Dam that shower looks nice, no taps yet.

I am looking forward to moving into this bathroom.

and who cares what anybody else thinks!

Bathroom day 3

day 3. yes I got out of bed at 8:15 on a day when I didnt have to. the guys did pretty good today the walls are primed, water is attached. and shower fixings are in. they will be back for day 4 tomorrow Saturday and they are talking about Sunday as well, time to be determined. "They" have names Bill and Tim helped me eat the last of the pumpkin pie today.

Day 2

day 2 of the bathroom,

Yesterday was the day of the crappy weather, there wasn't anything moving in this town. No buses, no taxis, no schools, no university, drive at your own risk. One of the co workers called at 7 am and said don't come into work. My contractors were thinking the same way, since they lived in the hills. Its been raining for 2 days, and we have nearly 1 inch of freezing rain on the snow. the snow showed signs of melting at 3 ish and so everyone went to the stores tho get their thanks giving shopping done. yesterday, a total loss.

Today its still raining but the roads are now slush , which mean s you can drive. contractors showed up and i went to work. i have plumbing everywhere downstairs, and the vanity and lights are sitting in the garage. it looks like lights sockets are in but not connected. paint colors are finalized and inside walls have green sheet rock ( moisture resistant)

Tomorrow's thanksgiving so it's public holiday. I spent the evening baking.-- making progress.

currently its stopped raining but its still 33 it was supposed to drop and freeze this afternoon.

Bathroom day 1

It's just amazing how much work you can get done when you pay someone else to do it. I got off early today for crappy weather then had to go back to home depot to choose some lights and a mirror. My last decision is the paint to go on the walls. I have narrowed it to 3 colors. (pale green by the way.)

Bathroom

This is the corner of my bedroom, watch this space. My house has taken sooooo long to sell I got frustrated( in a major way ) 2100 square feet, ( 200 square m ) 3 bedroom 1 bathroom and 2 car garage. all it needs is 2 bathrooms.
So watch this space.
Construction starts monday.
Now I am poor again.

so there wont be any vacation this winter.

egg Nog.

its close to that time of year again. and yesterday when i went shopping there it was stating me in the face was some Eggnog. I like Eggnog , but when you buy it it like pumpkin pie , it never has enough spice for my taste. now my spice rack is looking rather slim, cause I cant take it home. so i have been using up stuff, i have Cinnamon but not nutmeg or cloves ( usually this would be replace instantly) i think last week i bought some pumpkin pie spice.

so the short story is .. is that if you want more flavor in your eggnog try some pumpkin pie spice, it works really well for my taste buds.

say I with the second cup of eggnog nearly 1/ 2 way gone.

today I went bizarring with Amy. there are several good Christmas Bizarres on this time of year and the Carlson center one, is this weekend. I got what I needed in the way of Christmas stuff . then we looked around at everything else. there was this lady selling fruit cake and I the homesick kiwi was not going to say no. Yes they are expensive, but I haven't had fruit cake probably since last time I was home. ( OK. maybe I had some in the UK.) the question is how long can I make this fruit cake last . its 2 lbs. It wont make Christmas I know it.

Dancing,

Yes I still go dancing, dancing is still an amazing amount of fun, we had a social dance tonight and a quick step lesson before hand. Quick step is almost kinda complicated , but its kinda like a fox trot. Got to have good frame. ( as it any dance )

we had lots of people tonight so there was lots of dancing to be had. new instructors, who are great dancers.

anyway I danced so much tonight that I had sore feet , so then I changed my shoes. (don't ask me how many pairs of dance shoes I have in the car) so I danced some more and then I got sore feet again. no it wasn't the shoes it was tooooo much dancing. Sore feet equals lots of dancing.

I am a happy person with sore feet.

one day I ought to get some pictures of me dancing.

my Political Opinion

I answered the phone yesterday, it was political survey. " are you planing on voting on November 2?" no, I am not eligible. Guess what, it was a machine, but my only options was yes , No or repeat. There was not an option asking if i was eligible to vote. anyway just for shit and giggles I completed the survey. so for the first time in USA i expressed my opinion, not that its going to count.

If anyone should care to know the stats and info for Fairbanks will be off by 1.

cause i am not eligible to vote. so i wonder how many other people are in the same boat, for the survey did not disqualify me. so for my thought- don't have any respect for surveys. the should have asked a pre-qualifying question.

the people who designed this survey need to be shot, isn't it kind of important that a survey is of qualified people.

the phone number was ( 202) 643-1954

Vacation thoughts

So since my house is not selling so fast, I thought that i could maybe take a week off and get out of town .. maybe the first week of January. First I thought i could swing a week in Hawaii, since i have never been there I roughly ran a budget ummm. maybe not. Then I thought i could go to Seattle and see a friend but it rains there a whole lot.

Then yesterday British airways says London is on sale. ( 350 each way from Seattle) drool... ( its only 20 hours flying ) um.. 8 days, nope, 10 days.

Can I really afford it? probably not, but DAM I am thinking about it.

Its about the same price as Hawaii, and twice as long flying. sigh

oh yeah it rains in London, but isn't it a way more interesting place !

Freeze up

Freeze up is defined in my books as the first day that the temperature doesn't reach 32. ( or that i notice it doesn't) clear sunny lovely day and 27 today

freeze up has occurred. the snow is sitting on the grass , but not on the roads. the last few days have been cloudy and crappy.

the is nothing wrong with curling up on the couch after work and doing absolutely nothing.

daylight fades really fast.....

9 weeks and 5 days to the shortest day.

No my house hasn't sold yet.

and no i don't really want to talk about it.

Snow in Fairbanks

today is Oct 6 and its snowing. first one for the year.
dam it .. I am talking about the weather again
no I am not going to photograph it.!

Breathing...

last weekend was the parade of homes, so I talked my agent ( or his assistant) into an open house. Chelsea had 5 lots of people come by in 2 hours. Sounds kinda exciting to me. one was a nosy neighbour, but, I'd go look if my neighbourhood had a open house too. 2 were people who actually sounded if they were interested. and asked for house packets. - all the boring stuff about my house.

So I was thinking that I could live in messy house for a week.( or a month) and i didn't pay attention to much this morning and went to work, - i didn't even make the bed.

About midday the phone rings and its my agent saying someone wants to look at my house at 5 pm. I 'd all ready taken time off this morning to go see the chiropractor. so I took more time off to go make the bed. and clean again. maybe it was one of the people who looked on Sunday and wants to come back again.. I am thinking of getting excited, but that wont get me anywhere.

my life goes on .. breath in, breath out... my house will sell eventually... patience is a virtue. breath in , breath out....

( do i really have to clean my house again)

Cool, Cool, .. cold

My car was a little sluggish at starting this evening. so I filled up with gas put some heet in the tank.. (yes its that s time of year). and then when i got home , i parked in the garage for the first time since April ish.. So it is in my opinion its cold. I was cold. I know, I know I wasn't dressed as well as I could have been. lovely clear days n windy the last few. today was barely 40 when Tuesday was 65. Current temp is 31 but we have 10 miles an hour of wind, this is windy for us, so it really feels like 21. The leaves are nearly gone from the trees as well.

we have had 3 or 4 frosts so the growing season is definitely done. 130 days this year, i think we almost broke the record. Usually the frost free days we run 110 if we are lucky ( can we blame this on global warming) September has been wonderful for weather, but Sept is nearly done.

I have an open house next week , so this week will be lots of cleaning. its amazing how much more messy I can make my house when I actually spend more time in it.

Fall Colours

the blaze of colour is out this week. and the weather is just amazing, so on sunday i went for a drive arround to see with my camera in hand. all the trees know its time to turn. the undergrowth turns red , but the trees dont.

Yup this pipeline carries oil. the amazing weather is 70 during the day( we are almost breaking records) and 40 at night everyday since saturday.
this will not last.

The last of the Greenhouse

I took these Sept 6 about a wake ago before the first frost, which was way late this year,.. there was ice on my car this morning and today is the 16th... way late. I have seen the first frost on the 1 of September so we got an extra 15 % time on our growing season this year. this cucumber i picked and already eaten.

The tomatoes have been a bit slower this year , i think i have a different variety, so it was slower. I wasn't so good this year and shaking the branches and pruning so I didn't get as much fruit as last year,... but the size was much better. they are all now sitting on the table hoping to ripen. which means they are a bit sluggish.

Then we have the second round of the celery. this is second growth of the ones I cut. the last of the basil. but you should see how much I gave away and behind that the parsley.

i puled most of the tomatoes yesterday. but the weather has been so nice all week. it's just hard to think that it will get cold.( sigh) but it will and it will be fast and dramatic is my guess.

Fall / Autumn

Fall / Autumn, is defined for me by the temp. And my feet - I got cold feet last night so i had to put some socks on. this morning I looked a the thermostat and it said 65 so i put a sweater on... but 65 in the house is a little cool for me.

this afternoon i made some scones, but i used oil and not butter then i put in cinnamon and ginger ( cause i couldn't find my nutmeg- have i used it all? ) and then i cut up an apple and put that in as well. then i used yogurt instead of milk.( cause the milk was ... thick and smelly). i am sure these are still scones but dam they got changed some. they are currently in the oven.

the greenhouse needs attention i had to turn the heat lamp on for the last few nights there's been good dew on the car every morning. no frosts yet. i have lots of good sized tomatoes this year they are still trying to turn yellow , hence the heat lamp. the cucumber and about done. the basil and celery are still in good shape. shall i dry it or just give it away. and i need to go do something with the last of the beans and peas. the broccoli is producing OK second and 3 cuts from the from each plant.

so its Official fall is here ( for my opinion).

I am going to turn the heat on.

Denali Park

for the weekend of my birthday i headed to Denali park. since i have never been down on the train before a friend decided that we ought to be in the dome car ( the expensive one) a great place for photographs i must say , while i got his white water rafting. ( how can you never have been rafting).

anyway on the train it was brought and sunny and i did get some pretty cool photos.

then we went for a walk around one of the nearer lakes called horseshoe lake. we saw some evidence of some beaver and some squirrel. dam cheeky things. My personal opinion is that " the only good squirrel is a dead one. preferably one that died of lead poisoning" i think this one in the park was used to too many humans and thought they might be good for getting food maybe.

my camera has a 12 x zoom that i am at long last getting the hang of using at high zoom, and think myself very cleaver to have got this of the beaver. we walked really quietly to get in position , and he just carried on like we weren't even there. it was about 5 pm ish and its august so maybe he was just in a hurry and he thinks fall is in the air. - beside the fact it was at least 80 in the park Sunday. got to stay at a cool hotel called the grand denali lodge. that's the one high on the hill. great service great view. more photos of the weekend can be found here. ( click on the photo below)

Denali

Rafting was ok for a grade 3/ 4 river but you know me it wasn't really enough. My friend tony had never been rating before and now he really likes it. so i have passed my addiction on to someone else.

a great weekend.

The tales of a Waitress

last Monday I was waiting on these people in the restaurant, 2 parents, 2 kids ( boys) 8 and 10 maybe and grandma. I served grandma her her soup, and said "here's your soup." after i left the 2 boys started giggling, and developed a serious dose of giggles that went on for quite some time. 10 ish minutes later when i was bringing everyones dinner, the boys and parents were leaving the restaurant, I was thinking this was just a bathroom trip. But grandma explained to me that they had had such a fit of the giggles about my accent they hadn't stopped giggling.

they managed to make it back OK, but were somewhat mollified when grandma told that she had told on them. i thought it was just funny. And kinda interesting that the parents made the boys leave over a fit of giggles.

Other news of the week is that it had been 80 every day of the week since then, and humid as well. Today it rained and was only 70. I am almost ready for cooler weather. and yes it gets dark today. its actually dark at 12 30 for the first time in 3 months. do we remember what a dark sky looks like?

Welcome to the jungle

The garden grows apace, this is cucumber number 4 I think, I took the first 3 camping last weekend. I tried celery this year and it has done way better than I thought it would. these photos were all taken last weekend, so there is actually a weeks growth on top of this.
The basil beside it is just amazing, tomorrow I start giving it away. so i need a recipe for pesto something, and the tomatoes are trying to climb out the roof. But currently there are only a couple of tomatoes, not as many flowers as i had last year, but that is ok. Maybe I will have bigger fruit.

My peppers that i tried again I had to pull (again ) as the aphids just came and got them. It was later than last year i managed to keep the aphids away for 2 weeks extra and actually got 2 peppers , but when i went to cut into it i discovered they were the hot variety, that i don't like, so I was less sad at having to pull them out.

Work this week has been crazy.-waiting tables just as busy as hell , an unusual week to make lots of money, 3/4 of it is in the bank. but I have had to have 3 cups of coffee this week to see me through the day job.
somehow i managed to find time to water the greenhouse and pull the peppers this week.
Now to find time to mow the lawn when its dry.

fielding lake camping

I thought I better get out a bit this year since I don't usually.
So Amy, Matt and friends went camping out to Fielding lake. ( head to Delta turn right drive 70 miles. Mile -post 200.5 on the Richardson.) This is the headwaters of the Delta river, its supposed to be good fishing. they have public use cabins there and for a small charge you can reserve them. 4 of July weekend was popular. so the campground was full. I took my tent and new sleeping bag to give them a test drive. its up in the mountains so it cooler than Fairbanks. but the views were spectacular.
Friday was a nice sunny day but Saturday and Sunday it rained 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening with low hanging cloud the rest of the time.

There goes my theory that 4 of of July its supposed to be 90, it was 55 maybe. but it was still way cool, we had some night visitors come passing by mother moose and calf crossed the river, and her yearling that she had just kicked out was 10 minutes behind her.
the public use cabin sleeps six, but could be cramped if it was raining. Matt being resourceful put up the tarps and we had a comfortable area to sit in with the fire going all weekend. We all sat around and had a pleasant time doing nothing, eating, and talking. it a 3 hour drive each way ish. I think the guys went out briefly to try the fishing.

Sunsets &

The other night I was driving home from work at 11 pm- ish in the middle of a rainstorm and sunset. I cant remember why I had my camera in the car but as luck would have it but I just had to stop and take these. we have had a bunch of interesting weather lately, with clouds and rain and smoke. but these 2 just caught my eye. Our sunsets just cover the whole sky, not just part of it. So I say sunsets rock in Fairbanks.

Then these is the flowers that i have outside my door, $20.00 will get you as basket from Fred's about 3 weeks ago anyway. so i actually managed to water them every night and with some of the rain we had they are just doing nicely. i have almost decided that they were worth buying, rather than buying seeds and planting my own and not having flowers till later. or forgetting to water them. I wouldn't have bought them if i didn't have my house for sale. and they look better in real than they do photographed.