happy new year

here i am contemplating the final hours of 2006. it was a year of significant change for my family and i.

the beginning of the year was a full sprint to the finish line of that master's degree. it was all consuming and what sprint it was. the culmination of all that hard work paid off and graduation day last may was sweet.

our decision to up and move a mere 3500 miles from home entailed getting the dozens of put off homeowners projects done. including finishing the office space, doing some significant yard work and finding the perfect someone to rent our lovely riverhouse. then, there was the decision to part with and then ready the cabin for sale. (weekends upon weekends spent with the help of grant, delta, sheila and jeff. we couldnt have done it without all of you!)

preparing our friends for our move was probably the biggest challenge of 2006. convincing them it wasnt forever, that change is good, and that meeting new people would be fun. it was not an easy sell.

so here i sit. any regrets?
i have been thinking this over the past few days and i can honestly answer, no.
to have regret means to be very sorry for; or sorrow caused by something beyond one's power to remedy.
although it has been hard being away from the comfortable routine and buzzing colorado social life we had going, we are happy.

so as we usher in 2007 here are my wishes-

please, may we have more peace in the world and more compassion for our fellow man, no matter the color of his skin or the god he worships.
may i have the power to think a little longer before speaking, and to hold my opinions to myself just a little more often.
may i find a way to tap into my creative self
and to love more
and to complain less.
amen

happy new year everyone!

christmas past

as quickly as it came, it is now gone for another year.
christmas with a three year old is fun. the enthusiasm of tearing apart packages with unbridled fervor and the pure honesty of how un-thrilling new long underware is is refreshing.



this is what the sunrise looked like at 10:15 on christmas morning here...



and this is what sunset looked like at 3:43 pm.




and this is what it looked like after we got jade to bed (:

we are getting more snow today... hoooray! we must have at least a foot and a half now and its not going anywhere with temperatures hovering in the teens. it looks like we've picked up 4 or 5 inches yet today and the sky is gray and heavy. jeff and i got new cross country skis from santa and the skiing right from the house is wonderful. (its also a painful reminder of just how out of shape i really am- i am so stiff today!)

i hope everyone had a great holiday with family and friends!
cheers

the santa threat

j and i have decided that this whole santa thing is the most manipulative, little tool we have ever known and by now we are pretty much over it. santa actually called our house today to check in to see if jaden had been naughty or nice. (okay, maybe we arranged the call because he had been NAUGHTY, he is having a fascination with the word shit.)

he knows it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and although at this point i am trying hard to ignore him and let it roll, i am usually not successful. (its been weeks. i am threatening soap)

we are excited to see his face, naughty or nice on christmas morning, believing the jolly old man himself came thru with a black choo choo train.

solstice

december 21st marks the shortest day of the year here in the northern hemesphere.

our dear friends bill and jude have celebrated this holiday for as long as i have known them. i must admit guiltily that i was never able to make this celebration. since i now have an incredible newfound appreciation, bill and jude, i will try harder next time i am within 200 miles to make it.

not that i havent experienced the lazyness short days have had on my life before, but the depth of it is immense here.

i see people both in the clinic and in line at the grocery store in their pajamas, seriously. its as though there is no point to getting dressed since you will just be curling your feet up under you in a few short hours.

the earth is actually nearer the sun in january than it is in june- by three million miles. but, the earth leans slightly on its axis like a spinning top frozen in one off kilter position. this pose is what causes the variety in our climate and determines how many hours and minutes each hemisphere receives sunlight.

by the way, why arent more religions created around sunlight? we couldnt exsist without it.

solstice means... standing- still - sun

many ancient cultures performed solstice ceremonies including native american (think chico canyon), iran (yalda) and china, pakistan and tibet to name a few. they all have some celebration with root in the fear that the failing light would never return unless humans intervened with vigil or celebration.

some cultures built their greatest architectures, tombs, and temples so that they aligned with the solstices and equiox. stonehenge is a perfect marker of both summer and winter solstices. a lesser known site is newgrange. (http://www.knowth.com/newgrange.htm)

this beautiful megalithic site is located in ireland. it is a huge circular stone structure and estimated to be 5,000 years old. older by centuries than stonehenge, and older than the egyptian pyramids! it was built to receive a single shaft of sunlight, deep into a central chamber at dawn on winter solstice. the light illuminates a stone basin with intricate carvings, spirals, and eye shapes.

just some food for thought today as we begin to add precious minutes of sunlight to our lives.

hum it with me now...

here comes the sun

do do do do

here comes the sun.

and i say, its alright

happy solstice!

snowy day

here is my 14 year old, loving dog porter. i love his old, geriatric butt alot, even when he smells like a wet dog.

it is 3:30 and snowing fine, steady snowflakes. this is just the 3rd snow we have experienced since being here. we are excited. have i mentioned, it is nearly dark outside right now?

now i will confess, i did an almost comical, unthinkable act. (remember, i am a trained medical professional. i read up on this-- alot.)

i purchaced a therapy light. go ahead. laugh, if you will. you dont live here, you dont know what its like!!!!!!

apparently, if i use it everyday, eventually i will look and feel just like this young lady.

really. ooooooommmmmmm.

(feel the calm.)

its quite a nice little lamp and makes me feel all sunny inside. it will have to do until i get on the plane for mexico.

oh mexico, just 7 weeks? i think i can, i think i can.

gretchen

my mother was born in millinocket maine, where i was born, and where both my grandparents were born. my grandmother was the director of nursing at the small hosptital and my grandfather was employed by the forest service for as long as i can remember. my uncle, my mothers only brother, still lives in this tiny former mill town. it is know as the "gateway" to baxter state park.

we lived all over the united states when i was a kid, from maine to california and back again. a recent rough count of moves was over 12 before i was in 10th grade. we were not in the miliary. as far from it as probable, in fact. i am not sure if we were running from something, or for it.

in the end, my mom died in colorado. she liked colorado i think, although if she had had a choice, i am not sure she would have been there.

my mom was funny, caring and hard headed. i like to think i am like her.
she was also insecure and often cared too much of what people thought of her. near the end of her life, i think she was lonely and this makes me sad.

today, my mother would have been 56 years old. very young by anyones standards. i miss her very much. i am still surprised at the instinct i have to pick up the phone to tell her some insignificant yet seemingly important bit of my day. there are so many fractions of seconds i think "i have to tell mom...." before my brain delivers the news again and again. there has been no one in my life who has made me feel like my opinion mattered more, or that i am intelligent, and beautiful, and caring and just plain terrific, more than my mother.
thanks to all of you who try.

hindsight is 20/20 and of course now almost 7 years have passed, enabling me to reflect on the things that could have been done differently, things i should have said or done.
in the end, all you are left with are memories, and it is true that time is kind to those who grieve. the hurt falls away leaving only what makes you smile.

happy birthday mom. i miss you.

colony daze

as promised, colony days report and photos.

we had a great time experiencing our first "colony days christmas" in downtown palmer. it snowed big fat flakes and everything felt very festive. there was an evening parade and fireworks, the train was at the station in from anchorage and downtown was loaded with families. jaden even got to sit on santas lap (and what a fine santa he was!)

j and i joked later that santa was certainly very smiley and seemed to keep nodding his head alot. he was wearing hearing aides and seemed either tired or vacant or both (in a really nice santa sort of way) and we wondered, did they nab him from the pioneers home and stick him in a suit? do you think he really knew where he was???

the parade entries were pretty funny. lots of four wheelers and snow machines, and family dogs with reindeer antlers and reindeer. we're now trying to decide just how to decorate the subaru for our entry next year. palmer is alot like nederland, only very different.

j dragged me (kicking and screaming) to spinning class today. uggggh. i am possibly the biggest whiner ever. the ticker to beach time is motivating me to get my skinny butt into shape. its soooo hard though. (whaaaaaa) okay. im done with that, i swear.

we tromped into the back 40 yesterday and cut ourselves a christmas tree. not quite a charley brown, but perhaps a distant cousin. its really a pretty little tree and fits my sprase collection of ornaments perfectly.

i am turning to paganisim as a religion. they were definatley onto something. my dear friend d reminded me "and they couldnt even turn on lights aside from fire". no light bulbs, no tanning beds (: no nothing, just sit and wait in your cave for the sun to shine. oh man, only 11 days till the sun starts commin round again.

i got a loose but genuine invite to go MUSHING today....

lazy

its an absoulute lazy saturday morning here. we are all still in our pj's and the boys in the fam are doing a "car inventory".

omg what is happening to my life?

it couldnt be much grayer here, unless i suppose it were actually raining or snowing as predicted.

we were thinking of heading to seward for the weekend to check up on r & l & l's house. they are enjoying 5 weeks of being in the lower 48, but the tug of colony days made jc change his mind. (unfortunate as i am in serious need of an ocean fix about now.) instead, we will join our fellow palmer-ites in little downtown and watch the reindeer sled rides and fireworks. (www.palmerchamber.org) i will surely will post some pics of the festivities.

WOOF

this is buck.

buck lives next door.

buck wants porter and graham to come outside and play.

porter and graham are too old to play.

buck is very sad.

poor buck.

monday

people are very friendly here. i wanted to pass this along in case anyone was wondering, "hmmm, how bout those alaskans, wonder if they're a friendly bunch....." now, you may rest assured, that although private, people here are mostly kind. i might add they are somewhat hostile when it comes to tourists- but this just reminds me of growing up in maine where we welcomed the tourists, and then told 'em to go home in the same breath.

i have been doing alot of thinking about connections i have with family and friends as the holidays approach. the mounds of christmas cards covering the kitchen table that i have yet to start, let alone finish, remind me of the physical distance between us and our friends and family. we are spread out across the country from maine, massachusetts, nebraska and colorado and even the UK. lately i feel pretty disconnected from everyone.

its hard to admit that some friendships lose steam over the years, and some connections cannot be maintained. but others evolve into a comfortable flow that bridges the distance of both time and space. these connections are magic, or as close to it as i know. there is a beauty in picking right up where you left off, even with months of quiet in between.

so the northern lights have been showing off recently. last few nights with that big old moon, they havent been around, but last week we got to stand outside in our pjs staring at the sky watching the show. it was pretty impressive.

we have been having a heat wave here. its been down right pleasant in the mid 20's and even the low 30's during our outing yesterday.

jaden got an early christmas gift from his most wonderful auntie in boston. he loves the snowshoes and he's a natural. you rock aunt g!