todd

i met these two in the parking lot at the pet food store today. he was standing around, calming and petting 2 full truckloads of sled dogs. they were pit-stopped for a few, and enroute to a race.

i dare say he's the first stranger ive walked right up to and said, "hi, can i take your picture?"

thanks for letting me take your photo todd, and for letting me get some dog love.

watch this

thar she blows!

well its about time!
i just wish i were on vacation like some alaskan friends i know, unable to get back home for a day or three.

for any of you wondering about mt. redoubt, she is active and now classified as a red alert.
the volcano erupted 5 times last evening with each eruption lasting 4-30 minutes, and sending up an ash cloud, 60,000 feet.
and truthfully, i had no idea until this morning... slightly anticlimactic i know, but better than the alternative.
you can read all the details and look at current updates as you wish at the avo website.

isnt that a beautiful photo above? it was taken on march 21, and i am posting it with a full shout out to the volcano observatory, where i poached it from.
the map is complements of the alaska daily news.
you can see where we are in respect to current ash fall.
(we live outside of palmer)
so far it is a blustery, hazy day with no visible ash or weirdness.
(other than the simple fact that i am blogging about a volcano..)

and oh yeah, fuck you Bobby Jindal.

grill baby, grill

ive tried hard these past several months to reign in my contempt regarding the queen of alask....er... the governor of alaska.
but lately, she's up to her old tricks and is now taking the definition of narcissism to a new level. this is pissing off alot of alaskans.

it appears likely that she will continue to look for the wormhole to DC, so grab yourself a fresh cup of joe and check out these two juicy tidbits offered as food for thought.

anchorge speaks out against palins rejection of stimulous money

pipe dreams

whoopie!

this morning while quickly scanning the web for headlines this one jumped right off the screen of my little mac and into my lap. it proclaimed:

Whoopie Treat Wildly Popular

this not only made me smile, i practically snorted tea right out my nose, while instantly my thoughts were transported to being brought up in maine.

in the lovely land of ocean and pine trees the institutional general store remains, with a firm foothold in every small town- and maine is filled with small towns.
on the counter of each general store there are baskets filled with home baked treats.
there are cream horns, fudge flavored with chocolate, peanut butter and vanilla. there is maple sugar candy and pickled eggs floating in a giant jar of unknown liquid... (dont ask)

but the treat which never goes un-purchased when i stop into any of them, is the whoopie pie.
a whoopie pie is a tasty blend of two small chocolate cake-like cookies, where sandwiched between each, is a delectable buttery-cream frosting, all carefully wrapped in saran. (this part is quintessential to the whoopie pie, believe me.)

i have just experienced virtual childhood time travel.

well now my favorite liberal rag has exposed this secret to all of you- you can find the details and recipe here.

be prepared to be changed forever by this remarkable little treat.

btw, the best whoopie pies in the whole world are sold at eggmoggin reach general store.
stop in sometime and try one.

destruction

we like to (de)construct things.

awhile back, in the deep, deep, deep, dark of winter, i posted a few photos of our bathroom demolition.

i was kindly reminded that i never posted after photos-
so here is a looky at our before bathroom:
notice the understated whiteness of the subway tiles, and the delicate pink in the detail of the easy-to-wipe linoleum.
here is our new and improved bathroom.
mind you this is not necessarily your high end, dream bathroom; but instead, a lovely, functional, improved space, on the cheap.

i have a handy man.
doesnt he look handy.. (fanny... ass candy) ...?

so, on to bigger and better projects because, well, thats what we do.

can you believe in a house full of windows- seriously, this house is practically made of glass, they put this pitiful little window in on a west facing wall over the kitchen sink? well, goodbye kitchen sink. hello window!

i mean really, what were they thinking??
certainly not of doing dishes. one must have scene to view in order to do the dishes.
boy, have we got view!
3 or so weeks till we get our kitchen back.
-and its wonderful that i have such a lovely bathroom to do dishes in until then (:

its friday. lets dance.

self portrait

anyone else want to play?
post a self portrait on your blog and then show the link here when you comment.
come on, some one, inspire me! im low on creative cash. help a sister out!

the race is on!

we did not get out to either the ceremonial or official start of the iditarod this year.
this is a favorite photo from the last start we attended.

we were too busy deconstructing our kitchen (more later on that).
im sure there are some other bloggers (check out the alaskan blog list on the side bar) with cool dog pics and wacky musher photo ops- its bigger than christmas and rates right up there with the pdf check here in alaska.

the 1150 mile journey will take about 10 to 17 days to complete, and the official web site can be kind of fun to peruse to see who's where, when, and how many dogs they are running with.
you can link to it here.

ive been hearing from everyplace that spring is a mere 2 weeks away. even people here say that breakup (the quaint alaskan word for spring) occurs 2 weeks after those dogs cross the finish line.
its hard to believe looking out on this.

march rules!

ive been getting all caught up in our ever expanding daylight here.
march is a great time of year in alaksa. we've generally got snow and the daytime hours are growing longer by 5 minutes each day. this makes for some fantastic time outdoors, and after a long, cooped up winter, thats good stuff!
-here are some photos from the past couple of weeks.
we are skiing machines!