Daughter of the Forest...In a Place without Trees

[Location: Arctic Circle...naturally.]

[Warning: long post ahead...I have a year to catch you up on!]

Blog Writing Fail: I disappeared.

I really did. It dawned on me this morning as I was posting pictures to a different blog that this one had been seriously neglected. It's been almost an entire year that i've dropped off the blog-o-sphere. Not that I was ever considered a serious blogger anyway, but it is an easy and fun way to keep people I love who are all over the place updated on the things going on. The added benefit being those updates happen without resorting to the ever more cluttered Book of Faces.

The last year has practically flown by. I believe the last time I wrote I had just settled into the newly renovated basement apt of my folks house in Dalton. Being the restless girl that I am, it was only about 4 months or so before I moved back out again and on to new adventures. I was spending most of my time off of work travelling to see someone, so I thought...heck...why travel? Just move! I've done that a couple times before! Piece of cake.

So. I moved. Where you ask? Where would a girl who loves her trees and mountains of Alaska and Idaho move to? The midwest. Ha. South Dakota to be exact....the flat, treeless part on the eastern side. Please note: I obviously did not move there for it's landscape or job potential. I've always asserted that it's the people that make places awesome, and SD has wonderful people all over. I have never met people so welcoming and down to earth, aside from my apartment manager...but that's a story for another day!

Where was I? Oh yes...moving to the treeless, flat, SD plains and how easy it was going to be.

I decided to move in October...but wasn't going to be able to get into the apartment I found until January. My brilliant thought was to take the essentials down/over before and put them in storage. The rest of my stuff was already in storage in ID and could easily remain there until spring.  So in my newly acquired pickup, I packed stuff up with the help of my family and soon there was driver room only. We covered everything up super well with multiple tarps and tied them down aggressively and I started off on my 1150 mile drive. I was jazzed. Trip wasn't too far and i'd be there in no time!


Okay...trivia moment. How many of you remember that freak blizzard that they had last year at the beginning of October where there was snow everywhere and a million (or..so) cows loose?  No, I didn't get caught in that...but because of the cows, the roads through SD were closed, so I drove the longest, most straight, most BORING drive though ND to reach my destination. This is important, because it started raining about 100 miles out of Idaho and didn't let up until I was in Bismark, and there are very few gas stations! Due to this...I had to stop like every hour and re-tighten/tie (and buy new!) my sad and tattered tarps down. Longest 1100  miles I have ever driven, but I got there, unloaded things with the help of my boyfriend, and took a couple months off from moving.

For all you future travelers though, the above picture...don't. Just...pay a moving company, or bribe your Dad.   (Hey! It worked for me!)  My dad is great and eventually made that same drive by himself, in the snow, in January, with a u-haul and all my furniture. All for a ticket back to work because he loves me! I'm not a completely horrible person...I hired people to help my dad load the u-haul okay!? :) I also helped unload...even if my dad, boyfriend and his brother did most of the heavy lifting. Even all this time later...MANY THANKS! My apartment is on the 2nd floor...and I have a lot of heavy things...like ...books...and solid wood furniture. For the purpose of this tale, however, it means it's Jan. 2014 and i'm all moved in to a cozy 2 bedroom apt in a small SD town.

In February I had Emma Misener (from All Aboard Wheat Harvest) out to visit/help me settle into my new home. We hung photos and relaxed and had some seriously great girl time.

My two weeks home in March was pretty low key. Hung out with Vince and his family and enjoyed some good book reading time.

April- I finally went and got my car! I had been pining after it all winter long as I repeatedly filled my truck gas tank 3 times as much as my car and for a lot more each time. I flew to ID, saw the family for a day, and turned around and drove that 1100 miles again...but through SD this time! Again...all you future travelers...avoid driving through reservations in the middle of the night. Stick to the interstate...even if it adds an hour. Enough said. I also had the wonderful Marie to visit in April and we did wonderful things like drink coffee with chocolate croissants and search out fun places in Fargo, ND/Moorehead, MN so she could effectively cross those states off her "state's visited" list. It was tons of fun.

Most of May I was at work doing a 3x3 shift so that I could attend the beautiful Nicole & Shaun and Sarah and Daniel weddings respectively. We did 2 weddings in 2 weeks at the end of May/beginning of June and Vince and I (and our lovely friend Sarah S.) had fun driving and attending both!

I only had a week off between shifts at the end of July, so I bought a cheap ticket to visit the family in Idaho, since the last time I had barely had time to eat and sleep before I was gone again, much less hang out! We had a great time going hiking, hanging out at the lake, and because we're us...we also spent time tiling and painting. Yay home improvements!

Last but not least, I was able to be home for my birthday this year! Barely, but still! It was fun, as the Misener clan was staying at my apt. while they were cutting in the area so I was able to do a yearly ride in the combine before they were finished. It was great to have people around and I got some great cooking tips from Mama K (Emma and Dan's mom) while they were there. I spent the day of my birthday at the salon and then headed up to another wedding, this time in Fargo. All in all, quite a lovely day for the first birthday i've been home in 4 years.

That brings us to September! The current month! Success! So much more has happened that I haven't mentioned in the 'highlights', but i'm going to get back into the grove of this. I am! Hopefully from here on out, I can spend this much writing space detailing one portion of time instead of a year. :) More detail is better!

For now, that's all she wrote. Enjoy your day! Read a book. :)

Book of the Day:

If you enjoy a good fantasy novel without too much of what I call "sketch", then you may enjoy Daughter of the Forest, the first book in the Sevenwaters sequence by Juliet Mariller! You can find it on Goodreads at the link below. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13928.Daughter_of_the_Forest

Fantasy Genre Definition:

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres ofscience fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are sub-genres of speculative fiction.

In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form, especially since the worldwide success of The Lord of the Rings and related books by J. R. R. Tolkien. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today

The Art of Travel

[Another note from the Arctic...where it has snowed...repeatedly... these past few weeks]

All:

Have you noticed a really ridiculous pattern at all? Yes...I only ever write from work...and only about once a month. Well I'm here today to fill you (mostly) in on life since i've written last!

I spent my last two weeks off going to visit some awesome people in the Midwest! (I also learned that ND, SD & MN were PART of the Midwest. I didn't know!!! I claim "northern girl" who never had to take midwest history or anything like that in high school) I spent a few days at home in Idaho and then flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul where a good friend picked me up. Then we drove about 4 hours to SD. The scenery in that area has its own unique charm. Not quite the overly treed acres or mountainous terrain i'm used to...but there's something beautiful about farm land and knowing that what you're seeing is going to feed people some day.

A quick day in SD was followed by a drive to Lincoln NE to see an awesome family I know and a good friend as well. That too was a quick day and a half as we showed up in the evening and left the next afternoon to head back to SD where I met up with MORE friends whom I stayed with the rest of the week that I was there. Combines...and wheat fields...and camper life! Always fun. :)

All in all, the trip was both quick and full of blessings! I was very excited to finally do a bit of travelling instead of remodeling! Good news though...right before I left, I actually set up my room with the help of my family. It is SO nice to have a place to relax every now and then! I flew back to Idaho and spent a few days with the family before heading up here...where I have been for almost 3 weeks now. I get to go HOME soon! Well..actually...only very briefly...but i'll fill you in on that AFTER it goes down...

May the snow not be seen for many moons wherever you live,

P.S. Always remember-Pack light! :) It leaves room to bring cool things home with you!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23422.The_Art_of_Travel?ac=1

Birthday Box # 2

Happy Almost Birthday to Me...it's 

[GO HOME DAY!!!]

I don't have a TON of time to write (did I mention today is the day I get to go home?! It's always a mad dash to get everything done. BLAST you procrastination!) , but I wanted to give a shout out to another great friend who is always super thoughtful and awfully good at gift giving (among many other things). You can visit her blog here to learn/read about all sorts of interesting things and see tips on fashion, movies and many different things about life in general. 

Once again, thank you from the very deep recesses of my little heart for your thoughtfulness on my birthday! Sending things to the Arctic takes forethought and serious follow through and the timing was perfect. I love my gift and the guys will get a kick out of it because they're always calling me "THE boss" all the time...trying to make sure I feel the love and put them in good seats on the plane :). Jewelry is always a hit too, and I LOVE GREEN!  

Many blessings to you this Wednesday my fellow admin! May the rest of your work week be swift and uncomplicated!

Ciao for now....

The Birthday Box...

Oreo Surprise!

[In that selfsame office in the  middle of nowhere]

Abby:

I don't have anything witty or humorous to impart this morning. I am simply reflecting on the fact that I very much appreciate my friends. Over the years several of them have been very thoughtful and sent little care packages, birthday and Christmas gifts to me up on the slope while i'm at work. It may not seem like a super big thing...but when you're away from home for the holidays every year...a little "i'm thinking of you" from far away definitely makes the day brighter!  So for all those little packages...I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. They were very much appreciated!

This topic comes to mind this year because once again that dreaded day where we turn one year older is almost upon me and I walked into my office yesterday morning to find a box.  I opened it (yes...I opened it early! It had no markings to specify that I should do otherwise...that is my defense!) to find a tin that looked exactly like the one pictured above. That's right. A giant Oreo. To my astonishment...it was actually filled with white and black cookies. Delicious! Eating them all was definitely not going to happen, so I sent the remaining cookies (there were a LOT) out to the guys in the control room. They were very grateful! I didn't think anything of it...and then this morning I got an e-mail with a picture in it.

Knowing Emma, I really should have known there would be a message at the bottom.  It made me laugh and think of all the other smiles I have enjoyed due to the thoughtfulness of friends over the years and I am taking a moment to appreciate them all!

Have a beautiful day out there and remember to appreciate your friends, as well as the small things! 

Book of the Day: 

The Birthday Box by Leslie Patricelli

Brave New World...without a cell phone!

A Sad and Tragic Tale

[On hold with Alaska Communications, my friendly cell service provider]

My phone? It looks like the one pictured above (in black). I've had it for awhile so it's the Samsung Galaxy S2. It is the protagonist in this little tale, so I thought it would be good for you to have a visual. Call it the business major in me. 

Abby:

You know when you have one of those days that starts off with only trying to do one thing, and that one thing takes forever because of the evolution of the worst idea ever..automated service lines? Today was just such a day. The good news...I made a new friend. His name is Art. We chatted on the phone for about 2 hours because I have the a lifestyle that is directly contrary to dealing with a company that only resides in one state! Yay! Here's the scoop:

PHONE:

I find great pleasure in shutting off randomly while internally smiling gleefully as my handler gets really frustrated! Then...I won't turn on...just because...even though my battery is fully charged. I have been playing this game for about a year now in the hopes of going to phone heaven (recycling) and my handler has FINALLY capitulated to my evil plan and spent the time necessary to replace me! (gleeful cackle)

Abby:

Okay...so I know my phone is an inanimate object but i'm SURE that's what it would be thinking if it wasn't. ACS has been very accommodating about the whole thing since I have handset insurance, but it doesn't change the logistics of things. 

Option 1: Mail it to me at work. It takes approximately a week to get the new phone, and I will be leaving the slope in exactly that amount of time. Chances are, the phone and I would miss each other in transit and I would be phone-less for two weeks until I came back to work. Not my favorite idea. 

Option 2: Come into the store and get it replaced/swapped out in person.  I would love to...unfortunately by the time I land in Anchorage, all the branch stores are closed...and they do not open again until after I have already left again.  Yeah...that's not going to work either.

Option 3: Mail it to me at home in Idaho. I know..this makes perfect sense right?! Just a small snag: They "can't" send phone's out of state unless for "pressing" reasons. Art is a good guy however, and he put me on hold for another 20 minutes and convinced his supervisor that this circumstance is pressing. Yay! Oh wait...you have to be IN Alaska to activate the phone. TRAGIC. So here I am again...I have a phone in hand...but I can't activate it and use it regardless because i'm in Idaho. Again...phone-less until at back at work.

Option 4: Art...he's a salesman and he figured out the plan. He's going to mail it to me in ID, but he's going to activate it first. Woo hoo! Initially, it sounded like a super great plan until he told me that once he activated the new phone, my current phone would no longer work. 

That brings me to the sad part of this tale. I AM going to be phone-less with Option 4. However it will only be for a week instead of 2 which is nice. It amazes me that as a society we are all so dependent on one tiny little mobile device. It's a brave new world out there with so many electronics always at our finger tips! I admit it...I count myself in that "society." I may not be as attached as some...but i'm definitely going to feel it's loss this next week. 

Enjoy your texting everyone! If I don't text back...I promise i'm not ignoring you!

Once (or twice or three times) Upon a Time...

Act 4, Scene 2
[From that Arctic Tundra that I love so much and where it seems is the only place have time for updating this blog!]

Once upon a time there was a girl who decided to undertake writing a blog while she was moving and then helping remodel a house (this is where the 2 or 3 times in the title comes in). It was her hope that she would be quite prompt in updating and writing new posts to keep all the awesome people she lives far away from the ability to check up on what she was doing without having to navigate the overused and less exciting (as the years go by) pages of ...Facebook. As often happens with dreams and ideals, hers was a tiny bit ambiguous and her blogging has morphed into a semi-monthly posting status. This is not due to lack of ideas or things to do/share but by the fact that both work and home have been insanely busy. She has come to terms with this sort of, but even so... her resolve has been renewed to blog more often than not. Let me introduce you...

Abby:

Hello again! I'm sure you've all forgotten who I am by now...! Okay...Kidding. Here's the deal. Remember that investment property the folks bought that i'm going to bum a room in? I thought you would. It has been consuming my time off because we have been painting and tiling like crazy!  The good news? We're done...well...done with the basement (where I will be living) for the most part. I still have to work on the bathroom, but since we need to replace the toilet..it's not a super high priority. My last two times home (the last 6 weeks) have been a little crazy with early mornings and late nights (we know how much I love those!) trying to get everything done enough that I can at least sort through my stuff in storage and get rid of at least one of my little storage units to save myself about $30 a month. That being said...pictures are worth a thousand words right? Perfect. Here's what i've been up to before and after:

Granted...these colors are pretty bright and obviously that's not all the rooms that were painted...but we decided to make it fun in the basement (Mary gets to have a "girly" room and mine will be "earthy" instead of Paris chic type) and have the ledge around the whole basement be chocolate colored so that everything would "match" and you would only need to change the top half of the wall if you wanted a new color scheme in any of the bedrooms. The living room/hallways are all a pretty neutral "latte" color but a little lighter. From the same color palette that I used in my house. I know...it probably looks a little crazy right now...but it will be AWESOME once we decorate and get the carpet in the rooms etc. Ooh...I almost forgot the most important part....FLOORING!

The entire basement is tiled with the exception of Mary and I's rooms, so it took awhile. Now we're done though, and carpet should be in the bedrooms by the time I get home in 10 days. YES! Treadmill...I miss you...

...and they all lived happily ever after...for now. 

To Be or Not to Be...really wet.

SUMMERTIME

[Pictures located on the Coeur d'Alene Lake, ID]

Deep down inside...actually..it's not that deep...I really really like to be outside...most specifically in some sort of water, be it ocean, lake, river etc. doing nothing but relaxing and soaking up the sun. Perhaps this is because I spent so much of my life in sunshine deprived Alaska. I feel the need to make up for all those missed sunny opportunities! My folks' place out in the hills is only a couple miles from the dock you see above, and it is my favorite Sunday hangout spot when i'm home. The Coeur d'Alene lake is beautiful, and due to the fact that this "beach" is more of a boat launch with huge sharp rocks, there are rarely many people there. 

Last summer I invested in a kayak and I've had a lot of fun with that. Gets you out, gets you exercising, and you can cruise around and see some really pretty scenery. I wanted to try something new this summer though, and was super excited when my folks bought a low end paddle board so we could try it out and see if we liked it before spending a lot of money on a good one. What exactly IS paddle boarding you ask? Here's what the all knowing Wikipedia says: 

Paddle boarding is a surface water sport in which participants are propelled by a swimming motion using their arms while lying or kneeling on a paddle board or surfboard in the ocean. This article refers to traditional prone or kneeling paddle boarding. A derivative of paddle boarding is stand up paddle surfing and stand up paddle boarding. Paddle boarding is usually performed in the open ocean, with the participant paddling and surfing unbroken swells to cross between islands or journey from one coastal area to another. Champion paddlers can stroke for hours and a twenty-mile race is only a warm-up for a well-trained waterman.

Sounds intriguing right?

Here's a look at your basic beginner paddle board: 

Now doesn't that look like all kinds of fun? I've only tried it a few times so far, but let me tell you...for the uncoordinated among us...prepare to get wet your first few tries...or whenever you get distracted...or when someone inadvertently bumps you...or just...because. There are crazy in shape people out there who do awesome things like Yoga out on the water on a paddle board etc...but i'm not quite there yet. Still, it's a lot of fun and if you haven't yet, I urge you to give it a try at some point. If you don't live near a lake...well...I would say there's never a bad time to move...but that's just me. All joking aside...it's fun, and after the initial investment, it's a cost efficient way to work your core muscles, get a tan and relax and get some fresh air all at the same time. Tell me that's not a win!  

Before I go, my older brother tried it out for the first time a couple weeks ago and caught on fairly quickly. He's blessed like that, as well as really coordinated. Here's a snap shot of his first run...err...paddle. 

Now...go forth and paddle board!