more pumpkin bread is baked!!

 the house smells nummy! will be able to take some to work this week.  have done a few walks out at the dog park.

 every time the swans are close to shore there i only have my cell phone.  oh well, they are still quite pretty to watch.

 the beavers have done a good job with this tree.  pretty shocked it's still standing. 

 fun to observe their handiwork.  it's quite impressive

 watching a bit of the most recent season of British Baking show so it inspired me to bake.  figure i should try to bake on Sunday nights...take something to the Monday walk crew.  I'm excited to try out a few cool and fun recipes.  now that i have a pretty kitchen it's time to do some pretty bakes!!

 mine will not resemble the bulk of the things seen on the show though. my palate is just not that sophisticated.

 the dogs have gotten fairly close to the swans a few times...they are really only interested in the tennis ball.  they will chase squirrels and much smaller birds...does this demonstrate their increased maturity and intellect...?

 Ivy is there because she is dropping the tennis ball at my feet. 

 seemed a fairly busy work week. my first night i worked ER.  at one point I'd had a few discharges so i picked up a few new patients...they looked pretty uncomplicated...with humans uncomplicated can become much more complicated.  people can be overly dramatic at times...so something relatively simple can turn into a saga.  made for some good laughs as i chased wheelchairs around hunting for my patients.

 i then just gave breaks and ended up going home a bit early, which is always nice.

 my next two nights were in ICU.  both nights i was busy the first part of the shift, transferred a patient out and then got 6 am admits to make my morning a bit crazy. 

 life can change in the blink of an eye...be grateful for the health that you have.  it is fleeting. 

 we are there at peoples darkest moments some days.

 walks and happy dogs do help bring you back to a happy place.  it can be easy to get your emotions pulled into the lives of others. 

 so i did accomplish a few of my goals for this one day off.  it could have been easy to just sleep all day

 dogs are excellent motivators

 that is a better view of just how tenuous the situation is for this poor tree.

 the rest of these are from Sitka.  these darkening days do make it good for looking back at pictures from the summer.  even the summers i don't think I've done hardly anything it usually turns out that i have had some super fun experiences.  that is the fun of looking back and making the calendar...a rush of happy memories of places, people, hikes and scenes.

 it's good to get off the beaten path in Alaska and explore.  I'm not always the best at doing the longer hikes like i used to. pay for it more these days.  I'm still a pretty good hiker/walker though.

 i live in one of the beautiful places...i just don't feel the need to leave here very often. the longer you are away from the lower 48 the easier it becomes to stay away.

 I've known many who left only to return again or wish they could.  it's a place that people seem to either love and never want to leave...or hate and can't wait to leave.

 i once told a newer co-worker that i thought she was going to be a good fit for Alaska...i told her she was "independent and quirky".  she was initially a bit offended by the word quirky. i tried to explain to her that i meant nothing negative about her being quirky.  several months later she mentioned the conversation we had and that she now got what i was saying...she's still there.  you can often tell pretty quickly who is Alaska material.

 we get along because we have that thread that connects us all. 

 some of our other connections can be a bit frayed.  so we are connected to those around u. 

 above we were smashing muscles and feeding the critters in the tiny tide pools.  I've done this since i was a kid in Laguna beach. i think you'd probably be fined for doing it down there now.  just too many people.  too many humans and these simple things become too much for the environment to handle.  i get that.  my friends had never seen the action that happens in a tide pool though . we were given a good show  i think there was even a tiny eel living in the one pool.  tough to get a shot.  my friend dropped her cell phone in there...i don't think it was ever right after that.

 i have always been fascinated by the tide pools.  i took several marine biology courses in college.  there was a great professor that i am still in touch with.  learned a lot from him.  met a lot of fun people as well.

 these are fairly large anemones.

 fireweed was about done

 what to do next year...i still haven't been out to Brooks and the valley of 10,000 smokes.  so that would be fun to get out to.

 rain on the rocks

 the usual seaweed.

 my calendars are already here.  i discovered that i forgot to add the background color to a few of the pages. it's not terrible, but i was bummed. at least i have photo's in each spot. 

 those came super fast though.  probably just early so not too many orders in there yet. 

 driving back from the little beach we had been at.  my friends wanted to explore a skate park..her nephew is into skateboarding so he is always wanting to check out the skate board parks all over...so they were taking some pictures for him.  my other friend and i wandered around this harbor.  there were several harbors around this small town.

 not surprising.  cool name for a boat!

 i tend to try and find boats with the name of the place i am visiting. 

 plenty of them in this harbor

 met with a few friends for a meal this evening.  always fun...so often in life people you have known for years it doesn't matter how long or short the time between visits, you just pick up where you left off.

 raining right now. looking like rain for the next several days.  i head back to work tonight again.  just the one night off.  i wanted Halloween off.  like to hand out the candies, plus don't really like leaving the dogs home alone to face the children and the noises. 

 i have full sized candy bars from costco.  not sure if i word has spread that this tends to be the case at my place.  i do love to see the kids faces light up as they see the full sized bar heading for their bags. 

 mini candy bars came in a few years after i had started trick or treating.  i don't recall our folks going out with us. i was the youngest so maybe it was just our end that went out by ourselves.  at some point there started to be stories of people putting glass and razor blades in candy..was that what it was?  i know some hospitals at the time started to offer to xray kids candy to make sure there wasn't any metal in there.  that was all pretty brief.  eventually my Mom would just give us some candy cash...i think she was starting to get worried that it just wasn't as safe to trick or treat....

 eventually, places and churches started having "trick or trunk" sort of events to be safer.  it was still more fun to cruise around on our own going door to door.  happy my childhood was still free and fairly safe.  we just had a lot of autonomy.  i better run get those loaves out of the tins.  good night.  isn't this little dog cute...this boat was really sweet.  we were admiring it and this little dog popped up to check us out.

thankful for A.  each day that i remain pretty healthy  B.  friends, old and new C.  all the help from my co-workers on busy nights!! even when i do silly things like put a hole in my blood bag when I'm spiking it...what a mess!!!!