the snow is falling.....

i spent the night waiting for the snow and it's coming down now. i'll be snowshoeing tomorrow for sure!! yippee!! took a very excited rio and blossom to the bog. i must say i was a bit concerned that rio would let loose with some diarrhea. apparently i left the spare room door open where i'm collecting gifts for christmas packages. while i was in the shower rio nudged her way in and delighted in a rasperry filled chocolate bar. so far i've seen no ill effects.
the sun sets early here. after i returned home and realized that the thanksgiving gathering was planned for my house and i'd need to clean...i left for the hills to enjoy the mild weather and scenery. turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. on the way up campbell airstrip road i saw my friend gil and her two labradoodles. i hadn't seen them since they were mere pups so i had to stop and say hi. hopefully, she'll join us for a monday walk. she'd just finished her walk. blossom and i headed up to basher trailhead. anchorage was socked in with clouds but you could see the alaska range and even denali mountain from underneath. always cool when that happens. so above is denali mountain and below is the alaska range. the sunset colours were begining to show themselves.

the sunset colours were bouncing off the inlet. just spectacular!! blossom was just happy to be outside chasing her tennis ball.

just loved the light and colours through the tree's. afterwards i headed to earthquake park, but the views weren't that great there so i headed to downtown. the colours were at their peak. loved the reflections.

the train went by while i was out there. kinda dark, but thought it looked like the sunset was the light on the front of the train. i had a few stores in town to hit so figured i'd circle town running errands. i also wanted to hit costco. i know very exciting.

cool comercial on by wwf. they have all these animals trying to call senators to get action on climate warming. i've got the house about as clean as it's going to get...for the moment. i've been enjoying watching all the flakes come down. it's so peaceful outside. blossom keeps going out and laying in the snow. she stays out long enough to get totally covered and then returns inside with all her snow.

this one was taken back on basher trailhead.

personally, i think the next one is my picture of the day. loved how it came out, reflection, colour!! alaska never bores you. even a simple sunset stuns! this is the alaska range off across the cook inlet i'd guess. so a rather dull day here in alaska...okay....no days are dull. should i take pictures of the actually somewhat clean house knowing that it will rapidly fall into it's usual state of madness. tomorrow i'll toss the turkey in the crock pot and head off into the woods. at costco i saw those king crabs....should have gotten some for tomorrow. oh well. maybe christmas. of course, i'll be working both christmas and new years...but right now i'm on vacation!!

tossed in a few pictures from yesterday. first is another of the creek and the ice.

next, another one of those cool wasp nests. very intricately made. i didn't get as close as last time, but they are cool. what do wasps do in the winter? do they return to the same nests next year? so many questions that i'll never bothering to find the answer.

lastly....this is what the road and trailhead are named for. this is campbell airstrip. it's a back up airstrip in the event of emergency as ours is build in the turnigan area which broke into tiny bits during the big '64 quake. i've only actually seen one plane land on this runway. they discourage people from walking on the airstrip, but many still do. it's great open space for skiing and such.

well, this cleaning stuff wears me out!! there is much i could do still, but i'll head to bed so that i can enjoy all the white fluffy stuff coming down tonight. there will also be some shoveling that will be required. i actually enjoy shoveling snow, though i really don't mind when the neighbor kids come do it for me.

still battling sinuses and canker sores...

overall i feel better but still got tired just going around the bog with the pups. no snow yet, but i'm still hopeful. i went straight from the bog to the grocery store for that turkey breast. food is the last thing i really want right now with all these sores in my mouth. i have a few big sores and then the taste buds on my tongue are all irritated and sore. it's rather annoying.
i rested and then headed back out with blossom. it was so quiet and peaceful out there. we went to campbell airstrip. i'll post a few more pictures tomorrow perhaps. i'm sleepy now. i saw that the mushing trail wasn't blocked off so we went the back route. saw nobody and it was just blossom, me and the crunch of snow and sounds of the woods.

everytime i go there is less of the creek open. the ice flow looks cool though. in between tossing the tennis ball i take a few pictures.

was pretty lazy again the rest of the evening. had hoped to get some more accomplished. just some home stuff, dishes, laundry and such. i did get a few christmas gifts wrapped. i should write the annual letter and start addressing envelopes. i bought a few dvd's online, mostly replacing vhs tapes that i've had. there is a sale at amazon.com. i love that place. will be fun to see movies that i haven't been able to watch for some time. those are good between net flix movies.

it's late as i just watched "changeling". i think i spelled that right. despite all the hype that surrounds angelina jolie i think she actually is a good actress. sadly, the hype makes it tough to seperate her public persona from her characters at times. i think she succeeded in this one and it was quite good. i had no idea that the old lapd was so corrupt. those red trolley cars ran right through my old home of south pasadena. i recall them being spoken of.

this last picture of the night i borrowed from sharon. she took it on the monday walk. these ski pants look pretty bold. that dang sandra was with me one day and we were shopping. she desperately wanted me to try them on as they didn't have any in her size. she convinced me to purchase them as they were on sale. they are a bit wild even for me, but everyone assured me they were not seizure inducing. i have nice friends who lie when the truth won't matter. hehe.

now i will try and sleep.

monday walking....

just a few pictures from today's monday dog walk. above are the dogs of the day by the creek...which was a bit mushy due to the 30 degree temps ...buddha, boddhi,cooper, indy and blossom.
below tanya, andrea and karen enjoy the mild weather!

the dogs investigate possible stick options. the malamutes meet and greet!!

sharon is ever pupular with the hot dogs in her pockets...i'm sure it's her charming personality and nothing to do with the hot dog bits . hehe..

woke with sinus issues. weak, muscle aches. i opted out of the short walk with blossom and rio and saved my strength for the big monday walk. 5 humans and 5 dogs. it warmed up today into the 30's. luckily, i dressed right and wasn't too hot, though i suspect that i had a fever while walking. sharon was excited to finally meet the malamute pup.

i made those apple muffins for the after walk coffee house break. tanya and andrea joined me and then we ran into dr kamali there so he joined us. he's one of the intensivists we work with. always fun. just a great guy, easy to work with, smart...charming and adorable. his wife is a lucky gal i'd say. he's totally easy to tease and catch up in a joke. so that was fun.

my body was feeling a bit pained so i headed back to bed for a bit. so the rest of the day...lazy, sick girl. hopefully, this will pass. i've been wanting to hit the grocery store all day...it's after 10pm and i haven't made it back out of my pajama's...tomorrow. hopefully, there is still a turkey breast left. if not...i'll opt for ham or even some king crabbers...that actually sounds wonderful! when in alaska...eat king crab for turkey day!!

well, it's early but i'm calling it a day!!

kicksleds and walks....

the pets were all on the couch the other day. they looked cozy and happy so i just had to snap off a few. above is mufasa and below is pogi, blossom and rio.

the sunset yesterday was pretty. just took a shot as i headed to the craft fair. this is taken on northern lights blvd. i'm starting to feel a bit of a sinus thing coming on. hopefully, it will just go away...don't want it messing with my little staycation.

lucky for the kids out there, the north pole post office will continue on with thier santa answering service. they started doing it in the 50's. so it's been going on for a long time. a girl i work with said she grew up there and as youth they volunteered to answer letters. i guess like 200 people volunteer to answer all the letters that get sent to "santa, north pole". sad to see it stopped for silliness, but our world is full of silliness these days. apparently, a similar program in virginia was stopped after it was found that one of the volunteers was a registered sex offender. fears that registered sex offenders could use the kids names and addresses.

we can't protect everyone from everyone in this world. i guess the added work of blanking out the kids names and addresses was getting overwhelming for such a small post office. the whole town is set up as a christmas town year round.

spent several hours outside today. it warmed to 20 degree's though i feel a bit chilled anyway. i think blossom is pretty worn out...she hasn't brought me her toys to toss for her while i watch a little tv. first we all went to the bog for a loop. i tested out the new coupler. it's a dog leash adapter that i bought at the craft show yesterday. not sure it is great for the morning bog walk,but would be great for street walks and taking the dogs to public places.

after the bog i took blossom to n. bivouac park. i had loaded the kicksled so thought i'd take it for a spin. should have added my cleats...the kicksled works on packed snow, works better on ice though. we booked it to the creek down the tank trail and back, then i loaded the kicksled in the car and blossom and i headed out for a walk. below is blossom all loaded in the element with all our winter gear. kicksled, check, snowshoes, check, skiing gear, check, blossom's harness, check, ice skates....you get the idea!!

wanted to play more on the kicksled and so off we went to cuddy park. it's right by the library and they just added an oval for speed skating. wasn't sure if just anyone could use it, but when i arrived i saw that everyone was. wish they would put lights out there. there were several slow speed skaters, families and a few dogs. everyone was friendly. i put blossom's harness on and my cleats and off we went. blossom doesn't really get the pulling thing. she was trained not to. some nice folks out there attempted to coach blossom along....to no avail. she sure looks cute in her harness though.

below are a few of the speed skaters making thier way around the track.

blossom is a cutie...can't tell whether she is having fun or not...she was wagging alot.

i'm off to make some apple muffins to take to the monday walk tomorrow. i'm hoping it snows out there...would love to use the snow shoes. may meet up at the cuddy again in the afternoon to try again with blossom. sandra said she has ice skates and she may be able to coax blossom to run a bit. will be fun anyway.

craft sale at the de' naina center....

sandra and i went to craft fair at the newish de'naina center. i know i spelled that wrong. lots of booths. i had to stop at the booth with all the furs. i'm always a bit mixed about the hunting thing. can't bring myself to buy anything. i fear the dogs would just get ahold of it and shred it anyway. they did have some very warm hats/gloves. pretty and soft as well.
i bought a few gifts at other boothes. i know sandra had bought a few gifts here earlier when she was there so we took a few pictures and were enjoying the soft furs....still prefer to see animals free, but realize that we don't live in that ideal world and that some thining of wildlife is necessary at times. i am against most trapping...doesn't seem like they've come up with humane traps and often they are put too close to trails and dogs get caught in them. they changed laws this year to prevent wolverine trapping as they got more dogs than wolverine last year and wolverine are so sedentary that it's hard to tell how many we actually have.

the convention center is a bit of a box on the outside. it does have this really pretty display...like a gigantic mobile. it goes up several stories. hard to show how cool it is. the peices are whales and alaskan creatures.

this shot is a bit closer of several of the pieces. they are glass.

this last one i took from the center looking up. there were two adorable girls in the center looking up with me. anyway...it's quite pretty.

saw a few really good movies these past few days. tonight i met up with sandra again and we went to see "blindside". it looked like it could be a good flick to me. i wasn't disappointed in the least. it was just a really good feel good movie. nice to see that people can just be kind to those that cross thier paths. good to know that kindness exists...sometimes it seems such a rarity. a movie like this just makes you want to go out and help someone. you never know what impact you can have on those around you. you may need a tissue or two, but you are also sure to laugh as well. it was just one of those good movies that should appeal to all.

last night i watched my net flix pick of the week. it was called, "the visitor". turned out to also be good. sad in the end, but good. a depressed professer heads to new york to read an academic paper. he and his wife had a place in the city, but he obviously hadn't been there for quite sometime since his wife had died. he meets up with a couple that have been living in his apartment....they'd supposedly "rented it" from some guy...anyway...he ends up getting more and more involved in thier lives. he is able to find his way back to life with these strangers. so another good flick.

have had a week of headaches and canker sores. if i eat too much salty stuff my mouth breaks out. really annoying. i'm a bit buzzed as i decided to have a glass of wine. i'm such a lightweight. it's pretty sad really. i didn't even make it through half the glass when i started feeling the effects. have a nice mix of apples, cheese and chocolate to enjoy my glass o wine with. my mouth feels fine now and no headache...thank you wine!! it's kinda like laughing gas at the dentist. you still have pain...but you no longer give a crap about it. :-).

took my PALS resert class yesterday. always seems a tedious day. i always try to avoid code situations. i prefer to know someone will die and prepare accordingly. don't like it when people die without warning. you usually get warning. sometimes you just have to be watching closely for those signs. good to be prepared...but these classes can be a bit silly at times. nursing is always a series of jumping through the hoops. i'm getting better at not getting annoyed and just jumping through the hoop before me.

after class i grabbed the pups to head to the dog park. blossom had a close call with a car. never pays to be in a hurry. she must be leashed to go from the house to the car. she just gets so excited if someone is out there and heads out to say hello...scared the hell out of me. i'd be devastated if she got hit by a car. i know i'd never be able to forgive myself for such stupidity. luckily, it was just a scarey reminder for me. so two days at the dog park. tomorrow i will definitely have to do something more fun for us.

i'm on a stay-cation at present. plan on getting some christmas stuff done for sure. it is late so i'm off to sleep...

should be studying....

and really...i'm going to get down to it...right after this. really...really i will. has been a week of headaches for me. still lingering and i hope i don't have to deal with this again tomorrow. i went to the chiropractor today and got the one i like a bit better which is nice as he worked on my knots abit. hopefully, that will help them dissapate tonight.

it's been cold, cold, cold this week. temperatures -10F to +5F. at work the tube system starts to howl and sounds very spooky when the temperatures outside get low like this so it's like having ghosts around you. work wasn't overly stressful on peds these past two days. had the opportunity to catch up on my gossip magazines. one patients mom had bought out the house on gossip mags and gave them to us after she was done. i'm now totally up to date. apparently tom cruise and his wife are having issues and she can't leave cause he'll take suri and raise her as a scientologist robot....brad pitt is drinking excessively and texting jennifer anniston which angelina doesn't like. chas, cher's daughter....becoming a son is getting huge...i wasn't aware that in order to change sex one must become totally overweight. we did laugh as chas had her breasts removed...which considering her large size as a man we felt she should have left...plenty of men have man boobs. this also always makes me curious as she has a lesbian partner...if you are a lesbian and your lesbian lover becomes a man can you still stay with them or will that become a problem. so this is what i learned at work when i should have been studying for my PALS class tomorrow.

i believe these are bohemian waxwings. they travel in large numbers and flit from tree to tree. my walks were mostly in the bog, though i did do a loop up in n. bivouac the other day. gets almost too cold for photography. the battery just doesn't last as long and i tend to just get on with the business of walking in order to prevent getting colder than i am. movement is good.
my netflix the other day was called "arranged". i quite enjoyed it. two young women, who are teachers meet at the school they have been hired to teach at. one is from an orthodox jew family and the other is muslim. they live in new york i believe. they are both dealing with their families arranging thier marriages. of course, the other teachers they work with and especially the principle are a bit condescending of such an arrangement. thier respective families are less than thrilled as well that these two have struck up a friendship. it all works out in the end.
i suspect that an arranged marriage isn't necessarily any more risky than some of the partners we choose for ourselves. i think much of marriage is luck and then there is some work and compromise involved. a few people get very lucky and find someone that really suits them. whether this is by thier own choosing or by the choosing of others...who knows. in the arranged one i suspect that how well your parents know you and the pressures of socioeconomic status would be a factor. as in all, it depends on the individuals involved. with over 50% divorce rate...i suspect there is proof that we don't always choose for ourselves well. of course, in arranged marriages probably divorce isn't an option. anyway...i liked the movie. i think it showed the struggles that we all have with these major life issues and with our parents and how we decide to live our lives...do we follow the beliefs of those before us or do we strike out on our own.

did have some excitement in the bog the other day. rio must have split open her ear on a brush when we were out on the pond. it was so cold that the blood didn't fly everywhere like it would normally. must congeal quickly...anyway..i didn't notice her ear bleeding though in retrospect she was rubbing her head in the snow. near the end of the walk i noticed that my white snow pants were covered in what looked like a rust coloured paint...then i noticed that rio's collar and leash were also covered....then it occured to me that it was actually blood. it started to bleed normally once we were in the warm house and it took a bit for me to feel safe. ears bleed like the dickens and her ears are jumbo size. once another dog bit her ear and she kept shaking all dressings off i attempted to place there...blood would then splatter up the walls. very nice.

lots of cool frost on the trees due to the chill factor. okay...i'm really off to study now.

my feet may stink, but the house smells lovely!!

so the frost above looked way cooler on the creek than it came out in the picture. oh well. the frost all over is just awesome and i really need a close up lens to capture all the details. maybe a christmas gift from me to me. i'll have to check into it.

at coffee after our monday walk andrea mentioned these things you can put on your filter and then when the heat comes on it makes the whole house smell wonderful...since i had to stop by lowes anyway for new filters i thought i'd check it out. i bought two filters and two smelly things. i have vanilla in and the house does smell nice. wow! very cool idea. of course, i'm always a bit paranoid of anything added to the filter or heater systems.....my mother instilled a strong fear of fire in me. i've also taken care of several people who have lost everything to house fires. just seems the most horrible thing to me. you lose all, can't even attempt to salvage stuff.
also, i had the sad experience of going down to a kennel fire site in los angeles to see if i could help out. i've never forgotten the sight of all those dead pets laid out in the street and the horror those owners must have returned home to after a vacation. the fire happened on one of those long holiday weekends. you assume your pet is safe and cared for when you put it in a kennel and then something like this happens. it wasn't the kennel owners fault, they were next to a paint store i think it was and it was the paint store that went up in flames. i've never been keen on kenneling my pets since that experience either.

boddhi the pup, tries to figure out what those sticks are that sandra has on her feet. i think it was a first for the puppy. we just went up the tank trail and back today. probably just over 3 miles. it was bitter cold out there so that was probably sufficient. we all had fun though. weather was clear blue skies and cold.
below is a post walk picture we took to highlight our frosty locks. in this sandra, kelly, andrea, tanya, tiffany and paula. a fine walking group. the hot chocolate post walk was especially appreciated!!

wasn't sure how any pictures from today would turn out. everytime i attempted to take a picture my sunglasses would totally fog up and i had no idea if the picture was a big blur or what. at those cold temps i'm happy when the camera works. the batteries all die out fast the colder the weather is. during the cold snap last winter i thought my cell phone was busted...the battery just kept dying out on me. luckily someone explained the whole cold killing the battery thing.

above is tiffany and paula. below is sunset about 3:30 pm that i took while i was driving back from lowes.

we ended up walking straight out the tank trail. sandra had brought her ski's so seemed like it might be easier. i prefer the big loops though to get off the main trail, but always nice to alter things up a bit. the creek runs though as you get to the military base road. i think the road made for rough skiing. lots of rocks. the creek looked pretty though with all the ice and ice waterfalls.

tanya got the award for best frost design...not that you can plan it, but it looked like she had a fur muff around her neck. we all got pretty frosted. the whole town is covered with frost. i would say temperatures today have ranged from neg 5 to pos 5. i was out there for a total of 3 hours at least so was pretty chilled out. should have headed to the alaska club and sat in the steam which a great treat after being outside, but i had stuff to do at home.

another blurry picture of blossom but i loved how she was airborne leaping on to indy. she is pretty sleepy tonight. she likes to keep track of everyone and coming back down the tank trail sandra booked it on those ski's with a downhill. blossom had to run way ahead of me to check on her and then run back to check on all of us.

this was actually a before shot. tanya arrived early this week so she was already frosted up. it's hard to see everyones faces cause the breath catches the sunlight behind us...looks kinda cool though i thought. today's group...kelly, tanya, andrea, tiffany, sandra, paula and me. so the humans out numbered the dogs today. 5 dogs.

just a picture of some hoar frost from the bog walk this morning with rio and blossom. in my rush as we excited the trail i accidently dropped blossom's chuck it toy. when i went back hours later it had been set up for me. thanks to the random person who did that and all who passed by and opted not to take it for themselves. not that it's worth alot of money...just that it's such a great toy and blossom likes it. it's hard to manage two dogs, leashes, the poop bags, camera and the toy some days.

my eyes are burning tonight. i'm guessing it has to do with being outside for so long in the cold.

sarah palins book comes out tomorrow. i find it difficult to imagine it will be of any interest at all. some people really love her though and are hoping she'll run for president in 1012. it does seem funny to me that these same people chastise president obama as he has no experience and then they want her, who also has no experience. i think mostly nobody trusts politicians so anyone with political experience is automatically suspect. i've never been enamored with either party. i've also never been able to get totally behind any one elected official. they all seem to disappoint eventually so i don't ever want to be the person with the bumper sticker on my car for an elected official that totally screwed up.

it's late and my net flix movie looks interesting. i'm off to snuggle into a warm bed and fall asleep to the smell of vanilla.