Jan 4, 2025

 

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope the new year is treating you well so far.  I think so far it's been a rather weird start, which is a continuation of the weird ending of 2024 - I mean with all those drones and synthetic "fog".    And it just keeps getting weirder and weirder.  I'm just waiting it out, seeing how it all pans out.  I've heard of some vague reports of "fog" here in Alaska but I haven't seen it (yet).  Nor have I seen any drones (yet).  However, this morning I was awakened by some really weird loud scraping noises against the house, and I was imagining a drone hovering over my house letting out a stream of that spray that I've seen videos of.  The noise scared my cats which didn't help, but I got up and looked outside - didn't see anything.  The noise came back several times.  After we got up we realized it was just the wind blowing our plastic lawn chair around.  It's windy today.

I feel so silly!!!!  But it goes to show that I'm watching too many YouTube videos about these drones. It can be unsettling.

So we went to Fairbanks as I mentioned in my last post.  We had a good time.  We got there on Saturday afternoon and Steph took us to a Christmas tree judging contest, and also you can get your picture taken with a reindeer, but the line was way too long so we skipped that.  They also had some fireworks to celebrate the winter solstice, but we didn't stay for that.  It was kind of exciting to be there on the solstice though - the shortest day of the year in Fairbanks is pretty short.  The next day Fairbanks gained a whopping 20 seconds of daylight!  Woo-HOO!  I don't know what we gained here in Wasilla that day, but I think yesterday we gained 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

On Sunday we went to church and then spent the afternoon going to bazaars.  

On Monday we went ice fishing!  

I thought it was cute that they had this written on the chalkboard.

They had a fishing hole drilled in each corner of the hut.  I started with the hole that was next to the door, which someone kept opening, which made me cold.  So I moved to a different corner.

It was cold outside (about zero), but it got pretty toasty inside the hut once we got the wood stove going (and kept the door shut).

"Here fishy, fishy, fishy!"

We couldn't see very well down in the holes, so we had headlamps which helped some.  We were waiting for the sun to come out more to help lighten it up.  We did see some small fish swimming around our bait, and we got some nibbles, but nothing came along that was big enough to wrap its lips around our hooks.  So we didn't catch anything, which was a bit disappointing, but it was still fun!

They provided one cord of wood for the stove, and Steph purchased an extra cord, but we didn't stay long enough to use it all, so she just left it there for the next person.

We got there at about 10:00, and you can see that it's still kinda dark out.  It never did get much lighter than this cuz the sun basically just stays low in the horizon this time of year.  On this day, Fairbanks gained about 40 seconds of daylight!  Woo-HOO!

This was our hut.

When we were leaving and walking across the frozen lake, we noticed this bald eagle.

The people in this other fishing hut were feeding it.

We stayed there for about 3 hours, 'til about 1:00, and gave up, even though the hut was "ours" for the whole entire day.  It was fun though and I'm glad we did that.

After that we went to the Santa Claus House in North Pole.

We spent some time in there and bought a few things that we didn't need.  Of course Santa was there, but there was a line and I never even got any pictures of him.  The reindeer were there too, but we didn't take the time to see them.  It's a very touristy place this time of year.  There were a lot of people inside.

That same night Steph and Kristian took us out to a sushi place.  I don't eat yucky sushi, so I ordered some kind of chicken and rice dish.  It was good, and Chuck was really impressed with his sushi. 

On the way home at the end of the day, I mentioned to Chuck that I was seeming to develop a cough.

The next morning (Christmas Eve) I woke up with the flu.

So I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day not feeling good.

Thursday we went home, feeling a little better but still sick.

On Saturday Chuck got sick.

Still trying to get rid of this lingering chest cough.......

Anyway, that was our Fairbanks trip!

Now I'm trying to get back into my sewing.  And I finally finished PW's kitty QAYG quilt.

That's the one I kept procrastinating on because I was afraid to do the picket edging.  But I made myself do it, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  Didn't get all my corners to match up perfectly, and I'm only about 80% happy with it.  But it will just have to do.  I'm glad it's finally done, but now I have to wait until I see her to give it to her cuz I don't wanna ship it.  

In the meantime, I am pulling out all of these other "UFO's" and getting them out of the way before I start a new project.  One of them is this leftover thing from when I made Stephanie's quilt.  I don't know what I'll do with it, but for now I'll just finish quilting it cuz I don't wanna just throw it away.

Also still keep plugging along on the EPP quilt.  I have to make 28 of these "large diamonds".  I'm almost done with the 21st one.  Got 7 more to go, and then I have to make a bunch of normal size flowers.  I have to make a lot of them, but they should go faster cuz I can pretty much make one in one evening.  It takes me 3 or 4 evenings to get one of these large diamonds done.

And of course I am already starting to think about my garden seeds.  Already placed an order from Johnny's Seeds.

Also, just on a whim, I planted this green onion that I bought from the store.  There was just a little stub of onion left on it when I decided to plant it and see what happens.  It didn't take very long for the onion to grow back.

As you can see, we have hardly no snow outside.  And the wind doesn't help.

Hopefully we will get more snow soon, but I don't see any in the forecast.

So that's about it for now.

Stay out of that so-called "fog"!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (and Luke 2:11)

 Hello All and Merry Christmas!

Another holiday right around the corner (next week!)  The holidays are turning into a blur for me, how 'bout you?  Every year I find it harder to keep up with them - why is that?!

I have been busy, busy, busy these past few weeks.  Worked like crazy on my Christmas cards so I could get them mailed out as soon as Thanksgiving was over. I almost succeeded.  I think I mailed them out a week or two after.

They were a lot of work, but I think they turned out nice.  I made 54 of them.

As soon as they were done, I got busy in the kitchen making Christmas cookies!  I made 12 different kinds, while at the same time got the idea in my head that I needed to cut back on my sugar consumption!  Seems like the wrong time of year to do that, but if you think about it, this is the perfect time to do it because it's way too easy to mindlessly overload on sugar during the holidays.  If I'm keeping track of my sugar, I keep myself under control!

Most of my goodies are kept in the freezer, but some of them get taken to our church potluck.  Chuck took a platter of them to work yesterday.  Otherwise, I am keeping only a few samples of each on my counter.  Yeah, my counter is holding 12 different kinds of goodies.

I've also been playing with my newest toy:  my Stampin' Up! Mini Pocket Envelope.

They are the perfect size for holding those Ghirardelli squares!  I don't know why, but those G squares are my favorite things to dress up!  I made these out of leftover Christmas wrapping paper, which happened to be double-sided.  The other side had penguins which were perfect for fussy cutting for this project!

So, as I've mentioned in my last post, we are going to Fairbanks for Christmas.  The forecast is showing temperatures hovering around ZERO, which is actually warm for Fairbanks, so I am glad that it won't be -30 because Steph wants to take us ice fishing on the Chena Lakes.  It'll be a new experience for all of us, so we are excited. I'm not a (red) fish eater, but I'm informed that they do stock the lake with some white fish too, so I hope we catch some of those.  They stock the lake with silver salmon, king salmon, grayling, Arctic char, and I can't remember what else.  So we had to get fishing licenses because we didn't have any.  I've never had a fishing license before because I've never been officially fishing before.  So when we went to Sportsman's Warehouse to buy our licenses, he told me that I qualify for a free permanent fishing license because I'm 60!  WOW!  It makes me feel old, but it's the first time my progressive aging has ever done me any favors, so ......yay for me!

As for quilting, I haven't been working on that Christmas "mystery quilt".  I've been too busy messing around with my stamps.  But I did start another project - sigh......another unfinished project lying around.  I saw the pattern and I like it, so I wanted to make one in both Christmas colors, and Halloween colors.  It's going to be a table runner.

I am hand-sewing it, and after I get it done I'll make the Halloween one - I already got all the squares cut out.

By the way, did you vote last month?  Hmmmm?

I guess it's too late now for your answer to matter.  I'm just glad that season is OVER!  What a time that was!

So I want to switch gears now because I had something on my mind this morning when I was studying my Greek.  This morning I was working on Luke 2:11 which should not be separated from verse 10.  It was totally unplanned to be working on Luke 2 during the Christmas season - it just randomly happened that way.  I know that a lot of people think about Jesus this time of year, so in light of that, I just wanted to put down my thoughts.  This little baby is born, totally normal and human like you and me, but in verse 11 Luke gives Him three titles without even giving His name (Jesus).

 

1.  He calls Him "Savior".  The word "savior" indicates a rescue of some sort of danger.  We are all in danger of sin which will destroy us if we aren't rescued from it.  This little baby is our SAVIOR.

2.  He calls Him "Christ".  The word "christ" means "anointed" in the Greek, and it means "Messiah" in the Hebrew.  Prophets, priests, and kings are ceremonially anointed.  Jesus was all three of these things.

3.  He calls Him "Lord", which means "Sir", or "Master".

This little baby was just born and was already designated to be all these things - Savior, Christ, and Lord!

In verse 10, the angel tells the shepherds that this news is a great joy TO ALL PEOPLE BECAUSE (in the Greek, verse 11 starts with "because") there is born to you Savior, Who is Christ the Lord.

Isaiah 9:6 says "for unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given".

John 3:16 says God GAVE His only begotten Son.

Jesus is a gift to the whole world and it is good news BECAUSE He is Savior, Christ, and Lord.  Christmas isn't just about presents, but if it was, Jesus is the only gift that matters, and He is all these things for everyone in the whole world.  

 It's a sad shame that so many people do not accept the best gift ever.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

October 29, 2024

 

WE HAVE SNOW!

Hello All!  Or just you, or just to myself.  (I know I have no audience, but that's okay).  So yesterday we were under a "weather advisory" and they said that we were to expect 6-12" of snow.  We accumulated only about 1/2" and then it quit snowing.  This morning we got another dusting, but we can still see our grass.  As usual, Anchorage got more.  We are expecting more snow on and off for the next few days, but I am not expecting a lot.  Anyway, I love the first snow, don't you???

Halloween is only two days away.  This is pretty much all I did for decor this year.

Even though I'm slowly trying to let go of my Halloween stuff, I did splurge on buying a second skeleton because my other one has been too lonely for too long and I thought he needed company.  So I call them Mr. and Mrs. Spinalzo (from the Arsenic & Old Lace movie).  They are sharing a lovely meal of candy and yukking it up, having a great time together.

I did finally finish all three of those FPP pumpkins!

By the time I got the third one done I was much better at it and only had to rip out my stitches once.  I gave that one to Steph cuz it turned out the best.  

This is how the back turned out (hope you can see it okay).  

At this time I'm not going to attempt making the witch or the cat, but by the time I get to those at another time I hope I won't have to relearn how to do it.  So I can now say I don't hate FPP as much as before, but it's still not my preferred method of sewing, so I will say that I don't really like that much.  On a scale of 1 to 10?  Maybe a 3 or 4.  There's too much thinking involved and a lot of fabric is wasted, but I guess that's okay if you want to get rid of scraps.

So now I am working on this project.

I got this pattern from an email that I used to subscribe to.  I think it was Better Homes & Gardens, and every week they would email me quilting patterns (I don't subscribe to it anymore).  This is a pattern for a "mystery quilt" that I guess was running a long time ago and now they were putting it out there for free.  Supposedly in the past they sent people one block pattern per week (or month) not knowing how the blocks would be laid out in the end, thus a "mystery quilt".  But now that they were offering it for free, they made all of the block patterns available for print, and also the layout of all the blocks, so I guess I am sorta cheating and taking the mystery out of it because now I can look at this and know where a particular block will go in the quilt.  Right now I am making block #7.  I decided to make them all out of Christmas fabrics because I have a large collection of them.

In the meantime, that kitty quilt that I was making for PW is still on the back burner.  I am procrastinating on that one because the next step is to put the picket fence border on it, and I'm lacking the confidence to do it.  I know I just need to do it and get it done.

Besides working on these Christmas blocks, I have been working on my Christmas cards already.  Hopefully I will get them done early - one less thing to do later when things get busy.  We are sorta planning on spending Christmas in Fairbanks this year.

Since my last post we took a trip to WI for one week.  I didn't take very many pictures because mostly it was just visiting family members.  We hopped around the state quite a bit, and had a really good time visiting everywhere we went, and we had perfect weather the whole time.

Here, Chuck's brother-in-law is taking us out in his boat on the Flambeau River.

And here, we took my brother on the chair lift at Granite Peak in Wausau.

And we did some hiking there too.

And here, we got to see my niece's twins, 5 months old.

Chuck had the easier one.

We also went hiking at Devil's Lake again.

The weather was just SO NICE the whole time we were there.

After we got home we had more harvesting to do.

We got a huge load of potatoes!  These should last us awhile.

The only thing I don't like is that the skins are scabby, which I guess is a common problem.  I guess you can fix that by adding sulfur to the soil, which we didn't do.  I need to find out where we can buy some.

But I am happy to say that just a few days ago I put the last of the ripening tomatoes in the freezer, so now I am officially 100% done with this year's harvest!  

Now we can start thinking about next year.....

That's about it for now.

Peeka sends you greetings with her "love blink".

AUGUST 1, 2024

 Hello again.

It is August.

Our rainy season begins.  Summer is over.  Harvest begins.

This is what I harvested today:

Raspberries are ripening so we are picking a bowlful of those pretty much every day now.  We are gonna get a lot of them this year.

Lemon verbena, lemon balm, and "kitty nip"

All of these will be dried to make tea.

Basil, sage, oregano.

Chamomile flowers for tea.

Strawberries, raspberries, and radishes.

I picked the rest of the radishes because they were bolting.  If these aren't too woody I'll probably just snack on them.

As I said in my last post, we took a trip to Fairbanks over the weekend.

Tried to get pictures of the doggies cuddling with their new quilts that I made for them.  They wouldn't cooperate very well, so this is the best I could do.

On Saturday we went to Fort Knox where Kristian works.  They were having a Family Day and giving people a small tour to show us what they do there.  They had different booths set up and giving away some goodies and answering questions you might have.  It was cold and rainy so luckily we brought our raincoats, but we had a hard time keeping our hands warm.

One booth had a gold bar that they let you hold. It was heavy (about 13-1/2 pounds).

Who would've thought I would ever be holding $520K in my hands?

Kristian is a security guard there, so he showed us the truck he drives.

This is the kind of truck he drove when he was a hauler.  It's really big.

They also had other big monstrous trucks there for us to see.

Then we took a little guided tour to see the haul roads that lead to the pit.

Everyone had to wear a yellow vest and a hard hat and get on a school bus.  Boy, getting on that school bus really took me back to my school days!

It was kinda foggy out, but these are haul roads that lead to the pit where they dig for gold.  They didn't let us see the pit.  Hauling rocks on these roads is what Kristian used to do before he became a security guard.  We stood out there for about 10 or 15 minutes.  I was glad to get back on the bus cuz it was "freezing" outside.  The weather was rainy and windy.

Then we got another bus where they took us to the "mill" where they process all the rocks to get the gold out.  It was indoors, so much more comfortable.  However, they provided ear plugs for everyone because the machinery was very loud.

They have a big giant "drum" in there that turns like a ferris wheel.  They were explaining that this is how they get the rocks smaller and smaller and smaller.

It was all very interesting, but I didn't understand it all.

On our way back, Kristian showed us the building where his office is, but we couldn't go in there.

They were also serving catered food like hot dogs and hamburgers and pulled pork sandwiches and beans and so forth, but by the time we got there, it was slim pickings and they were out of plasticware.  For this reason I only made a pulled pork sandwich - this was all they had left for meat, and I think we used up the last of what buns they had left.  Chuck took some beans but I don't know how he ate them without a fork.  I think he threw them away after realizing no one was gonna put any more forks out.

Anyhoo, it was fun and interesting, despite the weather.

On Sunday we went to church, and in the afternoon we had good weather, so we went for a walk to the boat launching pad at the Chena River.

Then we saw this really old building.  A remnant of a strip of buildings that used to be there on the riverfront.  There's a sign on the building, but I don't remember what it said.  They are trying to preserve it, but I don't know what they plan to do with it.

The only occupant in that building now is Mr. Squirrel.  He was just sitting up there under the roof watching us.

So that was pretty much our weekend in Fairbanks.

After I got home, I resumed my effort to work on that FPP pumpkin.  After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, and using my seam ripper, this is how it ended up:

It looks "okay", but (of course) I ended with a mistake.  The right side and the left side got mixed up.  This is why the teeth don't look right.   This is the problem with FPP.  It is way too easy to get things wrong.  After suffering through getting Section A together, I pretty much felt like "I HATE FPP"!  I even got so frustrated enough to give up and I actually threw the pattern in the garbage.  But after awhile I fished it back out with a new determination to make myself learn how to do it.  So I kept working on it, watched more YouTube videos, and cherry picked my favorite ways of doing it.  After awhile I came up with my own method, and by the time I got through Section D, I felt like I was getting the hang of it.  My feeling of "hate" was gradually transforming into "not liking".  I was still making mistakes, but fewer of them, only to finish with a bang and make this mistake at the very end and sew the wrong sections together.  How typical of me to make mistakes along the whole way, and then end with one final last mistake that I'm not in the mood to rip out.  Maybe I should name him "Jack the Ripper" cuz he's seen a lot of my ripper.  Oh well, live and keep on learning.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to try making another one.  If I keep practicing, maybe I can go from "not liking" to a neutral "meh".   But at this point, I don't see myself liking it and doing it on a regular basis.  But never say never, right?   Anyhoo, now that I'm sorta getting the hang of it, I think I want to try again, and hopefully the next one won't need any dental work.

I just have to let all my frustrations with this one pass before I start again.

Putting this one together almost felt like punishment.