Crunch Time

Today the movers came.

It's happening.  It's really happening!

Is this really happening?

How can this even happen?

Somebody pinch me.

This morning at about 9:30, three big Samoan-looking dudes showed up at our house.  I would like to have a picture of them, but somehow I think it might be kinda rude to take their picture.  Anyhow, they were super nice, like gentle giants.

At first, for awhile I was busy running around the house gathering stray stuff that I didn't want them to take.  They pack really fast and take everything they see, so if you're not on your toes and paying attention, you're gonna find out your half-eaten donut and your coffee cup disappeared and got packed.  No, that didn't really happen to me, but as Judy Tenuta would say:  "IT COULD HAPPEN!" Most of the time if they came across something they think we might want to keep out,  they were really good about asking us before they packed it, but there were some things that unexpectedly disappeared without a trace that we won't see again until it comes to us in our new home.  But that's okay; at least we know what happened to it.

So after I was able to relax a little, I started to feel like I needed something to do besides pace back and forth while they did their work.  I had to do something while waiting for laundry load after laundry load (I was washing all the bedding before they got packed), so I put some Weird Al music on and sat down with my sewing and just stayed out of their way.

I was sitting by the kitchen where one of them was working and I began to make some chit chat with him.  Really big dude with tattoos all over his arms and a pony tail.  My guess was that he was Samoan, so I asked him if he was from Hawaii.  He said yes, he was from the southern Pacific islands, and he said he was American Samoan.  So we had a little conversation about Hawaii, since we were just there about 3-4 years ago (I'm sure you've seen my blog posts about that).  Then I asked him if he was familiar with Don Ho.  Of course he was!!  He said that his uncle used to play music at some place where Don Ho played, and his uncle had Don Ho over at his house for BBQs sometimes, so he actually got to meet Don Ho at his uncle's house a couple times.  I asked him what he was like, and he said that Don Ho was a really nice guy, a hugging kind of guy, loved to give hugs (especially when he was drinking......)

Anyhoo, I thought that was pretty cool.  And then we were talking about some of Don Ho's songs.  He said his favorite was "Pearly Shells".

Maybe I"ll play some of my Don Ho songs for him tomorrow.

He seemed to really enjoy Weird Al though.  Sometimes he busted out laughing while he listened to him.  Those big Samoan dudes can look intimidating, but for the most part they seem like they are really laid back.  He talked about his daughter and how he does a lot of stuff with her, including sewing. He even helps her make "princess dresses".

Anyhoo, this morning Weeners disappeared AGAIN.

But I knew she had to be in the house somewhere.  I locked Peeka up in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and looked and looked and looked for Weeners all over the house in every nook and cranny.  I couldn't find her anywhere and began to suspect that she somehow snuck outside when the movers came.  Finally, in the afternoon, one of the guys went in our bedroom and started packing stuff, and he came and told me that he saw her bolt out of the room and run upstairs.  So where was she hiding?  I looked everywhere in that room!  She always was a good hider.  Anyway, I was able to get her locked up with Peeka until the big dudes left.

After we let them out they were exploring like crazy.

So, the movers are pretty much all done in the kitchen.  We are eating off paper plates now.  I have no dishes to wash except for the stragglers that were still in the fridge.  They also have our bedroom about half done.  Pantry and downstairs bathroom are done.  Tomorrow they are gonna do the garage and the upstairs.  The upstairs will be so easy for them because I already did most of it for them.  All they have to do is the upstairs bathroom and Justin's room, and he really doesn't have that much.  So I think this is a relatively easy job for them.

And now I have to start the cleaning.

I was hoping to get all the cleaning done so we can go to the Fair on Sunday, but now it's looking like our dinner date with someone got moved to Sunday.  So, I wonder if we'll be able to go to the fair on Monday instead???????????  We shall see.

I don't know when this computer will be taken apart, so I can't say if I will be able to write again before we leave.  We shall see (...said the blind man).

Our Last Week in Alaska

Today begins our last full week in Alaska.  I can't believe we are leaving in 9 days!!  (sniffle! sniffle!)

We are starting to say our good-byes to some people. 

First of all, on Thursday morning, I decided to do something about FlatFace.

Apparently he really thought he belonged to us, and we think he was actually living under our shed.  I always felt so bad for him when he turned up at our door all wet and dirty.  If it were up to me, I would've let him stay in the house, especially during the rain storms, but Peeka would not have it!!  I'm pretty sure he is the reason Peeka has been peeing in my laundry.  So, to get her to quit doing that, we've been booting him outside whenever Peeka was in the house.  Poor FlatFace!!!

Our time for moving was coming up fast, and we couldn't get rid of him, so I took him to the pound to see if he had a chip in him.  If not, I was just gonna leave him there.  I was hoping he had one so I could take him home and meet his owners and explain the situation to them.  But when I got to the pound, I found out they were closed until 1:00.  Why in the world they open so late, I have no idea, but I was NOT gonna just drop him off in the Night Box and leave him there.

So I took him to the vet instead.  They scanned him for a chip, and nothing came up.  So then I knew I had to take him back to the pound later that day.

But I was meeting a friend at 12:30 that day, so I had to take him back home and let him go in my driveway.  I knew he would still be there when I got back, but I was really frustrated with the inconvenience of taking him back there AGAIN.  All that running around for a cat!!

So I met my friend Margaret for lunch in Anchorage.  She is an older lady that I used to bowl with and after our bowling league ended, we still remained good friends.  She was one of my quilting mentors so I would occasionally take my sewing projects over to her house and we would spend a whole afternoon sewing together.  Anyway, it was nice having lunch with her, but sad to say good-bye.  At least I can still chat with her when we play "Words With Friends".

After lunch I went to one more quilt shop in Anchorage and found a couple more Alaskan quilt projects to buy.  Interestingly, one of the ladies that works there said she grew up in Indiana, so that gave us an interesting conversation.

After I got home, FlatFace was still hanging around in the driveway (as I knew he would be), so I scooped him up and took him directly back the pound.  I explained the situation to the lady behind the counter and she immediately fell in love with that handsome face and assured me that they would find a good home for him. It was hard to leave him, but I knew that it would be even harder to just leave him here under our shed.  And since he's been gone, Peeka actually seems happier.  So far she hadn't peed in my laundry since he left, but we'll see how long that lasts....

Then on Friday night, our church family gathered together and put together an ice cream social for us.  A lot of people showed up for it.

The guy who coordinated it felt bad after he found out I couldn't eat dairy ice cream, but his wife found some non-dairy ice cream somewhere and she brought 4 different flavors.  Plus, another lady made some home-made non-dairy ice cream for me, which was real nice of her.  It was really good too, it was toasted coconut flavor.  It was a really fun time, and I was able to control my emotions for the most part - until the very end when we all joined hands and they sang us a song (sniffle! sniffle!)

Then there's Weeners.

I thought I was gonna have to say good-bye to her because I let her go outside on Wednesday and there was nothing unusual about it.  She and Peeka both had an appt on Friday morning with the vet to get their health certificates to go across the border.  But Friday morning came and she still wasn't home.  So I only took Peeka in, and had to reschedule Weeners' appt.  We scheduled her for Thursday, hoping she'd be back by then.  When Saturday came we were starting to think we'd have to accept the possibility that we'd have to leave her behind, but Saturday evening she FINALLY showed up at our back door!!  So of course, now she is SOOOOOOO grounded!!!!  I instructed everyone to NOT let her outside again no matter how much she cries and begs!!

"I'm grounded because I was naughty."

Then on Wednesday of this week, I was invited to attend Chuck's good-bye luncheon shindig at his work.  I felt honored because I've never been invited to his work before, but at the same time I feel awkard.................because I've never been invited to his work before.   When Chuck's secretary asked me to come, at first I told her, "I don't know cuz if I go, I'll just cry".  She said, "that's okay, we wanna make Chuck cry too."  

Since the movers are coming on Thursday, Wednesday will be his last day of work.  It will probably be hard for him, but I doubt he will actually cry. 

At church, I've been getting a lot of people asking me who's gonna make the drinks after we're gone???  Well, that still remains to be seen.  I started training someone this morning who said she was interested, but it was a bit chaotic cuz she had 5 kids with her. There is another lady who expressed interest, so next week I might be trying to train both of these ladies, which will be kinda difficult.  I wish I could just stay here and keep doing it myself.

In the meantime, Chuck has been busy training someone to take over the church finances.  It hasn't been difficult for him to do that, but it's been a bit time consuming and a big hassle to satisfy all the requirements for the banks.

Even though we still have  one more Sunday yet at church, we already had to say good-bye to some people who said they wouldn't be there next week.  Some friends from Anchorage even came to worship with us this morning so they could see us one last time.  It's really humbling to find out how many friends you have at times like this.  Next Sunday I'm going to be an emotional basket case.

But I will survive through it, and after I get that over with, I am really hoping we can go to the Alaska State Fair one last time. I started my Alaskan adventure at the Fair 34 years ago, so I think it's only fitting to end it the same way.  But we'll see how things go with all the packing.  There is going to be so much to do that weekend between cleaning and packing!!

We are hoping to close on the house on Monday and if all goes well, we want to leave on Tuesday.

I'll try to write one more post before we skedaddle.

In a Lull Right Now

We got two weeks before the movers come and pack for us.  It's coming fast, and there's so much to do yet, but most of what we have to do makes more sense to wait until it's closer.  So we have been in a lull, which is a bad thing cuz it allows me to think too much, which can be depressing.

We can't close on the house until after the appraiser comes and completes the 23-page long report, but before the appraiser could come, we had to fix all the problems that came up in the house inspection.  Most of those were fixed easily and quickly, but we had to wait for the new windows, which had to be ordered, during which time we couldn't really do anything but wait.

BUT!!  Today both of those things got taken care of.  We got the window replaced this morning, and then the appraiser came a couple hours later.  Now we just have to wait some more while the appraiser gets the report done.  We hope he'll get it done quickly cuz we want to close on the 27th.

So, in the meantime, we are in waiting mode again, but I do have a few things to do.  For one thing, PW moved out so I've been clearing stuff out of her room that she left behind.  Chuck said we could keep this bookcase IF I can get the stickers off from it.

What in the world was she thinking when she put that sticker on the side of her bookcase?  Was she too lazy to walk a few steps over to her garbage can?  GRRRRRRrrr........!!

There were two stickers on there, and the first one wasn't too bad to get off, but this one is a BEAR.  I have it soaking in walnut oil right now.  I'll come back to it later.

At least it gives me something to work on, and doing all this hard scraping helps release some of this pent up stress I've been carrying around these past weeks.

I guess I'm determined to get the sticker off cuz an extra bookcase is more storage space for all my scrap booking stuff.  Plus I have a whole bunch of books I'm taking with me.

And let's not forget that August is harvest month!  Normally, I'd be at the cabin every weekend this month picking blueberries.  Now I'm telling my friends at church to go ahead and pick 'em. 

I ended up canning all the blueberries I still had in my freezer from last year so I can take them with me. 

Canned blueberries aren't the same as frozen ones, so I might have to find different uses for them, but I already found one use for them.

If you blend blueberries with raspberries, half a banana, half an orange, and some almond or cashew milk, oh my, what a treat!  (Don't forget the chia seeds!)

My raspberries are really taking off now.  We pick a whole bowl full about every two days.  I could've picked more than this, but I was seeing too many 8-legged residents, so I will wait for Chuck to get home and finish picking them.

Also, I thinned out my carrots and my beets and also picked more peas and beans.

I can't preserve them cuz I don't have enough jars left and I don't wanna buy more, so we're gonna have to eat them somehow.  Plus, there is still more to come, so I will probably end up taking veggies to church to give away.  Too bad we can't take them across the border - those carrots would make a great road snack.

My tomatoes are still green, so I'm not even considering them.  I'll let the new owners do what they want with them.

FlatFace really thinks he lives here now.

He makes himself comfortable in any spot he can find.

On the back of my couch...

....and even on our bed.

He's making this difficult for all of us.

I feel so bad for him when I have to boot him outside.  I'm guessing he stays under our deck every night, especially when it rains, cuz in the mornings he's sitting out there looking in through the glass, all dirty and wet.  Poor thing.  For some reason, he never wants to go home.

Hmmm....., maybe it's because we feed him and brush him and pet him and spoil him and let him sleep on our bed............

I'll probably cry for him when we have to leave.

So that is pretty much it.  In another week or so, things are really gonna be buzzing here.

Our Last Month

August 1

This is the first day of our last month here in Alaska.

The weird thing is that I came up here in 1984 at the end of August, and here 34 years later, I am leaving at the end of August, pretty much on or close to the same day.  How weird is that?

I remember it well.  My friend who brought me up here took me to the Alaska State Fair when I got here, and I remember being on the ferris wheel looking at the mountains and her asking me, "Can you believe you're really in Alaska?"

At the time, I didn't think Alaska would be my home for 34 years.

It's a long time to be here, but not long enough.  

The longer I stayed here, the more lucky I felt to be here.  Alaska is one of those places that feels "exclusive", a very special unique place that makes me feel special and privileged just to be here (and feel sorry for the ones who don't live here), and I think most Alaska "lifers" feel the same way.  There's a special kind of sadness when people have to move away, I think because most people don't have family up here, so there's sort of like a different kind of Alaskan bond that people have with each other here.

Yesterday was my "commissary day", so I took some pictures of my routine stores that I will miss after I leave.  One of them is the Natural Pantry.

I go here every other Tuesday without fail.  We don't have a "Whole Foods" store up here, but even if we did, I would still rather go to the Natural Pantry.  This is where I go for all my whole grains, and my coconut powder (for my coffee), and some of my organic produce.  They sell a lot of things here that you can't find in a normal grocery store.  I also eat lunch here almost every time.  It smells so good when you walk in there.  What I like is that they have charts with all the foods on their buffet that tells if it contains anything that's a common allergen.  For instance, I usually get the soup, and if they have "dairy" checked on the list, I know not to get the soup.

When we were in South Bend a couple weeks ago, we went to a few different stores wondering who would sell whole wheat berries.  I was looking for a store with a selection as big as the Natural Pantry's, where they have a big long aisle full of every grain you can imagine, and some you never heard of.  

Usually, I am getting soft white wheat berries and hard white wheat berries.

You would think they wouldn't be very hard to find in South Bend, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  I was really disappointed with Whole Foods.  They brag about their selection of bulk grains, but for wheat berries, they only had hard red, which is the kind I use the least. I don't know where I'm going to go now for my soft white wheat berries, which is the one that use the most.  If I can't find them in Shipshewana, I probably won't find them anywhere, which means I'll probably have to order them from Amazon.

I will really miss the Natural Pantry.

I had some extra time so I went downtown to visit the quilt store.

There are several quilt stores in the Anchorage area, but this is the one that has mostly Alaskan fabrics and patterns, which I have been looking for and stocking up on to take with me.  I was really thrilled to see that they finally had some fabric with puffins on it.  I've been looking for puffin fabric for a long time.  Last year they said they ran out and didn't know when they would get more, so I was glad they had some this time.

There is a quilt shop just two miles away from my house that I will probably visit one last time. Now that I'm looking for Alaskan things to take with me, I'm beginning to feel like a visiting tourist here.

Another place I will miss is the commissary on JBER.

I know it's only a grocery store, but I will miss it for several reasons.  For one thing, we save money by shopping there.  But also, they have items there that I have gotten accustomed to buying from there.  I had my standard routine "staples" grocery list custom made for that store.  Plus, for me, there's just something about shopping with all those military people in uniform.  I always liked shopping on base and seeing the uniforms; somehow it made me feel safe.  Plus, you're not gonna see your typical "WalMart clientele" here, and the chances of your purse getting stolen is slim to none.  Also, it's a place where I felt "special" and "privileged" to go to because not everyone can go there.

And since Chuck retired as chief, we have the added bonus privilege of parking in this spot:

Moving to South Bend will take all of this away.

There aren't even any military facilities anywhere near there, which makes me feel sad.

We will have to go visit Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin whenever we go through there.

I bet Ft. McCoy never gets any moose.  Yesterday after I got through the base gate, I saw a mama moose and her half grown baby strolling through the grounds.  I don't know how they got through the gate without a military I.D.

(I will miss the moose.)

So, aside from me feeling sorry for myself, we have a lot of things to do yet before we leave. With so much to do, it gets frustrating sitting around waiting for things to happen.

We ordered the new windows that we had to get fixed, so we are still waiting for those.  After we get the new ones installed, then we have to wait for the appraiser to come.  More waiting.

Sometimes I wish we could just go; the longer we stick around the harder it gets to leave.

In the meantime, I got a storage unit set up for Stephanie so we can start putting stuff in there that we are leaving for her.

And pretty soon I will be scheduling an appt with the vet, so we can get the kitties certified to cross the border.  Yeah, that's gonna be a meowing good time......!

Too bad we can't take this one along.

We will miss him.

And we have been discussing when we should have the movers come and pack our stuff.

Right now we think it will be August 24 (on Justin's birthday), so we can leave on the 28th or 29th.

Right around the anniversary of my arrival date 34 short years ago.