Long time, no post. And not much time now before work. However, and I'm sure most of you are watching this, but Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog is the best thing ever. It is a project Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, etc) cooked up during the writers strike. It starts Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie, How I Met Your Mother) as an inept, sorta sweet, super villain trying to get admitted to the Evil League of Evil. Harris has been all over broadway and is a seriously good singer/dancer. Fantastic! It also features a Buffy alum and Nathan Fillion (sp?) who was Captain Mal on Firefly. And it's a musical. It's geek girl heaven! So popular it broke the site and itunes trying to sell it (go to the site to see it for free - scroll down to the bottom).

In other news, my uncle was here last week and we did NOT get arrested by Homeland Security so that is always good.

One more week of summer programming and two more weeks of summer reading program and then I can stop going insane. But there are a ton of fun things in store for this fall.

I hiked up a mountain.

More details on these things and photos later.

So I started sewing again. Well something worth posting at least. I made some rice bags. Basically they're sewn up tubes filled with rice. You microwave them for 30 to 45 seconds and they retain heat really well. They're heating pads that are safe to fall asleep with (unlike the plug in electric type) and you're not tied to a cord or an outlet. I added some essential oil scent to the rice so they smell good when microwaved. I made little slipcovers for them out of flannel. The little pillow case style slipcovers make the bags even more comfy and the cover can be slipped off and stuck in the wash. (You can not wash the rice bag without ending up with a gross mess of partially cooked rice.) I sewed some velcro into the tops of the bags as a closure. Mine are long narrow tubes to go on my lower back and around my neck. They can be made in any shape though.

( click for picture )

It's not much, but it was a fun, easy, and really useful project. Anyone want one?

Fun Alternative use for rice bag heating pads: If you life in a cold climate (like say Alaska), and you have a pet who is sensitive or unused to the cold weather (like an indoor cat or a hedgehog), toss a warmed up rice bag in their carrier if you have to take them on a winter-time trip to the vet. Or just give it to them to cuddle on a particularly chilly day so they can stay by their favorite drafty window spot. (Yes my cat is spoiled.)

I haven't done one of these in a while, so here is a book list, highlight what you've read, etc.

( click for book geekiness )

My cat has been super friendly today, butted my laptop off my lap so she could reclaim her position.

So I haven't posted in two weeks, and it has been a doozy of a two weeks. It included a trip to Seattle, and my parents coming up here. Thus I will give you the details in a bulleted list format that allows me some laxity in chronological order.

• Went to Seattle to see my sister get graduated from University of Washington. She is now the proud processor of a bachelor's degree in math. Go Susan! Graduation was a bit of a spectacle though.
  
• While in Seattle with my whole family, we went to a winery tour. Drank lots of yummy wine. And we saw a beautiful peacock at full spread. He was showing off for some lady friends and it was quite impressive.
  
• After trying and trying to find a restaurant after graduation with less than a three hour wait for dinner, anything not big and chainy, not that there is anything wrong with those restaurants, we just wanted something more special. But we also were very hungry. And we eventually ended up at... Olive Garden. Oh well, it was good.
  
• Mom and Dad left early Sunday morning to catch a train to Vancouver and their Alaskan cruise. John left a little later for Kansas City, leaving Susan and I there to play.
  
• Susan and I shopped, and I enjoyed the variety of stores not available here. I got some clothes, shoes, and kick-butt sunglasses.
  
• One of things about being in Seattle with my sister was the chance to see the Sex and the City movie with her. We'd waited to see it with each other. It was a ton of fun. I didn't love every minute, but it was good. Definitely a movie for the fans.
  
• Also in Seattle was my friend Jeff. Jeff is a friend from library school who now lives in Texas. He was in Seattle to go to a library conference. We met up, saw the space needle, and ate dinner.
  
• It turns out I like guacamole and sour cream. I have always thought I disliked them and requested them off of tex-mex or Mexican food. Or I scraped them off. I tried them, and I liked them. Very much. Coolness. I would make my own guac except produce is ridiculously expensive up here. I will end up doing it some time though.
  
• Came home Monday evening from Seattle. Proceeded to work my butt off Tuesday through Saturday. I also cleaned frantically Saturday night and was up a bit later than intended. That made my early departure on Sunday a bit more painful.
  
• Left early Sunday morning to drive to Seward (2+ hours south of Anchorage) to pick parents up from cruise boat. I used my super cool coffee cup that plugs into the cigarette lighter and thus I had warm coffee the entire drive. It was a pretty drive, but also very windy around cliffs and it was raining so I was focused very much on not going off the side of the road. Picked up Mom and Dad no problem.
  
• We did some stuff in Seward. Ate lunch at a little diner that was sadly out of caribou burgers, went to a quilt store, etc.
  
• We went and explored Exit Glacier and they we took an "ididaride". In an Ididaride we explored a kennel of a family of Iditarod racers. We took a ride in a wagon behind a team of dogs. Our lead dog was a three time Iditarod finisher. Then we learned about the equipment at the Iditarod and got to play with some adorable puppies.
  
• Took mom and dad on the long drive back to Anchorage. Got back to Anchorage, explored the city a teensy bit, picked up some of mom and dad's lost luggage from the cruise, etc.
  
• Monday morning we headed to Denali in hopes of seeing Mount McKinley. It was rainy the entire time so we couldn't see the mountain, however it was a really nice bus tour we took. (They only let you drive in so far into the park.) Saw lots of pretty stuff.
  
• The Denali trip was a birthday gift from my parents. It was great. My actual bday was rather a bust. I worked and one of my last patrons of the day was a complete jerk who cursed me out and called me names. It happens. We also celebrated my bday and father's day as well as Susan's graduation in Seattle. And both Denali and Seattle were awesome.
  
• We stayed in Talkeetna at an adorable Bed and Breakfast. I slept in a loft.
  
• Drove back Tuesday morning in time to have lunch at my apartment and for me to work the afternoon while parents played around. We picked up a halibut pizza from Moose's Tooth (an Alaskan specialty) and ate dinner at my place while parents packed. Drove them to the airport and came home and collapsed.
  
• While I worked the rest of the week, I collapsed each day. After sleeping 10 to 12 hours a night for five nights I am beginning to feel normal again. Those two weeks really and totally took it out of me.
  

Perhaps I really didn't need a list to tell that story. But I like lists so I used one.

It turns out I'm not dead. I've just been busy. Summer is always the busiest time of day at a children's section of a public library. Loads of extra programs. In addition, it's been nice in the evening and I've been elsewise engaged or uninterested in journalling. But now I sit in an airport with wifi and nothing else to do. I'm too tired to do much else. It's 1am here in Anchorage. Flights live Anchorage in the middle of the night so that you can get somewhere else at a reasonable time considering long flight times and time differences.. I'll arrive in Seattle at 7amI'm really starting to understand why this is called the land of the midnight sun. When I left my house just past midnight it was still light out. Not full light, but very light. Definitely early twilight or a bit lighter than that. Very cool.

I'm heading off this middle of the night to Seattle. My sister is graduating from the University of Washington. Go Susan! My whole family will be there which will be great fun. John gets in a couple hours later than me so I believe the plan is to go get breakfast than return for him. We'll hang out as a family, celebrate Susan's graduation, father's day, and my birthday all in one swoop. (Total side note, my work department celebrated my bday this week and sent me home with half a cheesecake, both a curse and a blessing.) Mom and Dad will leave on Saturday for an Alaskan cruise (booked before I moved up here). I'll stay til Monday evening to hang out with Susan. Then my parents will be up in Alaska for a few days. We're going to Denali (I just asked for the days off) and we'll see Mt. McKinley (tallest mountain in North America). It should be great fun and I'm hugely looking forward to seeing my family again.

Now I'm sitting here trying to remember if I turned my lights off. Surely I did so. It was just enough dark that I had lights on for safety. However I haven't had to put my lights on in so many weeks that I'm out of the habit of turning them off. The car would have beeped at me, right? But I was so focused on getting into the airport with my baggage that I might have not heard it. Grrr... This is going to dry me crazy. I most likely turned them off. I definitely turned around and hit my beeper a second time to double check the car lock. And I'm pretty sure that I saw the lights flash on then. I need to put aside this obsessive worrisome part of me and LET IT GO. I just want to get on the plane and go to sleep.

The environment and going green is obviously a huge thing. Whatever your opinion of global warming (and I'm not totally sold that it is absolute truth), you have to admit things need to change. We can not keep up our dependency on fossil fuels forever. $4/gallon gas should convince you of that. Environmentalism does not always mean living on a commune and growing your own food. There are a lot of really simple easy things to do, that everyone can do that could make a difference.

As a Christian, I believe that God created this beautiful world for us and gave it into our keeping. We often talk about being good stewards of what God has given us. We talk about that in terms of our money (and the church money). My church back home did an entire long sermon series on being a good steward. When you talk about stewardship, it is not only the monetary resources, but also your time and talents that you should be using in God's service. And of course you always have to talk about the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), where the servants who use their talents and prosper are rewarded. In the Genesis account, God gives Adam the garden to care for. He is there to care for the animals and the plants. It is clear that God expects humans to be stewards of all our resources. And one of the greatest resources the Lord has given us is our Earth. It provides for all our needs. It provides places for us to live, food, shelter, and so much more. God could have given us only a few plants to eat and yet He gave us a huge variety so that we could have splendid feasts. He could have made the Earth boring and repetitive, and yet He made it beautiful and varied for our awe of His glory. Thousands of years before we knew how to mine it, refine it, or process it, God buried oil for us to use. Within nature we have found so many wonderful things. Penicillin lurked inside mold waiting for us to find it. And who knows what other cures or wonders or miracles remain undiscovered in a corner of the Amazon or elsewhere. God has given us all we could ever need in this world, and we must take care of the resources He has entrusted to us. So environmentalism is a Christian value.

Here are a few things that I'm doing. Nothing radical, just a few simple things. You're probably already doing all or most of these things.

• Cloth bags at the grocery store. I have a few cloth bags that I keep in my car and carry into the grocery store (only occasionally do I forget). Much less plastic grocery bags cluttering my house and eventually the landfill.
  
• Recycle Is there anyone who doesn't at least recycle plastic bottles and aluminum coke cans? I collect a bunch of them up and drive them to the recycling center since Anchorage does not have the curbside recycling I was used to in Kansas.
  
• Reusable water bottle Rather than getting a new plastic bottle every day full of water, I have one that I refill. If you're really picky, get a britta pitcher to refill it. The vast majority of those aquafina (or any brand) water bottles are never recycled.
  
• Those special lightbulbs I don't have them yet, but I will as I replace my lightbulbs as they burn out.
  
• Composting I would like to point out that my parents have had a compost pile/bin/area since I was quite young, before being green got cool. Go mom and dad! And my home city has a program where you can put special markings on bags of yard waste and the city will pick it up and compost it. Very cool.
  
• Walking to work I walk to work when I get the chance. And I bundle errands as much as possible to cut down on gasoline. I am still spending less on gas (even with HUGE increases in prices and now driving an SUV) than back home because I live so much closer to work.
  
• Unplug unused appliances. Don't just turn them off, unplug them. A lot of electronics will still drain energy even while turned off. It's called a phantom drain, and some estimates say as much as 40% of energy consumed by appliances is done while they are powered off. Source Obviously not all your devices will this work, but you can save energy this way. Easiest way to do it is to have them on a power strip and hit the switch. Think of anything with a little LED light (cell phone charger, printer, etc) and unplug it.
  

And one of my favorite places for environmental tips for going green is Ideal Bite. They have a daily (work week) tip for going green. Most of it is easy, low key, and realistic. Occasionally it is more of a list of "eco-friendly" products to buy. However there are some good ideas in there. Especially if you scroll past the list of products. I like their stuff a lot.

Edited to add: Apparently there might end up being a wind farm on my grandmother's farm. She's meeting with the people about it. I guess you can do it and still plant crops. So not something I'm directly doing, but still very cool.

And thus endeth my rant for the day. These are only a few things. I'm sure I do more. And I'm sure you do too. I would love to hear what you all are doing.

So I did some more crafty stuff this weekend. Well the last couple of weeks really.

First off I made a pink tote bag. It's either a small tote bag or a large purse. I've not decided. I used fabric for the outside from the home decor section, but the inside was a normal calico. It's a shiny dark pink with lighter pink spirals. The reverse side (that I used for the pocket) is a lighter pink with darker pink spirals. the lining is light pink with sparkly threads running through the plaid. It's super pretty. I made some minor errors and not so minor errors. I ended up ripping out a huge section and redoing it. That was last night, I just kept working, it was still light outside. Then I realized it was midnight. It was still light out! That might explain some of the problems I was having. I fixed the errors and put it aside for finishing touches this morning (I have today off since Monday is my normal day off, today is my holiday). There were some other errors that weren't as easily fixable. I hand sewed part of it, and decided to accept it as less than perfect (for a perfectionist like me this is a big deal). You have to know your stuff to see the errors, from a glance it looks good.

( clicky for pictures )

As an early birthday gift, my mom sent me some fabric to crochet into a rug. It was already partially cut into strips (all but the top and bottom 3/4 inch). You sew the strips together to make one really long strip of fabric and use it as "thread" with a really big crochet needle to make a rug. It's a rag rug thing. There's a trick to sewing the strips together so you can sew one large swath instead of lots of little individual strips. Then I wound the strips into a ball. The large ball of fabric looks so cool I'm loath to start crocheting it. (I have started). Jane Austen loved the strips of fabric, she kept batting at them. And when they were piled up to be sewn together and wound up, she thought they made a great nest. She plopped herself down in it, poofed it up, and was not pleased when I took her nest away. I did get a picture though.

( fabric ball and Jane Austen's fabric nest )

I'll post pictures of the rug when I'm done.

Recently I decided to crochet a cat hat. I had been intrigued by these directions. With only a few modifications, they worked great. And as the directions implied, cats aren't thrilled with them. I also made one for a coworkers cat. I finally got Jane Austen to wear it with a minimum of complaining and no scars on me.

( click for pictures and captions )

More pictures available on my flickr.

P.S. I have no idea why the pictures are so fuzzy. They weren't so fuzzy on my computer screen - they looked great there. Oh well.

Enjoy! And as I used to do, I leave you with song lyrics not necessarily related to anything.

***************************
Why do I bother
When you're not the one for me?
Ooooh...
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes
I saw the sign.
-Ace of Base

A few weeks ago (I'm behind in posting) a coworker came back to our office just blown away by the request she had just received.

The young woman had come up to our desk (for what it's worth, the children's information desk) and she seemed to be 19 or 20. As many girls that ages do, she was looking into her career choices. She specifically wanted to know if there were any government sponsored trade schools or programs for exotic dancing. This is the point that I interrupted and asked, "does she want a scholarship to become a stripper?" Apparently yes. My coworkers and I tried to point out to her that as far as any of us knew (which admittedly this is not our area of expertise as children's librarians) this field usually relied on on-the-job training. We also told her that one or two of the local gyms offered the exercise class that features pole dancing that became a big trend a year or two ago. But this patron was just convinced that their must be a government sponsored program or trade school. With great trepidation, my coworker did a catalog search and a scary google search. We found a documentary and an autobiography/memoir for her. In addition, we gave her the phone number of a couple of the local clubs that might be able to provide the on-the-job training that still seemed her best bet.

And then we all stared at her as she left in amazement. We didn't want to be judgmental and try to steer her toward any other career. However I think if you have the mental facility to go to the library to research it, perhaps stripping is not the peak of your potential. I think you could become more.

[x-posted]

Here are a variety of things that have crossed my path recently that I have saved to share with y'all. Enjoy!

• Test your typing speed It's a fun way to test your typing speed, something most of us haven't done since school. I average around 85-88 wpm. The only problem is that unlike the tests we took in school there are no points taken off for incorrect words. And I'm so used to fixing mistakes as I go along, that slows me down because it is hard to force myself to keep going.
  
• From the files of soldier photos of Alaskan stationed soldiers, comes this fantastic photo. I love the dog's facial expression.
  
• I'm a bit of a lit/book geek, but I find this video of an upcoming pop up books absolutely amazing. The video is cool and the book is incredible. And okay I'm more than a bit of a book geek.
  
• And you thought that you knew the alphabet. These alphabets are really cool. I love the one made of people, and when I realized that this one was made by the sky through the edges of buildings, looking up from street level that I was simply blown away.
  
• Have some free time? Write your own comic! There are characters, props, thought bubbles, and word balloons. It's fantastic. Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and our library was a participating site. I wore the promotional tshirt and gave away comics. And my coworkers and I had WAY too much fun creating our own. The librarian was always the hero.
  
• There are a lot of celebrities out there who should NEVER be anyone's role model. So this is a breath of fresh air. Gretchen Wilson earned her GED. There was no need for her to do that, but she didn't want her daughter to see her mother so successful without an education. That is very cool of her to admit and for her to go to that effort and do. It's a short story and worth a read. Congrats to the self-proclaimed "redneck woman".
  

Enjoy the random links! Stay tuned for my latest moose adventure.

I am aware that I live in Alaska and a certain amount of snow is normal. However a major snowstorm on April 25th (five days before May) is not normal. I woke up Friday morning and it was snowing. And it kept snowing all day long. My coworkers were starting to complain and that was when I realized that even the Alaskans were not used to such late spring snows. And it just kept snowing. We all sat there and watched it accumulate in awe. By the time we closed at 6 and got out to our cars, there was over a foot on the ground. It took me nearly 20 minutes to clear my car. Of course a part of that time was spent in a snowball fight with my coworkers (which I did not start). It was perfect snowball snow, very wet. I'd never seen so much snow at one time in my life. I'd never walked around in knee high snow. By the time I made it home I was soaked. Fortunately it wasn't cold, hovering right around freezing, so it wasn't terribly unpleasant. However many Alaskans were caught off guard and were not prepared.

All told, the official tallies show us getting between 15.5 inches and 17 inches of snow. Between 3 and 6 (when I get off work) it fell the fastest at a rate of 2 inches an hour and more.

And of course I took pictures. Primarily in the parking lot as we cleared our cars.
( click for pictures )

And thus was our Alaskan April Snow. We're almost into May now and we've warmed up into the low forties and much of the snow is melted.

Two weekends ago, I joined the church here in Anchorage. I'd been visiting for a few weeks. Initially I wasn't sure, but the more I went, the more I liked the church. The people are wonderfully friendly. I'm starting to meet more people my age who would be good to hang out with. (with whom it would be nice to spend time - if I want to avoid ending in a preposition.) Joining the church was super simple, just tell them, fill out a card, and they make an announcement during worship service. That Sunday was the monthly welcome/farewell potluck dinner. It is a huge military town, and so there are people who leave on a regular basis hence the farewell part. The potluck was a great deal of fun. Anchorage has a very large international community. In some ways it was a very traditional potluck, with many dishes you would find in any church potluck in the Midwest and the South. However, there was also hand rolled (and absolutely delicious) sushi, another Japanese dish, and other fun international delicacies. Of course since my denomination is primarily prevalent in the South, there was regular ice tea and an equal sized container labelled "Sweet Tea". A fantastic combination of down home and international, and the people are the same wonderful menagerie. I am really enjoying it.

And of course it is also very Alaskan. I was given a "welcome to Alaska" basket by the women of the church this week. It featured many homemade items (Alaskans are very crafty people, partially in defense against the long winters). There was homemade jam, a quilted hot pad, and a jar of what seems to be preserved salmon (undoubtedly caught by one of the church's men and preserved by his wife). There were also a number of maps and info about Alaska. The church has been so welcoming and wonderful. I'm going to play cards with some people tonight. At church after lunch last week, I was recruited to teach 1st grade Bible Class (formerly known in my world at least as Sunday School) over the summer.

Now I must go to work. It seems to be snowing. Well in a way. It's snow/rain, melting as it comes into contact with the ground. We had had just beautiful weather for the last, upper forties, I had been wearing just a light jacket. April snow. How fun. It's still above freezing, and we need the moisture.

This is a completely random feature wherein I introduce you to some Alaska words. Today's entry is Suicide Fishing Run.

suicide fishing run - n., where someone (let's be honest a man) gets off work in Anchorage on an evening in the summer, drives down to the Kenai, about a 3.5 or 4 hour drive, fishes all night (remember in the summer we have almost complete daylight so "night" is pretty light), and then drives home in the early morning to make it to work the next day. This apparently works better on the buddy system as one of you can drive down while the other sleeps and you reverse it for the trip back up. Apparently this is not uncommon behavior for Alaskan men.

I bet you thought I forgot to ever update again... Well no. I've actually had quite a bit going on. I'll try to update about it all in the next few days.

I've updated the sidebar to include links to my photo albums on photobucket and flickr.

I've got a lot to say, my goal is one post a day every day this week. I'll tell you about all the fun we've been having here in Anchorage.

Today's post is about sewing. I got a sewing machine for Christmas. I mentioned to my very awesome parents last fall that I wanted to get back into sewing, and they found a machine on sale and got it for me. It rocks. I've been browsing on the internet for projects and checking books out from the library. I have all sorts of fun ideas for projects.

However I haven't sewed in over a decade. (More like 15 years, I was about 10 or 11 the last time at the oldest.) It was mostly coming back to me; the part that was the hardest was remembering how to thread the machine. Especially the bobbin. I got it so that it seems right (though it didn't match the picture in the instruction manual), but whenever I tried to backtrack to lock the stitches it got tangled. I was so frustrated I was about to cry. Finally I put it aside and went to sleep since I couldn't call my sewing advisor (my amazing quilter mother) at that time (very late in the night in Central time). First order of the day the next day was to call mom and see what was going on. We spent a lot of time discussing the bobbin and I cracked mom up with my description of part of the bobbin case as being shaped like Texas. Which of course led to mom's advice to put the thread along the Rio Grande river. Hee, and that made sense. Mom couldn't diagnose the problem, but after a few more minutes I realized I was making a silly (but rather logical) error. And all of a sudden, I was in business, sewing away!

I had picked up for my beginner (re-beginner) project some pillow forms and materials to make some throw pillow covers. I now have pretty throw pillows with fun colors that I chose and covers that can be removed and washed. I'm ridiculously proud of these.

( clicky for picture of my pillow project! )

Today is the Royals home opener. My mom has tickets though she isn't going. I think this is perhaps the first time being in Alaska has made me sad. We don't have any professional teams (or for that any division I college teams). We have Alaska league baseball, specifically the Anchorage Bucs. Maybe I'll try one of those games.

As I mentioned I got a new television, which why not huge or even big by many people's standards, it is the biggest and nicest I've ever owned. It amuses me greatly. Battlestar Galactica looks amazing on it. (yeah, I'm a geek...) Also I watched part of the basketball game last night. The overtime part. It looked pretty. It was also fairly captivating (for basketball). I grew up in KC around KU, and around March Madness. This is the least I've ever heard about the tournament. No one here has mentioned it at all. Just not a big deal here. (Of course I work with all women.) No teams, so the only people who are rooting for it, are rooting for teams from wherever they came from. I've got to imagine Kansas City and Lawrence are going nuts.

So Happy Home Opener to the Royals! Currently they're 4 and 2 which is a winning record. Good Luck!

Lately I've had a yen for a few things, and other random thoughts, and here they are in no particular order...

• Ham and beans, curry, stroganof. All of these are things I have great crockpot recipes for. My crockpot was one I got from my grandmother when she downsized to a smaller place. It was perfectly servicable, but difficult to clean because it did not have a removable liner. It was not worth it to move or ship it. A new one would not be that expensive, I don't know why I haven't gotten one. I could ask for one for my birthday, but that would be two and a half months. Or I could just get one.
  
• A hands free set for my cell phone.
  
• A new television. The sound went out on my television. Which came with the apartment and would cut the sides off the picture. I went to costco (got a new membership), and looked at televisions. I thought I was going to get the smaller one (either a 19 or 20 inch), but they just looked so small. I ended up with a very nice one, lcd, hd plasma. I love it, so much fun!
  
• I got all my laundry done and folded, just not put away. Which is why my cat is sleeping on some clean pajamas. She's happy, and it isn't clothing to be worn in public.
  
• I want to make muffins. I should get a good bran muffin recipe from Bri. Bran muffins are really what I am craving. Also I need my muffin pans, I just have some temporary ones right now.
  
• Also I want to buy furniture. I have some things I need to pay back first, but I just really like browsing for furniture. I have a furnished apartment that I really like. But I don't want to move at the end of my lease. I'm going to check with my complex and see if they'll move the furniture into a new apartment and let me rent this unfurnished. It may work since they don't want to have to re-rent the place. We'll see.
  
• I want some iced tea. I should pick up some bags so I can brew some.
  
• I think I am ready to have long hair again. I've not cut mine in a while so it is just a matter of time.
  
• I want more time with my guitar. Just a matter of making the time, which I mostly am.
  
• There are a ton of cute military guys in my apartment complex.
  

Okay that list rather went awry. We had our first real snow since I've been here. Before there have been basically sprinkles of snow, but just dustings that went away or never amounted to much. It snowed all day on Saturday and accumulated a bunch. It's warmed up and it is so sunny a lot of it melted. I was out in just a fleece today and thinking how warm it was - it was all of 36, but so sunny. Unbelievable amounts of sun.

On Tuesday, the voters approved the library's bond. This means we have money to repair our leaky roof, and money to leverage the grants and donations we could only have with matching funds. When I road up on the elevator yesterday morning with the director, she was practically walking on air. There are other donations and partnerships in the works that will be fantastic. It's going to be great at the library. The voters also approved ALL of the bonds, the school bonds, the road bonds, police, fire, all of it. Last year the library bond and a lot of others failed. This is a huge thing. People in Alaska don't pay sales taxes or state income taxes, all we pay our property taxes. So all of this is in property taxes and boy do people complain about it. Some of the comments and blogs on the newspaper's site were incredible. You get paid to live in the state, it won't hurt to pay a teensy bit back for quality of life issues.

Anyway, moving on. In some ways, a library is a library. There are children and storytimes and creepy patrons. In the last week and a half I've had WAY more than my share of creepy patrons. The teenage boy (that I suspect had aspbergers) who followed me around grinning and rubbing his crotch. A couple of creepy, leer-ers. And then the cake topper. The one guy who told me that he liked the way my sweater "accented [my] breasts". That one will leave you feeling creepy, and gross, and dirty all day long. My perfectly normal, not tight, not low cut sweater. Bleck. It's part of the territory with public service that some people will believe that means they are free to say whatever to you. It shouldn't shock me anymore. But that last guy was the one who was the most direct thing ever said to me. Just gross.

Mostly though my library is fantastic. One thing that I'm learning about Alaska that I really love is how international of a community Anchorage is. After storytime, when the kids line up for their stamps (hand) and to say thank you, a good portion of the children will say "danke" or thank you in Russian or an Asian language. And we have lots of English and Irish accents around. It's fun to be surrounded by so many representatives of different cultures. I'm also learning bits and pieces about Alaskan culture I'll share with you as I can.

It was light until almost 9:30 last night. Incredible. And as of yesterday, the Royals were 2 and 0! Our undefeated streak continues! (As a Royals fan, I will take my streak wherever I can get it.)

Today was opening day! For baseball! (Of course, only sport that I really like aside from bull riding.) The Royals (my team) played the Tigers at Detroit and we won! That makes us undefeated! (Yes, we've played only one game, but quite frankly we're not that good. I'll take my bragging rights where I can get them.)

GO ROYALS!

It's election season, and it's already in the mud and I'm sick of it. I'd vote tomorrow if it would end the national election.

However, and here is the big deal. Local elections can be life and death to your community. I don't have any facebook friends in Anchorage thus far, so this is more of a general warning. Tomorrow there is a local election here in Anchorage. There are multiple bond issues on the slate, including one that would benefit the library. We need the money. We have a leaky roof. In addition, we have a lot of money in grants and private donations that can only be leveraged if we can match the funds. In a sense, the taxpayers would be getting double their money's worth. It is a good deal all around. And it all hinges on the people showing up and voting for it. I've done what I could. I was in the commercial for the bond, and I've promoted it to everyone I could, within the limits placed on me by the ethics rules of the city.

The other things on the slate? Assembly members, other local officials, etc. And additional funding for fire department (they need equipment and ambulances), police, roads, and schools. Should something bad happen to me, I would like there to be an ambulance to get me, properly equipped police, and decent roads that would not interfere with their progress.

Generally I'm a conserative Republican/libertarian. I believe in small government, and there is a small list of things to which I want my tax dollars to go. Schools, libraries, roads, police, and fire departments are all on that list. And it's all in a local election. Get out and vote in your area in every election. Don't wait until the big one in November. Yes, the president is important, but some of those life and death issues are decided in small elections that often have less than 10% of the popluation turn out to vote.

PS - this is a crosspost from a facebook note

I've been rather in a slump about posting. I'm hoping this will inspire me to do better. At least for a while. I've seen this little meme around, respond if you want with no need to reciprocate.

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll attempt to write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, favorite type of underwear, etc. Repost in your own journal if you are so inclined.