North of Everything

Craig Crist-Evans is the author of a book entitled North of Everything.  It is a short novel about a young boy who moves from the warmth of Miami to the chill of Vermont.  The entire story is written in verse.  It's not my style and I can't honestly recommend it, but I did really enjoy the very first "chapter."  It captured the essence of turning away from being desert girl from Las Vegas and embracing becoming Alaskan.

North of Everything
Craig Crist-Evans

Here, north of everything,
when winter's almost done
and the sun begins to climb
above the mountains,
the old Winooski thaws.

Willows wave their pale leaves,
robins dig for worms,
and I hear the lowing cows,
     voices
          drifting
               soft
across the fields.

Here, north of everything,
we boil sugar from the maple trees in March,
plant long rows of corn in June, watch
October mountainsides erupt in leafy fire.

Here, north of everything,
all winter long, we sit beside the wood stove,
drinking cider, rubbing hands
to warm ourselves.

Here, north of everything,
where seasons change their clothes
from red and yellow, then white to green,
where I have learned
that fall turns to winter,
and winter turns to spring.

Winter Break - Day One - Anchorage

I remember when winter break didn't start until Monday.  Those days were nice. 

We had a snow day on Monday, then no school on Friday: Seriously, there's almost no point to sending them to school for three days of cupcakes and singing.  Then of course there's a concert every night of the week. I needed to be at each school for at least an hour each day.  By the time the week before winter break was over, I was ready for them to go back to school.

I appreciate it, though.

My apartment is not big enough to house 4 hyper children.  I had my two children, the 7 year old that I usually just see off to school and the 12 year old that lives in the house behind us for most of the day. And to think I started the day in an awesome mood...

I just hope that I get through the rest of this break/vacation still intact.  I expect to have at least this many kids in my house daily for the next 18 days.  Tomorrow, I'll post some pics and vids of the kids sledding in front of the house.  Hopefully that will tire the younger ones out enough to take a nap.

1st Snow Day this School Year

How much snow does it take to close down the schools in Anchorage? It must be an awful lot, because this is Alaska, man! 

Above and Below: It takes about this much.

Of course what really got school canceled was a combination of the ice under the snow, the fact that the plows and scrapers hadn't gotten a chance to get ahead of it yet and the wind, which was just making everything worse. You can see how effective the wind has been lately, by how little snow is on the branches in the distance. But it's not stopping us from enjoying the world out there.

At first I was was less than excited that I would have 4 kids in my house all day long, but then I realized that I could just take them out of it.  We took turns sledding in front of the house.  This particular activity usually ends in bumps and bruises for me, but not today.  Then we walked to the school to try to iceskate, but the rink wasn't anywhere close to smooth, so we hitched a ride to Cheney Lake and just walked around throwing snowballs at each other. 

Just look at all the footprints. Here in Alaska, it doesn't matter what excuse "they" give us to take a day off, chances are we're leaving the house and having some fun with it. I bet you could have heard children laughing and snowballs landing before you got into the city limits. Aside from half the children that reside in Anchorage being outside having fun, it seems at least half the dogs were out to. I've never seen so many people walking dogs at the same time before. And the outfits on some of those dogs could be called torture.

I think there were at least 10 adults and 30 children.  Hardly any of us knew each other well, but it didn't matter.  Half of us were from the same neighborhood and the rest just kept joining us from the neighborhood around the lake.  By the time we were all done piling back into the cars that came, we were freezing cold, soaking wet and laughing constantly.  What an awesome day.

It's a shame that The Jazz Band concert was canceled, though.

Here and There

Above:  Packing up my life to transport it 4000 miles away

Welcome to my corner of the world.  I currently live in Anchorage, Alaska, but for eighteen years I lived in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Vegas is an ever changing city and Anchorage seems more steady, but they have things in common as well.  I both miss Las Vegas and love Anchorage.  So I will be sharing with you my memories, my adventures, my happiness and my sadness.

I have a family of 4.  An 8 year old daughter a 12 year old son and an incredibly supportive and loyal husband (who often drives me nuts anyway).  We moved here to secure the financial state of our lives, and I'm happy here because of the weather changes, the community feeling and the art, among many other reasons.

Above: I have no idea if that is the United States or Canada below me as I fly on to my new life. But the flight is very excititing, as I have no idea what awaits me in The Last Frontier.

At first it may take a few posts to establish some continuity, but with patience and hard work I plan to turn this blog into an amazing, carefree and fun site to learn about places, people and their passions. We'll have guest contributers from time to time.  Photography and PSP contests will run on a regular basis.  Slowly but surely we are building up partnerships with different sites and companies in both Nevada and Alaska.  I am very excited for all of you to join me on this trip.

Our true launch date will be January 7th 2012. On that day we will feature some local photography from both states.  Then one week later we will announe the winner of the sigge competition being run on http://pimpinpspers.forumotion.com/  .

If you would like to enter your photography for a chance to be posted on launch, feel free to email me.

 desertbutterfly@mail.com

Above: In Anchorage, Alaska, Glenn Highway at L St appears to drop right off into the Cook Inlet.