The fruits of my Labor Day weekend

I had meant to spend more time this summer painting, yet it seems that summer had all but slipped by me and I found myself surround by white walls still at the first of August. So, we painted the bathroom mid august, and planned to paint the kitchen over Labor Day weekend.

Our kitchen is probably the one room of our house I really disliked due to the dark red faux finish (with sand of all things!) so I was super excited to be painting it. This was our kitchen:

I was not really sure what color I wanted for the kitchen, but we like the retro 1950’s Diner idea, knew we would have to put white over the red to start, and while normally I want to avoid white, the red walls, tan cupboards and pink counter tops that had an ugly 1980s vibe to it made me feel like white washing the entire place so I could move forward from that. Fortunately Michael likes the white wash idea, so we agreed on painting white over the red, with a back splash (yet to be installed) of metallic to cover the entire wall behind the sink . This is the metallic back splash we are getting from home depot:

We toyed with the idea of painting the cupboards white but Michael also loves yellow and does most of the cooking so we opted to try yellow. Since we had to use spray paint (we used Krylon Fusion so that the paint would adhere to the cupboard coating) our choices of color was limited to two different yellows; it was either super pale yellow or super bright yellow. We bought the pale yellow first, but it looked too much like the off white color that was currently despised, so we return the light, got the bright, and ended up with a “mustard-like” yellow. Cleaning them was the biggest ordeal, so we only got the top cupboards this weekend and will have to finish the bottom half of the cupboards another time. We are about 2/3 done with wall treatments and this is what we have so far.

More painting pictures can be seen here

Holiday Weekend Recap

Nice long weekend. I worked more than I would have liked, and got less done than I planned.

Battled with the Dwarfs of Disorganization and won back the dance room, including moving a dresser into the newly organized closet that is now dedicated to workout/dance clothing.

Laundry gnomes have been dispatched, and in their place are clean folded or hung up and put away clothes, no longer taking over the tops of dressers, piled high in laundry baskets threatening to spill out or already on the floorspace in my room. Nearly a revelation!

And, the Ogres of Chaos have been beaten back into hiding, with THE PILE of filing and sorting that has taken over our dining room table nearly completed.

This means packing for the General Skills workshop this coming week will be easy; I know where everything is!

Have enjoyed many meals at home, cooked by my wonderful DH.

Took a long walk by the river. Went to the Farmers Market, bought a couple lettuce plants and some herbs, still need to pot them before I leave for the GS.

Watched some good movies and some bad ones:

Daybreakers was bad, but in a really fun way. Independence Day is our annual treat for this holiday, and this year we decided to watch the special edition. Extra scenes were worth the extended time. Invention of Lying was cute, but not worth going to the theater. Fortunately we do most of our movie watching through our personal collection, or via Netflix. Have watched too many episodes of Farscape to keep track of, and just one episode of Star Gate. I know the end for SG-1 is coming (we are on season ten), and I hate ending so I tend to prolong them.

Never got the yard mowed, but DH has vowed to get it done while I am gone. It really is a meadow right now and I feel bad for him having to do it alone, but every time we were ready to work, it rained!

Gabby’s Great Escape, or how to make Joyce nervous

Over the weekend I moved my little corn snake (Gabby) from the boaphiles rack back into a glass tank. I felt like she was getting shy from having a little tiny window in a deep dark cage and did not have enough room in her 1/4 of a level anyway, I could not afford to give her more space in the rack so I bought a secondhand glass cage with an “aftermarket top”. There was a small gap that I thought I fixed (the cage should have had one of those screens that slides into the top like a drawer, but that was missing and the edges of the slides looked like they had got a little melted from a heat lamp so trying to find a replacement would not have worked anyway), and the lid that fit onto of the cage was very secure, plus I had a strap around it so I figured she could not get out.

I was wrong.

Came home last night and checked on her first, and found she has escaped. TERROR and PANIC set in. I have two cats, and two ferrets (ferrets spend most of their time in the playpen in the living room). My little cornsnake could easily be mistaken as nothing more than a fun toy for them. I was MORTIFIED. I close the door to the office/snake room and start looking around, not really expecting to find her. Fortunately, she was under the boaphiles rack and I only spent maybe 5 minutes in this agitated state.

Put her in her strike box, along with all the other snakes into their strike boxes (the stack of rubbermaid tubs I have for this specific purpose is a bit comical), fed everyone, and though the others went back into their respective homes, Gabby is still locked in her strike box which I know she cannot escape from. I gave her water, put some nice heavy items on top of the strike box (just to quell my nerves, the strike box actually locks), and will fix that glass cage edge over the weekend to totally eliminate that little gap in Gabby’s cage.

Journey Outside Part 1: Adventures in Traveling

Traveling to TribalCon this year included some extensive air travel, something I have not done for a good many years. I decided to take an early flight on Wednesday, so that I would be in ATL with plenty of time to get checked in, rest and be ready for the keynote speech with Donna Mejia, something I am still looking very forward to doing.

Early travel meant being up at 5am, no easy feat for Joyce. But, I did it, and was on the plane by 7am enroute to Seattle (SeaTac). Our flight was a little delayed, but the big news was that my second flight had been delayed by over 2 hours. I got a call n Tuesday to inform me of this, but when I got the airport in Fairbanks they did not have that information, so coupled with my lack of sleep, I arrive at SeaTac just after 11am local time quite confused. I found the flight, and it was originally scheduled to leave at 1:10, but had been changed to 3:55. So I figured I had a few hours to kill and decided to wander. I stopped at the Body Shop, but was too tired to make any decisions on what to get, so I wandered around the food court trying to figure out what to eat. I settled on Fish and Chips from Anthony’s Fish Shack/House which I was less than impressed with; next time I will go to the Japanese place that had spicy tofu (nestled next to the Wendy’s in the found court which is why I didn’t notice it the first time).

After eating I wandered the main terminal a bit more, finding lots of places to sit and plug in my laptop while I goof around on FB, tribe and my email. Decided that I just was not satisfied with the fish and chips I had, so I stopped in DISH D’Lish to get a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich, and a big mocha. They had a place where I could charge the laptop, so I ate, surfed a bit more, and enjoyed my coffee. I noticed my laptop said it was 2pm, so I decided to pack it up and head out to the subway to get to my gate. By the time I arrived, the board had a new depart time of 3:27, so I quickly walked to my gate, only to find it dark, deserted of all passengers and the two attendants looked like they were packing up shop.
I had missed my flight.

Apparently my laptop does not pick up local time, and was an hour behind, so when I thought it was 2pm, it was actually 3pm local time. Even so, I should have made it! Why the airline changed the time by over two hours and then changed it again to an earlier time is beyond m e, but there it was; I was at the gate no later than 3:28, but the plane was gone. Sigh.

A nice attendant found me the next flight, the redeye at 10:30, and gave me a couple of meal tickets for my trouble. SO, it is now 9:30 local time, and I am waiting at the gate for the flight. I will not let the gate out of my sight, until I walk through it. The good part about this is I had time to fix my blog, and get in an hour of work. I am scheduled to arrive at 6am (time change, flight is only 4 hours) and I plan to sleep on the flight and then sleep more at the hotel, so until tomorrow, have a great night!

Happy Holidays!

We decorated out new little Christmas tree tonight. Complete with 501st ornaments, light up Millennium Falcon and talking Trek shuttle craft, M&M droids, free trade ornaments and a Grinch. We decided to forsake the purposely tacky multicolored star only because the tacky topper made the tree topple.

Also enjoyed hot chocolate with cinnamon sticks and peppermint schnapps, we call these drinks “Grinches”. Not grinchy about them, indeed, I feel pretty jovial right about now!

Habits of a Bad Blogger

It’s been over a month since my last blog. I think I am just too busy! I moved to Alaska for a variety of reasons, but one of the BIG ones was because we wanted to start to enjoy our time together more, and stop being such work work work people. SO what do I do just one year after I get to Alaska? I open a dance studio, with a small retail store in it, on top of having a full time job.

Hence my recent silence.

I assure you all we are fine. I am just busy and Michael is not a blogger. I swear I will get our pictures from our cross continent move up on the gallery eventually, as well as the photos from old versions of my website. SOMEDAY.

I actually am taking the whole week of the Thanksgiving holiday off from teaching classes and plan to spend some time on me. But that means mostly moving to a ‘new to me’ computer that I bought a few months ago and hav not had the time to move my apps and data to, something I REALLY need to do since my home PC has a failing hard drive.

Look who is 40!

Got a couple of nice present in the mail the day before my birthday, and someone gave me some cake that won’t upset my belly! (it’s been a bad week of tummy troubles)

I also got snow for my birthday. We just won’t discuss why I was up before 9am on a day I thought I would get to sleep in.

woke up feeling sad today

Not sure why, though I suspect the fact that my daughter will be going into a 6 month treatment program just days before my 40th b-day might have something to do with it. Miss the days of holding my baby and keeping her safe

Life is otherwise going well enough; studio is actually out of the red it’s first month of operation (not counting start up costs), dance classes are small but progressing, house is an ongoing fun project of painting, decorating, and unpacking, and all the pets are doing alright with one slightly sickly but on the mend.

Still, I am sad today. Nothing to do but be alone with my thoughts I suppose. Which is about all I really want to do right now so please forgive me as I retreat for the next 24 hours or so until I get out of this funk….

August Update, part 1

Sunday marked one year since we arrived in Fairbanks.

We have bought a house, and really made Fairbanks our home. (click here for more photos of our home )The only other place I could want to be would be Colorado, and that is mostly so I could be with my great friends Susan, Maria and Jon. I miss them a lot. They need to come visit, and I need to visit them too. 2010 will be the year to make that happen.

Today marks one week until I open my Studio.

I have so much to do still and wonder how it will all get done. But, the building owners have done a great job installing the floor and the changing area, and I am so grateful they did that part of the studio; I really could not have done it myself. We have a small amount of chairs ready for the First Friday and Hafla, my merchandise is ready to be put out, we have retail racks and display cases and it will all come together. And then I can rest on Sunday Sept 6 after a month of no weekends off. Well, only rest a bit since I need to paint at our house before the snow falls….click here for more photos

This past weekend we added a new ferret to our family. She is still trying to fit in. click here for more pet photos

I started a Ballet class yesterday. Ballet was hard. And I was definitively the old lady that stuck out like a sore thumb in my yoga gear among the most teenaged dancers (who were all very nice). I need to get a black leotard and some pale colored leggings (I do not wear tights!) for next week. But I am going back

It’s been a busy year. And the last month seems like it has been busier. And the upcoming month is going to be really busy with the new studio. I have lots of ‘catch-up’ to post to my blog and hope to get a couple up this week. I so dislike being behind. Michael says I am chaos. I just think I flourish in a chaotic environment.

Becoming Mundane

Moving to Alaska has prompted a few changes in my day to day life desires, or maybe the move was just another step towards this shift in priorities. No longer do I desire to be active all the time, or out of my house. While I still enjoy outdoor activities and dance will always be a part of my life, I find that am also enjoying quiet time at home, working on project around the house, that in past I used to find tedious and mundane.

Case in point: we did yard work all day yesterday and I am tired but delighted with our results! Who would have thought I would LIKE to do yard work??

Sunday morning we heading out for our regular breakfast at “The Diner”, a local diner that has good food, nice waitresses, and is within walking distance to our house. For the past three weeks we have walked there, but since we had to run errands afterwards, we drove the truck but found that parking at the Diner is a pain since they have a little parking lot! We managed to find a spot, but next time, and until the weather changes enough to be prohibitive to walking, we will walk the mile to get there.

After breakfast we headed to Lowes. WE had a list, and a 10% off entire purchases, and since we just sold the trailer we had some cash in hand so we were looking for some ‘big’ items; grill, lawnmower, mosquito magnet, patio furniture, and a few other small items for smaller projects. We didn’t get everything on our list, but we now have a new lawnmower (electric!) that helped us with our yard work, and a grill that Michael needs to assemble so we can use it next weekend. Patio furniture that we liked the most we found at Fred’s and will go get that next weekend.

So, after 5 hours of shopping and working, we have a pretty trimmed yard that looks less like a meadow (less bugs this way too), and come next weekend will have a lovely deck, complete with some patio furniture to enjoy the new view once we assemble the new grill!

Next weekend we are planning to put in raised beds. Why? Because loads of people grow their own food up here, and though my thumbs is about as far away from green as one can get, Michael is of the mind that we can do it too. So, we shall try!

Turns out being mundane really “ain’t all that bad”