DIY

My favorite mistake

Oh boy, you guys…I made a boo-boo. You see, apparently, I forgot where I was. We’ve added on and spruced up and I had myself fooled that this place was foolproof and needed to be (wait for it…) perfect.

Perfection has haunted me most of my life but when I first moved here, our relationship changed a bit. I had to try things I wasn’t sure I’d be good at (hello chopping wood, skiing, snowmachining, etc…) and (GASP!) work at them until I got better. Imagine my horror! Everything was new and as I attempted each newbie I would oftentimes literally or figuratively fall on my ass. It was a bit belittling, a lot overwhelming and…overall? I think it was really good for me.

Yet as the years went by and things that were once foreign became familiar, I fell out of step with perfection and again we became nemeses. Which is why, when I was doing laundry the other day (INSIDE!) in our new addition on a sunny-ish day (I tell you this just to emphasize just how idyllic the situation was) and suddenly everything came to a standstill I was floored.

The washing machine stopped.

The water stopped flowing.

The power stopped well, powering.

What the…?! I wasn’t as mad as I was stunned. How could this be happening in our new house? I mean, in the old house, sure! Things were constantly not working but not now. I mean, we have a bathtub, for goodness sake.

We are miles away from where we started.

Right?

In so many ways yes. This bachelor pad has become a home to us, to our dogs, and now to our son. We have so many more amenities than I ever even dared to dream of and…we are still in the middle of the woods where everything is prone to breaking down. Damn…I forgot.

As I stood in the middle of our beautiful addition perfectionism reared it’s ugly head and the sunny day got a bit dark and stormy in my head. Why were things breaking?! Why wasn’t everything just working?! Why…

Oh, wait. I’d like to say that in that moment I had my perfectionism epiphany and realized that it was silly to ask why and instead to see what we could learn from the situation but…that took a couple of days and a couple of long walks. I didn’t look for a lesson, I wanted it to be perfect.

Things aren’t perfect out here. Things break constantly. Systems change (I can’t even remember what our power system started as and in 5 years I probably won’t remember what it is today). What worked last year won’t work this year. I know all of this but I forgot it. I think bringing home a babe, you want everything to be perfect for them so much so that it’s easy to forget what’s real. Yet I can either teach him to be frustrated, to look down on the breakdown or…we can learn.

Today, the system still isn’t back to what it once was. We’ve created a new system that circumvents the problem area (a busted pump) and I learned all about GFCI outlets. Instead of focusing on the problem, we found a workaround that is perfectly fine for now, even if it’s not perfect. As it turns out, nothing is.

So, I tip my hat to you perfection, my friendly foe and greet you again. Perhaps I’ll soon learn that trying to attain you is futile. Perhaps I’ll forget again. You are, indeed, my favorite mistake.

Until then, I’ll try to hold the lesson of the washing machine: learn from your mistakes instead of belittling yourself for them. Enjoy the wonder of finding a new solution. And let perfection go.

Cheers to trying!

With love,

From Alaska

Shower Power

I’m a water baby. If there’s a body of water nearby, my body wants to be in or around it. Label it the siren’s call to the substance we are mostly made of. Blame it on the zodiac (I am a water sign) or rule it without reason completely. Either way, there’s something in me that craves to be near the element. Growing up and until moving to Alaska, water was my north star. Wherever I was, I oriented against it using the ocean. I always knew west, I always knew home.

Upon moving to Alaska, all of that changed. I did a lot of looking at water, rather than leaping into it. Glacially fed rivers and swimming holes were my watery haunts yet I rarely dove in (at least, not on purpose). I oriented myself by the river that roughly traveled North + South to decipher East + West and again my home fell into that orientation but it wasn’t quite the same. It took me a while to get my bearings, hell, I still am. Alaska is enormous, the landscape constantly changing, and gathering perspective is like looking at a painting close up (read: you rarely can see the big picture).

*Little Leto looking for it (the big picture)*

Before moving to Alaska, my favorite way to start my day was with a nice hot shower. I’d come out bright as a beet from the heat and lavish on lotions and potions aplenty in my steamy bathroom. Little did I know that this daily ritual would turn into a true treat in an instant. Upon arriving in Alaska, I was greeted with endless water. Unlike the near-drought (now drought) California I was leaving, there was water everywhere yet somehow, showers, my church, my moment for rejuvenation, were suddenly a luxury.

I did not sign up for this.

*Water, water everywhere but not a drop to dive into*

I remember going to The Bar one of those first nights in Alaska and someone saying “Wow, did you just shower? Smell her! She smells great.” Granted, I had just showered and my girlfriend’s shampoo was delicious but this noticing of what I deemed a natural daily occurrence had flipped my world. Everyone commented on how lucky I was to stay where I was staying, a shower every day, if I dared. I didn’t. Luxurious as it was by comparison, it was still an outdoor shower and despite summer’s march to the neverending beat of the sun, mornings were chilly. On the colder mornings, I opted for birdbaths in the comfort of the cabin some days. Always, on the days I didn’t, on the days I braved the chill for the comfort of a hot shower with a view, someone always commented. “Did you just shower?” It cracked me up. What was this place?

Within a month I had adopted the local vernacular. “You smell great! Did you just shower?” I’d find myself saying. What had I turned into? A woman of the woods, it seemed. When I moved (read: suddenly realized I was living with a man I’d just met) into The Chief’s house, he had a shower as well…and a well. I had fallen in with a bougie bunch, it seemed. Having a well meant water every day if I wanted it. All I had to do was gas up the generator, carry the 50-pound sucker to the well, fire it up, inevitably troubleshoot it when it wouldn’t start, and fill the 50-gallon drum that was our shower reservoir. Easy peasy. Sort of. While I did find myself in the shower more days than not, it wasn’t quite the same as the steamy showers of merely a month before in California. My life had done a solid one-eighty. Everything had changed and…for the most part, I accepted those changes with open-ish arms. I adapted. It turns out we are more pliant than we think, especially when we are in love.

But then, come winter, the adaptations began again and this time, they were a little more drastic.

*Hauling water post-shower at 25 below zero. Fun!*

Shower? Sure! All you have to do is:
Step 1: Think ahead (this step was often forgotten and another day would fly by without a shower). Make sure to have filled all the water in the house, defrosted the bathing bin and get the house nice and toasty. For those three things, there’s about 15 steps total and a whole lot of forethought. Needless to say, this step was thwarted often.

Step 2: If everything in Step 1 was satisfied, move on to Step 2: Find the step stool, balance upon it as you lift the stairs, and secure them over your head.

Step 3: Use the aforementioned stool to hang the shower curtain and protective black plastic sheeting so your house and pantry aren’t drenched by your endeavor.

Step 4: Realize you forgot something upstairs. Undo Step 2. Gather your goodies. Repeat Steps 2-3.

Step 5: Kick up the heat! The fire has somehow died down in what feels like the 5 minutes you’ve been prepping your shower (probably more like an hour). Go outside, chop wood, bring it in and stoke the fire.

Step 6: Recalibrate. What the hell was I doing? Oh yea, showering.

*At this point, showering seems about as good an idea as this does…*

Step 7: Prep your space: get all your shower goodies and put them nearby (don’t forget your towel).

Step 8: Shower military-style (I don’t know when we adopted this term but I’m not sure it really applies): water on, water off. Suds up. Water on. Water off. Shampoo. Water on. Water off…you get the drill.

Step 9: Dry off and dump the water. Hopefully, you were judicious in your use of agua or you’re about to be hauling a hefty load, my friend (or, in my case, co-hauling with The Chief).

Step 10: Wait for the shower curtains and bathing bin (read: a Rubbermaid storage tote) to dry. Put them away.

These Steps 1-10 can span days and so, sometimes, can your bathing routine. Showering once a week in the winter out here is heroic and despite how this cadence failed to meet my CA expectations, I was always brought down to AK earth when someone would mention and point “She has a shower” and everyone would oooohhhh and ahhhhh. It’s all about perspective, I guess.

And still, sometimes that perspective shifts. When we decided to start our addition, we didn’t realize that we had also started a whole new project (read: baby on board) and so our focus was on one thing: amenities. Yes, it had come time, time for a year-round shower. No outdoor shower for half of the year, spanning from frozen showers in the spring to frozen feet in the fall. No more hoping the system wouldn’t break (and being disappointed multiple years when it did due to an unanticipated freeze). No more set-up and takedown from inside to outside. No more hours or days-long winter Steps 1-10. Nope. Permanence, my friends.

The project started last fall and just this week I am happy to report I took my first ever on-demand shower in our house.

*Just a few weeks ago, we started here…*

To say that it felt amazing is an understatement. I cried tears of joy the whole time as I laid down in the tub (the tub!) and let the water cascade down upon me. Did we come by the shower easily? Heck no. Did The Chief have to do endless research, make countless calls, and search for parts near and far? Did it work and then need tweaking and surprise us with hurdles unanticipated?

*Did it seem like the project was giving us the finger at times? Yes. Worth it? Yes.*

Of course it did! It was construction (in remote Alaska nonetheless), there are never any certainties. But one thing is certain now: we have a shower, shoot, we have a bathtub, and I am in heaven. And for the first time ever, we left Anchorage with excitement in our hearts to return to our shower instead of savoring every last second in the shower in Town. Our shower.

While our human addition grows within me, our house addition grows before my eyes and I have become ever more in awe of the man I married. From the ground up, he’s created for us a whole new reality. One of brightness and ease and luxuries large and small. It hasn’t always been easy but it certainly has been worth it. Together, we’ve divided and conquered, taking on the tasks most in our wheelhouse, both adding on to our family as we go, I with our babe in my belly, he with hammer in hand.

It’s wild how life can change, how perspective can shift, and how the things we took most for granted can become pure opulence. I am still a water baby, always will be, but I have a different appreciation for that water than ever before and I’m grateful for that shift. Despite growing up with it, I hope our little nugget will appreciate it too. If he forgets, I know our town will remind him how lucky he is every time he wanders into Town freshly showered.

With love (and running water),

From Alaska

P.S. Today mark’s a special day, The Chief’s birthday. Happiest of birthdays to you, my love. We are so lucky you were born.

Homeward Bound

In high school, I was in three choirs (count ’em: three!). Insanity, right?! So, it’s no wonder that I can’t remember in which one we sang a song called Homeward Bound. However, although I can’t remember the choir (or much of high school at that, since I slept through most of my classes), the song sticks with me. It was beautiful and melancholy and is suddenly lodged in my brain as I find myself about to finally be homeward bound. So, as a final adieu to California, here are some highlights from the last few weeks and a preview of what’s coming next…

The sun was a constant. Sundown or sunup. I’ve been soaking it in lately.

I found little bits of nature, even in the city

I got to get super Ranunculus in Southern CA

And up close and personal with some new friends

We hit some milestones: 7 years of storage, coming to a close!

And some things stayed the same: Leto is still the King of Cuteness and grumpy morning face.

Homeward bound.
I cannot wait. After 6 weeks apart, our little family will reunite (provided The Chief can get through the mountains of snow).

Thank you CA, it’s been grand. Between friends and family and the sun, my cup feels truly full.

And now, off to the Wintry North.

With love,

from California (and soon from AK)

We Can Do Hard Things (But Do We Have To?)

If you’ve ever read Glennon Doyle (and if you haven’t, I implore you to run, not walk to snag her book Untamed), you’ve heard this sentiment before: We can do hard things.

We can have those hard conversations.
We can move away from the comfort of a life we know to a life we feel drawn to.
We can leave a relationship, even if it feels like we’ll be lost without it.
We can make the jump, even if we aren’t sure how we will stick the landing.
We can be true to ourselves.

We can do hard things.

For those hard things, I’m fully on board. Stamp my ticket, conductor, I’m ready to ride. Since leaving a fraught relationship and unintentionally moving to Alaska, I’ve worked hard to build that muscle, to listen to that inner Julia that says “This, not that.” “Yes, not no.” “Stay versus go” and damned if listening to her hasn’t led me straight into the arms of the man I’m meant for and a life I’d never have dreamed up. But in addition to finally listening to my own inner North Star and doing some of the hard things I knew needed doing, I’ve also found myself smack dab in the middle of a place filled with a different kind of hard things. So…can I? Can I also do these hard things?

simple living alaska — *Like…shower outside in the snow?*

gardening in alaska — *Or grow this from seed?*

off-grid alaska — *Or drive 16-hour round trips to the grocery store*

It turns out that yes, I can do this version of hard too. The day-to-day hard of life off-grid has actually suited me quite well. It’s a hard to do that I want to do (well, most of the time). Yet it’s also played dangerously into another Julia, the one who pushes past the Glennon Doyle version of Good For You Hard into the Have to Do Hard. The one who touts the idea that no matter how hard, you should be able to do it. Yes, we can do all types of hard things, both emotional and physical. But do we have to?

Watching my husband and our fur baby drive away the other day, I felt a bit like a cop out. At 6.5 months pregnant, I’m still pretty agile, I still have energy, and yet here I was, separating myself from my family to stay in sunny CA because what? I couldn’t hack it in AK? Sure, our house was about to be a construction zone. Sure, I didn’t feel like I wanted our baby to be around dust and fumes from drywall and painting. Sure, it would have been hard to work from home while my husband upended said home with range of power tools and certainly it would have been hard to return mid-winter to a home that needed a lot of love to just get back to functional. BUT certainly I could do it. I’d done it before. Why was I being such a princess?

Alaskan Malamute puppy — *Is it hard? I don’t wanna. I’m just going to sit in Mom’s pregnancy pillow and hide from the hard.*

All of these thoughts circled my head as, after a long weekend of packing our life away into a UHaul and prepping for The Chief’s journey, I prepared to start the next step: moving. I’ve moved many, many times in my life. I used to housesit constantly. I am good at it. I also have incredibly high standards and expect to leave a place better than when I found it. So, after a solid goodbye cry, I pulled myself together. There was work to do. I packed and cleaned, cleaned and packed as the texts came in from my Mom asking when I was ready for help. I was exhausted, emotionally and physically. We’d been going non-stop for weeks in preparation for this trip while simultaneously planning a last-minute family baby shower.

Baby shower covid — *It was so worth it. Thank you ❤️* Picture credit to Julianne Deery

Things had been hectic and tiring and just as I needed more sleep, I found that my bladder and our baby decided I’d get less. I was beat. So, when help was offered, what did I do?

I told myself I could do hard things and I told my Mom that “I was fine, thanks!” Thankfully, she knew what the last few weeks had entailed and knew I was working myself thin. “Why don’t I just stop in a for a little?” Thirty minutes later, there she was. Thirty-one minutes later, I was feeling a little bit teary and a lotta bit of relief. Of course I could do hard things, but did I have to? And did I have to do them alone? By 5 pm that evening, we had packed and cleaned our home away from home from top to bottom, packed both of our cars and unpacked me into the new home I’d be staying in for the next 6 weeks. It was finally the end to an epically long string of marathons. Now, it was time to chill.

So, could I have hacked it in Alaska at 6+ months pregnant mid-conststuction zone? Yep.
Am I glad that I didn’t? You betcha.

While the opportunity to feed the need to meet the hard head on is not Alaska-specific, the state certainly provides many opportunities to flex or stretch that muscle. There’s umpteen opportunities to rise to the hard occasion. Like, for example, my husband’s homecoming.

After a week on the road of long days, short nights and early mornings, he had finally made it home…almost. All that lay in front of him was 60 miles of snow-covered dirt road. Unfortunately, that snow wasn’t a mere winter’s dusting. It was a downright downpour that hadn’t been plowed. So, after over 3,000 miles, standing mere hours away from home, he had to call it. He left our car and trailer at a friend’s house and jumped into his road trip buddy’s rig. They’d get the car and the UHaul another day when the conditions were better. A few hours later, they were finally home. Let the construction begin, right?

Since returning, The Chief has had to shovel his way into our workshop after a plow job gone awry. He’s had to wrestle with generators that don’t want to work. He’s had to warm up batteries that don’t want to come back to life after stints at over -60 degrees this winter. 4 days in and the basics have just been restored: water, power, and access. Days of 40 degree “heat” meant sloppy trails and up to your crotch missteps if you ventured off of them. Yesterday, after shoveling for two days straight (with help from an amazing friend) to gain access to the storage area where all of the UHaul goodies would go, he made the trip to retrieve the car. All of this just to get to the “real work” of finishing our addition.

Today, he spends the day unloading. Next week he will start the process of finishing the addition and making our home ready for me and the babe to nestle into. Needless to say, his homecoming has been hard, the kind of hard he was prepared for and, to be honest, the kind I wasn’t. We’ve both agreed that while we dearly miss one another, me postholing about with a pregnant belly, isn’t exactly the type of hard that would be good for either of us right now.

pregnant in AK — *Hiking up a hill for a sunset, however? That’s a hard I can handle.*

As I sit outside typing in a sundress in 70 degree weather, the guilt starts to seep in again. I should be there. I should be able to handle it. Maybe it’s because as a kiddo I watched Tom Hanks’ speech in A League of Their Own a few too many times or maybe it’s because my ability to rise to the challenge has always been a point of pride for me but either way, I’m starting to let it go…a little. We can do hard things, we have done hard things, we will continue to do hard things when we have to but wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when presented with the option, we don’t always choose to do the hard that doesn’t serve us?

Take the help. Say “Yes” to the handout and “No” to the hard when you can. Becasue the thing is, the true hard will come.

Miscarriage — *Like getting this email to ma*rk the 3 month birthday anniversary that never was.

The unavoidable hard will roll in without warning and in those moments, you’ll be glad you gave yourself some respite. In this next month, I’m going to do my best to accept this gift of time, this gift of ease our separation allows me, even if it is a little lonely at times. I will value my contribution to our life in addition to my husband’s and realize that, while our actions may be different, they both point to the same end: creating a sturdy, whole, happy home for our child.

We can’t serve from an empty vessel.
It’s time to fill up.

If you can, I implore you to take the time and if you’re in a time of hard, I’m here to remind you: we can do hard things.

We can (and we don’t always have to).

With love,

From California & Alaska

P.S. What is the hard that you might need to leave behind? Are you good at it or is it hard for you? We want to hear from you!

P.P.S. Happy love day! I couldn’t think of a more perfect day for our most loving pup to have been born. Today our little fur baby turns 3! Happy birthday, little lovebug and to you, sweet Shiloh ❤️ You will be missed.

Alaskan Malamute — *Lots of love, from our little family to yours*

AK to CA: Roadtrip to California, Part II

So…where did we leave off?

Ah, yes, Anticipation City.

So, did we make it across the border?

If you’ll recall, the border that day was Turtle (of Turtle and the Hare fame) slow. We were one of two cars, the other of which the guard had sent off for a full inspection. We waited as their rig was given the once, twice, thrive over, anticipating our own packed to the brim paddywagon being unpacked item by item.

As the inspected car apparently passed with flying colors, it was now our turn. We pulled up to the window, rolling down ours, pulling our masks over our big smiles, doing our best to look the part of the precise people you want patronizing your Province (a mouthful of P’s!). It’s hard to look friendly when half of your face is covered but I told my smile wrinkles to put on a show. Now, I don’t know about you but when I get pulled over, I become a Chatty Kathy and so does my partner in crime. We did our best to simply stick to the facts and, as one of our friends suggested, “overwhelm with paperwork”. We had papers for the dog (who was looking all things upstanding citizen with his freshly bathed and brushed self), papers for my name change, papers for The Chief’s brief brush with the law, paper for our marriage, papers for our rental down south, papers for our COVID tests…we had what felt like a small tree’s worth of paper with us and we sent it his way. Nailed it, right?! He shooed the papers away. He wanted to talk. Cool, cool, cool…

(more…)

AK to CA: Roadtrip to California, Part I

If you love utter chaos, down-to-the-minute deadlines, and high-stakes, the start to our travels down south was right up your alley. While some form of chaos is inevitable in travel it seems, the past few years, we’ve really dialed in our departures to lessen the stress of leaving. Yet, as fate would have it, this time our well-oiled machine seized.

How?
A lot of distraction and a little technology.

You see, if and when you ever change your name, you’ll learn that it is, dare I say, a royal pain in the rear. I dove into the post-marital surname switch to the best that our 16-hour roundtrip from town locale would allow but in the end, I had failed to change my passport in time for our departure from AK to CA. Worried I wouldn’t get through, we phoned the Canadian Border Patrol and inquired: just how big of a deal was it that my passport didn’t match my new last name? Turns out…not that big of a deal. Phew! The other small hiccup that stole our attention was a brief moment The Chief had spent with a small-town cop who had big-time problems with him. We had worried for years if Canada would let him through and our inquiries had been far less fruitful than my passport woes. Indeed they had been inconclusive.

The third distraction was the need for a negative COVID test within 72-hours of reaching the border. Sounds easy, right? Well, not exactly. You see, Alaska was (and still is) deeply struggling to meet the sudden surge of COVID in a resource-tapped state and there simply weren’t enough tests to go around. I had called everywhere from the nearest clinic to the border (one that would still be a few hours detour) to clinics in Anchorage. No one had the PCR tests required. One clinic had another accepted test but they had been receiving the results in random increments of time. Some people got their results within a day, some within 4 days. We needed them within 72-hours of hitting the border.

I kept trying, to no avail until on one of our umpteen trips to Anchorage, I saw a place offering the testing.

PCR tests Anchorage — Spotted from the car!

Even though it was a 16-hour detour AND we couldn’t make an appointment (we could only do walk-in which, when you live 8 hours away is a really funny/frustrating idea) it was the best option. We resigned ourselves to adding another 600 miles to our trip.

So, with the aforementioned distractions semi-settled, we looked to our departure date with anticipation and excitement. The Chief hurriedly got the addition in tip-top shape and I spent every weekend working on getting the house ready for us to leave. Three Anchorage trips within the month prior to leaving meant we’d done all of our building supply shopping, dropped off all of our plant babies with their sitters (dear friends of ours who took ALL of our plants for the winter), and seen our doctors and dentists. Things were settled and relatively calm for the miles we’d been clocking and the long weeks we’d been working. There was a calm to the storm.

Until there wasn’t.

So now we know the distraction. Here’s where the little bit of technology comes in: 6 days before we were meant to depart, my phone announced a reminder to me. Now, I don’t know about you but I typically respond to reminders with something to the effect of “Whatever that is, I’ll do it later” (productivity in action!) but for some reason, that day I looked at it immediately and what did I see? Our future plans dissolving. “CC Passport Expires” was all it read. I clicked into it. Surely this must be a reminder for 6 months before the expiration date. Why would I set a reminder for one week before it expired?! Unexplainably, I did. I dug into our family filing cabinet and pounced upon the passport in question. Surely, the reminder had to be wrong.

Wrong again.

The reminder was right. All along we’d been so worried about MY passport that we’d forgotten to check on The Chief’s passport. We called the Border again (whose number we’d basically committed to memory at that point) and got one of the most frustrating responses ever: maybe. Maybe? This was the answer to “Can my husband make it across the border?” Maybe. The only illumination they provided to those five letters of frustration was this: It depends who is working. They may decide you have enough time to cross into the US before your passport expires or they may not. Either way, the sooner you get here, the better. This news came at 12 noon. By 12:05 we faced the grim reality: we’d be leaving the next day, 5 days earlier than planned.

This news also came mid-workday for me and so, despite having a mountain to climb, I had to continue on with day, feet planted firmly at the base of the mountain until nightfall (the perfect time to start a climb). I can’t speak for everyone but I can speak for both of us and our days of pulling all-nighters are solidly in our past. Staying up all night, working all day the next day, and then hitting the road sounded terrible. So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. There’s nothing quite like a deadline to light a fire under you, eh? There’s also nothing quite like saying “Well, I did the best I could”. Case and point: garden shutdown:

In addition to packing our life away for the next however many months, there was also the issue of the added day of going to the clinic in Anchorage that suddenly posed an even bigger issue than simply having to drive 16 hours for a test. Now it added to the gamble of our crossing. I called every single clinic again in the hopes of a mini-miracle and…we were able to get an appointment with the nearest clinic to the border AND they guaranteed results in 15-minutes! After which we could make the drive to the border, where we’d learn if our next step of the path would unfold in our favor.

Somehow, come 7 pm, we were in a place where we felt good enough to break for dinner at a friend’s house so we could say goodbye to everyone that night instead of the Adieu BBQ we’d planned (and shopped) for that coming weekend. We went home at a reasonable hour, did nothing further, and hit the hay with relative calm. The weeks of mayhem and planning prior had set us up surprisingly well. Still, when you’re leaving for months on end there are endless things to remember and as we hadn’t left for that long in the last few years, we were a little rusty. “Can this freeze?” I’d ask, holding up balsamic vinegar. “No! It’ll explode!” “Oh, yeah…”

The next day, we were up with the stars still out. The hustle was on. I still had to work but thankfully was able to swing a half-day. I stopped work at noon and got to packing. By 5 pm that evening, the car was packed, the house was stocked and secured, and somehow, 5 days earlier than planned, we were about to hit the road. We hadn’t even so much as bickered in the stress of it all. We were damn cool cucumbers considering we didn’t know if we’d even make it across the border. The stress of it hung in the air above us. What would we do if we didn’t make it across? I’d make the journey solo. I hadn’t been feeling so hot as we’d approached the journey and the idea of a 3,000-mile trip solo (plus the added 16-hour round trip to and from Anchorage to drop off The Chief) was less than appetizing. Still, somehow we were cool, man.

5 pm isn’t what I would call my ideal start to a 3,000 + mile journey but…start it we did. Night quickly fell, as did a snow flurry. We ate dinner from a gas station and plodded on into…construction? By 10 pm I was calling our hotel to let them know that we’d be later than expected. “That’s OK honey, I’ll stay up for you. You just drive safely” said the sweet front desk agent. By midnight, we rolled into the lodge, exhausted. “Let me show you to your room, get in your car, and follow me. People always get lost.” Off we went following our guardian angel for the night and into bed, we fell. Our books laughed at us as we pretended to read a few sentences before falling fast asleep.

The next morning I was up early to get as much work done as I could before we hit the road. For a brief moment in time, I had found that I could suddenly work and read from the car without getting carsick. Apparently, that spell had worn off. Barf city, here we come! I shivered as I took Leto for a quick prance about the neighborhood. It was 15 degrees, icy and biting. By 9 am we were packed up and off to the clinic for our tests. When we arrived, they mentioned that we would be paying the fee, despite having insurance, since they were billing it differently as it was for travel. Mmmmmmsccuse me? $240 and 30-minutes later, we were off, COVID free, thankfully. So far, we’d made it through all of the hurdles we’d faced.
We’d packed our house in 24 hours
We’d gotten the dog his health certificate
We’d filed the paperwork
We’d registered with Canada
We’d come back negative
And now? The moment of truth.

A few miles before the border, dressed in our finest warm weather gear, showered and shorn, we stopped on the side of the road to let the Leto out and shake our worries off.

It was now or never. Would they let us in? The Chief now had two strikes against him. It wasn’t looking good but we’d come this far. We had to try.

As we approached the border, my heart rate quickened. The border was slow that day, only one car lay ahead of us, which could either mean a guard who was grateful for light-duty or one who was bored and wanted to make their day more interesting by interrogating crossers (certainly, there was a multitude of options in-between but my black and white brain warned otherwise). The car in front of us was waved to the side for a full inspection. Gulp. I feared we’d reached the Day of the Bored Guard and as the Border had told us in our many, many calls “It’s all up to the guard who is working that day”.

So it was.

Delta Junction, AK — The outlook felt bleak

How did it go?

Tune in next time to find out.

See you in two weeks.

With love,

From Alaska

P.S. A huge thank you to you, sweet reader for coming along on this journey. If you love reading BTB please make sure to sign up at the top right of this page (see the picture below for details). You’ll never receive spam and your email will never be shared but you will always know when the latest entry drops and soon…that will be the only way to find out. More info to come but if you haven’t signed up yet, do so now (please). And…if you have, please feel free to share with friends.

Two Weeks in Twenty One Photos

After the weeks-long ramp up to The Wedding, we all took a long, deep exhale.

Then, it was back to work. The first order of business? Fall plans. The Chief and I had exactly one week before he shipped out down South to fight fire. We had an addition to build, laundry to do for him for the next month, bags to pack, and…I now had a house to shut down, and a serious road trip (unless I wanted to wait here solo until November for The Chief to arrive back home). 3,000 miles solo with a pup? No problem…right? After running through 10,000,000 scenarios for how to get everything done in time I chipped away at the logistical rat’s nest that can be trying to leave in Fall and started small. Where would my plant babies live?

Houseplants in Alaska — Hey, cuties! Don’t worry, they found a home.

Our focus shifted to the addition. With a small break in the weather, The Chief shored up the blocking and bracing and I got to painting. The next day, we installed the floor.

Painting subfloor — Make hay while the sun shines, they say. Laundry and painting.

And then promptly covered it as the weather shifted (#classic). Throughout the day and into the night, we rushed out ever so often to poke the low spots and watch the resulting waterfalls.

In an effort to deal with the gloomy weather, I went on a wander, exploring new avenues off the beaten path of my daily rounds.

Kennicott River — It’s gorgeous, I know but…no sun is no bueno for this gal.

These cheery guys helped a bit. I call this one Balding Dryas.

Returning home to a whole wall built also helped.

Four wheels on a gravel road — A wall comprised mostly of windows? Now that’s my kind of wall.

Ending the day looking at three walls?! That required some high-fives, hoots, n’ hollers.

Four walls — Many hands, light work. It’s amazing what can happen in a day.

Despite the rain and the cold, these tough cookies persisted, and a few days later…

The roof was on! Added plus? I learned how to spell Biththene (pronounced Bitch-uh-thane).

That night, listening to the pitter-patter on the new roof, the call came. Chris would ship out…never.

Huh?

In a logistical spin on things neither one of us could have predicted, suddenly, The Chief would be home sweet home with Leto and me. We both took a serious exhale. The mania of the last few weeks of prep, wonder, worry (on my part) and stress was done. Sort of, but also, all of our plans were suddenly caput. A blank slate lay before us. So, what did we do?

We did something we haven’t done in years(!?!?!). We went out to The Glacier. Leto was fully impressed and also fully pissed that we hadn’t made him privy to the fact that there has been year-round ice around him for the last two years.

The next day, by the grace of everything that is holy in this world, it was sunny. Even getting woken up at 6 am on a Sunday to a fire call (everyone is OK) couldn’t hamper the good vibes the sun was putting out. Leto and I soaked it in. I wore shorts. My husband was here to stay. All was right in our little world.

The next morning our wake-up call was equally jarring but with a happy surprise: the driveway gravel had arrived! Potholes be damned. Things were looking brighter.

Later that day, I had my last call with the group of women I’ve been meeting with for the last seven weeks. Life is better with sisterhood and accountability and this gathering served up both.

The rest of the week was spent wrapping up the addition and…prepping for the next task at hand: Town. It had been a while since we broke out our Road Warrior boots and so, in true off-grid fashion, we left at 6 am Friday morning, got to town by 2pm, got blood tests, doctor’s visits, and then…started shopping.

Fall in Alaska — The drive out was GORGEOUS.

Our goal? 5 windows and a door, electrical and flooring. The end result?

I learned so much more about electrical than I ever wanted:

I found out that the perfect way to take a quick rest while home improvement shopping is to try on bathtubs.

Lowe's — I may or may not have scared the heck out of an old man as I crawled out of my bath nap.

Leto continued to be utterly terrified of all things Town and refused to get out of the car.

Somehow, we got 5 windows and the perfect door loaded into the truck plus electrical odds and ends (no butt slicers though, sorry) and all the flooring to finally tie the whole house together (flooring they had on hand solely because it was a return). ‘Twas a good haul and after 10 hours of shopping, we called it quits. Well, first sushi, then quits.

The next day, we left Town. On the drive we saw patches of sun and then, this perfect representation of the weather as of late: sun trying to break through the clouds, slowly being overpowered by grey all day.

Weather in Alaska — Incoming! Watch out, sunshine!

Finally, we made it back home all in one piece, only to find the tent covering our tools, not so all in one piece.

The highs and lows of life off-grid never seem to end and the only constant here is change. There are grand achievements followed by grand frustrations. It can be a rollercoaster of emotions but…but…we focus on the good (most of the time). We’d made it home. We’d made it through stressful situations (read: figuring out how to wire our house, shopping when social anxiety kicked in….you name it) without getting in so much as a squabble, and Leto, though a bit traumatized, was happy to be home. We settled into a pizza and movie night, just the three of us. And while today awoke us with grey, I see a little sun peeking through because tomorrow, it’s two years since this sunny day. And instead of wishing him my love from thousands of miles away, worrying over his safety, we get to be here, together, where it all started.

All my love to you, sweet Chief.

With love to you too, sweet reader.

from Alaska.

Tell Them I’m a Good Kisser

All my life, music has moved me. It has transported me, lifted me in its arms, and taken me where I needed to be. It has been my saving grace, my sanity, and the place I have felt a true sense of freedom.

As a little kid, if I was feeling sad or lonely, I’d just start singing to myself and I’d either guide myself go deeper into the emotion or help myself fly away from it.

When I was maniacally sending in my college applications as a teen, with only minutes to go, it was my Mom who reminded me: “Sing, Julia. Sing.” I sang to myself as I uploaded the last attachments, undoing the tizzy I had wound myself up into.

When I’ve walked down city streets alone at night or traipsed through the woods solo, I’ve sung to myself to bring comfort and calm, and courage.

When I’ve needed to process something but haven’t had the words, I’ve let the song come out instead.

Music comes from the heart. It breaks it and strengthens it again, growing older and wiser and richer each time.

Still, as much as it is a comfort and a joy, music has also challenged me. Performing has taken the thing I feel most passionate about, most connected to myself in and made that private love public. Still, most of my life, aside from solos in choir and playing with my Dad or Brother, my voice was blended into a the harmonies of many. I didn’t often feel the pressure of the spotlight until…

Six summers ago, I sang my first songs with the local band. While I’d been in a band in Sonoma County prior to unintentionally moving to Alaska, we had yet to perform.

Game on.

Alaska music scene — Thanks for the awesome photos, Luke!

As I jumped back into the crowd after my stint on stage, one of our dear friends pulled me aside. “Jesus, woman! You’ve got some pipes.” He then looked at The Chief who was smiling ear to ear and said “Did you know she could do that?!”. It was the first time since high school that I’d performed and I felt like I was walking on air. Transported once again. The Chief, who certainly had heard me singing around our house, knew I could sing. I’d breakfast-time serenaded him from the other room while distractedly singing and cooking but to actually sit down, learn a song and give it my all? He hadn’t heard it. In fact, despite singing being one of the loves of my life, most people I loved hadn’t heard me sing until our wedding two years ago.

Alaskan wedding — Wild in Love Photo by Kate Lamb

And I mean really sing. Not sing in a choir, singing songs I was told to sing. Instead, really sing because I was singing songs that were for me. Songs that spoke to my heart.

After that first night with the band in the bar I was hooked…but doubt crept in.

What if they didn’t want me to come back?
What if they were just being nice?
What if they didn’t like the songs I liked?

It turned out that they did want me back but lest I be too hasty, I didn’t want to overstep. They were a rock band with a punk-ish flair and I was already singing their rock songs with a blues/jazz twist. I didn’t want to push it.

Could I have?
Certainly.
Did they encourage me to?
Mmmmmhhhmmm!
Did they ask me to choose songs I liked?
Yep!
Did I do it?
You get where this is going…

I wasn’t the lead singer. I’d come in for harmonies and a few diddies and head back into the crowd. No responsibility, no say, right?

Kennicott National Park — Looks like a painting behind us, doesn’t it?! Thank you, Alaska.

The very next year, the lead singer didn’t return for a summer, and suddenly…I was the lead singer. The band changes a little every year, depending on the musicians in the town which is something I’ve never seen before and never would have thought of. I absolutely love that! It’s also why I never assumed I’d be the front woman. I mean, even if our Lead Singer/Guitarist did leave, certainly someone else would step in, right?! But suddenly, that someone was me. Finally (finally!) I started suggesting songs. I tried to find songs that rang true for me that I thought the band would hopefully like. It worked! Slowly but surely we’d floated ideas of the Alabama Shakes, Heartless Bastards, White Stripes, etc. and even learned and performed a few of them.

The crowds changed a little and at first, I thought I was doing it wrong. It wasn’t as rowdy, or at least not as often. People requested songs I didn’t know and I felt embarrassed because they wanted punk rock Otis Redding and I was giving them Aretha Otis Redding. But…I was who I was. I am who I am.

Last weekend, six years after my first show with the band, we played our first show of this season. We all picked our favorites from our existing repertoire, a repertoire that held our evolution in its story. Everything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Amy Winehouse. We also added a few newbies just for this show and they were and are some of my favorite songs ever.

Midnight in Harlem by Tedeschi Trucks Band
Good Kisser by Lake Street Dive and

I wasn’t sure how the crowd would like them. Would they be too pop? Too girly? Did it matter?

It turns out it didn’t matter (spoiler alert, I know). Halfway through the two-hour show…the dancing began and despite thunderstorms and rainfall, it didn’t stop. From rainbows to a downright downpour, I watched faces new and old dance the night away to the songs we were lucky enough to play for them. Here’s a short clip from our friend and event organizer, Dave Hollis:

Love the flyer, Davey!

We closed the two-hour show + fundraiser with “Good Kisser” (which starts out “If you’re gonna tell them everything, tell them I’m a good kisser…”. Hence the title of this post) and as I began, I heard hoots and hollers from the knowing crowd. Our crowd. ‘Twas not too pop after all. It’s a beautiful thing, that cycle of a song. From the first time I heard it and it struck a chord in me to learning it, introducing it to the band, them learning it, us learning it as a group and making it our own to then playing it and hearing those few first words strike joy in someone else who was also struck the first time they heard the song…that’s beautiful. To hear the joy that recognition brings, that’s something pure I’ll never pass up. You never know when you pick your songs what will resonate, who will show up and how they will feel. You can only play what makes you feel good and hope that translates outwards to your crowd.

Over the years, the people who have made up our crowd have changed. I’ve watched people scrunch their noses, turned off by the music, and I’ve watched people come in off of the street, called in by the music. We can’t serve everyone. We can’t be everything to everyone. If you need a true punk rock evening, our old frontman was your man (and he will be back for a stint this summer!). If you need something more like jazz+pop+soul+rock, I’m your girl. Neither? That’s fine too. The point? The one that took me six years to realize?

Be you.
Your crowd will come.
Not everyone will love you.
That is OK.
You are your own crowd and you are perfect, just as you are.
Besides, there’s no one else like you and…

It’s way more fun to show up when you show up genuinely as yourself.

With love,

from Alaska

The Potato, McCarthy, Alaska — Troopers!

P.S. Thank you to everyone who came out and danced in the rain (or under cover) and supported KCHU! We love you guys! And a huge thank you to my bandmates. I love playing music with y’all.

P.P.S. So…what’s on your playlist these days?

When to start planting in Alaska: A tale of a tardy gardener

When to start planting in Alaska

Sometimes, you nail it.

Sometimes, it feels more like you…tape it.

This year’s garden may have been put together with more Scotch tape than a kiddo wrapping her first Christmas present but it is finally done.

Done.

While I know you’re probably thinking “Julia, a garden is never done” I would agree but…to me, I’ve reached the finish line and from here on out it’s just lemonade and cookies and pats on the back from myself for another marathon complete.

Did I spread all the wildflower seed I’d intended?

Nope.

Do I have enough soil left for potatoes?

Sure don’t.

Do I care?

OK, yes, of course but…overall?

Nope.

Because, it’s done.

How to Garden in Alaska

While it’s a perennial mad dash each and every year (usually over a weekend) for some reason, this year posed instead as a daily dash, extending over weeks on end. The weekends I should have been planting, I was gone and gone again and the weekends prior had been too cold. Finally, the sun and I aligned our schedules. I was home, she was out and it was time to start planting in every nook and cranny of time that I could muster. This meant getting to work early so I could finish early so that after each 10-hour day, I would have 2 hours to plant, do chores and get dinner ready. This being the worst mosquito year I’ve ever had the pleasure of being here for, each two hour dash included a 20 minute block of time for mosquito preparedness. I’d put on my tall socks, rain boots, long sleeves and overalls accompanied by a scarf, a hat and copious “bug dope”, despite the heat. Still, my protection did next to nothing and each night I’d head to bed, bitten to oblivion. It wasn’t until I’d endured a week of this that I finally thought to ask The Chief if we had bug nets. “Yep! There’s one in my pack.” I rolled my eyes at myself and donned the iconic lewk.

A little more secure from the bugs, I jumped back in with new muster. They’d buzz about my net, a viable storm of mosquitoes and White Sox and Noseeums (No See Ums, get it?! Because they are tiny biting jerks you can barely see!) incessantly buzzing in my ears. “We’re gonna get you!” they’d whisper. Yet with my new apparel, they were only right about 50% of the time. I’ll take those odds. Yes, my neck still looked like a junior vampire couldn’t quite find the right place to dig in for dinnertime but there were no more black eyes from eyelid bug bites and that, my friends, was movin’ on up!

where to go four wheeling — Smooth sailing…4-wheeler style

Still, despite my new attire and my schedule, I felt like I was wading through quicksand. After my two hours were up each day, I’d look around and feel as if zero progress had been made. Sure, I’d added copious amounts of nutrients and dirt and compost to the beds. Sure, I’d hauled all the bags between stations and felt as if my arms were about to come off of my body. Sure, there was some visible change but still, there were no plants in the ground and caring for my starts had become a full-time job as an aphid infestation took hold. Dish soap to the rescue! Sort of.

It felt futile but despite my frustration, I kept at it, every day and every day The Chief would come home and say “Great work baby. You are killing it. This is a lot.” Some days I’d look at my plants, struggling under the aphid attack or strangling under their root-bound empire and think “It’s too much. I’ll never get this all in. Maybe I should just bail on gardening this year” but then I’d think of my plant babes that I (and a friend, when we went to Hawaii) had been nurturing since they first awoke from their seeded slumber back when the ground was still snow-laden.

Raised bed gardening in Alaska — I call this one Searching for Spring

I couldn’t let them down now. So, I persisted and after two weeks of a daily dash and two weekends spent solidly soil-bound, it’s done!

A few days ago I my first nasturtium bloomed and two weeks ago, the first zucchini and the necessary accompanying flowers came to being. I pollinated the little green babes by hand and now see traces of the grand squash of summers past. The cabbage, grumpy as could be in their containers have been stretching their leafed limbs, settling into their new, much expanded, soil abode. Every day I look to see if the carrots have come up and each time try not to listen to the voice that says they should have been in ages ago because while it’s true, it doesn’t matter. They’re in now. Do what you can, little ones.

Gardening in Alaska tips — Hello, lovely!

It’s not the family feeding plus overflow to give away production I had anticipated when I sowed those seeds all the way back in April and it’s not comprised of solely things I grew from seed. Still, without those few additions, I wouldn’t have the brilliant begonia or the punk rock black dahlia that reminds me of our wedding who greet me on our porch every day.

How to garden in Alaska — Black Dahlia. Yes, please.

What vegetables grow best in Alaska — Do Begonias ALWAYS remind you of “Mrs. Doubtfire”?! Same.

And, years ago, I would never even have considered planting an entire garden from seed. It’s wild the standards we start to set for ourselves instead of simply looking back to appreciate how much we’ve grown.

So, no, it’s not the “perfect” garden I imagined, whatever that means, but it’s a garden that, slowly but surely, came to being. This morning, The Chief and I shared the first snap pea from the garden. Even if it was all just for that one pea, it would be worth it.

In our world of constant and instant gratification, it’s easy to forget that some things require slow and steady work to pay off and in a place of scarcity for time and warmth, like Alaska, it’s hard to not just want it all right now. Just like when I’d train in the gym for a day and run to the mirror expecting immediate results, I caught myself walking past seeds I had just sown earlier that day hoping for some light speed germination. It’s a good check for myself, provided by this constant place of checks and balances. Growth, of all kinds, takes time. The second we gets too far ahead of ourselves, we’re brought down to earth but…earth is a lovely place to be.

May your process be slow and steady and ever forward, even if they require a few steps back.

With love,

from Alaska

P.S. So…how does your garden grow?

The Best Memorial Day Plans: How to Make ‘Em, How to Break ‘Em

Oops, I Britney Spears-ed the heck out of this weekend. I did it you guys, I did it again. I tried to plan. Looking back, I fell prey to planning long before this weekend began, into the sticky trap she so carefully lays beneath us. How could I have known? Well, I could have thought back to EVERY other time I’ve tried to steer life in a particular direction and done an After Action Review on that outcome. But…that’s no fun. Better to fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I’m probably going to do it forever. So, I did!

You see, The Chief has been working non-stop for two weeks. We love to exaggerate, don’t we? Non-stop? Whatever, Julia. But this time, it’s pretty dang close to accurate. The Chief started his summer job and it’s pretty much been bangarang, Rufio style, for two weeks. We both wake up at 5:30, he’s out the door by 7:15 and I don’t see him again for another 12 hours. So, when the boss said they’d have a long weekend, we were stoked. I started quietly counting down the days until we’d have time to say more than a “Good morning” and “Goodnight” to one another. Oh, and I started planning.

First, we’d relax. I’ve become a pro, you know. Then, we’d get some stuff done around the house, adventure on the new property, take Leto hiking, eat good food, hang with friends…oh, and discuss alllllllll of the business we don’t get to when he’s working like a maniac. “Shall we review our healthcare, dear?” doesn’t really bring all the boys to the yard when your boy has been doing hard labor all day but it’s a little easier on the ears when those ears haven’t heard jackhammering all day. It was going to be lovely. The perfect mix of work and play and just time to be together. Right?!

Of course not! Instead, we went straight into business mode. You see, we have big mouths in which we’ve broken off a lot to chew on: a new property, looking for a new car and…an addition to our current house. It’s a lot but it’s a lot of all good things and so, not having gotten to plan as a team for a while, we sat down and brainstormed. Reality set in: this summer is an insane one for contractors and if we were really going to get this addition done, we’d need help. So, after mapping out the plans over far too much coffee, we made the call to a contractor friend to see if he could fit us in at all.

“No.”

Harsh, bro! Harsh as a mouthful of hot sauce. *No babies were harmed in the taking of this photo

Just kidding, he was far more effusive than that but basically, the answer was “Are you guys crazy?”. Buuuuuuttttt, since he loves us so much he made an offer: if we had all the materials on site, he would fit us in on days where his crew ran out of materials on their other jobs. It was good news, better than we had hoped in a year of busy beavers and then it dawned on us what it meant: a Town trip. A Town trip, in the morning.

The four day weekend o’ fun melted away as we realized that this was our only shot, our only open slot of time enough, to travel together to get it done. So, we did. The Chief made the lumber lists, I found cars and materials and we packed up the truck with trash and recycling. We left the next morning, waking up at 4:30 to hit out 6 am departure (we made it out before 7 am so…I’m calling that a “win”). We had to make it to Town to pick up our lumber order before they closed for the long weekend plus any chores we needed to complete by closing time so we could head back the next day. Thankfully, it was raining, scratch that, SNOWING in some stretches of the drive. Welcome to September, folks. And thankfully, loading lumber in the rain is SUPER fun.

Singing in the Rain? More like swearing in the rain.

OK, sarcasm aside, it all worked out. We were able to put in a lumber order and collect it all within 24 hours, all while driving 300 miles in between.

Despite the rain and snow and wintery vibes, we warmed up that evening with a dinner out with friends, filled with delicious food, craft cocktails and dessert. It was amazing and even felt a little “normal”, whatever the heck that means these days. The next morning, we took off at the breakneck speed of a noon departure and after shopping for odds and ends we were on the road by 3:30 and home by 10:30, where we were welcomed by neighbors and pups and pizza!

So, was it the perfect weekend I had planned?! Nope. Not even close. Did I know better? Yep. Did I plan anyways? Yep. Still, if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have anything to compare to because, despite it not being what I had hoped for, the joy of a trailer full of lumber that will eventually turn our tiny house into a slightly less tiny house rates so, so much higher.

So, how did you fare this weekend?

Cheers to the unexpected, which sometimes ends up better than you ever planned.

With love,

from Alaska

Beneath the Borealis

Learning to Live in the Alaskan Wilderness

DIY

My favorite mistake

Shower Power

Homeward Bound

We Can Do Hard Things (But Do We Have To?)

AK to CA: Roadtrip to California, Part II

AK to CA: Roadtrip to California, Part I

Two Weeks in Twenty One Photos

Tell Them I’m a Good Kisser

When to start planting in Alaska: A tale of a tardy gardener

When to start planting in Alaska

How to Garden in Alaska

The Best Memorial Day Plans: How to Make ‘Em, How to Break ‘Em

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When to start planting in Alaska

How to Garden in Alaska

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