This weekend, I was dead tired. So we headed to the Fair for some R&R.
Everything you need to know is in the name. Fun Slide.
Just kidding.
I was dead tired but I wasn’t delusional enough to expect R&R from the fair. I also didn’t expect a cheerleader.
While unloading our family and the miscellaneous odds and ends we might need throughout the day (ear pro for Ollie? Mama might borrow those for crowd control. Snacks? For all! Stroller? For me, I mean Ollie) I felt a tap on the shoulder.
“Excuse me” I heard a voice say while placing a piece of paper in my hand. As soon as I’d heard her, she was gone and I was left looking at what she’d left in my grasp.
“You’re doing an amazing job! Keep it up!” the index card read.
I teared up on the spot.
If there’s anything I needed in the moment, it was that. Honestly, in any moment.
Validation.
Feeling seen.
Feeling like someone is rooting for you.
I couldn’t point this young woman out in a crowd if I had to but I am grateful to her and for her nonetheless. The next morning, when I felt altogether less than cheer-worthy, I looked at the card (my new bookmark) to remind myself that I am doing a great job, the best job I can do. And all I can do is to keep it up.
The cheerleaders help us move forward.
One day at a time…
Cheers to all of the cheerleaders, known and unknown. To the friends who tell you how fabulous you are when you feel funky. To the random compliment you get from a stranger. For the love notes we leave.
Today marks the end of what I will always remember as the Solo Parenting Summer of 2025. In case I haven’t told you in person (which, if I know you, I have because I needed you to understand why I felt and acted like a zombie every time we interacted), this summer was a struggle. It had highs, it had lows and I’ll always look back on it fondly because time apparently provides amnesia that gives past events a certain glow but the general takeaway?
That shit was hard. How so? Let’s look:
Sleep: Our little sleeping angel went from snoozing a solid 11 hours through the night to taking 1-2 hours to fall to sleep (for naps and for bedtime) and sleeping fitfully for 9-10 hours. Picture, if you will multiple wakings each night taking anywhere from 5-90 minutes to get back to sleep, after which I would struggle to get back to sleep myself, only to wake a few hours later to do it all over again.
Separation: Our independent toddler who went from walking up to ANYONE and starting a conversation suddenly had super separation anxiety making drop-offs and pick-ups a total nightmare for us both.
Sanity: It turns out that one (at least this particular one) needs more sleep than I was getting (around 6 hours a night) and more alone time other than the 27 minute drive twice daily Monday to Thursday to pick up Ollie that I achieved in order to feel sane. Bedtime battles felt hopeless, weekends felt endless and not because I don’t love the everloving heck out of my kid but because my brain was not even close to firing on all cylinders (and perhaps had lost a few along the bumpy way). I needed space, time, a sacred moment to tend to my base needs. But no matter how I gamed the system (I’d wake up early to journal and “get myself right”, he’d wake up right after me. I’d stay up later to get some alone time, he’d wake up extra early).
The cards just didn’t lay well and it was no one’s fault (although, of course, looking back I see a few areas I could have cut myself some slack and given us all an easier time but that’s useless wishing and wondering about a past past-tense). The Chief and I tried to smooth things as best we could by having as much family time together as possible but journeying 16 hours round-trip to see one another every weekend simply wasn’t possible and then ups and downs of reunions and goodbyes sometimes just made things worse.
Finally, finally, things fell into place and we ended up spending the bulk of the end of summer all together in the home that we built, the first home Ollie ever knew. It was pretty dreamy overall.
As the season came to a close, there was just one last stint of the Solo Parenting Summer of 2025 to get through: 10 days while The Chief finished work and closed down the house for winter. What could go wrong?
Two weeks before we left, Ollie got a lovely little diddy called Hand Foot and Mouth disease (which I’ve always mistakenly called “Hand Foot in Mouth” disease which is even grosser). If you don’t know what it is, just think OWWWW. Blisters across your…you guessed it! Hands, Feet and in your Mouth! Plus, bonus if you get them alllllllll over your body. High fever? Check! Pain? You got it! It looks miserable and we all felt terrible that week but undoubtedly, Ollie felt worse. So, needless to say, it was a bit of a messy week with me trying to work while feeling ill myself and simultaneously caring for sweet sick Ollie.
But…
We made it through.
The next week, we narrowly dodged another sickness. I kept repeating to myself “Just stay healthy so you can have all your capacity for this last stretch of solo parenting” and we did…
Until we got to Anchorage.
Within an hour I was sneezing uncontrollably, my eyes were watering, I was coughing and wheezing. It was dope. My allergies were on fire and my meds simply couldn’t stand up to whatever new pollens I was experiencing. Still, Ollie was fine so we were only 50% down. I’d take it. He started a new school the following Monday and…
jumped right in! No separation anxiety, just pure joy AND he had slept pretty well the night before. Things were looking up.
Apparently, opposites attract because up was swiftly followed by down. By Wednesday, Ollie’s school was closed due to a…you guessed it! Hand Foot and Mouth outbreak. No, Ollie was not the Patient Zero,it had arrived before him but since he’d just had it, his doctor figured it was highly unlikely he’d contract it again.
Highly unlikely.
We waited. Nothing. The weekend came and with it, nothing. We’d avoided it!
Saturday night, after a night of pampering myself to congratulate me on not losing my shit through another week of being sick, having my kiddo home from school and just generally trying to piece together life, I went down to the laundry room to flip the clothes and found…
A shitstorm.
The floor was flooded with water but not just any water, it was…sewage! By 11:30 pm, the floors were mopped to the best of my ability and I was finally in bed. Then started the wakeups. Two that night with the final one being before 6 am. I was EXHAUSTED and Ollie was…sick. “Mama, my mouth hurts.”
Fack!
I spent the morning checking to see where the backup was happening and figured it out by flooding the room twice more (call me an overachiever). After every single towel in our house that I was willing to sacrifice was used and I’d called every plumber open on the weekends (none of whom were apparently open on the weekends or whose service lines simply hung up on me), I gave up and gave in. Things were as tidy as could be for now and so…
We went to find mushrooms.
Hey ChickieChickie!
Did we find any? Nope (not that were still edible). Did we stay at home and stew? Nope. Was Ollie a total trooper? Yep.
This morning, I finally got ahold of a plumber. Ollie busied himself while I went to my necessary work meetings and talked with the plumber and…things came together. The clog was fixed. We had water again.
As I drove my little dude for a nap along the Turnagain Arm, I took in the views and listened to a podcast with Esther Perel (loooooooove her!) to calm my mind. I was still completely exhausted and in need of a break, overstimulated and under-nourished but I hadn’t “lost it”. I’d been frustrated, sure, but something felt different in the way I was reacting to the shitstorm. Then the podcast talked about something I’d never thought about. It talked about how we can come through trauma alive or we can come through trauma living. It struck me. I’m not comparing a plumbing problem to trauma, but I have definitely lived through my fair share of true trauma and it left me questioning: was I alive or just living? The shitstorm was small potatoes but it had to start somewhere. Instead of lingering in the hard, I could relish the good on the other side. I could dance through the shitstorm, smile as I came out better and be grateful every time I used the washing machine and didn’t find our floor flooded.
The Solo Parenting Summer of 2025 was good overall, it’s not just the amnesia of passing time. Yes, it was hard. It was trying but I also got to spend the most time I have with our nugget since he was still in diapers and that was beautiful. And yes, I did learn things I don’t like about myself (patience when overstimulated? NOT my strong suit) but I also learned new ways to deal with these things and today I think was the biggest learning:
Come alive in the hard, don’t just live.
Thank you to everyone who listened to me complain this summer and thank you, to The Chief for coming home. This concludes the Solo Parenting Summer of 2025.
With love,
from Alaska
P.S. I write this to you as The Chief puts sweet Ollie to bed and a little afterwards which is why you’ll see few pictures and probably a lot of typos in an effort to balance my need for writing with my need for cuddles. Thank you for reading.
Five or so years ago now I said something I’ve always looked back on:
“I mop my floor every day.”
Wow, profound, right?
Maybe not exactly but…the reason it’s resonated in my head for years is that it’s not true. Well, not now it isn’t. At the time I said it (thankfully, lest I be a liar), it certainly was. Back then, I had one tiny little haven of flooring in my house, a sweet, easily cleanable relief from the shredding OSB and crumbling concrete board that dressed the rest of the house. That little part of flooring was the area I knew I could keep clean, the one area of control I could find amongst dog hair, dirty paws, and boots filled with project remnants (hello, sawdust!) and so when a friend came over one day and admired my sparkling clean floor I noted with pride that I mopped it.
Every
single
day.
And twice a day in moments like this…No idea what that spill was but it was noteworthy enough to forever memorialize, apparently.
Every single day? Yep. Which, I’d bet was true for about another month or so. After that, I think we started to stop dirt before it entered the house (genius! How had no one ever thought of this?! Oh wait..) via no-shoe policies and a quick paw scrub down and also, ignore dirt by following the saying of my favorite pin: “Let that shit go”. Nowadays, my floor is cleaned about ten times a day as Leto and I tag team chasing down bits and pieces of catapulted carrots and missile-like melon bits but it’s properly mopped maybe once a week.
Maaaaayyyyybe.
Let
That
Shit
Go.
Right?
Yet I often think back to where I was then, mopping daily, a snapshot in time and wonder if that friend, who I haven’t discussed the pros and cons of a daily mop with since, still sees me in that Suzy Homemaker-esque snapshot. Did she even remember it? And if she did, did she feel that she too should be mopping her floors daily? Did I unknowingly plant a bullsh*t seed in her brain?
The other night, I left another snapshot that again had me thinking about what we plant, what we put out into the world, and how I often see others as a steady state since our last interaction despite knowing that our natural state is one of constant flux. In a gathering of women, I shared an at times teary, at times comical commentary on where I was at. There’s a lot going on for us right now: moving, school, new job, new neighborhood, new schedules…and if there’s one thing I know about myself it’s that I am amazing at change (cue the laughter sign for the audience, please).
It’s not that the changes are bad. I’m truly excited, it’s amazing, and still, it’s a lot. The Chief and I felt that a lot-ness this weekend and tensions built and then boiled over. And so, there it lay, our snapshot for the group to see. ‘Twas neither our prettiest nor our worst, nor our forever snapshot but if I had to give it a representation, it probably looked a little something like this:
Mayhem!
I know it wasn’t our forever snapshot but…will it be in the minds of those I presented it to until I see each person again? And will I too hold them to each of the snapshots they gave to me that night?
Slowly, as the days passed, our snapshots brightened. The stress lifted. Suddenly, there we were a few days later, motivated and team-like enough to start packing up after dinner and chores (this is not an easy thing to motivate to do for us) for our move with smiles on our faces. And then finally settling in a few hours later as the summer sun began to fade, reading and cuddling ourselves to sleep.
Another snapshot.
Snapshots in time. Life is chock full of them. Some last just a moment, and some last a lot longer. If anyone has taught me to savor my way through a good snap and know we’ll pass through a rough one, it’s Ollie. Everything changes from one day to the next, a shifting tide tied to no moon. Example? At six months old, Ollie decided that he wasn’t going to take diaper changes lying down.
Literally.
For the last 8 months, I have had to wrangle him into diapers and clothing for every diaper change. People are constantly remarking “Oh! I’ve never seen someone change a babe’s diaper while they are standing up!”. At a minimum, I’m chasing this little one around 6 (often 8) times a day to do a standing, knee, or in-flight diaper change (plus cleaning up more accidents than I ever imagined when I haven’t been able to keep up). It became our new normal, our perma-snapshot. In my mind, there he was: the kiddo who wouldn’t lie down for diaper changes. And then…yesterday, I thought I’d see if I could set that snapshot in a frame, hang it up as a memory, try something new, and…
Just like that, the snapshot changed. He let me lay him down to change his diaper. I’ve even reproduced the miracle multiple times now. He stares up at me as I stare back in disbelief, my hands moving through the motions with gratitude for the ease of a lie-down diaper change.
It’s a tough life for a pirate.Thanks, L&J for the endless tissue box entertainment!
Everything changes (even your face, but that’s another story).
Being a mom to a wild one has undoubtedly taught me that. One week he wakes every day at 4 am for the day and a month later, he sleeps till a blessed 5:15 (cue the “Hallelujah!”). Ups and downs and in-betweens come so fast there’s barely a signal before we are changing lanes yet again and still, sometimes I forget in the hard that the easy/ier is coming. Sometimes, I forget another snapshot is on the way.
The other night, made me again think back to my mopping declaration mishap, to the reality that who we say we are and the circumstances we find ourselves in may change as fast as the words come out of our mouths. I realized that I forget to apply that same knowing to those around me. I know I change but I forget others do too, especially when the snapshot is good. A mom friend will send me a picture of her family and an update that’s happiness embodied one day and I assume it’s allllllllllll sunshine and allllllllllll roses allllllllllll the time.
I can hardly handle how gorgeous these Glories are.
Then, a month later, the update will be harder, with less sun, a little more rain.
Oh, right. Duh.
Seeing all the women gathered together this past weekend, I realized I’d snapped them all the last time I’d seen them and held that past freeze frame as their current truth. Their shared stories showed me that good or bad or in between, they too were fluid beings, shifted and shaped since our last interactions.
Shifting river, bye-bye beach.
It’s obvious, right? Yet I think in our age of shiny selfies and made-for-TV moments, it’s really easy to forget. We are ever-changing, we are movement and stagnation and everything in between. We are exactly as we are at this moment, and nothing more.
Cheers to the snapshots, the beautiful and the broken hearted, the shiny and the sullen. May we meet one another as we are. Right now.
With love,
From Alaska (and floors in need of a good mopping)
Smoothie bowls. The best idea
**Update: What’s “hilarious” I kept telling myself over and over again as I scrubbed away last night (which now was one week ago) was just that: I was scrubbing my floors. At 10 pm. You must be thinking: “Why, Julia, would you even be up at 10 pm when your child awakes a mere 6-7 hours later?! And scrubbing your floors, no less?!” Because, dear friend, I didn’t mop my floors after finishing this post, despite their being in dire need of such a show of affection, and so, my floors insisted, nay, commanded that I do so.
As I was emptying the last bit of a massive container of dish soap into the dish soap dispenser, both fell onto the floor and oozed out of their containers faster than you can say:
“Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! That’s all we had left for the next two weeks until we move!”.
Shoulda just bailedwhen I saw it.
Our kitchen became a skating rink. As I slip/slid my way to clean floors 40 minutes later (it turns out that soap, when applied like a frosting rather than a whisper on your floors, is incredibly hard to get off in one fell swoop), suds finally tucked in for the eve, I laughed over and over again. “I just wrote a post ALL about mopping my floors. Today!” I laughed to The Chief.
Instead of a Slip-A-Thon/Mop-A-Thon (where my Walk-A-Thon/Jog-A-Thon peeps at?!) I had planned to tidy up the blog that night and send it on its way to you but alas, other plans had already been destined for the night. And so, today, (nope, two days later, and then three days later than hoped and then, after a 3:45 am curtain call from Ollie and a publishing snafu where this post didn’t save, a whole week later) it’s making its way to you.
I hope you’re in a happy snap and if not, just know one’s coming soon.
Don’t tell anyone, but I started a new job and my direct reports at work are being real stinkers this week. You wouldn’t believe it. One disobeyed a direct order and the other threw their lunch at me. One never dresses appropriately for the workplace (pajamas? Rude) and the other comes to work in the nude (thank goodness for Zoom, eh?). They’re constantly pushing my boundaries and my buttons and…
I’ve never been happier.
You see, I’m a workin’ Mom alright, but a few things have changed since we last talked:
I traded my 9-5 (and by that, I mean 6 am or 7 am to the end of business) for a job that’s even more work and 24/7. I moved into something I have zero training in (but thankfully, a natural instinct towards). My salary absolutely tanked.
So what’s the new gig and why am I so excited to have lost all of my earning power while simultaneously be working more?!
I’m working the original WFH job: being a full-time parent.
My direct reports? Leto and Ollie (The Pantless Duo). My meeting schedule? We start at 5 am most days and go until the sun sets (which in Alaska means…never).
Pasta party!
So, what gives, eh? I had an amazing job. I had reached the salary goal I’d made for myself when I first started remote work. And… I was miserable.
Neither of us were impressed with our new setup.
In November, I went back to work, and oh what a journey it was. I had an incredibly warm welcome from co-workers old and new (the company had more than doubled since I’d left in May). My position and schedule had changed a bit as the company itself had morphed so the return was a bit of a rough landing (especially since I’d jumped in at full speed. Hello, 40+ hours/week!). Yet after a few months, my team found our stride. We did, but me? Stella never quite got her groove back. In the split between old and new selves that is motherhood, my heart was with the new. I never saw it coming. I always “knew” I’d want to go back to work shortly after having a babe. Turns out, it’s hard to know what you’d do until faced with the situation.
While I love working and the sense of pride I get from a job well done, working from home with my infant just a few feet away was torture. I’d be in meetings, trying my best to conjure up from my sleep deprived vocabulary bank the verbal athletics that is acronym-filled corporate speak when I’d hear a wail break through my noise-canceling headphones. Despite knowing in my head that he was in the care of his father’s highly capable hands, my body felt otherwise. Nausea would set in, my heart would start beating rapidly and I’d lose my breath. Panic. My body would rebel against my attempts to stay present in whatever meeting I was in, whatever it was that was keeping me from my babe. The effects would last for hours.
Still, I had a job to do. I had to find a way around it. I’d escape to coffee shops and eventually found a co-working space.
Not a bad view, eh?
I’d navigate my meeting schedule to find a pocket of time and load up my computer and cords, pack my lunch + snacks (+ more snacks), my pump and bottles, and myself into our shared vehicle, and off I’d go. Then I’d get there, work an hour or so until it would be time to pump. I’d find some corner or bathroom to keep my supply up and my breasts from bursting, store the milk, wash and dry the bottles, and then it would be back to meetings until I needed to do it all over again.
Pumping: everyone’s favorite
It was tiring and inconvenient and felt like a lot of runaround for little gain but the little gain it gave, we needed. It was my turn to be the breadwinner after a 5-month stint at home with Ollie. I tried to suck it up.
Come January. it was time to start looking for a nanny for the summer in Alaska. I had a few good leads that all sizzled out right around the time that I mentioned “off-grid living” and “outhouse”. Others could commit to helping but not a full-time predictable schedule. My meetings were already mapped out, my days already booked. I had a team that counted on me to at least be as present as a new parent can be. I needed someone 40-50 consistent hours per week.
It wasn’t looking good.
By late February, things were getting serious. In Alaska, we have to start planning for the summer by late winter and here the season was, reaching her end and a nanny felt completely out of reach. The Chief would be back at work in April and we couldn’t both work without help. Originally, I had planned to work from home with Ollie but once he was with us in the flesh, the idea became laughable (I know some people do it but I honestly don’t know how). He was far past the Potted Plant phase, as my girlfriend dubbed it where I could place him somewhere and get a few things done. He was more at the Hell on Wheels phase (aka if you’re not running, you’re not going to keep up). It was on and boy was I feeling off. I kept trying to find a way to make it work but it felt like I was swimming against the current. Luckily, I had a perfect attitude the whole time and was an absolute joy to be around.
Or maybe it was more like this sunset: 50% sunny, 50% grey
One morning, tears stuck in my throat, I called my Mom at 5am and at with first syllables of her “Hi honey, what’s wrong” (Mamas know) the tears came flooding out. “I can’t do this anymore”. “I know”, she replied. And then we began to brainstorm. We came up with endless scenarios some of which were damn creative but in the end, I knew the answer: I had to quit.
The Chief agreed wholeheartedly. While he loved being a stay-at-home Dad, he was ready to go back to work. I, on the other hand, longed to be back with my babe. It just made sense. No more pumping, no more panic-packed meetings. No more feeling like I couldn’t fully be at work or with Ollie because they were both constantly competing for my attention. No more choosing between the two. And no more wandering down childcare dead-ends only to panic further. Heck, even if we had found someone, no more packing and unpacking Ollie and his necessities for the day, coordinating schedules and drop-offs and pick-ups. No finding random corners to pump in to keep up supply. Not yet, at least. For now, I get to be home and boy do I know how lucky that is. Will it mean cutting back? Oh yes, ma’am! Trimming the fat was essential immediately and meant everything from canceling Netflix to selling half of our property.
I know they say not to make your passion your work but so far, it’s working out just fine. They also say having kids changes you and boy were they right about that. Never did I ever think I’d feel fulfilled to change diapers all day but baby, sign me up! It’s not forever, it’s for now and for now, I am over the moon to get to watch this little person blossom.
First flower spotting of the year! Anenome beauty.
While it was a hard decision to make (and one I felt I constantly had to apologize for or validate as it felt incredibly irresponsible), and an even harder one to deliver (I cried. I always do) to a company who’d been so great to me, I knew I couldn’t be what they needed or what I needed. So I bid adieu to my salary goal, my 401k, stock options (my first ever), healthcare, and stability and as soon as I did, things started falling into place and not just metaphorically. My wrist which had been cocked at a 45-degree angle for 8 months painfully popped back into place in the middle of the night and for the first time in as long, I was pain-free. I could hold my child without wincing, type without my wrists being on fire. I felt my entire being start to relax. On both small and large scales, doors started opening to us. Suddenly, we felt with the current, no longer fighting its force.
On my last day, I was lucky to have not one but two going away parties at work, plus an amazing e-card filled with memories of our time together and some beautiful conversations with colleagues and then, come 5pm, my computer no longer worked. Whether I was finished or not (I was), I was done.
And?
I haven’t looked back since.
Except for at these guys
So, what does looking forward look like?
Currently, life looks a lot like this:
The explorer extraordinaire
Come the fall, I’ll be looking for new opportunities but until then, we have tightened our belts and buckled our seatbelts for a beautiful summer together.
Now excuse me while I go talk to my new co-workers about appropriate workplace behavior.
With love and whole heckuvalotta gratitude,
from Alaska
P.S. To all those who care for, love, or caretake someone or something else, a very happy belated Mother’s Day to you!
P.P.S. How does your family manage it all? What’s your work/childcare/self-care combo that’s working (or not working for you)? Let us know in the comments below!
The time has come to tidy up loose ends and head back to the wintry north.
In some ways, it feels like we arrived yesterday and in some ways it feels as if we’ve been gone for years. So much has happened.
Right before we left…Right before we leave
When we arrived, little Ollie was, as a friend calls it, in “Potted Plant Phase”. Sure, he was rolling back and forth but for the most part he’d stay where I left him, arms and legs waving wildly. Now, it’s a full on race to keep up with my crawling, standing, stair climbing babe. He’s chock-full of change. From erupting teeth to bubbling over with babbling, he’s changing right before our eyes.
The other day, I was listing all the boats he’s been on:
A cruise to the Columbia Glacier in Valdez
A boat trip across the lake at home
A glass bottom boat in Hawaii…
Cousin Zoey!
This kid has run the gamut, from ice cold ocean to salmon filled lakes to warm seas. In such a small time, we’ve been so many places, met so many faces, learned so much. Change with a babe is constant but adding external change makes the ride even wilder. I did a little more tallying:
Since right before Ollie was born we’ve moved from:
Home to Anchorage
Anchorage to Anchorage (three days before the little dude arrived)
Anchorage to home
Home to Hawaii
Hawaii to Hawaii (we moved out of our family’s house this last week while they had friends visiting and we get to stay with Grandma and Grandpa who are also visiting)
How cute is this trio?!
Next up: Hawaii to Hawaii (back to our family’s house for the last week here) and then?
Hawaii to Anchorage
Anchorage to McCarthy (quick trip for The Chief to fix up the cabin)
Anchorage to Fairbanks (work trip for The Chief)
Anchorage to Anchorage (moving from housesitting to another friend’s home)
Anchorage to McCarthy for the summer
And finally…
Anchorage for school in the fall and beyond!
Phew! I’m a little tired just thinking about it and simultaneously ready to get this show on the road. Change, here we come. Time to go.
I never in my life thought I’d be ready to leave Hawaii but I am. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ll miss the heck out of the ease and the breeze as I wrestle my babe into winter clothes for even the smallest endeavor outdoors but Alaska for me right now signals a slow down (at least in the fall) and I am here for it. Because, while I wouldn’t change a thing, I definitely wouldn’t recommend moving umpteen times with a tot. It’s…well, it’s a lot.
Have box, will travel.
And, it’s exactly what we needed to do to figure out exactly where we need to be.
Alaska.
Who’dathunk it?
It surprised me too, bud.
When we arrived four months ago, I didn’t even want to talk about Alaska. I needed a break. Now, four months later, we are coming full circle. Because while I’m sad to leave, I’m more excited to greet community, continuity and (eventually) calm.
Am I worried about the weather?
Yep.
Ready for the cold?
Maybe.
Excited for what comes next?
Definitely.
Alaska.
With love,
From Hawaii
Where epic sunsets greet you on your way out of the grocery store
‘Twas a whirlwind weekend indeed, preceded by a whirlwind week. And that week? Two weeks ago.
What?!
I told you, whirlwind.
Last Monday as I sat down to write, I got about three sentences in before the sleepy wave hit. I guess that’s what getting home at 1 am will do to you. Let me explain: The week had gone like this:
The Chief, partner in crime that he is, agreed to me practicing with my band not once, not twice, but three times in a row for our upcoming gig (which he also agreed to. I told you, partner in crime). This schedule promised late nights followed by his ever-early mornings for work. It was a price we were both willing to pay to help me do something that made me feel like…me. Ollie, trooper that he is, rolled right along with it, taking the milk I’d pump throughout the day (and on the way to practice. Never anticipated that one!) from a bottle from his Pops. Everyone was run a little thin but we all got through it together.
The cuteness certainly makes any hard much easier…
Then came the weekend. With our upcoming departure to Hawaii (we haven’t talk about that yet, have we? More to come…) looming overhead, every spare moment has been set to getting ready to leave AND with the work of living in the woods, spare moments can be hard to come by. So, we spent Friday prepping for HI and prepping for the gig. It’s amazing what you need to pack for a single night away with a kiddo and we aren’t exactly the lightest packers to begin with. Into the bag umpteen changes of clothes, diapers, pump and pajamas went and by the next morning we were off!
The gig was at 5 pm, we were set to play around 7 so I tacked on an hour to adjust for well, life. By 9 pm, Ollie perfectly content in a pack on my front, we started to wonder when the curtain would call. By 10 pm, our time had come and so had bedtime (well, bedtime #2. Ollie had been snoozing since 8).
Little bear bundle
He wouldn’t get to see me go on but he’d be cozy in bed waiting for me with his Dad. We played for almost two hours to an amazing crowd and were joined by some of the finest musicians I’ve ever had the honor to play with.
Howdy, bandmates!
My cup was overflowing. Riding on the high of the stage, I walked home, solo for the first time since May and enjoyed the moment of solitude in the soggy streets. Ten minutes, a midnight snack and an unrushed nighttime teethbrushing/facewashing routine later and I was in a whole other moment, one of cozy calm with my three favorite boys. I walked into the room to see The Chief asleep, bottle still in his hand, and a sleeping Ollie, feet propped up on his Pops. Leto greeted me as I entered, letting me know that all of our precious cargo was safe.
What a day.
The next morning was a little bit of mayhem followed by a lot a bit of magic. After shuffling to find a dog sitter and rushing back just in the nick of time, we made it onto…
The boat!
What?!
Yep. In addition to putting us up and feeding us, the gig had also hooked us up with a cruise out to the Columbia Glacier. It was amazing and a day of many firsts for Ollie:
First boat ride First whale, bear, otter, seal, and bald eagle sightings First family trip
Columbia Glacier!
We returned to port 7 hours later and left to collect our Leto. We arrived to the caretaker playing Leto the Boz Scaggs song “Lido Shuffle” to try to soothe him. Apparently he cried most of the day. We like to stick together, this fam. So, we all piled into the car in search of sustenance before our 5 hour drive home. On a Sunday. At 7 pm.
If the week leading up to the gig had been a push this was the final haul. The food took what felt like forever and by 8 pm we were on our way, just in time for the rain to set in. A few tears (I’m not crying, you’re crying) and 5 hours later, we were finally home. What a week. A whirlwind week of firsts.
Cheers to many more, though with shorter commutes would be ideal.
With love,
from Alaska
Our second boat ride one week later!
P.S. Do you have Hawaii connections?! We are headed to the Big Island (on the Kona side) and will be looking for work and community. If you have any leads, please let us know.
P.P.S Did you have any firsts this week? Lets hear about them in the comments below!
Last night I awoke from a dream with a startle. Tomorrow was Monday. Monday was the beginning of the workweek. Did I have any meetings I had forgotten to prep for? Did I have any first thing To-Dos I needed to prioritize?
I didn’t and I don’t because, for the first time since I started working, I haven’t been to work in weeks. Any meetings I used to attend will be held without me and any To-Dos will get done in the fall when I return. So why the worry?
Worry? Why?
Perhaps because today is our babe’s “due date”. The start of the biggest project we’ve ever endeavored upon and certainly the wildest adventure and the countdown clock has now rung out. “Today is the day”, it announces.
Yet so far, today isn’t the day. In the last two weeks, however, there have been a few days that certainly felt as if they might be. The first week The Chief was gone, I was awoken multiple nights by strong contractions and back pain. “Oh, please not yet. Unless you need to” I thought to myself as I breathed through the discomfort and started to calculate if and when to call The Chief, and then…nothing.
The ostrich move.
A few days and a few false starts later, The Chief was back home with us, and we visited our midwives. Things were looking good. It could be any minute now…
Gotta get the new Workin’ Moms in first…
Near the end of the week, things started to really get moving, enough to start looking at a clock and timing the party my uterus was throwing. It was also our moving day. As I looked around at the bags packed and to be packed, the many things to be moved I whispered “Not today, unless you need to” to our little bean. Another contraction. I busied myself with the moving shuffle and by the end of the day, things had slowed down again.
Yesterday, we settled in, nestling into our newest and thankfully last nest until we return home.
Leto, wedges himself next to the baby seat, despite a totally open backseat for him to enjoy. Protective already.
Some sweet friends delivered us dinner (you are the best!) and we paused to enjoy the wonderfully Alaskan meal of salmon and salad goodness.
Yummmmmmmm!
It was amazing and so nourishing after days of half-hearted meals made out of necessity rather than excitement. My belly has been up and down and all around and I’ve pretty much subsisted on a fussy toddler diet of beans and cheese and rice which hasn’t exactly been inspiring for someone who loves food as much as I do. We decided to call it quits on settling in for the night and settled on a movie and…the contractions started again.
Yet here we are this morning, babe still in belly and…I’m OK with that. I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve gotten from different weekly subscriptions with the general sentiment of “Is this over yet???”. Sure, I’ll agree that the last few weeks are uncomfortable (hello flattened feet! Hello nausea and cramping and sleepy but sometimes sleepless nights) but as of now, I’m still happy to be the host (and to fully unpack) and to take our last waddles around the lake as a family of three, anticipating becoming a family of four.
This must be the place…
Only time will tell just what day and what time our little one will arrive. Until then, I’ll be here, watching for signs, checking in on times, and riding the wave.
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.
Home base by the Bay
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…
Now…we are 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.
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
Our house grew…
And so did our kiddo…
And so did I…
We hit some milestones: 7 years of storage, coming to a close!
And some timeline milestones…
And some house milestones…
Some things changed (Hello, haircut!)
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.
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?
Like…shower outside in the snow?
Or grow this from seed?
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?
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.
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.
Professional chiller
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.
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.
Like getting this email to mark 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.
Beneath the Borealis 