Anything I can do, I can do better...

Thanks to my Mother I was gifted with an artistic passion and some very limited skills. She’s also one of the thriftiest women I have ever known. So when you combine those two gifts/curses I often find myself looking at an item that I like and thinking, “Um, that is nice, but I could make that for half the price.”

So when I found a children’s boutique shop that had very cute T-shirts appliquéd with unique animals for sale for $28… I thought “I can do that and I can make the animals better and I can do it for mush less then $28”

You are going to have to trust me that I was right on all accounts.

However, I probably should have been more careful about my placement. I had my heart broken as I put Ryvre’s new shirt on her and found out that I had sewed the crab on the back of the shirt. Chadd was sweet enough to tell me that he liked it that way and he thinks it looks better there then it would on the front.

However, I am doing a turtle next and it will go on the front of the shirt.

Like me, I think my house looks best in white

Even though it was only 8 degrees today, Ryvre went outside to move snow with Dad.

She also made a point to shake the snow off the trees, that she could reach. It was utterly hilarious when the trees dumped their entire payload on her, time after time, and she couldn't figure it out.

Bunco and Birthdays

Don’t be surprised if you don’t know what Bunco is. If you’re a man or a woman who is under 50, you probably have never played. I was lucky enough to get invited to a game this weekend with my sister Rachel.

It starts with about a dozen women driving out to a very secluded hideaway off the main traffic route. Each woman brings $15 dollars and one or two bottles of wine. We then start throwing dice. You can read all the instructions if you want, but the game is basically throwing 3 dice trying to get one predetermined number. Rachel taught me early, that the trick is to throw one dice at a time then use the other two dice to knock the first one. That way you actually roll multiple times on the same dice.

Needless to say once you start the dice and wine go quickly and the night was a blur of fun. It was also great that Rachel walked away the big winner with $100 in gift cards and I doubled my money. I don’t think they will ask us back as substitutes any time soon.

It was also K’s Birthday. Happy Birthday Princess!

Better late then never

I know it has been a long time between posts and I could give you a long list of reasons why, but I am not going to waste your time or mine. I will just catch you up on what is going on now.

Well, winter is officially here. The sun rises at about 9:45 am and sets about 3:45pm. I try to remember to look outside sometime around noon so I don’t feel like I miss the whole day.

My favorite radio station started playing Christmas music Nov 1st and I love it. I skip Thanksgiving decorations and went right for the Christmas ones. This was easy since we aren’t even going to be here for Thanksgiving. I haven’t, however, started my Christmas shopping. I usually, at least, have my list of ideas created by now. You can just add that to the list of many things that I am behind in getting done.

Ryvre and I did start making Christmas cookies today. We are hosting the Andresen Christmas at our house this year and I wanted to get a few cookies in the freezer and try out a new recipe. The cookies didn’t turn out like I would hope. They are eatable, but not beautiful. I am going to blame Ryvre. She is good at counting, but not so good at measuring and she refuses to follow the directions, written or verbal.

Happy Birthday Chadd!!!

There in no better place on earth then Port Lions in September. Chadd and I seem to be very lucky with the weather when we travel back to Port Lions Lodge and this last weekend was no exception. The fishing wasn’t great, but it was good enough to bring a little salmon home to our freezer and that’s all I really wanted and Chadd got to go fishing and that’s all he ever wants.
After stricking a barging to only be out on the water for 3 hours and 15 minutes, Missy and I agreed to go fishing with Dad and Chadd on Saturday morning. We did a lot of fishing, a little bitching and no catching. Dad dropping Missy and I off at the dock and went back out with Chadd for the rest of the afternoon, where they were successful. Dad had the quote of the weekend later that night. Addressing Missy and I, he said, “It was great fishing and with and without you today”

We also stopped by Lara’s house, in Kodiak, on the way back to Anchorage on Sunday. Ryvre, Coral Ann and Tyson all got to play at the park together for about an hour. We got home about 4 and we were all in bed by 8pm. That is the sign of a great weekend.

PFD

• To most engineering this means Process Flow Diagram
• To most life guards and boat owners this means Personal Floatation Device
• To most military people this means Present for Duty
• For every Alaskan this means Permanent Fund Dividend or as we used to call it as kids, Permanent Fun Dividend
• For Anchorage this means chaos
  
  On September 12th automatic deposited of about $3,200 were made into every Alaskan bank account. Simultaneously businesses throughout Anchorage are running their yearly PFD sales. The pandemonium ensues when you mix crazy sales with crazy people and add crazy amounts of money is horrific (and expected to last about two weeks.) It is smart to stay in doors during this festival of cardinal shopping, especially if you are one of the few that did not qualify for the PFD this year.
  
  Let me put this in perspective. I have been down town Chicago the day after thanksgiving (you know the biggest shopping day of the year) and it freaked me out. I asked to be taken home, the crowds where too lager that the people too obsessed. However, Chicago does not hold a candle to what happened last weekend in Anchorage. The news reported that traffic accident increase by about 300% and most ATM are out of money. This makes you wonder what people are buying with $3200 dollars that they have to use cash for.
  
  This year is an especially high PDF year due to the $1200 energy relief money that is included in the check. The money is intended to offset the cost of extremely high energy bills. This does not explain why the eye of the PFD storm was/is Best Buy.
  
  I have already marked my calendar for next year and I plan to do all my shopping a few days before and not leave the house, unnecessarily, until the storm clears.
  

That thing should be on a leash

The weekend before last, Ryvre and I joined Aunt Rachel and her girls K and E, at the Alaska State Fair. Chadd chose to go golfing instead; a choose that proved to be wise beyond his years.

I have every other Friday off, but instead of using my off Friday for the Fair I decided to take care of home business and go to the ASF on Saturday, besides the weather was supposed to be so much better on Saturday. Strangely enough this was also the same idea that everyone and there dog had.

The day of the Fair was 68 degrees. Note from pervious post that this happens to be one of the most beautiful days Anchorage and the Valley had all summer. Once I entire the park I quickly regretted not listening to Rachel and coming out the day before. I really don’t think the ASF was set up to handle that number of people.

K was really the only child that was old enough to enjoy the rides and exhibits so we proceeded to the petting zoo and pony rides and once we got there we lost K in a sea of people. She was only lost for 2 minutes (at the most), but Rachel I and both thought the same thing. SOMEONE TOOK HER! Thanks God we were incorrect. Turns out that she wonder left when we wondered right and with in a few seconds we could no long see each other.

This brings up the dispute of leashes for your children. Up until this insistent I was vocally apposed to leashes on kids. I thought that the “one partner two hands” theory was the best way to go; one hand to hold the child and one hand to smack them in the back of the head when they failed to follow closely. It seemed to work for my parents and they had 5 children.

On this particular day we had two parents and three children we should have been able to handle the chaos. Now just because we are unable to supervise adequately, is that cause to submit and child to the humiliation of a leash…

Yes. In certain situation a leash is not only a “nice to have” it’s the “right tool for the job”.

When the parents are unable to properly supervise the children and/or when the environment makes it impossible to get a children attention. I think a leash is necessary and I also think the ASF should have them to rent on these very busy days.

I have learned a few very valuables lessons.

1. Always go to the fair on a weekday
2. Never assume that a mother’s voice and a stern word can compete with a pony for a child’s attention

K learned quickly to stay close and really enjoyed the rest of the day. E never even attempted to leave the security of the little red wagon. Ryvre thought, as usual, that she was an adult and could go any where and do anything she wanted. Luck for me she was a little frightened of the crowd and chose to stay close, but right, wrong or indifferent, if I would have had a leash she would have been on it.