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Siblings

Candles spell out the traditional English birt...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two of my three siblings have birthdays this month. For three days they are the same age, and yes, they are getting older. 😉
I miss them. My “little” brother isn’t so little anymore. And my Seester, well, she is missing from me. I long for the day she can come up here to visit. I so much want to share this land I love with her and the rest of my family.

I wanted to make sure that they both know that I’m thinking of them on their special days. 🙂 So here’s to you Bryan Jopuss and Cletus, Happy Birthday and I love you bunches!!

The Fab Four

The Fab Four

Weeding the Garden

 

Note: I wrote this back in early August and am just now getting around to posting it. Granted, gardening season is over here, and is close to an end in other places, but read on. 🙂

One of life’s little lessons.

When we were out weeding the garden before Dad’s memorial, I was reminded of how important it is to weed our gardens daily. Not only our vegetable gardens but our life gardens. Weeds are those things that spring up and choke out the good plants. Good plants can be relationships, habits, thoughts… Weeds can be taking others for granted, ignoring needs of those you love, being self-centered and/or thoughtless. Or simply inattentive. Letting those weeds grow can be disastrous. At first they seem harmless, just a little sprout with a couple of leaves, when you think to yourself “I’ll worry about those tomorrow”. Then tomorrow and the next day, and the next pass, and then you have a weed that’s larger than your plant. Soon the weed is rooted around your plant and choking the life out of it. By then, if you pull the weed, you’ll also pull up your plant. Either way, your plant suffers, or perhaps even dies.

It’s just like cleaning the house. If you don’t do it daily, it piles up on you and then you can’t seem to dig out of the mess! Or the laundry, every mother knows how fast Mount Washmore can spring up! It’s better to do a little every day instead of trying to do a lot all at once!

Remember to weed your garden today.

Tell that special someone how important they are to you.

Hug your kids.

Kiss your mother.

Call a friend.

Termination Dust

TD is on its way, when will it get here?
Wait, what is TD?

Simply, TD is snow. The one true harbinger that summer has been terminated. Hence the name Termination Dust.

We’ve had snow north of us, last week parts of Anchorage got 9 (yes NINE) inches of snow! But it was mostly gone as quickly as it came down. No snow here yet, although we had some pretty cold temps for this time of year (in my estimation, but no records set). Right now we are experiencing a general warm-up. Highs in the low 50s and lows in the upper 30s to low 40s. But this is supposed to be the last of the nice weather… three days of partly sunny, slightly warm days and then, BAM! Highs in the 30s. Dig out the winter gear folks!

Anyone want to guess when our first official snowfall will be??

Some Days

There are days when I’m just full of words. Words that I want to write or type out to share.

Then there are days when I can’t seem to find enough words to type out one simple message.

I seem to have more of those days than the other. I guess it’s because I have more to do now with home-school and the new job. Other days it is just because I don’t take the time to jot down what’s going on. And believe you me, if I don’t, then it’s gone the next day! 😉

Some days the words I want to write wouldn’t be appropriate for publishing…

 

Happy Birthday Dad!

 

 

Today is my Father’s birthday.

 

We will celebrate his life and remember him today.

 

We miss you!

DSCN0014

 

Birthday Boy

We will soon be celebrating Thing 2’s birthday. He’s my little Peridot! I was sure that he would be born later in the month, closer to Dad’s birthday (must have been wishful thinking) but he surprised me, at Wal-Mart.

I woke up that Friday morning feeling “different” but not sure about it being labor. I decided that just in case it was, I needed to go to Wal-Mart and get some supplies for my home birth that I still hadn’t got (remember I thought I had a couple more weeks). So I’m walking around Wally World pushing my little cart and the contractions started to come on good and strong. I’d stop and let them pass then shop on. Wouldn’t you know I ran into just about every person possible who wanted to stop and chat with me. The last one, a very chatty old friend, I finally had to say “I need to go, I’m in labor”. The look on her face was priceless. She wondered if I needed an ambulance! Ha!!

So I made it home in plenty of time, my Mom came up and did my belly cast (talk about last-minute!), Tana (my doula) arrived we got everything ready, the midwife showed up and he was born around supper time on his Grandma M’s birthday instead.

The Little Pirate and his ship at Dad's Cabin.

The Little Pirate and his ship at Dad’s Cabin.

Happy Birthday Lil’ CNW.!

The Birthday Boy and his cake.

The Birthday Boy and his cake that his sister made for him!

Blowing out the candles!

Blowing out the candles!

His new bike and helmet!

His new bike and helmet!

Maintenance

The Garden

The Garden

We went to the cabin on Saturday (7/20) to start preparing for Dad’s memorial and the family’s visit. Scott had been out and mowed around the cabin, down the drive, making it easier for us to get in. Dean spent the next couple of days mowing and weed-eating the rest of the yard, around the back of the garden/greenhouse and behind the cabin. I cut down the overgrown comfrey that was so large it branched out over the walk-way to the cabin. It’s in bloom now and the bees were really working! You could hear a constant buzz of them working the comfrey and chives. The kids started weeding in the garden. We got the new plants and the strawberries weeded. The seeds that the kids had planted last month were producing some really nice radishes. We harvested quite a few of those and ate them! We also had some more rhubarb out of the garden.

I spent a lot of time looking around at what needs to be done. Before winter sets in, we need to wire brush and sand the exterior logs and put a sealer on them. Some of the logs are starting to dry out too much and if they aren’t sealed soon, we could be looking at dry rot and that would be a disaster.

Since I wasn’t able to live out there this summer, and do the work that I had hoped to do, all of those chores are still in need of being done: finishing the outhouse, tearing the old porch off and building a deck on the front of the cabin. Caring for the garden, harvesting and putting up the produce, making rhubarb wine. Hopefully the weekends will stay open for me to be able to go out more frequently and get some of that work done. Dad’s friends are so good to plant/weed/work the garden and help keep the place looking “lived in”, I can’t express my gratitude sufficiently. Good people, that’s what they are. It is a lot of work.

Brandi’s Alaska Tequila Lime Fajitas

1 pound chicken breasts

½ cup tequila

½ bunch cilantro, leaves only

juice of two limes

salt and pepper

Place all into a zip-lock bag or bowl to marinate for 4-6 hours or overnight.

2 bell peppers, green or colors are nice, sliced

1 sweet onion, sliced

2-3 Roma tomatoes, sliced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and Julienne *can omit

Oil for sauteing

½ cup tequila

juice of 1 lime.

2 Tbsp chopped cilantro

Heat your pan over med-high heat.

Drain the marinade from your chicken, discarding, then slice your chicken breast if you haven’t already done so.
Add oil and chicken and stir-fry until your chicken until almost done, pour in the additional tequila and lime juice then add your veggies (and jalapeno pepper if desired) and finishing cooking until crisp-tender.

Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Serve with warmed corn or flour tortillas, rice, beans, pico de gallo and salsa verde!

Muy bueno!

Alaska Facts

A photograph of Mount McKinley from the Stony ...

A photograph of Mount McKinley from the Stony Dome lookout point in Denali National Park.     (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

State Tree: Sitka Spruce

Fish: King Salmon

Gem: Jade

Mineral: Gold

Bird: Willow Ptarmigan

Flower: Forget-Me-Not

Motto: North to the Future

Alaska was admitted to the union on
January 3, 1959.

Land Area: 586,412 square miles,
equivalent to 1/5 the size of the continental United States (AKA:
lower 48 or “outside”) and is way bigger than Texas.

Highest peak in North America: Mount McKinley (AKA: Denali) 20,320
feet in elevation.
Kenai, where we live, is one of the oldest
permanent settlements in Alaska, dating back to 1792. You can find
jade on the beaches along with agate and jasper, and some say the
occasional piece of gold. We have significant Russian and Native
cultural influences here in our local area.

Three Things

 

A little info about me. There are three things that I hate. Yes, hate.
#1 Being lied to.
#2 Being misrepresented (which is a form of lie, but where I’m not there to correct the misrepresentation).
#3 Being unfairly judged.
I hate them. And I suppose that no one else finds them too tolerable either. Guess this is where that Golden Rule comes in, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Don’t bear false witness against or about me if you want to keep my respect. Don’t judge me based on someone else’s actions or without asking me about the situation.
I am not my Mother, not my Father, not my Brother-Sister-Anyone.

 

I am myself.

 

Influenced by genetics, my life experiences, my Faith walk, and the people in my life, yes all of that, but I am my own person. Judge me by my own actions if you must, just remember that the same measure you judge me by, you will also be judged.