Done!

Why, you might be asking, doesn't she write, anymore? Doesn't she love us? Doesn't she care? Has the passion that fueled earlier letters died in the lingering cold of winter?

NO! Fear not! I yet write!

Sort of.

I have been doing all kinds of fun, rewarding and wonderful things, like work, cleaning out our home office, attending Jack's pinewood derby, deciding we need a travel trailer, etc. The following posting includes pictoral of moments of the past week or so of my life, about which I am mostly pleased.

Life is so weird. I've been dreaming about re-vamping my office for weeks and weeks, but last weekend pushed me over the edge into a manic kind of rearranging/organizing frenzy. Two events help to push me: our neighbor/friends' garage sale on Saturday and our decision to buy a travel trailer at some point in the imminent future.

Okay.

Saturday was one of those momentous turning points in our lives. Jack was competing in the Cub Scouts pinewood derby that morning, so I was instructed by Bruce to be at Rabbit Creek Elementary at precisely 11 am for the festivities.

Prior to our leaving, however, I noticed our wonderful neighbors, Sarah and Andrew, were having a garage sale. Sarah and Andrew, about whom I could say a lot, but won't, had just sold their house on the corner, and had last weekend to empty the house of every last possession. Naturally I wanted to profit from their relocation to distant Dillingham, Alaska, so I made Sabrina, Ellie, and Evan come with me to the garage sale where at I purchased many things, including a desk for our home office.

Prior to now, our computer desk has been an old dining room table with the leaf in - way too big for its intended purpose, and a magnet for dusk and detritus. I was excited, because for a long time, I had been dreaming about cleaning out our office, which truly, is the junkiest room of our beautiful home. I fantasized about it being a cozy santuary. The first step in the process was to get a new computer desk. While I had intentions of a "armoire" type deal with doors that would close upon the chaos, I couldn't pass up Andrew's old office desk. It is smallish, but more than adequate and very nice-looking.

Later, being the submissive wife that I am, we [Ellie, Evan, Sabrina, and I] arrived at Rabbit Creek Elementary at precisely at 11am for the pinewood derby race. I was delighted to see friend/neighbor/fellowchurchmember Mary at the race with her husband and two sons. We chatted, and, even though I was wearing glasses, I was happy.

(Me on the left with Sabrina and Ellie; Mary is on the far right trying to get her camera to work. Note the cast on her leg - poor Mary.)

A little while later, Tara showed up. Tara is mother to Sean and Chris - both friends of Jack - and is/was Jack's first grade teacher. She is the one who suggested I bop Jack up to 2nd grade this year. For some reason, she really seems to think highly of Jack. Not for that reason, but just because of who she is, I think highly of Tara.

Anyway, I happened to ask Tara what she and her family were planning on doing this summer. She mentioned their travel trailer and pretty much being out of Anchorage for the whole summer. She raved about how wonderful trailer life is, and I started to get that weird, yearning feeling I sometimes get that preceeds all kinds of problems.

(A pivotal moment in my life: talking to Tara, and realizing we NEED to get a a travel trailer so that my family and Tara's can party together during the summer. To her side, 2nd grader son, Chris, who is in Jack's class.)

Fast forward to lunch at McDonalds to celebrate Jack getting 2nd place in the derby, and to avoid my having to make lunch:

(The "cubbies": I don't know any of their names, except Jack is second from the right, and Zachary, Mary's oldest son, is second from the left.)

My words to Bruce at McDonalds: "I've had an epiphany."

The typical response to my making this statement is for Bruce to refer to horse-excrement, and sit heavily in the nearest available chair.

I explained to him, in what I felt was extremely reasonable logic, that instead of selling our Ford Exlorer as we had been planning, we should keep it, throw caution and sense to the wind, and buy a travel trailer instead, so that we could experience the real Alaskan lifestyle.

Bruce was very quiet as he munched thoughtfully on his french fries.

Suffice it to say, by the end of the day we had: been all over town "kicking" travel trailers with absolutely no success; visited various car lots looking for SUV's with more "wheaties" than our Explorer; and determined we were pretty much going to have to sell not only the Explorer but also our Subaru Outback in order to get a car capable of pulling a trailer.

So, that was Saturday.

Sunday, immediately after church, Bruce cruised through town test-driving SUVs. By the end of Sunday we had determined: we should sell the Subaru privately due to high demand, better profit, etc; it will be a miracle if we can find a travel trailer to suit our needs in Anchorage - we may need to go out of state to find one; crazy though this tangent seems, this is definitely the right direction to go in.

So, while Bruce was out test-driving, I was home pacing (as if waiting for a baby to be born). I decided right then and there to redo the office: post haste.

The new desk was in the garage (Bruce didn't feel able to bring it inside the house because he'd thrown out his back.) So, with the help of Jack's skateboard and 9-year-old Charley, from two-doors-down, I managed to scrape and heave the desk into the house.

I worked solidly on Sunday with rearranging furniture. Monday I went through cabinets and drawers, tossing the superfluous and saving the necessary. Today (Wednesday), I caught up on two years of filing, and tossed or archived many years of unnecessary documents. (Now we need to buy a shredder.)

The following are pictures of the "after" of the office. If you've never seen the "before" before, then it won't mean much. But I know my Mommy will be proud.

(This corner used to have a kitchen table that was piled with papers. That table is now in Jack and Sabrina's bedroom. )



(This credenza/base cabinet used to be covered with books, cds, and other miscellaneous crap. Much less cluttered-looking now.



(Here is our new desk - note the apple-tini to the immediate left of the keyboard [thanks Kaylin!]. Note the orca painting by Grandma Pat.)

(The living room, now that the arm chair is in the office. Very cozy. Please, come have coffee with me!)

And now I'm done. The office looks great. I have yet to curl in my armchair and rest my feet on the ottoman while sipping coffee and working my way through "Don Quixote", but it will come - maybe even as soon as tomorrow.


(Me, reading [still] "Don Quixote", and trying to avoid having my picture taken. Shot taken before re-model of office - otherwise I would have been snapped in cozy armchair in office.)

Meanwhile, Bruce and the two older kids are watching "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," and are completely entralled. I, in contrast, am writing this.

As I look out the office window I see fence, bare birch trees, and a progressively thinning swatch of snow. It is only a couple feet wide at the moment. Each day, despite cool temperatures, it shrinks back a bit more. I am ready to feel the sun on my face; to lie almost-naked in the backyard; and maybe even swat a mosquito or two.

Enough. I am done for now. I hope you've enjoyed the pictures.