All I want is...

The past few weeks I've been thinking "all I want is a little house and a baby, and maybe a dog too." Isn't that crazy? This from the lady who stays in the same sity for maybe a year before wanting to move again. I'm also the lady who has never had a long-term job before and is just getting started on this thing they call a "career" and a "life." I still want to travel and have hobbies and stuff, but I think I also want some permanance in the most basic areas of my life. This desire has only been perpetuated by recent things I've read about and seen on TV: House Hunters couple having their first baby and buying a little place in Arlington, VA; blogs about fixing up houses; the Alaska Real Estate website; baby product commercials; ads for puppies needing homes; Jim buying Pam their first house on The Office. You know, the usual stuff. These are all really big decisions and big changes, but honestly they're not that crazy. I don't want a mansion, I just want a little house with a strong foundation and a good roof, and a yard for Leigh's garden. Even if it's hideous, I'm happy to put the effort and love into making it a home. I don't want an expensive pure bred puppy either, just furry little buddy that we can love and play with. As for the baby, well I what can I say? I'll love the little thing no matter if it's a boy or a girl and I have no illusion that this kid will look anything like me. I just want one, eventually, when I have a permanent job so I can, you know, provide food and stuff... Anyway, it's hard to realize that a lot of people my age already have these things nailed down. For some reason it's been a longer journey for me (law school, moving a lot, no possibility of accidental babies) and that's OK, but what's a little less OK is knowing we're not nearly there yet. To have a house in this market we need to save a lot of money for a downpayment, and without a large gift from family it will take us at least 2 years to get there. For us having a baby will be costly too, as well as inconvenient. Since adoption is a $20k+ affair and we don't have a male friend in mind to provide, um, chromosomes, we'll be buying the um, chromosomes, from a bank (about $900 a pop!). Anyway, it's going to be a journey and I just have to learn to be patient and try to keep my jealousy at bay. In the mean time, this gives us a few more years to enjoy our youth before really settling down. I can take solace in that. A trip to Southeast Asia will be easier without a small child, or even without knowing we've left our small child with the grandparents and feeling guilty while eating our 400th bowl of delicious noodles before visiting a 1,000 year old temple in wonderfully hot weather. It will be good to get that trip out of our systems before having to completely alter our travel profiles from "young couple treking the world" to "moms treking the world with kids," which will inevitably require some changes in form and function. Now back to the present: I have one more day at work before my week-long vacation to Oahu, Hawai'i. I can't imagine that anyone has ever been so excited to go to Hawai'i before! This doesnt' meant that Hawai'i isn't great, because it is really, really great, but it means that I am just THAT EXCITED to have the time off, the warm weather, the good food, and the relaxation. I plan to do a lot of nothing: reading, sleeping in, laying on the beach, listening to music, hiking, eating, repeat. Divine.....

Seward's Day

Just a very quick post today: It's Seward's Day, an Alaska holiday having something to do with founding the territory or some such thing. So I have the day off from work, which is great because I had a lot to do. Today I've slept late, packed for Hawai'i and cleaned the apartment. Later I'll cook dinner and maybe run some errands. It's been lovely.

Hello, Brick Wall, Nice to See You Again

I am two weeks away from my much-needed vacation. When I flew to the U.S. in May I went straight to the beach with my family. That was my last vacation. Since then I have driven across the United States, worked my hind end off at the farmer's markets in Seattle, then drove from Washington to Alaska. Upon my arrival in Alaska I immediately started working 9-5, Monday through Friday with my only breaks being bank holidays. I haven't left Anchorage since I arrived, aside from driving to Willow for the day to see the start of the Iditarod Dogsled Race. So it's been almost a YEAR since I really took time to decompress by going "on holiday."

So I guess you could say I need a break. In fact, I need a break so badly that I'm starting to get into a real funk in every aspect of my life. I'm unmotivated and uninterested in my work, the days all run together and I just don't care anymore. My attempts at diet and exercise have gone completely out the window the past few weeks. Initially I skied 3 to 4 times per week and ate "clean" about 80-90% of the time. I felt great, had tons of energy and was seeing results. Since about 3 weeks ago my skiing has dwindled to almost nothing and my eating habits have only been "clean" about 50% of the time. I'm really starting to notice a difference in my overall healthy feeling, how my clothes fit, everything! Plus my skin is pasty and unhealthy looking from being deprived of sunlight since October. It has been lovely and sunny most of the past few weeks, but it's going to take some serious Vitamin D to get back on track.

So yeah, I've hit a brick wall. My week off from work can't come soon enough. My week away from Anchorage will be not only welcome, but needed. A girl needs a change of scenery on a fairly regular basis. Unfortunately I've deprived myself of this far too long for any person to stand, particularly me, being a restless and easily bored person. Oh well, lesson learned: plan a trip at least every 4-6 months with weekend getaways in between to break up the monotony. Next year I will be more mindful of my emotional travel needs: weekend trips, a long Christmas break, then a 7 month deprivation followed by 3 weeks in Southeast Asia... that's more like it!

Soooo Lazy!

I have been the epitome of lazy for the past few days. Last week was on the slow side at work, so I can only mentally list a few professional accomplishments, but at least the days passed quickly. During the weekend I went for a short ski, did a ton of baking and cleaned the apartment with Leigh. That's pretty much it. I've also been eating a lot, which isn't good seeing as I was finally making some progress in that area... and we're going to Hawaii soon!

We also drove out to Chugiak to have a look around and really like it there. We are thinking of moving there sometime in the future. The houses are beautiful and appear to be custom built, a nice change from Anchorage's endless rows of square, brown boxes we call houses. It's about 20-30 minutes drive from dowtown with great views of the mountains and near the Chugach State Park. There are also a few municipal parks with hiking/skiing trails nearby. Overall it seems like a nice, quiet place to live.

But that's all in the future. For now I really need to focus on getting my week going. I have a few projects at work that need my attention and I really need to fit some skiing in this week. Most likely there won't be any skiing to be had after the end of next week. Spring would be a welcome change, but part of me is really afraid that next winter I won't have the slightest clue how to ski and will have to learn all over again! Leigh and I are planning to take weekly classes next Fall to learn the technical skills and how to skate-ski, which will be a lot of fun! We also recently joined a local Nordic Ski Association, which has many perks including discounted use of a cabin in Hope. We're heading out there in September for some late season hiking but maybe we'll go sometime this summer to commune with the bears as well.

The Renter's Blues

Leigh and I have been going back and forth about the most lately is housing. We live in Anchorage, the most populated and most "American" city in Alaska. We have Target, Sears, WalMart, Costco, chain restaurants, two malls, etc. However, we have an extreme lack of decent housing options. Property is extremely expensive here, considering what you get for your money, and it doesn't matter if you rent or buy- you WILL pay more than what the property is worth.

Apartments and small houses in Anchorage run $850-2,500 per month. If you want a duplex unit it will cost you roughly $1,500. These prices are pretty standard regardless of neighborhood or whether the property is updated at all. Let's just say there's a lot of shag carpeting and 15 year old dishwashers out there!

Buying houses in Anchorage is a big deal too. The price for a medium to large house is about $250,000-300,000. You can get a tiny or ramshackle place for about $175,000 if it has a yard. Compare this to the remodeled duplex (each unit had 2 bedrooms and it was one street over from a very popular park) Leigh and I almost bought in Buffalo for $175,000. Repos come pretty cheap, but the bank wants cash only sales for those. Last week I saw a listing for a one bedroom house with a little yard for $141,000. Not bad, right? Well this house has a total of 312 square feet of living space! It's the size of a backyard shed, but at least the interior is beautifully redone. It would make a wonderful playhouse for children.

Leigh and I rent a small apartment in Midtown East. Our neighborhood is pretty sparse and it's only redeeming quality is a nice view of the Chugach mountains from our porch, but a nice view isn't exactly novel in Alaska. We are a block down from a liquor store, a post office, and a really run-down trailer park. How did we find this gem, you ask? Before leaving Seattle we assessed our financial situation to find that we couldn't afford to just show up in town without a place to stay. Hotels in Alaska are too expensive and we had Juneau the Cat with us, so we needed a place to crash land after nearly a week of driving and camping. So we looked online, called around on Craigslist to hear "NO PETS" and be hung up on several time and then finally resorted to the Weidner Group Properties. Now we live in a tiny one bedroom in a massive apartment complex. This is not a deal-breaker in-and-of-itself, but upon arrival we were greeted by 520 quare feet of old, dingy carpet, cabinets and countertops made of the ugliest particle board with lamenant "wood grain" for decoration, and a mere 2 small windows to ventilate the entire apartment. If I lived alone, this would be fine, but I don't. There are two of us and a cat. We need space, or at least a more functional version of the space we have!

Not only is the apartment itself disappointing for the $955/month we pay (this includes a pet fee and most utilities, plus use of the "club house" which is an utter piece of shit that I've never found a reason to use), but the Weidner Group can't be bothered to provide us with certain promised services like SNOW REMOVAL (this is Alaska!). Then this weekend some workers started drilling around the area that normally houses our dumpsters. Eventually they needed to remove the dumpsters, so now we don't have dumpsters and nobody has told us when to expect them back or where to find dumpsters on other parts of the property. Frustrating!!!

The worst part is that this is completely typical in Anchorage. One or two huge companies own all of the more affordable housing that allows pets. They charge what they want and treat tenants as they please with very little backlash. Leigh and I have decided to move at the end of our lease (August 2011), no question. We are preparing to have to pay more for housing to get a place closer to work or at least in a nicer area (near parks/trails) and pay our own electric and heat, but we'll have the same budget next year as this year so we can't go too crazy. Anyway, now that we live here we have more flexibility to look for private landowners, etc. We are hoping we can see what's available at the last minute, so July or so, and extend our current lease month-to-month if we don't find anything by the end of August.

Our wish list includes:
-2 bedrooms (we need some quiet space, plus we want our friends and family to visit!)
- larger kitchen (currently we have a tiny alley style kitchen with old appliances and a bar area that we use as our kitchen table because there's no space for a table and chairs)
- a dishwasher that actually gets the dishes clean
- near downtown, Turnagain, or Kincaid park- basically the West side
- in-unit laundry or at least in the same building (right now we carry our laundry down 3 flights of (icy) stairs and drag it across the parking lot to a separate building, which is often a place that transient people use to stay warm)

That's it! Not too demanding is it? I hope we can find this, or something similar, for roughly $1,000/month with at least some utilities included. Our thought is that we'll continue to rent for another year or so. If we love our next rental we'll keep renting for a while, but if not we'll take a look at our savings and maybe buy a small place here. I posted last week about a cute little log cabin in a decent neighborhood. That's what we'd be looking for: a small, reasonably priced property in a decent neighborhood with a lot of DIY fixer-upper potential. For now, I just want to find an apartment that doesn't make me feel cramped and depressed.

Life Update Twitter Style:

• Decent weekend, but almost completely wasted my Saturday by trying to sleep off the previous week
• Went to Wasilla and Willow on Sunday. Great, sunny weather, fun time seeing the Iditarod start!
• Completely exhausted today, getting a sore throad and persistent headache. I might try to go skiing anyway to get some exercise, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick.
• 4 weeks till Hawai'i. I can't wait! I really need some time off before I forget what that feels like. I also really need some sunshine, good eats, and fun activities.
• I plan to start swimming in about 6 weeks. There's a group here called SWAM, part of the US Master's league. Should be fun. Young Lawyer's softball also starts soon. It'll be great to play summer sports again.
• I really need a nap....

My Domestic Itch

I love real estate. I love real estate TV shows (like House Hunters and House Hunters International), open houses, and looking at online real estate listings. Houses in need of an upgrade are like big puzzles where the solution is how to get the most out of the property. It's fun to imagine ripping out entire rooms to replace the hardware, repaint, put down new floors and then imagine enjoying the space or eventually selling the property at a profit. I also love seeing updated homes that others have successfully brought back to life. It's really one of my favorite things.

Only trouble is that I have no money, so all of my ideas stop at the edge of my imagination. Now that I work full time and am getting my student and personal debts in order, I can make some plans for savings and such, but I'm just getting started so I still feel completely limited. Leigh and I are doing a great job of budgeting ourselves, living within our means, and starting a substantial savings account. If all goes well we should be able to put a down payment on a property within the next 2 to 3 years. Otherwise, if we are happy renting a place (which is far from the case at the moment, but we're moving in the Fall so maybe...), we'll continue building our savings for several years to put toward our dream vacation/retirement/investment property. It's all up in the air right now, and that's fine, but I'd just like to have some options.

What spurred this post? Well, as usual I've been trolling the real estate websites. Partly out of curiosity and partly because a friend of mine has expressed interest in buying a house in the area sometime in the next year or so. I look at places, send her links, or just oggle at the possibilities/cringe at the lack of quality homes in Anchorage. Until last week, when I found this listing. It's an adorable two bedroom log cabin style home in a decent neighborhood. Originally listed for $121,000, now reduced to $108,000.

Leigh and I drove by it yesterday to find that nobody lives here and there's a foreclosure sign on the front door. We snooped around, looked in windows, etc. All-told, the house has 1400 square feet of living space divided between the main floor and the converted attic space. The yard is enormous and contains a small shed and a very large shed (which I'd like to have moved or removed entirely), both look brand new. I wonder if the large shed could be dismantled and sold? The house also has a very small attached garage space, which might find a better use as storage for bikes and skis and such, since it would be a tight squeeze just getting our little Toyota Yaris in there everyday.

The interior looks pretty good, as though someone started updating it and then ran out of money. The bathroom needs to be ripped out and replaced and the hardwood floors in the bedrooms need to be sanded and refinished, but otherwise the main level is perfect.

See how nice the kitchen is? I would have sprung for nicer countertops, but these will do just fine. It also is lacking a dishwasher, but that's a quick, $300 fix. No problem! The interior walls of the livingroom could use some drywall and a nice paint job, again, something I could do myself. The back door leads into a very large mudroom area with w/d hookups.

This is a picture of the attic space, but it hardly does the room justice. Altogether the attic is about 600 square feet. Again, this is bigger than the apartment Leigh and I currently share. From the outside one can see two very large windows providing natural light to this space. Also, some basic flooring has been laid down. All this space needs is some carpet or hardwood and finished walls, perhaps running some wire for electrical outlets in the walls. Initially I imagined this would make a great guest sleeping/"Emily Cave" because I'm always whining I don't have any space for projects and such. Leigh, on the other hand, always manages to take over the common spaces with her OCD version of organizing things. I'm always getting into trouble for not knowing where to put things because, you know, my ability to read minds is so powerful that this is a completely reasonable assumption. Anyway, it would be great to have my own space.

Then I realized this wasn't entirely fair or useful, so I now dream that this space would be a guest sleeping/TV room space. It would also be great for a kids' playroom or generally for flex space, leaving the living area on the main floor for quieter pursuits like reading or working from home. Basically, this would be the perfect little house for a young family who doesn't mind doing some fixer-upper work on weekends. So what's the problem, exactly?

Well, to start the era of $0 down mortgages is long gone, and for good reason. Ironically, if we were to put down just $1,000 on this house and take out $110,000 (to cover the property and closing costs) our monthly payment would be just under $800, which is $200 less than what we pay for our shitty 500 square foot apartment on the other side of town! However, even if we got a mortgage at $0 down to cover the property cost, I doubt we could get any extra money to cover the more costly repairs like the bathroom. Secondly, the neighborhood is fine but not great. I can't help but imagine that we'd buy the place, but $50,000+ into fixing it up and making it perfect only to sell it at a loss or break even because buyers wont' want to pay the appraised value on a small property in that blue collar neighborhood (which also borders a kind of shitty neighborhood).

Another major problem is the long list of caveats in the listing: "for sale as-is" and "the value is in the land" and "distressed property." How distressed? I have no idea. Perhaps the fact that a bank is selling the property is leading to all these warning signs just to cover their asses, but I'm hardly in a financial state to take such a risk at this point. While this investment could be a wonderful adventure with a great financial pay-off in several years, it could also lead to financial ruin for Leigh and I, as it seems to have done with the previous owner.

Basically, we shouldn't be taking any risks like this right now. In two years we'll revisit the idea and it's very likely we'll find a very similar property (albeit for a higher price because this is Alaska and everything is crazy expensive) will fewer "distressing" problems and hopefully in a better neighborhood. If we never find our ideal house to purchase here that's OK too, we'll just buy a place in Mexico!

Now we just have to hurry up and wait.

For the Love of Learning

Today I found this article on the Go ROWE website about using a results-only approach in the classroom. Last year I taught English at a highly competitive international school in France where feedback is offered purely using the French marking system. Students take tests or give oral presentations and are given a mark on a scale of 20. Generally speaking, anything less than an 8 is problematic, but getting a 10 to 15 is really solid work while a 16 through 20 is rare and considered beyond excellent. This is a weird system by American standards, hence my lack of ability to describe it any further than I've done here. My point is that the system is perhaps the exact opposite of a results-only environment. Instead, the teachers are forced to preach at their students for days or weeks, followed by a very stressful preparation period and then finally a big event such as a major exam or presentation in which the students are given a single numerical mark to sum up their efforts for the previous days or weeks.

My students were often stressed out beyond belief and their marks were rarely a true reflection of their efforts and abilities. I'm especially reminded of one of the girls I tutored as a side job. She was 16 years old and very serious and keen. She enjoyed English a great deal, but often had mechanical problems with her written essays. I worked with her every week, gave her extra work for practice and grammar drills. In the end her marks only increased from an all-time low of an 8 to an all-time high of an 11. Her efforts weren't being rewarded partially, I suspect, because her opportunities to produce were being micromanaged by the school's grading system. Had she been in an environment focused on the results of her projects I have no doubt she would have been at the top of her class simply because she was willing to do the work for perfect marks, while her classmates had better grades in spite of doing less work.

As a teaching assistant I had no choice but to conform to this grading system. In fact, I rarely gave grades but sometimes was asked by my supervising teachers for my opinion of what the grades should be. I tended to be harsher on students who took their tasks less seriously or were less prepared and easier on the ones who I could tell really wanted to be successful even if their voices waivered from nervousness. Is this unfair? Maybe so, but it seemed like the best way to work within the strict parameters of the school's grading system. I wanted my dedicated students to have positive feedback for their efforts and the arrogant ones who goofed off to get a wakeup call that they needed to take their work seriously because other people don't like to have their time wasted.

On the other hand, I helped one of the more dedicated and talented teachers at the school put together a play with her French 14 year olds. The play was adapted from a book they'd read and was produced and performed entirely in English. There were sets, costumes, sound effects, the works. It was an incredible amount of work, and the students had to continue producing some written assignments in addition to their acting responsibilities, but in the end we had a beautiful theater production to share with the school and parents. It was one of the proudest times of my life so far. The students were graded for this project, of course, as it took up several weeks of the term. In the end they received a series of marks depending on their "results" for learning and delivering lines, being responsible for their costumes and props, behavoir, etc. Everything was considered and, for the most part, the students received excellent marks because they were so engaged and excited. They also learned an incredible amount about the subject of the play and their spoken English improved remarkably from practicing their lines and working with the four teachers involved with the production solely in English.

My point is that I wish I could go back and create a results-only environment for my students, but I didn't know about this at the time and I don't think it would have been possible because of my assistant status. I'd like to give more points and positive feedback to my most serious students who understood the life benefits of having strong English skills along with the focused and naturally gifted students in my class. Likewise, I'd like to give no points to that kid who always showed up for his current events oral presentation without a newspaper article or anything substantial to say about it. He always offered to tell me a story from his life. Was that the assignment? No! He produced almost no results and shouldn't have been receiving acceptable marks.

What I can do is try to create an environment like this for my own children in the future. I grew up with almost no structure and learned to be responsible the hard way (I knew nobody would be there to catch me if I fell). The "result" was a positive one, likely only by the Grace of God, but I want to be really involved in my kids' lives, so I guess this is a way to teach them responsibility without leaving them to feel as though they're not cared for. I can give them a series of tasks to manage their own lives and only focus on whether they produce results by the given deadline. I won't micromanage when they do the tasks or how they go about it, just that they're done before the deadline and to high standards.

But then again, I'm only 26 and my kids won't be born for another few years, so what do I know? ;-)

My love for wine, baked goods, and Rachel Maddow

Last night I got home in time to catch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. I don't think anyone will be shocked to hear that I love her show, and quite possibly her. She's smart, dorky, adorable and always right. What more could I want in a TV personality? In fact, I'd say that she's a more amazing version of the person I could only ever dream to be if I were smarter and better in every way. What's more, she's tall, like really tall, just the way I like 'em (just ask Leigh, who is also really tall) and oh so professional. So yeah, I love her because I want to be her and she's super cute and just my type.

So last night, mid-show, when my lovely Rachel was being extra awesome and talking about how it sucks for the conservative right if they have a problem with her being gay but basically they can shove it, Leigh turns to me and says: "I would totally have sex with her!" To which I replied, "Me first!"

Well, I'm glad we've established the hierarchical order in which that event will occur. Rachel, my love, you should be especially flattered that my lovely Leigh finds you so enticing because she usually only goes for the short, bossy ones (that would be me!). The fact that she's willing to make an exception for Your Amazingly Tallness is a true testament to your sexy-dorkiness.

As for wine and baked goods, well I just liked adding it into the title of the post. But I've also been enjoying some pinot noir the last few days and a yummy muffin for my breakfast. It's a great start to a Friday (no, I didn't start my day with pinot noir, but I'll likely end it that way) and a lovely weekend of fun with friends and skiing with Leigh.

Thirsty Thursday

No, I'm not going drinking tonight, but I am having a drink with a friend tomorrow to celebrate her finishing the Alaska Bar Exam. Results aren't available for about three months, but getting through the studying and 3 days of testing is a feat unto itself. I'm so proud!

In other news, Anchorage has been particularly sunny and beautiful lately. Leigh and I went skiing after work on Tuesday and it was devine! We'd had a little bit of snowfall late last week, which makes the trails a smidge slower. For us, this is a good thing because we're still learning and really appreciate the extra traction. We've also discovered that using the classical X-C tracks on the righthand side of the trails helps us to enjoy speeding down hills more. It gives the skis more stability and reduces the number of wipe-outs significantly. We're planning to go skiing again this evening and throughout the weekend while we still have snow and this beautiful weather.

The new blog now exists in the Intar-webs, but has no content yet. I need to take some time to do some writing this weekend and organize some photo albums to make slideshows. I've also lined up a few friends to potentially contribute their own entries later on, once the blog has a little bit of writing on it already. I think having others' perspectives and experiences will really help to round the project out. I mean, I've done a lot of traveling but this blog isnt' about me or a glorification of my travels: it's about the traveling community at large and I want everyone to find it enjoyable and useful. Once the blog has a good deal of content I plan to buy a web address, sign up for some advertising, and possibly expand the content to related topics. For now, I just want to focus on producing some well-written entries and useful information. We'll see how this goes!

Call for Travel Writing Entries:

Do you love to travel?
Do you love to write about travel?
Do you fall into any of the following categories?

• Solo traveler
• Female traveler
• LGBT traveler/couple
• Couple with small children
• Adventure seeker
• Culture seeker

If so, I might have a project for you! I'm starting a very small, low-key website focused on international travel writing and sample itineraries for "alternative" travelers. From my experience, the mainstream guides simply do not provide sufficient information for those of us in the above categories (not that they don't try, but just seem to miss the mark in some respects often leaving us with insufficient information). My goal is to create a source of information and creative outlets for us, the writers, and an audience of folks planning an upcoming trip or simply curious about a destination.

For now the website will contain:

• Travel accounts: journal style entries focused on the unique experience of places visited. These should be extremely honest and more about the way the experience affected you long term than about the museums, etc. If your trip was amazing because you met someone interesting in a bar, that should be the focus of the entry. If your trip was horrible because you were ill-prepared, made a bad decision, took the wrong companion or were met with hostility, write about that.
• Itineraries: your actual itinerary with blurbs suggesting or not (list where you slept/ate/visited and if it was worth it) and/or suggested itineraries of what you wish you'd done or wish you'd have had time for.
• Photos: submit your own photos to accompany your writing. You'll be credited for all of the above.

Sorry this doesn't pay a cent, because I'll be paying for the website myself and likely not making any money off it (though I will allow advertising on the site in hopes of making up the cost of web publishing). This is supposed to be fun and informative, not a money maker (though that would be cool too!).
There's no deadline right now, I'm just trying to get a sense of interest in participating. At the moment I'm designing the site slowly and gathering articles. Hopefully I'll have enough to publish soon.
Please email thenovelnomad@gmail.com if you're interested in participating.

Twitter-style Update

• Lovely three-day weekend, finally feeling completely rested.
• Saturday we ran errands, Sunday I did a lot of baking and we saw The King's Speech (excellent, save for the old woman one row down from us and her running commentary!)
• Follow the movie, Leigh and I agreed to only see movies at cheap theaters or at home, that way if someone wants to talk the whole time we won't feel like we've wasted $20!
• Felt very ill on Monday morning, luckily I was in tip-top shape by afternoon for some great skiing at Kincaid!
• Also spent part of Monday designing my new website. I'm keeping it very, very simple for now. Mostly just a home page with a short series of blog-style pages for various destinations.
• Really starting to enjoy living in a wintery place now that I have a wintery sport. Also very much looking forward to summer sports and seemingly endless sunlight.
• Leigh is very excited because her grandmother is coming up on a retiree bus trip and will be stopping through Anchorage for a few days!
• We are happy to announce that it looks like we've found a nice downtown apartment for next year! We'll both be able to walk to work, so no more 20 minute commutes on the highway, as well as our favorite restaurants, walking paths, and bars. I think life is about to get a lot more fun for us!
• Currently planning the following trips:
• Autumn: visit Leigh's sister in Las Vegas and hike The Narrows in Zion Nat'l Park (Utah), also stop by Grand Canyon and do some serious shopping.
• Christmas: Florida to see my brother and his family + Wizarding World of Harry Potter followed by a few days in Virginia
• Summer 2012: three weeks in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam
• Looks like my travel dry spell is about to end. Let the planning/ticket buying begin!!!

Birthdays and Art Projects

Yesterday was my 26th birthday. Not exactly a milestone, but somehow it turned into a bit of a big deal. As I posted previously, I've been receiving gifts every week or so since the end of January. I highly recommend this strategy as it makes the "I am special" experience last a bit longer. Yesterday was particularly fun because I had a massage after work followed by yummy takeout from my favorite gourmet/Asian grocery store and deli and pâté with a glass of pinot noir at home. It was decadent, it was delicious, and it was complete with Leigh bringing me said glass of wine all the way from the kitchen to the couch (a whole 7 feet!) while we relaxed in front of the TV.

Yesterday I also got to thinking about the future, which I tend to do a lot. What can I say, I'm restless? Anyway, I was mentally running some scenarios and crunching some numbers, trying to figure out if any of my hair-brained ideas will materialize without some act of God to intervene. At some point I came to realize a few things:
1) If I want to be my own boss one day I really need to take some initiative and get the creative juices flowing.
2) My primary interests in life are probably closely linked to those of my generation, and there might just be a market out there for a certain kind of information disemination.
3) Right now I don't have a creative hobby. Having one might lead to a greater sense of fulfillment and being a more well-rounded person.
4) If I want to love what I do, I should actually do what I love even if it's only on my own time.
5) The internet is a place of endless possibility.

So I decided to embark on a little project: I'd like to design a website. Initially I'd like the site to be about alternative travel- meaning all types of alternatives. Basically, I'd like to serve all people who aren't into the Jamaican beach resort vacation package thing OR a young male backpacker who can roam the world anonymously without consequence OR those with an endless budget who can just hop on a plane and then roam around Europe checking into a series of overpriced hotels.

Everyone else falls into a series of semi-overlapping categories, and while shoestring travelers are well-served by Let's Go and Lonely Planet and mature travelers are served by the amazing Rick Steves, there's a host of other aspects that simply aren't addressed. One great example is LGBT travel or female solo travel. When I was preparing for my trip to Morocco I found almost zero information about traveling solo as a woman in Morocco. The result was a very challenging experience. When Leigh and I visited Italy we were surprised that we were sometimes treated rudely by the locals because we don't decorate ourselves as typical Italian women do (extremely feminine clothing, hair and jewelry). Leigh also got a lot of stares probably because she's very tall for a woman. We loved Italy, but would have liked to have been warned about this. Recently Leigh and I have discussed one day traveling to Egypt. Current events aside, Egypt is reported on Wikitravel to not be an inviting place for LGBT travelers. Wouldn't it be great if there was a resource helping travelers to visit these countries armed with the best possible information? Also, last year I had a website where I did some writing, but it was always so rushed that it turned into journal entries instead of anything really escapist that others could learn from. This is Emily's attempt at travel writing Take 2.

The other topic I love to "geek out" on is international business and law, or really anything to do with international careers and living an international lifestyle. As much as Americans (and American universities) try to ignore it, the truth is that the world is going global and we're not keeping up. There's tons of information out there about international careers, but it's very scattered. Eventually I'd like to expand my site to incorporate useful information to building an international career, living abroad, etc to help those in my generation and younger to find their way if they choose to pursue this kind of life.

So I put it to you, dear reader(s):

• Am I crazy?
• Is this a good idea?
• A waste of time?
• What would you most like to see on an "alternative" travel website?

It's Personal...

Today I received a birthday card at my work address from someone in my family with whom I choose to not speak. Because I work for the Court System, my mail is searched. So not only do I feel that my privacy has been invaded by being contacted by someone I don't want to hear from, I also feel that it was not a private event (such as when this person emails me out of the blue like they deserve to contact me). Also, because this person doesn't know my job title at the Court System, they just put [My Name] c/o Court System, with the wrong building number, city and state. So the post office corrected the building number and the folks in the mail room had to run a search to find out my title and my office number to deliver the card to me. Basically, a lot of effort went into giving me something I really don't want.

Here are a few ground rules. When I choose to keep someone out of my life, for whatever reason (because, as an adult I have the right to do this whether you agree or not), I would very much appreciate the following:

• Please don't give out my home/work address/email or even place of business. The internet is vast and most people can be found, so giving out hints is the same thing as giving out my home address.
• If I've blocked you on facebook and dont' reply to your emails then I don't want to hear from you.
• I don't want to hear stories about this person, especially how they have offended or wronged you. Part of cutting someone out is supposed to be that you don't have to deal with their bullshit anymore. I don't want the stress of knowing this person, so that means I don't want the stress of hearing stories about how you continue to subject yourself to their bad behavoir.
• Do not ask me whether I think we will be in contact again in the future. It's not for you or anyone else to say who I should or shouldn't have in my life. What's more, I refuse to feel guilty for preserving my emotional well-being by cutting someone out. I admit that it's rude to refuse to speak to someone, but obviously their behavoir must go far beyond rude for me to go to this much trouble to avoid them.
• Try to imagine that you've finally found the perfect combination of factors to lead to real, honest happiness. Now imagine that those around you refuse to understand this and continue to intrude on this delicate balance in little ways. That would be frustrating, wouldn't it? Well that's how I feel when my friends and family do the above-listed things. All I ask is that the people in my life respect my decision and give me the personal space and privacy that all adults have a right to.

Tantrum ended. Back to work.

Good Weekend, Bummer Monday

This weekend was really great. Leigh and I got our new X-C skis from the shop on Friday after work and immediately took them for a spin at Kincaid Park. This was our first time on our new skis and we were skiing by streetlamp, so we decided to stay in the stadium and ski laps and hills to test them out. They were a bit different from our rentals, but really nice equipment. We were pleased.

Saturday morning I weighed myself and was so happy to see I was 2.6 pounds lighter than last week! Crazy! After nearly 3 weeks of no change I couldn't have been more surprised. Then Leigh and I had a healthy breakfast before meeting some friends to go skiing again. From 11:30 till 1:30 we did laps, gave some basic (and hopefully useful) instruction to our friends, and then got up the courage to try a trail for the first time. We only skied the trail for about 40 minutes, but it was a great experience! We both fell on hills a few times. One of my falls was downright epic, complete with speed and colliding solidly with the packed snow on my right side. Ouch! Anyway, I'm really excited to be starting trails now. Hopefully by next winter I'll be half-decent at this sport.

After skiing Leigh and I and the Tuckers hit up Snow City Cafe for a yummy and decadent lunch. This was my "birthday meal" where I was going to order whatever looked good and refuse to feel guilty about it. Leigh and I both went a little crazy and wound up sharing our meals and taking a lot of food home. It was delicious and so fun with friends! The rest of the day we ran errands and then went home to collapse. Sunday we both woke up feeling a little bit sick, which turned into a whole day of taking it easy and feeling icky. Leigh made homemade chicken noodle soup, with whole grain rotini, which might just be a miracle medicine because I felt a lot better afterwards.
She also broke down and made my "birthday dessert" because I was whining about having a sweet tooth. After much ado, Leigh made me a little pan of the most delicious brownies ever! She made them from scratch and the recipe called for my favorite chocolate products: Nutella and Lindt dark chocolate with a touch of sea salt. Delicious! Decadent! Soooo not "clean" eating! I will have to ski my rear-end off this week to make up for it, but honestly, it was worth every calorie. Only negative is that they're very rich and I anticipate them being around the house for the rest of the week, so the gluttony will continue!

Today, Monday, Leigh is downright ill and I'm feeling pretty icky myself. I'd planned to go skiing alone or with a colleague this evening, but I don't know if I should. When I was a swimmer I believed in swimming through the illness because the exercise seemed to work the ickiness out of your system faster (unless it was a stomache flu, then swimming just led to vomiting in the pool gutter). But these cold weather, outdoor sports really do a number on my throat and achy muscles when I'm not feeling well, so maybe it's better to abstain for one more day and get back to it on Tuesday evening? I just don't know...