Alaska is Hard Sometimes

I follow a lot of travel blogs... A LOT.... The reasons are obvious, but mostly because now that I'm working, and not a student, I have to make everything count a little bit more. My 4 weeks of yearly vacation better be fucking amazing, right? Anyway, I was reading this blog about a girl from San Francisco who is living in Cambodia for a year to do some writing and English teaching. Sounds amazing, but of course it's not always a cake walk. I lived in France for 8 months and while it was one of the best experiences of my life, there were also some days that were just so frustrating for one reason or another. In that vain...

New Flash: Alaska is Hard [Sometimes]

A lot of things about Alaska make it easy and kind of perfect for black sheep, wanderlust Americans looking for a fresh start: it's in the U.S. so there's no visa requirements, the economy is pretty decent so there are usually jobs available, everyone speaks English (even if they speak other languages first), most places have first world infrastructure and accommodation, and the people are pretty welcoming.

Leigh and I are a case in point: we moved up here so I could clerk for the state trial courts. Within a month Leigh was working and soon after that she found an awesome permanent job. Our health insurance companies send us to a nice private hospital where we get excellent care.We have a list of favorite restaurants near our offices and home. We have a house, two cars, and a nice circle of friends.

But then there are the things that get to you, even if it's only every so often. Like how expensive everything is, even basic stuff like food and household supplies. In any other city of 300,000 people, we could have bought twice as much house for what we paid for our place in Anchorage. The average cost for an egg breakfast is $12, and a bowl of Pho costs $10 (it's $6 in Seattle with a free appetizer).

The stores often don't even carry the kinds of things you get used to in the Lower 48, like multiple options of the same thing for home improvement and decoration. The clothing stores seem to only sell the ugly shit they couldn't sell in Seattle. The bottom line is that, most of the time, it's better to just order your stuff and pay the shipping costs, which makes life even more expensive!

Then there's the wildlife: it is seriously cool that I've seen seals, otters, bald eagles, giant porcupines, and moose in person. It is less cool that I've run into bears when walking home from work and even less cool when I'm riding my bike on a trail and come around a corner to see a moose chilling on the bike path. Those things are big and very dangerous when spooked. I wouldn't give up the wildlife for anything, but it does add some stress to certain activities.

The hardest thing about Alaska is how isolated we are from everyone, everything, and everywhere else. Most of the time the distance from the rest of the world is what we appreciate most about Alaska. I can't imagine being 27 and just starting my life while having my family weighing in on every little decision. I know that's what parents do, but I'm a black sheep and very independent, so nothing pisses me off more than unsolicited input on my personal decisions. But everyone needs a change of scenery and a visit home. From Alaska, this is expensive and often a stressful decision. It's 3 hours and $500 for one R/T ticket just to fly to Seattle. It's a 15 hour trip to the Mid-Atlantic region (where both our families live) and the last time we went home it cost us about $1,500 in total airfare. Then there's the simple fact that I don't always want to use my 4 weeks of vacation to revisit childhood towns and hang out with relatives (sorry, I love my family, but that is NOT a vacation). I want to take Leigh to Germany and the UK, visit Southeast Asia, explore South America, and lay on a beach on a semi-regular basis. So sometimes the hardest part is deciding how to spend what little time and money we have: on a family visit or a real vacation.

At the end of the day we're better off here than anywhere else: we have jobs, we have a home, we have pets,  we have friends, and it's summer time now so the weather is glorious. We'll just have to work around the rest of it.

SUMMER!

It's been a loooonnngg time since I posted anything. Sorry! We have a lot going on in our little lives right now, so I'll start with the boring stuff. 

Jobs:

I had my first job interview of the hiring season a few weeks ago. It wasn't great. I have no idea how enthusiastic the firm was about me, but I was personally left feeling less than warm and fuzzy about them. Oh well, if they call me back I'll go for another interview. If not that's OK too. Meanwhile, I supposedly have two other firms that want to talk to me, but nothing is set in stone so I'm still sending out applications and bracing myself for a future collecting unemployment. 

Other professional stuff:

For the past few weeks I've been trying to imagine how I'll fit travel into my profession. OK, this isn't news to anyone. What I mean is that I'm trying to imagine the most realistic way possible. Enter Lawyers Without Borders. It's basically an American start-up of the French program Avocats sans Frontiers, so they have almost no budget. In fact, volunteers have to fund their own trips entirely. That's the bad news. The good news is that they only ask volunteers to give 1 to 3 weeks to do amazing things like provide training to lawyers and judges, help with important trials, develop court systems, and establish legal training programs at universities. So, if the Foreign Service doesn't pan out and I don't end up working for a multinational firm that wants to fund my travel bug, this is another way to see the world without losing my [as of yet not obtained] job. For now I'm just doing odd research projects for LWOB, but I hope one day soon I'll be able to represent them on a project abroad.

Oh, and I'm also taking the Foreign Service Exam on June 4 and applying for a business and law fellowship in Germany (just in case I'm unemployed a year from now).

Projects:

Here's the big one. We have SO MUCH GOING ON AT HOME RIGHT NOW! As you know, about a year ago Leigh and I bought this little gem in the Turnagain neighborhood of Anchorage: 

Our house is a 1,050 ft2 zero-lot-line house (we share a wall with our neighbor but it's not a condo, meaning no home owners association fees or bylaws). It has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, an open floor plan downstairs and a large yard. The best part is it's in a quiet neighborhood only 10 minutes from work, near bike paths, and about 2 miles from some of our favorite stores and restaurants (REI and pho, anyone?). It's small, but not too small and we really love it.

But our little house needs some love. Anchorage had its snowiest winter since forever in 2012, which means our formerly green lawn (see below) is now yellow and covered in dog poop (it was a looonnngg winter). Aside from our tulips miraculously popping up, our back yard is in terrible shape. 

back yard with shed (there's also a greenhouse off to the left)

The Solution: a pooper scooper and a lot of hard work. Tomorrow a local lawn cleaning service will swing by and do our spring cleanup. Leigh hasn't been this excited about anything for a very, very long time. Once the poop is scooped we're going to spread new grass seed, clean out the flower beds, then plant flowers, rose bushes, new berry bushes, and wild flowers. But the BIG PROJECT for the yard is tearing out our in-ground flower bed (see above, next to the shed) and put in a patio area for grilling out and entertaining. This project requires excavation, three base layers of gravel and such, precise leveling and laying paving stones. Our goal is to have the yard up and running by the end of June.

The first thing I changed in this house when we moved in is the entryway. The wall to the left of the stairs just seemed sterile and boring, so I painted it a dark, kind of burnt yellow. Then Leigh and I hung a series of framed prints from our days in Buffalo, NY. The difference is amazing. The room has more character and feels warm and welcoming even during a long winter. I'll post an After picture when my living room isn't a big mess from all these projects we've started.

One of the better rooms in our house is the bathroom. After a year showering and doing our business in a room the size of a coat closet, this space is like a Five Star hotel bathroom for us. To this day, we've left this room almost untouched from what the last owner had (we even kept her washer and dryer in the closet). 

 In general we have no complaints about the bathroom, but I have plans to tweak it just a smidge. Most importantly, we're replacing the stacked washer and dryer with a newer, more efficient set that will undoubtedly leave our clothes cleaner. The set we want is on back order at Home Depot, so it probably won't be delivered until July. Oh well, we've made it this far, we can wait a few more weeks. Another change I plan to make is replacing the over-the-toilet storage system with two wall shelves painted to match the vanity cabinet. It'll free up some floor space and make the room feel more open. Plus it will give me an excuse to buy a big floor basket to hold bath towels. :-)

The bedrooms are becoming massive projects too, but we're in the home stretch already! A few months ago we decided to get new carpet. You can't see the carpet in these pictures (taken when the house was listed for sale, this is not my stuff in the rooms), but it's pretty gross: boring color, stained, smelly, and not remotely cushy. So we're swapping it for a tight-knit, dark gray plush carpet with the carpet pad make from recycled Nike sneakers. The best part is it's being installed SATURDAY!!! Of course, we decided to move our furniture and rip out the old stuff ourselves (it saved us about $300!), so that's the big project this week. Aside from moving the furniture it's been remarkably easy.

The second bedroom is undergoing a complete renovation: we painted the walls a bright "sunflower" yellow and repainted the trim to freshen up the white color. The closet is painted a grayish taupe color and will eventually serve as our office/workspace (thanks to an Ikea desk and LACK shelving).

When we moved in, the master bedroom was four different colors: purple, white, and two shades of green. It only took us 9 months to get around to repainting it. Now it's a calming, grayish taupe color. We've also reorganized our closets and rearranged the furniture and installed an IKEA LACK shelf over our headboard to serve as night stands. This room is pretty much done. Final "After" pictures to come once the new carpet is installed.

The kitchen was also a big selling point for this house, but a few months into living here we started to realize how old the cabinets are and how disorganized the storage space is. This kitchen is at least a bazillion times nicer than our last kitchen, but we own this house, so we're thinking toward the future...

Eventually we'd like to replace the cabinetry with something in a natural shade, maybe with plexiglass fronts to give the space a more open feel. We also want to switch out the electric oven with gas. For right now we're focusing on making this space as comfortable as possible, so we bought a kitchen island at Home Depot on a super duper clearance. We're using the island as a buffet in the dining area to store large appliances (bread maker, juicer) and bar accoutrement, plus it provides more food prep space. Our next move is to find a square 4-seater table to replace our large rectangular table so the dining space doesn't feel so crowded.

So that's the update. We have a lot going on and we're really excited to be making so much progress so early in the summer. With any luck we'll be slowing down to enjoy the final results by July!