New Old Furniture

08:58 sunrise

16:31 sunset

I hate when Fridays are stressful. And I hate them even more when I know that today's issues are only going to come back to me tenfold in a shitshow at work next week. Sigh.

In good news - the lampshades arrived yesterday! And, we bought this *awesome* table and sideboard in Victoria last weekend for a really excellent price.

I love that the woman who sold them to us was happy that they were going to "a good home." My friend Wade felt that the furniture had good stories to tell and I liked that idea. They are well-loved, but still in good condition. The seller was even nice enough to gift these serving dishes to me - just because she's "in transition" and doesn't need them anymore. Do I love them? Why yes, yes I do!
Of course, we don't really have a plan for how to get these large items from an island off the west coast of Canada to a small town along the Alaska Highway, but for now I am happy to gaze upon their loveliness and be happy that I have friends with a large unfinished basement.

Lampshades

09:20 sunrise

18:07 sunset

I cannot tell you how excited I was when a friend posted, on facebook this week, that she had come across "about 60 Danish Lamp-shades still in the package...you know, the kind you find in IKEA but of better quality.... anyone? anyone?" The circumstances are not ideal, she is helping her mom move out of and sell their family home, but the stuff she has been coming across - FANTASTIC! I am hoping to install a few of these gems soon.

Dresses

09:11 sunrise

18:17 sunset

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned, over at flickr, that I have decided to approach winter this year with a closet full of sweater dresses (preferably wool). They are dressy enough for work, but they're also warm and cozy - kinda like your favourite bathrobe. Extra bonus - you can layer them with all sorts of long underwear, thermal t's, and double layers of tights and they still look pretty good. Top a dress off with a pair of winter boots and you're good to go! I have four sweater dresses sitting in my closet right now and I have just purchased these three secondhand beauties from etsy (retrorenegadevintage and centrestagevintage). That's a whole week's worth of wooly, dressy goodness!

Do any of you have ways that you cope with dressing for bitterly cold winters? Don't get me wrong, I also spend a lot of time looking like the Michelin woman all decked out in a puffy coat, snowpants, and wool ear flap hats, but from time to time I try to look a little bit less like a snowbitch (an affectionate name my friend has given to her snow bicycle, which is actually pretty cool, so maybe I want to look like a snowbitch?).

In other clothing news, I have just entered a contest to win this beautiful handmade shantung dress. It is of course lovely in its own right, but I find, living where I do, that I have had to become more creative in acquiring clothing/furniture/groceries/etc. I've always been a big fan of thrifting, but of late I have been stalking various clothing or fashion blogs and, from time to time, people give away cool shit. This dress giveaway is one of those times. Wander on over and win it for yourself. Then I will be jealous.

Stocking Up

09:05 sunrise

18:24 sunset

This was taken from the Mt.Sima parking lot at 8:57am this morning. Yes, I punched up the saturation, but this is more how the sunrise "felt." Winter light, too, is beautiful. I think it might be more delicate than its summer counterpart.

In other news, a friend has started up a food club and we are ordering organic or other hard to find food stuffs from down south. This is part of our first delivery. We should now have enough Nature's Path ginger zinger granola to last us well into 2010. Hurrah!

Happy Thanksgiving

08:34 sunrise
18:59 sunset

Hi. Happy turkey. Or happy tofurkey or happy coho salmon, if you’re on Whidbey Island, like we were. Just got home from a wonderful thanksgiving weekend spent with friends (who live in BC and we miss greatly) in Washington state.

We went to a farmers market in Coupeville where we watched the giant pumpkin contest.

We walked along the beach and looked for sea glass and shells.

We enjoyed mid-afternoon cocktails in the blinding sunshine while watching Hugh and Wendy’s kids play on the beach.

We watched birds and actually saw a grey whale!

After a couple of drinks we goofed around.

Note how my self-portrait skills improve with each g&t.

Then we watched sunsets and enjoyed a fire.

Repeat three nights and you have my recipe for a great long weekend. I especially love this drawing, from Owen, age 5, which he gave to us today before Ben and I headed back to Whitehorse.

He wanted to point out to me specifically that Ben (B on the right) doesn’t have any hair (whereas I seem to have quite a bit) and that the x’s and o’s are actually hearts and x’s. I can’t say that I want to go back to work tomorrow.

Putting My Bicycle Away

08:21 sunrise

19:15 sunset

I went for a mountain bike ride last night after work and I now declare my mountain biking season to be officially over. I know, I know, one *can* bike in the snow (and I have and it's fun) but in terms of swoopy single track trail riding, it's done for me. Last night's ride involved too much snow which makes roots veeeery slippery and the speed of the ride was slowed considerably. Add to this the fact that sun now sets at 7:15pm and we are losing more than 5 minutes of light each day, there just isn't enough time to get a bike ride in after work. This weekend is Thanksgiving, so I won't be riding then, and my other October weekends are filled with first aid training for the ski patrol. Turning the clocks back is just around the corner.

I'm not quite ready for winter to descend, but I love how clear and defined seasons are here. And I feel like I have learned to appreciate the details in the weather - temperatures, wind, sunshine, and of course light. Yesterday was a pretty grey and cloudy day, but as we came to the end of our ride the setting sun lit up the surrounding mountains and I once again felt so lucky to live here. I've quoted her before, but in the words of author Elizabeth Hay, the light here in the north isn't like any place else I have been. "The light [is] luminous and rich. Not as brilliant as the Mediterranean... Gentler...The hills didn't have light on them, they were in light, the way something is in water."

I didn't manage to snap a photo of the mountains last night, but I was fortunate enough to catch sunrise from my office this morning. The effect is very much the same. You'll see what I mean if you click on the photo to make it larger. I think when you get this pink effect it's called alpenglow. Can anyone confirm?

Oh – and I’ve decided, since I am pretty light obsessed (both amount and quality) to start my posts with the hours of sunrise and sunset for that day. I am fascinated by it, maybe you will be too.

KRR version 3.0

For the third time in as many years, I ran as part of a team in the Klondike Road Relay two weekends ago. Unlike the first two years, however, this time I managed to convince 9 friends to not only join me in this endeavour, but also to do so in an rv. So, for the first time, I actually saw every leg of the race, all 180km of the damn thing. Actually, that isn't quite true since I napped through the vast majority of Carrie's leg 5 in order to catch a few zzzzz's.
Anyhow, the rv thing was a lot of fun. It provided a nice space for the group to hang out while supporting our runners. But, since everyone took a bit of time to sleep when s/he could, we were a mellower vehicle travelling the highway. It was hard to resist the pull of your very own warm, comfy bed only a couple of hours away. Not everyone stayed for all 10 legs and I don't blame anyone. It's exhausting being in a vehicle for that much time and beer just doesn't taste that great at 7am. At least, not to me! I don't know how the Alaksan teams do it, but they bring one heck of a party to the highway. I loved each and every rv hooked up to a sound system that blasted music as it drove by. I wish I had managed to get a photo of the appropriately named Juneau team "In it for the Party" since their van was covered in plastic martini glasses and Christmas lights. Awesome. They finished in a time close to ours too, so I totally missed the opportunity.

I ran leg 4 and it was painful, as I had predicted. At least now that I have run several half-marathons I know what to expect. And I knew I had not run enough long distances to make this particular 21km pleasant. Nevertheless, it was still strangely wonderful to be running along in the dark (and it was very, very dark) dressed in my space-themed costume and feeling refreshed by a light rain. My legs were sore by kilometre 15, but somehow you just keep going. I had a slow time (2:23) which placed me 106th out of 119 people for that leg. Our team finished 97th/119 in 18 hours and 39 minutes. Just to give you an idea of how not competitive we were, the Skinny Ravens (a team from Anchorage that wins every year) completed the race in a mere 11 hours, 29 minutes. Overall I had, as I always do, a great time.
Me, before the start of leg 4

My goal is still to run each of the 10 legs so I am not sure what I'll try and do next year. I suppose sometime I will have to knock leg 6 off my list, but it's 26km and you end up starting it sometime around 3-4am (blergh). Once again, I'll put out my invite to the interweb and if anyone wants to partake in next year's KRR team, shoot me an email.





Lisa on leg 7

Brian and Sierra maxin' relaxin' in the rv