Monday, December 9, 2013

Kicking Off The Holidays

I've almost been in Alaska for 6 months! I can't believe how quickly time is passing but's its incredible how many new experiences I've had so far. It's finally starting to feel like home as I'm getting the hang of my job and the people I've met are becoming true friends. And good thing because this year was the first Thanksgiving I've ever spent away from my family! I'm not going to lie, it was a little hard.

I started off Thanksgiving with the 5k Anchorage Turkey Trot. It was a brisk 15 degrees for the 11am run, and the race actually sold out with 1500 participants, triple the showing from last year. After starting the morning off a little hungover from Erin's delicious cocktails the night before, it was nice to get outside on the beautiful sunny day. And I got to use my studded shoes again :) They were definitely needed on the icy roads, I slipped a few times even with studs! So I took smaller steps for most of the run, but still managed to finish without stopping or falling, win-win.

Turkey Trot finish in 35 min

The crew pre-trot... Sorry I'm stealing your photos Emily

Emily, Erin, and I post-trot with a turkey

My first Anchorage Turkey Trot shirt

After the run, I got to FaceTime a bit with my parents. My extended family was gathered in at my Grandma's house in Arkansas for the holiday. My mom kept sending me texts throughout the week of the yummy things she was making, I was extremely jealous. I did get a tasty traditional meal at my bosses house though. She invited me over to eat with her family in the afternoon, and I brought my favorite green bean casserole and pumpkin cheesecake. Afterwards, I headed over to another feast at Lindsey and Bethany's house, which was called "Sweatsgiving." Lots of good friends, lounging around in sweats and enjoying the potluck meal. Overall, it was a great day with lots of good company, but I definitely missed my family and the plentiful dessert table, and the subsequent napping after eating way too much dessert.

My pumpkin cheesecake was a hit

Family pie spread

So I've never had the desire to go Black Friday shopping. Mainly because anyone who knows me, knows I'm NOT a morning person. So waking up extremely early to beat crowds and find a parking spot is not my cup of tea. However, since Anchorage is a pretty small town of 300,000 I figured that if I was ever going to try Black Friday shopping, why not try it here? I slept in late till about 11am and then got ready to brave the crazy crowds at the mall. However, it felt like a normal day except that everything was 40-50% off!! Amazing, how did I not realize that this glorious shopping day existed sooner? I hit up Banana Republic, Gap, Eddie Bauer, and Nordstrom (essentially the only stores in the Anchorage mall) and never waited in a line longer than 3 people to check out! I couldn't believe the deals I was getting. I got some great new corduroys, a puffy vest, some sweaters, a nice midweight down jacket, and a fur scarf (faux for now). I really want to get a fur hat while I'm here, very authentic Alaskan, but I need to check out some local stores to figure out what I really like before I make that investment. I'd say my first Black Friday was a major success! Shameless selfies below..

Faux fur scarf
My mom sent me her old fur hat from
when she lived in London


I spent the rest of Thanksgiving weekend Christmas shopping downtown for some Alaskan gifts, hanging out with friends who also stayed in Anchorage for the holidays, and decorating for Christmas! I've never had a lot of storage for Christmas decorations, but now that I have a full garage I decided to make my house into a little winter wonderland.

Ever since I graduated college, its been a tradition for my brother Andrew and I to go pick out my Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year I didn't have my trusty companion so I had to opt for a smaller tree that I could easily transport myself. Luckily I have a big enough car now with my Subaru Forester, that I could easily fit my 5 foot tree into the back with the seats folded down. The nursery also wrapped the tree up in plastic and netting which was super helpful for transport. It was fun decorating the tree as I listened to my Pandora Christmas station. And luckily no ornaments were broken during the move!

Christmas tree packaging

Straight in the stand

All decorated, including my homemade tree skirt!

I continued the decorating process with some garland and lights on top of my bookshelf and around my stairs. I got lots of inspiration from my mom since she always decorates our mantel and entryway with lots of garland and fun things. I spent a few hours at Lowes, Michaels, and Pier 1 for supplies, where I opted mostly for the $2.99 for nine feet of plain garland instead of $20 for a nine foot pre-light plump garland. However, I will say wrapping lights around an 18 foot plain garland and then wrapping the garland light combo around the bannister is much harder than it looks... or at least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself. I had my Christmas tree up and decorated in the same amount of time it took me to get the garland on the stairs completed. Sometimes I wonder if I really am an engineer haha. 

Festive above the bookshelf

Thanks mom for all your old decorations!

I love glitter... and flowers... and flowers with glitter :)

More glitter flowers on the stairs


Christmas potpourri

Bows galore

Jingle bell candles







Love evergreen wreaths, they make the whole room smell great


Plaid Santa, welcome to Alaska

Finally got the bannister complete

Christmas living room put together

Mini tree in my bedroom

After a relaxing holiday weekend, came another glorious shopping event... Cyber Monday. This kind of shopping is my favorite cause you can do it from the comfort of your own home. I scored some great deals on Cyber Monday including some boots, a swimsuit for lap swimming, a humidifier, and a bunch of Christmas gifts. I may or may not have booked a conference room while I was eating lunch at work so I could do some Cyber Monday shopping. Cube life sucks sometime! And a lot of the deals ended in  Eastern time, which is 4 hours ahead of me.

I'm pretty pumped about all of my new boots. I didn't wear boots too often in Texas, besides my cowboy boots, but my new favorite pair are some fuzzy wedge Sorels! When you think of snow boots that have a good tread on the bottom to keep you on your feet in the snow / ice, you probably don't think of a wedge or an ankle boot. So props to Sorel for inventing such a wonder! Snow boots are usually bulky and take awhile to put on, but I can just slip these guys right on with no laces or zippers or intensive pant tucking. They are so cute and have a heel, and did I say awesome! And they are super functional and sturdy as long as there isn't more than a few inches of snow on the ground. I love them :)

Rocking the wedge Sorels

Love them :)

I also FINALLY found a pair of snow boots that are warm, fun, and fit. They have bright orange shoe laces and a very small herringbone print :) Even though it took several weeks to find the perfect pair, I'm quite pleased in my latest investment since I will be wearing them for more than half of the year!

New snow boots 

Merry Christmas to me

My mom helped me find another pair of boots that are warm, not bulky, and a little more stylish. They are cute enough to wear to work with tights or skinny jeans without having to change into other shoes from the ever growing closet of shoes under my desk! I haven't gotten a single pair of new heels or flats since I've moved here but my boot collection has definitely tripled. They are all well needed since I wear them everyday.

New brown boots

I still can't get over how pretty the snow is everywhere! Now that I have proper boots and footwear, I love the snow. I do not love the dark though.. the sun rose today at 9:58am and will set at 3:48pm. I set up a "happy" light at my desk at work, which is supposed to help you beat the winter blues and the effects of seasonal changes. I've only used it for a few days so far, but I think it's improving my mood and energy! Thank goodness there are only 12 more days till the shortest day of the year and then we start gaining back daylight.

Snow outside the office
The prettiest hybrid poinsettia at my desk at work

Happy light

I spent a good hour this past weekend trying to set up my fireplace to get fully into the Christmas spirit. Yes I had to "set it up" because its a gas fireplace. It looked so easy when the builder flipped the switch on the wall and the fire started. However, I knew I wouldn't use it right away and therefore I had them turn the gas off when I moved in this summer so that the pilot light wasn't running all the time. Of course that was months ago and I don't remember a thing. I pulled out the instruction manual to figure out how to turn everything back on so that I could simply flick the switch this winter. 

I took off the cover underneath the fire and figured out pretty quickly how to open the gas line. I vaguely remember the builder saying it would take a minute or two for the parts to heat up enough in the winter to start the pilot light. However, my manual said to try no more than 60 seconds and stop if you smell gas. I have an irrational fear when it comes to natural gas.. Like every time I start my gas grill, I close my eyes and say a quick prayer that my face is not going to get singed off in an explosion. This situation was no exception. I freaked out after 60 seconds when the ignitor was still not starting the pilot and walked away. I tried again a few minutes later and started to smell gas. So I waited for about 10 minutes before trying again. This time I sat further away and used one foot to push the pilot knob and the other foot to keep pushing the ignitor, obviously so my face wouldn't get burned off. It finally sparked and I panicked and backed away. I then figured out you have to hold it for a few seconds to make sure it stays lit. Once I finally had it up and running, it got nice and cozy and warm... 

Then my fire alarm went off!! I was so scared as the calming lady voice kept saying "fire" in between my fire alarm beeps. I immediately grabbed my fire extinguisher, turned off the switch to the fire and opened up my balcony door. There wasn't any visible fire in the living room so I went over to the kitchen and nothing either. I guess there must have been some plastic coating on the logs that maybe burned off during its first use. So I turned down the intensity of the flames to medium instead of high, and let it burn for the rest of the afternoon with no more problems. Phew! So now I have a wonderfully cozy working fireplace next to my tree :) 

Merry Christmas from my cozy living room!


Thursday, November 21, 2013

Bring on the Snow


Well that was a quick transition from beautiful fall to chilly snowy winter. I knew it was destined to come, I do live in Alaska after all… But I really didn’t know what to expect! Talk of the town is that winter came late this year (I’m not complaining) since it’s usually a “White Halloween” in addition to a “Very White Christmas.” The brave trick or treaters are usually buried in coats so you can’t see their costumes and they drive from door to door and warm up in the car. However, this Halloween it still hadn’t snowed and the temperatures were only in the high 40s. Look at that, I’m adapting already saying “only high 40s” brrrr.

My friends Erin and Abe live at the end of a dead end street, so they had a little Halloween party with a fire pit set up at the end of the road. I was slightly disappointed in the number of trick or treaters, especially since I drove into their neighborhood and saw hoards of them. I guess not many were brave enough to venture down a dead end street. To be fair, not many front porch lights were lit along their street, and I remember from my trick or treating days that lots of lights = lots of candy! But it still made for a good night of roasting hot dogs and smores, and jamming to the Monster Mash :)

Yummy s'mores

Beautiful sunset from my driveway

Sunrise over the mountains

Beautiful sunrise

Tried to find the end of the rainbow, got so close!

Right after Halloween I jumped on a plane to Houston for a week long training class. I made the most of it by spending both weekends in Texas to catch up with family and friends. I went to the Texas A&M football game in College Station and got to see my parents and brothers! And more importantly (sorry family), watch Johnny Manziel and Mike Evans for likely the last time in person. After a fun weekend in College Station, I headed back to Houston for my training class and lots of delicious wining and dining. I had some Pumpkin cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, mmmmm I have an obsession with all things pumpkin, some noms from Max’s Wine Dive, the Counter, Baba Yega, Petrol Station, Barnaby's, Central Market, Spinkles Cupcakes yum, and Karbach Brewery. Oh and the ultimate biddy times lunch with Becca at Tiny Boxwoods on Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful day and we got to sit ouside by the garden and enjoy our delicious sandwiches and mint lemonade :) To top off the last weekend, I got to hang out with my ladies to watch another A&M game and then party at our favorite dancing places in Midtown!

Watching the fighting Texas Aggies

Tailgating outside Kyle Field for the last time before the new stadium

MMM MMM pumpkin cheesecake with Trisha

Delish lunch with Becca + mint lemonade

Aggie game number 2 in Texas with my Aggie ladies

So I headed back to Anchorage on Sunday evening, knowing that the first snow had begun on Saturday afternoon. Little did I know that by the time I landed around midnight on Sunday night that it had snowed 6-7 inches! Yikes, welcome to winter driving. It was so crazy driving home from the airport because none of the roads had been plowed yet or really driven on since it had been snowing all the way up until I landed… and I guess there is not a lot of traffic late Sunday evening to pack down the snow on the roads. Anyway, I drove down the middle of Minnesota, one of the two highways in town, going probably 20-30 mph in 6” deep snow. Talk about terrifying. I had no idea where the lanes where, or if I was even close to the median… luckily I made it home in one piece thanks to my trusty studded tires! The past two weeks have been a real learning experience when it comes to driving. Go slow always, but especially when making a turn. Never immediately go on a green light in case someone is sliding through the intersection. And make sure you can see the full tires on the car in front of you at a stop, so you won’t create a knock on effect if someone hits you from behind.

Stopped outside the airport parking garage cause I couldn't believe the snow!
Where is the road?!

6 inches to welcome me home

Outside my window

So much snow!

Brrrrrr

With the snow came some last minute preparations. When I moved in, my home inspector told me that my front entryway slate floor tiles should be sealed to protect from water and stains. However, when I asked the builder about it, he said it was an additional $100. So since I’m such a handyman now, I decided I could save money and do it myself for $30 worth of supplies (bottle of sealant, special brush, gloves, bowl). I’ve been procrastinating for about a month now thinking winter wasn’t going to come and no one was going to bring in snowy boots and ruin the floor. Well now it’s time haha. So I got out all my supplies and got to it. The odor was kind of strong and since it was much too cold to open a window for ventilation, I made sure to take a break upstairs in between the first and second coats. I did some research before I picked the product and decided I wanted the enhancer + sealant to give the tile an enhanced color. I think it turned out great! And of course I’m pretty awesome for doing it myself haha.

Before sealing the floors

Working on the first coat

Letting the final coat dry


Finished product, love the color!

Also, I had to get a car scraper. Not just a little baby hand scraper like I’m used to seeing in Texas. They passed out some heavy duty ones at work that have a scraper on one end and a brush on the other to brush off snow from the hood or the top of the car. It extends several feet so you can get everything off from just one side of the car. Hopefully I won’t have to use this tool often (thank goodness I have a garage). But it’s important to have in case snow dumps down while I’m not at home.

Last step of preparation is remote start for my car. It’s becoming more clear that I need to fork over the hefty investment to get this installed. It was 1 degree when I left work one night this week and let me tell you, the heater didn’t produce warm air until the last couple minutes of my commute. Auto start would allow me to turn on my car 5-10 minutes before I leave work so its toasty when I get in it. All I can say is thank goodness I have seat warmers that heat up quickly! I actually never turn them off, toasty buns are important!

As far as clothing and gear goes, I'm not nearly as prepared as I thought I was. I did find a wonderfully warm down jacket that I love. I only had to start wearing it this week, but it's so warm and toasty. I really dislike the huge quilted Michelin Man jackets that you find everywhere so I was excited to find this great one from Eddie Bauer that doesn't have that quilted bulky pattern, yet its still rated to -20 degrees. I also have been getting tons of socks, both fun socks for around the house and Smartwool socks for activities outside. I got a super cute set of polka dot socks and an insulated polka dot rainjacket from this fabulous UK store called Boden. My mom introduced me and I frequently stalk their website for cute cold weather clothes. I've been wearing that jacket for at least the past month and a half until I finally switched over to my heavy duty one. Also, I've spent several weeks of back and forth on boot orders from Piperlime and Zappos (free shipping to AK), and I think I finally found a great winter snow boot. They should arrive tomorrow so fingers crossed. It is really unfortunate how I'm missing out on all the "Free Shipping" deals from my favorite stores... they all have fine print saying free shipping except for Hawaii and Alaska, boo. I've actually had to start wearing my Ugg warm boots to and from work to stay warm and I keep my high heels underneath my desk. It's a bit of a hassle to switch back and forth if I want to go out for lunch, but it's rather dangerous to walk in the snow and ice in heels! Getting ready just takes a little longer here to layer / delayer.


Warm down winter jacket!

Cute packaging for my polka dot socks from Boden!
Polka dot midweight rain jacket from Boden

Polka dots up close :)

I owe a big thank you to my friend Alex, who has given me some great recommendations on cold weather gear. Being from Ohio, he is used to the cold and how to dress for it. He has been super helpful sending me tips and advice on mittens and different base layers to keep me warm and dry! I also got a helmet to use for skiing, and actually all my winter activities since I'll likely fall in anything I try, including ice skating. I went to Play It Again Sports this week, which is a second hand sports gear shop, to find some used ice skates. I'm excited to try them out as soon as I'm confident all the lakes and marshes are frozen over!

New mittens

New ski helmet

Steal of a deal ice skates

I survived my first outside snow run at 15 degrees last weekend! Brrr, I layered up and actually wasn't too cold except for my face. I don't know if I got wind burned or a little frozen haha, but my cheeks were red even the day after! I'll decided I needed a face mask of some type if I want to continue running outside. I also had spikes installed on an old pair of tennis shoes so I can stay upright on the snow and ice covered trails.

It was pretty crazy to see ice skaters out on the lagoon and ponds on my run! I'll probably wait another week or two to make sure they are completely frozen over before I venture into that activity, now that I have my new skates :)

Shoe studs to grip the snow / ice


Post run red face!

Snow packed trail

Cross country ski grooves along the trails too

Pretty snow covered trees 

Cross country skier

Playing hockey on the lagoon

Lagoon frozen over.. although I was too scared to step on it

I did the Pub Run on Tuesday night for the first time in awhile, and definitely the first time that required more clothing than a tank top and running capris. It was a chilly 5 degrees and a 3.6 mile run! This time I was prepared with a facemask and a headlght so that I could see in the dark. The light is pretty awesome, its very bright and so lightweight that I hardly even felt it, especially with a hat on. Afterwards there is a raffle at the pub and I actually won a t-shirt and a water bottle! I never win, so it was super exciting. Several other folks in my group won too, including Emily's towel and mustache keychain, and Lindsey's free entry to the Turkey Trot. Yes there is a Turkey Trot in Anchorage and I'm so excited. It starts at 11am here so it will be nice a bright outside and it will probably be 11 degrees haha

About to start the Pub Run

Raffle winners at the pub, post run

New headlamp that stretches to fit on my forehead

As the temperatures have dipped into the single digits this week, it's a little hard to get motivated to layer up and workout outside frequently. I decided if it's below 0 degrees, I shouldn't be outside haha, which hopefully doesn't happen too often here. So I've been using the free gym at my office a little bit. It's a nice lunchtime rejuvenation to head downstairs for a jog on the treadmill or the elliptical. Also, I'm in the process or getting the insanity workout DVDs to spice up my indoor workouts as well. Apparently they are insanely hard, imagine that from the title haha, but I hope to start those soon enough.

I had two trulyAlaskan moments this week. First being, only in Alaska would I get called into a conference room in the middle of the day to check out the massive bull moose in the parking lot with big ole antlers. It was probably 9-10 feet tall, just checking things out! Secondly, I slid through my first stop sign going downhill. My ABS brakes kicked in and I just kept sliding, yikes! I'm glad I experienced it in the daylight with no one around, but just a reminder to not rush through stop signs or lights. 

The days are getting shorter.. the sun is rising at 9:19am today and will set at 4:11pm. Definitely getting darker which means I really want to hibernate :) But I'm excited about getting into the winter sports, and hey I'm only a month away to Dec 21, the winter equinox. After that, Anchorage will start gaining back daylight rather than lose.

Also, Thanksgiving is coming up next week, and its the first major holiday I'll be spending away from family. But I am doing a little of my traditional Thanksgiving up to Anchorage, by participating in the turkey trot brrrr. . And then I'll make my favorite pumpkin cheesecake and celebrate two Thanksgivings with my boss's family and then my friends up here. I'll probably be a little homesick though while all my family is together for the holiday.Speaking of family, I found out the most wonderful news this week! A big congrats to my dear cousin Emily and her husband Jim on their exciting baby announcement! Emily has always been like my older sister and I got the chance to live with her for two years in college and stand by her side on her wedding day. And now I couldn't be more thrilled to welcome a little Miller into the world in June! Yay love you guys :)