Getting Settled

I can FINALLY report that I am a homeowner!! This is such a relief and I feel like I can finally start "living" here if that makes sense. I'm no longer a vagabond in this strange and beautiful place. Now that I have an actual address, I can become an official Alaskan resident. One perk of becoming a resident is the state gives each resident a portion of the state oil and gas revenue every year. A cool bonus, but I won't start getting my annual checks until next year after I've been here an entire year.

I've made some more progress on getting settled into the house. I think I've found a spot for everything in the kitchen! There is much more counter space than I had in my apartement, but the corners make it a bit hard to utilize the cabinets to their fullest. I put some lazy susans in the cabinets to maximize the space, especially with the spices. I also found the cutest owl coffee mugs and stand on clearance that look great on my counter! It's fun to cook in the new kitchen. I just resubscribed to Cooking Light magazine and they email me a recipe a day to help give me ideas and recipes that are easy and healthy.

Owl mugs

First breakfast in my new home as a homeowner!
Egg white, turkey, veggie scramble

Chicken, black bean, and veggie tostadas! One of my daily Cooking Light recipes

Orange beef and veggie stir fry, another Cooking Light recipe

Recipe borrowed from Ali - Cajun Sausage Egg Casserole

One crazy thing about the kitchen is I have a gas oven. This definitely freaked me out the first time I used it. I preheated it and ran upstairs to finish folding some laundry and came down and heard the very faint sound of flames and slight smell of gas. I didn't know if I accidentally turned on the gas range instead. So I ran over the oven to turn it off and actually saw the reflection of flames in the oven (like you would under a gas grill). For those reading this who have a gas oven, laugh away cause I probably sound like an idiot haha, but I had no clue such a thing existed. I immediately took out my manuals and googled gas ovens and started feeling better that it was a real thing. And that reminded me to make sure to get a fire extinguisher the next day. Good thing natural gas is so cheap!

I'm starting to get super organized thanks to some Pinterest ideas, such as getting a large binder and putting all my user manuals in it for easy access. This has especially come in handy with the excessive amount of instruction manuals for all my new appliances in the house. I've also got my office pretty well organized. It's nice to have all my files and documents finally put away rather than scattered everywhere. And I'm still really liking my new desk. Sadly my cubicle at work doesn't accommodate my diplomas so I hung them over my desk. And of course I've got my shrine to Brett Favre and the Packers on display!

Binder of manuals - thanks Pinterest!

Each manual gets its own sleeve

Completed office ( had to close the blinds due to glare)

My finished desk! Love the glass top

Packers wall in the office

I finally have cable / internet up and running! I got a Tivo box which is great because I can turn on my Pandora while I'm cooking. Jason came over to help me hang the TV on the wall above the fireplace. It looks great cause the wires were already prewired through the walls so no cords have to hang down. The internet is pretty strange here.. I had to sign up for a limited data plan, similar to a smart phone. I've never heard of places having unlimited internet, so it was a little difficult to figure out which plan to choose. I decided to start with 60GB to test out the first month.

TV mounted above the fireplace

The living room still needs a little organizing, such as an area rug which I finally picked out this week. It should arrive soon which will tie the room together and make it feel more cozy. Hardwood floors will be chilly in the winter for sure! It's nice to have a little half bath downstairs off the living room instead of having to run upstairs. I'm quickly remembering the pains of stairs haha.. it was nice having a one story apartment for the past 3 years! I still need to figure out what to put in the front entry way. I've never really had a need for a coat rack or a "mud mat" for guests to remove their snowy dirty shoes... so that's still on the list of to-dos.

Half bathroom downstairs... if you haven't noticed yet, my fav color is green

Jewelry corner in my bathroom now complete
with my new necklace holders!

It's been raining quite a bit here and the temps are starting to lower slowly, but as mentioned before that doesn't seem to stop people from getting outside and enjoying the day. It did clear up one late afternoon to go berry picking! I was super excited for this activity, however the "short hike" to the berries ended up being over a 3 mile round trip excursion. I didn't make it to the blueberry fields, however we did pass lots of little raspberries bushes. The wild raspberries are so little and cute! I've heard of lots of blueberry fields from coworkers that are closer and don't require long hikes, so I'll be checking those out soon hopefully!

Hiking to the berries

Wild raspberries

Berries and flowers along the trail

Itty Bitty Berries

My pickings... I ate a lot on the hike back to the car!

With all the rain, I've had lots of time to get the house together and organized. However, its still not complete... I can't believe its taking this long! I've just about finished the upstairs, but I still have some work to do in the living room, kitchen area, entryway, and garage. So photos of those still to come.

Nook at the top of the stairs

I'll be spending a lot of time reading here in the winter

My puzzle table! Katie will like this :)

Guest room all ready to go for whoever wants to visit!

I went to lots of concerts back in Texas, so one thing I knew I would miss moving up to Alaska was live music. However, I already made it to my first concert up here! O.A.R performed a couple weekends and although it rained, it was a lot of fun. I use a website called Songkick that syncs to my itunes account and lets me know when any artists I listen to will be in the cities I've selected. I used to get a weekly summary email of all the artists on my itunes coming to either Houston or Austin and it was a little depressing when I changed my city to Anchorage and almost all of the shows were wiped clear. However, I got a Songkick email this week, only the second once since my O.A.R. notification, and it just so happens to be for one of my favorites... Matt & Kim!! I've seen them in concert 4 times, twice in Austin and twice in Houston and they never fail to disappoint. I couldn't be more excited that they are heading all the way up to AK in September, however it will be so weird seeing them without Hayley, my faithful concert buddy and fellow Matt & Kim lover. We've been to all their shows together.

Double rainbow at O.A.R.

Raining at the concert but having fun at O.A.R.

Cool panoramic with the double rainbow

Matt & Kim concert in Austin with my concert buddy

I've been on a couple recent adventures such as fishing in Seward, playing with sea otters, and kayaking in Whittier! However I think I've exhausted this post with house stuff so I'll write again soon with my adventure stories!

So now for some Alaskan facts, mostly related to transportation. First, there are a lot of traffic circles here. There is one in Houston that always gave me trouble on Washington and Westcott, but I bet I'd be a pro at it now since there are so many here. It still gets a little tricky when there are two in a row and I go all the way around the second one to make a left turn... it just feels like I'm driving in loops!

Along the lines of traffic, the red lights here are so incredibly long. I'm used to the "walk" symbol on the crosswalks counting down from 15 seconds max. Here they are 45 seconds! So it really stinks if you just miss the light, cause you will be waiting for awhile. Luckily though, my commute to work is only 12 minutes! It's a nice change of pace from the 25-30 minute commute I had in Houston. And it makes the long lights not seem too bad :) There is a lot of construction on the roads everywhere around town. Everyone keeps telling me there are two seasons here... winter and construction! It seems like every road has been under repair from the last winters ice damage at one point or another since I got here.

I still don't have my AK license plates. The title company back at the dealership in Texas needed proof that I lived in AK and didn't need to pay sales tax on the car. However since it took forever to close on my house, I've been unable to provide proof of residence since I was still using my Texas drivers license. So hopefully I'll get that sorted in the next month so I can get rid of my paper plates. I did finally get my AK drivers license, which required an online driving test! Thankfully since I surrendered my TX license, I did't have to take an actual road test, just the computer test. I took a couple practice ones online and averaged about an 80 so I was a little nervous since I had to get an 80 to pass (16/20). I actually missed 4 of the first 10 questions so the last 10 were a little stressful! Luckily I just barely passed and they printed my new license on the spot. Stephanie is now an Alaskan!