as promised....

Here are pics of my new kitchen:

As I said earlier, I am very excited about having a real kitchen in my house. I have cabinets, a sink, a stove, tile floor... it's all there.

Now for the details... the stove is propane, connected to a couple of 100 pound tanks out back. Turns out a natural gas stove converts to propane just by changing one little part. This stove does not require any electricity to work, not even the oven. This is a good thing, since I don't have any electricity.

I do have running water, however, of sorts. We have a 150 gallon water tank upstairs that has a faucet emptying into the kitchen sink. It will go to the bathroom sink too, eventually. We can't use our pretty kitchen sink faucet however, because it turns out that gravity does not supply enough pressure to force the water through the faucet at anything more than a dribble. So we have a temporary faucet that is just like a typical outdoor faucet, until we have more pressure. What we don't have yet is hot water. If we need hot water, we heat it on the stove, or on the woodstove, if it happens to be hot. Our water situation is by no means a perfect one, but it works for us for now.

So, I have a kitchen. I have lived in this cabin since April 1 without a kitchen (you can see the pics here and here of my previous setup). This is a vast improvement, one I am totally psyched about.

Assault with a deadly spork...

James called me earlier today to read me this story he found while reading the Anchorage Daily News. I think it is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Apparently some guy had lunch at KFC, and must have gotten some serious indigestion or something... he stabbed a guy with his spork, oh excuse me, hybrid fork spoon utensil. When James read this to me, my reaction was, are you KIDDING me?

http://www.adn.com/crime/story/558820.html

I love Alaska.

long time no see

Well, I knew it had been a while since I last posted, but not until I looked at my blog did I realize it has been over a month. WOW. I have been insanely busy at work, getting lots of overtime, and the commute is taking up just about all the rest of my waking hours. Add church activities, sick kids (even just the minor colds and stuff they have require attention), listening to news about the financial mess, the excitement about having an oven to bake with, I have no time.

BUT DID YOU HEAR THAT???? AN OVEN TO BAKE WITH. I am leaping with joy. I am absolutely, completely ecstatic because I have a real stove. This weekend, I will post pictures on my blog of my beautiful new kitchen.

I have three days off this weekend. I am absolutely thrilled to have all that free time. I don't know what I will do with it all.... oh wait, I will bake bread. I will knit. I will play piano. I will post pictures and erudite soliloquies on my blog. I will spend time with my kids, maybe playing in our snow. I will plant daffodil bulbs and hope they survive the winter. I will.... wait, what happened to all my free time????

welfare

I have to start this post by saying that my mom is one of my favorite people. And I don't really want to pick on her. But recent events have me thinking a lot about something she said recently. See, my mom and I get along pretty well. But we totally disagree on a lot of political and economic issues. My mom is a staunch republican, and I am independent, but lean towards the democrat view when it comes to economics. So my mom and I were talking the other day, and she was saying that she votes Republican because "they seem to take better care of my money. They don't try to give it away in welfare to people that are too lazy to work."



Well, no, I agree the Republicans don't give money to the average Joe. Or the poor Joe, who may be poor because he is lazy, or does drugs, or may be poor because he has limited abilities, or poor health, or something else completely outside of his control. Or poor Joe's kids, who are also poor through no fault of their own. But they sure as hell give it away. Who do they give it away to? Um, let's see.

• Oil companies that make the biggest profits ever seen get huge welfare subsidy payments.


• Banks that make stupid lending and investment decisions, lose BILLIONS of dollars, and still pay their worthless CEO's hundreds of millions of dollars per year, get huge welfare bailout funds (um, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, maybe Lehman Brothers soon).


• The Big Three automakers, who couldn't see high gas prices coming (I could see it coming, and I am not getting paid a gazillion dollars a year to pay attention to what direction the market is going) and now can't get loans at a "reasonable" interest rate, looks like they will be getting more billions of dollars in welfare low-interest, guarenteed loans from the government to retool their factories so they can stay in business. Never mind that an individual that made stupid decisions and blew their money can't get a loan at a "reasonable" interest rate either... it's common sense not to lend in that situation, but let's hand out money to the Big 3.


• Airlines, who also didn't see the high gas prices coming, are getting huge welfare subsidy payments. They are going bankrupt anyway, one by one.

I could keep going. But individual people, who didn't see high gas prices coming, can't get any increase in the heating assistance program, even though heating costs, especially for those dependent on heating oil or propane have gone up astronomically. Individual people, who didn't see high food prices coming, and whose salaries don't keep up with inflation or the rising cost of medical care, can't get increases in medicaid coverage for their children. Soldiers who risk their lives everyday on the battle field, and too often these days sacrifice everything for their country get paid so poorly that their family back home scrapes by on food stamps.

My mom's beef is that helping these people comes out of her pocket, and that of every American lucky enough, smart enough, ambitious enough, whatever, to make enough money to pay taxes. But how much is bailing out Freddie Mac going to cost her, me, every other taxpayer? A hell of a lot more than funding a program to help people keep their homes warm. How much do we spend every year in subsidies to oil companies that make $40 billion in profits? More than what it would cost to pay a soldier enough to be able to provide for his family, or give him adequate healthcare if he is injured.

I just think that individual people and their families, matter a whole lot more than corporations. And I know that all these industries are important to our economy, but I think that if people have no safety net in hard times, then businesses should not either. It is much more tragic for a child to starve or freeze to death, than for a corporation to fail, no matter how large.

For me, the bottom line is that Republican care about big business, and making money. Democrats care about people. That's why I tend to agree with them on economic issues.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

nature's bounty

On Labor Day, we went hiking with some friends at Hatcher's Pass. While we were there, we decided to do some berry picking. The blueberries were plentiful. They are more tart than cultivated blueberries, but they are still delicious. We picked til we got tired of picking, then came home with close to a gallon of blueberries. We could have gotten lots more, but this wasn't a serious berry picking expedition, and our hands were getting cold, so we quit.

from my garden...

Yummy! These were picked off the raspberry bushes in my garden for the sole purpose of breakfast the other morning. They were absolutely delicious. It is things like this that make me glad to have a garden....

raindrops on roses

and whiskers on kittens....

A while back, the kids brought home a stray cat that looked pregnant. She wasn't. However, with the combination of her and an unfixed male cat that we thought was too young to accomplish anything (after all, he was just born in November), she quickly became pregnant. So, we now have, in our 950 square foot cabin, two adults, three kids, one dog, and six cats. At least four of the cats are tiny and only temporary residents. And right now, they stay put in their little box. But I know that at some point they will be underfoot, and we will all have to be very careful. I have never had a cat have kittens before, and they are just adorable little creatures. Not any of them look like either of their parents, though.

the perfect s'more

One of the things my kids really like to do is build a fire, and roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We do this every two or three weeks, and it is a lot of fun for them. James has figured out how to make great s'mores.... check it out...

stone

We got the floor for the Arctic entry in. I think I may have talked about this in a previous post, but now I have a picture :)

James found some natural stone on sale, and bought enough for the arctic entry, plus some. He laid the stone, and I put in the grout. I am really happy with the way it looks.

I really enjoy projects like this because in such a small space (5 x 7), you can do a lot to make it look nice and improve the functionality of the area without spending a fortune, and get it done fairly quickly.

Once sealed, the stone will be perfect for the arctic entry. It is an area of the house that will be subject to heavy traffic, mud, snow, water, ice, dirt, etc. being left on it, and frequent temperature changes. Stone handles this well, as it is naturally exposed to all these things anyway.

Seduction

So, remember back in March, I said: "We could have gone out and bought a new car, no problem. But it just didn't seem like the sensible thing to do. We just paid off our Dodge Durango in January, and I am very happy to be free of car payments. And if I can't get a $20K new car that can match the gas mileage of a $750 car, I just don't see any benefit to it at all." (http://lifeonthelastfrontier.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html) Well, that was my common sense speaking.

But I guess I don't always think with that. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know we have been having issues with our little Geo. Well, yesterday morning halfway through our 55 mile commute, we lost one of our three cylinders. We were able to nurse it into Anchorage, but it was clear that the engine rebuild could not wait any longer. I spent a couple hours yesterday calling around to try to find out how much it would cost to fix, and how long it would take.

Late in the afternoon, James called me. "Come outside," he said. So I went outside, and saw him sitting in a sexy little red car.

"What do you think?" he asked me.

I liked it. I liked it a lot. He was test driving it. Then I test drove it. And I liked it more. I kept thinking, "I don't want a new car. I don't want car payments and full coverage insurance. I don't want a new car."

"We could fix the Geo," I said, trying to maintain common sense.

"What do you want to do?" he asked me. And the rest is history:

I am now the proud (and somewhat abashed) owner of a 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer. It has been averaging just over 30 mpg, so it isn't totally extravagant, but boy, its a long way from my Geo Metro. And I love it.