New (not necessarily exciting) things

OK, well some of these are exciting, though it's not the Wednesday exciting news (it is only Friday, after all)...

I just made my first ever international call!  I had to google how to make an international call hahaha thank you Google!  Yes, it is only capitalized in the "thank you" as an entity; I'm pretty sure verbs aren't capitalized.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

The Moose has been learning all kinds of fun new things; for instance: she can now push a chair to where she wants to go, like the bathroom sink, get into the chair & use it to stand on, allowing her to cause proper mayhem, like turning on both sides of the sink full blast & soaking herself head to toe  playing in said sink.  She also learned how (I showed her ONCE) to take a pencil and push, push, pull it through one of the 3 holes punched in a spiral notebook - pshaw at all of you who gave me crap about not getting her those all important crappy shape toys, she's got this down.  As Yobo said, we can have her weaving rugs in no time!

I got my very own spinning wheel!!!!!!!!  It's an Ashford, it's new to ME :)  The previous owner said it was an early 80's model (so am I!) that had been recently tuned up.  It was pretty amazing how it all happened - new they're like $600.  A friend sent me a Craig's list ad for a $200 wheel here in town (this RARELY happens, and when it does, it's usually junk), so I called the lady up and we ended up gabbing for about 10 minutes.  After talking with Yobo later that night, it became apparent that this was still, very unfortunately, not affordable.  I called the nice lady back and let her know.  She called me back the next morning to tell me that she just couldn't sell it to this other lady who wanted because she just didn't sound like the right person; she couldn't explain it, but she had a gut feeling this wheel was MEANT for me.  Nice lady offered to take payments for the next 8 months to help make this ALL MINE.  Holy Toledo.  I couldn't say no!  So later that day (last Saturday), I went and picked my new baby up  :)  When I brought it home, I made sure to have it all set up & let the Moose explore it on her own terms.  She had about 10 minutes and then I brought out a chair & showed her how it all worked.  Nice lady also gave me a niddy noddy, but I already had a much nicer one, so I gave it to the Moose as a distraction toy (this worked wonderfully).  I am in heaven  :) 

Sadly, however, my choice to get the spinning wheel meant compromising and giving up some other stuff - I did not get to go to the apple pressing last weekend; I will not be at the Flogging Molly concert tonight (little cry); and the Moose & I will not be buying /making the Rainbow Brite & Twink costumes.  It's OK though, because I am still convinced I made the right choice  :D

Gooseberries are AMAZING!  I totally want to grow some now - I can't even believe I've never eaten them before.  They were SOOO good.  Surely it's just the variety as stories have been told by others of not such exciting flavors, but this one... this one was like an apple, peach, sour apple, cherry, and kiwi all together.  It was an explosive burst of wonderful!

Oh!  And on Tuesday, I saw my first ever wild ptarmagin (I've only ever seen them in pictures, or cooked in a yummy pot pie).  That was pretty cool.  They really are rather stupid LOL we almost hit it with the car because it just kept walking in the roadway, looking at us like "well, hello there."

Exciting Things!

Exciting things are happening!  More details to come on Wednesday  :)

Dates & Numbers

I just realized that the Moose's birth date, 3-31-11, has 3 3's in it - 3 twice & 1 three times!  Pretty nifty!

Some updates

So, we're buttoned down & ready for this storm!  I really hope the rest of Anchor Town listened this time & actually prepared this time.  http://www.wunderground.com/US/AK/101.html?MR=1

We've lost the camera, so... well, we've lost the camera LOL  if we can't find it in a week, Yobo says we can replace it for about $50, so we may as well.  It's pretty weird not having a camera/video recorder now.

I took my first Algebra test today & am feeling pretty confident about it, so here's to hoping reality matches perception  :)

I went to a new neurologist a few weeks ago; had my first follow-up on Thursday - LOVE her.  She said most people only see her 2 or 3 times & then they're done with her; said her job is to get me back to my life, not to hang out with her.  I thought she was nuts, but am pretty sure that my follow-up in a month will probably be the last time I see her.  AWESOME.  I have not had a migraine for TWO days now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This is AMAZING and WONDERFUL.  It's astounding how much I got done today   :D

Yobo pretty well sold out at market today.  He thinks today was the last one - after the storm last week & then what's supposed to happen tonight, there will not be a lot left to harvest so there won't be any excess to sell.  It's all good anyway because...

Next weekend, Yobo & I will be attending a conference on growing hardy fruit in Alaska & all about growing apples, as well as our first apple pressing!  SO excited for the apple pressing.  Yobo's super stoked about the conference because it's some dude named Dr. Bob Bors is coming up from Saskatchewan to present.

While the Moose still doesn't "talk" talk, she is able to hold a complete conversation in her own way  :)  We had a good talk last night, she was sitting on the kitchen table, playing, and discovered some batteries in a container.  I showed her how to use the little battery tester & she sat there, trying to test the batteries LOL  of course she couldn't quite get the battery into the tester and she was telling me all about it the whole time!  It was amazing to watch her, seeing the baby wheels turning in her baby head  :) 

Oh!  And I tried quail eggs for the first time!  There's a family at market that sells bunnies (I'm trying to convince Yobo that we need one... or two or three) & quail eggs.  They're pretty awesome and also hooked us up with some eggs.  Anyhoo, I finally tried some last night, hardboiled, and they were actually rather tasty!  They gave us another dozen today  :D  The Moose isn't really fond of eggs, but maybe she'll like the quail variety...  she sure does seem to dig the bunnies LOL 

We got some duck eggs from another market person today, as well as some gooseberries  :D Yobo's going to make some jam out of the gooseberries.  I'm also excited to try them plain.  Two more new things to try!

Well, it's officially 1 hour, 33 minutes past the start of the storm and it's definitely raining, but, thankfully, there's no wind yet!

Swinger

A Day at the Fair

Yobo, Yobo's mama, and I took the Moose for her 1st ever trip to the Alaska State Fair on Thursday.  We went through a little baby maze that was dragon / treasure-themed, listened to some music, ate good & bad food, went to a wildlife menagerie show with all kinds of cool animals (some pics below), saw all kinds of people, went through ALL the exhibit halls (I'd never done that before), saw a dog show, went to the petting zoo, and drank a real jerked soda!  Of course, we didn't make it through (to the end of) ANY of the shows, but had an otherwise excellent time.  It was windy when we got there, but, thankfully, the rain held off until we were ready to leave.      

watching the dog show... until the Moose got bored & tried to high tail it out of there (5 minutes in & there was a little too much guy talking, not enough dogs doing stuff).

she only pet one animal, a pony, and that may have been by accident.  she really liked looking at them all up close though & even fell in love with an alpaca  :)

watching the acrobats on the trampoline - she was WAY more into their music though!  when we were trying to walk around before & after this picture, she was having a hard time going anywhere because she kept stopping to bust a move LOL it was hilarious.  she'd take a couple of steps & just start putting her hands in the air.  people kept stopping to "awww" and giggle - as long as none of them actually tried to talk TO her, she was a ham & loving it up.

in the cooperative extension building; going through their publications  :)

that's an armadillo all balled up!

an unballed armadillo running around.  he'd run up that lady to rub his face against her shoe & get back scratches hehehehe and then he'd scamper around & come right back.

a baby African lion!

there were actually 2 of them, but only 1 on stage at a time.

a good day at the fair ends this way  :)

the animals are loose! and why aren't they making me cupcakes?

1. baking soda

2. cocoa

3. cupcake wrappers

 

oops! caught getting sidetracked - she was working on making mama some cupcakes, but was distracted & redirected by duct tape.

puppy playtime

puppy work time?

moo.