ah, life.

sitting here and looking at the gray skies outside and the trees swaying in the wind, i have some reflections on life that i've been pondering lately.

one is that i've been feeling homesick and missing the community and the vast openness of fairbanks and the interior.  i've been here for all of three weeks, so patience my friend - i know, i know.  i'm also a bit of a home-body...when given my druthers on many nights i'd rather just stay in and hang doing projects at home than go out to the bar. it's true, as lame as that might be. it's also partially the winter-mode, which i'm slowly moving out of and stretching my legs, as it were.  it help immensely when there's blue skies and sun that emerge out of the darkness of dawn.

possibly as a result of feeling uprooted, but also something i know i've held for a long time, i feel a strong draw towards settling in and homesteading.  i want some goats and sheep, a big veggie garden, wildflowers. i want to wake up at dawn every morning with a huge list of chores to do, and a never-ending array of tasks to tackle in order to make things run smoothly and garner enough income to make it through another winter.   i want to keep my tools in good working order, to build furniture, to spin wool and knit by the fire in the dead of winter with dried flowers hanging from the log rafters.  i know it's awfully romanticized, but i like to think that i know the meaning of hard work and barely scraping by. and that i would like to have land, and build or fully renovate a home.  last night, first thing this morning, all day today that has been on my mind. and it's a recurring dream, one that maybe will someday come true.

in the meantime....

i'm training for the gold nugget triathlon in anchorage in may. and by training i mean learning to swim freestyle.  this is very very difficult for me, and i've been really enjoying the challenge!  the people at the pool are *great* and it's really fun to have a very solid task in front of me.  additionally i am SO HAPPY to be working my body again! 

this afternoon kaya and i went skiing up at mcneil canyon.  it was beautiful, snowy, windy and with incredibly dark and beautiful clouds rolling in.

here's a picture of homer from the lookout point on the ski trail kai and i were on.  it's a little hard to see the spit, but i promise there's a wee bit of land there stickin' out into kachemak bay!  the orange arrow points to where i work, at the end of the spit.  the blue arrow points to approximately where i live, about 2miles from downtown homer.

and this is the snow halibut i made yesterday while shoveling my driveway. it's an homage to the white side. 

 

it fell over shortly after taking this second picture. i have some work to do before entering any snow-sculpting contests. but it's mighty fun, is all i'm sayin' is all.