Catching up

Dear Heavens, I have been remiss in posting! Skipped all of fall and went straight into winter. To be fair, we only got a few days of our classically gorgeous Fairbanks Fall, and it barely stopped raining! I try very, very hard not to complain about rain, as I grew up in a drought-vulnerable region, and moreover I do detest smoke when there is a wildfire nearby. But I came very, very close to complaining this year. But even in the rain, fall's beauty comes through. I took a photo of the First Sign of Fall.

And I'll be certain their my dogs by the things they like to do... Like walking in the rain (like walking in the rain), and wishing on the stars (wishing on the stars!).

Misty fall mornings. I think these are the most beautiful!

The last tree to hold its leaves.

Ravey Gravy in the woods

Princess Cricket in the woods

The weekend of St. Francis' feast day, we took the girls and Cricket's sister Bedbug to be blessed at St. Jude's in North Pole, which is a suburb of Fairbanks. Raven's first time at an urban-ish activity. She did well. I was so proud her obedience training came in handy.

The sisters listen so attentively to the sermon!

And pose with Reverend Shirley!

Getting blessed by Father Scott, who has blessed my dogs since 2007.

FIRST SNOW!!!

SUPER EXCITING!!

But it was quickly ruined when we then got a freak storm. BOOO!!! For nearly two days, we got warm weather and RAIN! Which then froze to ICE! The K12 school district, the University, and the Borough offices all closed, and we all stayed home hunkered down. Ice built up on power lines, and we had several power outages, although they were of short duration. I had brought out the camp stove and we had prepared to live without power for a while, but it came on often enough that we didn't even need to fire up the generator!

We shoveled slush from our driveway, to ensure that when temperatures dropped back to normal, we would not have a slick of ice to deal with.

Cricket does not like power outages. She needs reassurance in the form of SNUGGLING.

Then Raven joined the snuggling and I got stuck on the couch!

INTENSE SNUGGLE!!

We lost power so little that we only had to deploy ramen once, and I still cooked it on our electric stove! I only used it because I wasn't sure how long the power would last! I also boiled a big pot of water and filled every single thermos we owned, so later we could have tea, coffee, etc without having to use a camp stove.

Then the weather settled down. Graders came and cleared the roads. And the ice was mercifully covered with snow. We have traction again!

And they are comfy.

Today is my birthday! I am 47, and my goal, which I set early in summer, was to do 47 pushups today. The first day, I could only do ten. A month later, I could do twenty. After several months, I could do thirty! Finally I made it to forty-two, but withheld doing any more until today, my big day! Forty-seven! I made it! And... I do feel stronger in many ways. Shoveling snow has become easier than it used to be, although DL still does the majority of it. And I don't struggle with things the way I sometimes did before. I think I'll keep it up, although maybe I'll just do them every other day.

I wish my 14 loyal readers a happy and safe winter!