Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

I finally accomplished the main thing I wanted to - I painted the living room accent wall, and swapped out my photo prints for more cheerful spring/summer prints. I also hung a grouping of my black and white prints on one wall. The living room looks so welcoming now, and I’m quite pleased with the outcome.

Now that we see the paint on one long wall, we’re thinking of continuing it onto what we call the ‘island wall’ - which is the three sided “box” that sits in the middle of the living area, kitchen, and dining area. These three walls enclose the pantry, powder room, and under stairs storage. By painting those three walls, we’d have an extra wall of color in the living/kitchen area, and also an accent wall in the dining room.

I had the additional challenge of grouping my black and white prints around the light switches and other controls on one of the “island walls”. Here are some photos of the living room with the new paint color and photo groupings (Click on thumbnails to enlarge):

		Photos in the grouping at left: The rainbow was seen on the way home from Denali with my kids. The smaller print is Polychrome in Denali Park. The Blue Layers are the Brooks Range from the Dalton Hwy, and the Fireweed Layers were seen from Eagle Summit.

Last Friday night, I was hired to photograph a friend’s daughter at her dance rehearsal. I got to the auditorium a little early and had the opportunity to watch some of the little dancers go through their routine. They were so adorable! I just had to take some photos, both outside - as they made their way to the stage entrance, and again inside while they danced.

Saturday, we had Randy and Celeste over for a BBQ and frozen margaritas. Everything was yummy, and we had beautiful weather. We sat outside enjoying the sunshine and warmth (70s!), and even the mosquitoes left us alone for the most part. Our mosquito magnet is doing it’s job pretty well.

Steve hired a guy from work who clears brush and dead fall with a small crew of guys. We put our stimulus checks towards straightening up the back yard, as it’s something that we needed to do. They cleared all the dead fall from the wooded area (1.5 acres), cut down dead trees (mostly all saplings), put all the debris through a chipper, cut all the bigger logs into manageable pieces, and hauled the large stuff away. It’s too bad we don’t have a fireplace, or we would have kept the big logs for ourself. They’ve been working their behinds off, and it’s so nice to actually be able to walk into the trees around our house without stepping over huge dead trees, and other debris. Now the prickly rose and bluebells can take over.

Speaking of bluebells - that’s what I’ve got growing in my yard! A few journal entries ago, I wrote that I had these strange plants growing in patches throughout my yard. I’ve seen bluebells before, but never in the beginning stages. What a surprise when the blue buds separated and grew longer, with the telltale bell at the end.

Some are pinkand some are blue, but they all turn blue eventually. I’m starting to see some pink in the buds on the prickly rose bushes too. It’s been a very late ’spring’ as bluebells and prickly rose almost always bloom in May. I’ve also seen the pinkish/purple of wild sweet pea growing along the road. I’ll have to get photos of them soon.

I’ve got some wonderful news to share with you all. There’s a new store opening up in downtown Fairbanks, called The Stash. It is owned by Rachael Brechan, Janie Magelky and Laura Walker, and there will be an open house tomorrow evening (Friday) from 5-9pm. The Stash is a place “to learn, create and buy all things handmade” and is located at 544 Third Ave.

Joanne of Willow Creek Clothing (where I held my first First Friday event), mentioned me to Janie when she heard about the new store opening. Janie emailed me and then called, and invited me to place some of my work in her store for sale. I jumped at the idea - especially since I had just swapped out a lot of my photographs throughout the house. Why not put them up for sale, rather than store them in a closet?

So I matted and framed a few more prints, assembled more than a dozen greeting cards, and met with Janie earlier this week. I look forward to going by the store and seeing my photographs hanging. If you live local, please stop by and check it out! There are some really great things in the store: knitted scarves, tote bags, watercolor prints and note cards, plushy toys, jewelry, and more - all handmade by local artisans.

Steve picked up our camper and she’s all ready for another summer on the road. The RV place broke the shower head, but they replaced it without any squabbles. They’re good about that, thank goodness - but it would be better if they were a bit more gentle when working on it. Steve had an electric tongue jack installed on it, as he just can’t handle cranking the front end up and down with his shoulder problems. We’ll be doing a lot of camping this summer, so it will make set up a lot easier.

I took a mix of photos over the past few days - just snapshots I took while out and about…