Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

When I started this journal more than five years ago, my goal was to share my journey to Alaska, and my life in Alaska - via my words and photographs - with the rest of the world. I also decided that there would be some topics that I would not write about - subject matter that I, and many others, consider very personal. Two of these issues are religion and politics.

It has been two days since Barack Obama was named President-elect.  Over the past two days, the airwaves, the newspapers, online blogs, and television have bombarded us with a wide range of responses to this news: elation, sadness, fear, relief, happiness, anger, and too many more to list.

However, no matter your response to the election of President-elect Barack Obama, we can be proud that there will be a peaceful transition of government. This is not the case for many of the countries of the world.

How many of us were raised by parents who told us that America was a country where anyone could grow up to become President? A few days ago, those words became a real truth.  Perhaps our next president will be a woman!

There has been so much divisiveness in our country - our UNITED States of America.  And now that the election is over, I am saddened to see that this divisiveness remains.

I don’t believe that McCain or Obama would have gotten as far as they did, if we didn’t believe that they had what it takes to lead our country. We knew going into this process that only one man would win the position, and American voters made that decision. The outcome may not be what some hoped for, but such is the democratic process.

McCain used gracious and eloquent words in his concession speech, and I think we should all take heed:

“I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulate him but also our offer him our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to overcome our differences to ensure our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world and leave our children and grandchildren in stronger, better country than we inherited.

“Whatever our differences we are fellow Americans, and please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.”

We have a long, hard road ahead of us, but I believe that together we will make it. Together, we can heal our wounds and reach for the future.  United we stand, divided we fall.

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CALENDARS

Good news about the calendars! They were shipped early, and I received them late last week. I’ve begun packing them up and shipping them off, but since there has been such a huge response, it’s going to take me some time to get them all in the mail. I am glad that they came so early, because that means they will get to you earlier. I hope to have all the calendars shipped by the third week in November, but more than likely earlier.

As I’ve shipped them, I’ve been notifying recipients to watch their mail. I expect that mail can take anywhere from 5-7 days to get from AK to wherever you are. (Except for my international customers)

I’ve also been sending out reminder emails to those of you who haven’t made payment yet. If you’ve mailed payment, please disregard these emails. I can not ship calendars without payment. I want to apologize here for sending out bulk/informal emails. It’s the easiest way for me to reach large numbers of you at once.

If you live locally, I will be contacting you about delivering the calendar(s) personally.

I’ve also got a “Reserve List” started for those of you who may have missed out on the original announcement for my calendar and would like one. (Only if there are extras once the ‘dust settles’). If you’d like to be put on that list, please email me at susan@susanstevenson.com. I can not guarantee that there will be any extras, but there’s always a possibility.

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NOVEMBER GRATITUDE

Last year, on each day in November, I wrote about something I was thankful for. I plan to do the same thing this year. Why shouldn’t Thanksgiving be celebrated all month long? This time of year is not always a happy one for me. With the onset of the holiday season, I sometimes struggle with feelings of depression, caused by sadness over the loss of my parents, living too many miles from my sons and my daughter-in-law, missing my extended family, and the growing hours of darkness which settle over Alaska in the winter months.

Being challenged to find something to be grateful for - for thirty days straight - can be a struggle when I’m feeling down. I have found that giving thanks for even the little things has the power to shift my focus from the negative to the positive.

I wrote down my thoughts over the course of the past few days and I will share them here.

November 1st
Today I am thankful for modern technology, and the ability to pick up a phone and hear my sons’ or my husband’s voices - even though they are miles away from me. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live in a time when messages took days or weeks or months to travel from one person to another. I am also thankful for the internet; modern technology that has brought so many wonderful people into my life. I am thankful for the knowledge and information that I can find at my fingertips. I am thankful for the opportunity to see foreign lands via photos and video, and online blogs - lands I may never get to see in person. While modern technology has almost eliminated some of the niceties of the past (hand-written letters sent by snail-mail, dictionaries, and those fancy sets of encyclopedias that looked so pretty on a bookshelf), it has also brought the entire world into our homes - with only a few clicks.  I am thankful for that.

November 2nd
Today I am grateful for a husband who loves to cook. I have never been fond of cooking. When I was growing up, it wasn’t something that was required of me. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and she did all the cooking. The only thing I was required to do was pack our lunches for school. Anyone can make sandwiches! I do remember occasions of helping my mother in the kitchen - mostly with prep work, such as peeling potatoes, or slicing carrots, but she took care of everything else in regards to meal preparation. I know how to cook, and I can follow a recipe fairly well. And when I do cook, the meal turns out OK. But I get no joy out of it whatsoever. It feels too much like work to me. I’d rather clean up and do the dishes. And so today, I am thankful to be married to a man who just prepared me scrambled eggs with swiss cheese and bacon.

November 3rd
Today I am thankful for squirrel and cat antics. I spend many moments each morning, after opening the blinds on the back sliding glass door, watching Airborne scope out the bird feeders and the squirrel activity. Mr. Squirrel always runs up to the glass doors at least once - but usually more than that - and looks right in at Airborne. It’s a morning ritual! Airborne drops down to her haunches with her ears back, and lets out a chatter, and Mr. Squirrel runs to the BBQ where he hides. I’m sure he can’t hear her through the glass, but I get the impression he knows exactly what he’s doing.  It’s something so simple, and yet so entertaining. I really wish I knew what they were both thinking. I love animals - both the ones that live with me, and the ones who live in my yard.

November 4th
Today is a day we should all be thankful for. It is the day when we get the chance to participate in what less than 5 percent of the world’s entire population throughout history has been able to do; vote for the kind of government we want to have. There was a time when to vote in this country you had to be white male who was a property owner. They didn’t let women, minorities, renters or many others vote for anything! Did you know that until the early 1970’s you had to be 21 years old to vote? The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution standardized the voting age to 18. Nineteen of our United States permit 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections and caucuses if they will be 18 years of age, by election day. We should not ignore our right to vote! We can control our own destiny by going into that voting booth, election after election. And when we don’t someone else controls our future. Voting is the most basic right an American citizen has, because the people elected are who affect our other rights, for the good and the bad.

November 5th
Today I am thankful that the political hate ads and phone calls have stopped.

November 6th
Today I am grateful for my sister-in-law, Diane.  Diane - Dee to all of us - has been married to my brother Steve for more than 20 years.  We hit it off immediately. In time, I began referring to her as my “sister” rather than SIL, and some people thought we really were bio-sisters. When my father grew so ill with his cancer, that my mother could no longer care for him, Dee invited them both to move into her home, so that she could help my mother with his care. My father passed away there, with the entire family surrounding him. Ten years later, she did the same thing for my mother, when cancer debilitated her. Dee administered her meds, cooked meals for her, and drove her to and from doctors appointments. Dee loved my parents very much, and mourns their passing as deeply as I do. When I’m feeling down, I sometimes call Dee and shed tears with her. She cries along with me. I never had a biological sister. I was jealous of my friends who had sisters growing up. I wanted that special bond that sisters have.  I’ve found that with Dee.

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PHOTOS

On my way to the post office, I stopped to take some photos of the North Pole footbridge and surrounding area:

Yesterday morning, while letting Sedona out, I set my camera up on my tripod to take a photo of the night sky (6am). I was excited because I could see the constellation ORION! I saw two other stars which were very bright to the naked eye. One was extremely bright and flashing red, white and blue. At first I thought it was an airplane, but it never changed position. My research revealed that it is Sirius. I also identified Procyon higher in the sky.

Until next time….