Thursday, April 30

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Well we woke a little late, got up and took the dogs out, it looks like it didn’t rain/snow all night, and the board walk is pretty dry. The fog is laying low and the temps are a bit chilling in the mid 30’s. Doesn’t look like we’re going to get a plane today unless the fog lifts, there isn’t really any wind at all. The dogs ran out and enjoyed the snow-free yard! Dante is starting to love going outside, he gets so excited when he sees the halter and leash!

I got down to the office and entered the charge slips in. I think we’re out of fuel again, the office is pretty chilly. We’ve only been ordering small amounts of fuel because we’re supposed to have our new drum put in sometime here soon and we really don’t want to be sticking a large amount of fuel in the tank we want to move! But it seems that we’re burning thru it faster. So I’ve had my little space heater plugged in pumping heat into the office so I don’t freeze! Had a couple people come up to cash their checks, had 3 people put money on their store accounts. Not too bad a morning!

For lunch we decided on having salmon spread again, since it was sooooo good yesterday! Plus it’s super good for you! The fog seemed to have darkened and it looks like it wants to maybe start raining, so we’ll see what the weather wants to do later… I was hoping the fog would lift and the plane would come in. Oh, and to my surprise, the school kids and their chaperones snuck home on a boat last night, arriving sometime after midnight!! So welcome home kids!!

This afternoon I went and emptied out all the quarters out of the washers and dryers, took the cash from the change machine, and filled the soap/fabric softener dispenser and emptied the quarters from the little collection bin. Then I brought all the quarters and cash up to the office to be counted and put away. I will have to go back down and put quarters back in the change machine to replace the cash I collected out of it. My hands turned almost black from counting all those coins, how gross and dirty!! I made sure to wash my hands good!! Outside now it’s raining and pouring out there! I had a feeling it was going to rain!

I am looking forward to jamming out more on my game and watching Hell’s Kitchen tonight. It’s getting really close to being the final show, already! I can’t believe all the shows I got used to watching every week are all ending or have already ended and all new shows are starting back up! I can’t wait for it to warm up and the fish start to run and I get to get out and get some halibut fishing done and just being out on the water and enjoying the natural beauty of my home. I can’t wait to start cutting my lawn and put my sprinkler out, lie out in the sun and read a book or go up the bay for a picnic! I can’t wait to go sea gull egg picking and make some custard pies! I love the summers here!!

I don’t know what to get for dinner tonight, usually cook a small dinner on the nights that Chef Ramsey is on! So I’ll search the store shelves and freezers for something I can whip out quickly. I think my hubby’s has been wanting cheese burgers… sounds good to me… I think I’m going to send home a new bbq when we go to “town” since my old one didn’t make it this winter. I think I might turn my old one into a cute planter and put strawberries in it. We have these cute little strawberries that grow on a couple spots on the hills here and there are some out on Akun – but the cows usually eat the flowers before they can turn to berries!

Like 10 mins after the store closed a couple Trident employees came in knocking and banging on the door. I let them know the store closed at 4:30PM and will re-open at 10AM in the morning. They asked if there was another store and I let them know this was the only one. I guess someone had told them that the store closes at 5, whoever gave them that info was incorrect. I told them sorry, as I was already counting the cash and getting the paperwork ready for tomorrow!

I am trying to go thru all the pictures I have and make a short video for my presentation at the conference I am attending in a couple weeks. It’s just something small showing pix of town and some of the new buildings that have gone up or came down over the last year. I have been getting pretty good with my verbal presentations, so this year I wanted to add a small video! OoOo, I also get to do a reading at my friend’s wedding this summer! I am pretty excited, I let her know that I’ve been getting pretty good about getting in front of big crowds and still being able to talk and keep my composure. I told her I might cry a bit, but I should do great. It doesn’t scare me at all the thought of talking in front of a bunch of people I don’t know. I just smile, hold myself up straight and breathe and do what I love doing – talking! I am one of those people that is really kind of hard to shut up once you get me going. Some people complain about not being able to get a word in because I don’t take a break! LOL!! I think I got my great communication skills from my dad, I am almost just like my dad, personality wise!! I love my dad and I think he is a great role model – he’s full of wisdom that I wish I could soak up as fast as a sponge – well I should say I wish I could squeeze that wisdom out and soak it all up like a sponge!

Well I hope everyone has a great Thursday!! Today is end of the month already; I can’t believe it….. So sad how time is just flying right by us…… oh and I don’t know if I’ll be blogging when I’m traveling… If I have time I will make sure to check in! Until tomorrow, TTFN!!!

Oh I have been labeling my blogs on days when we get a plane. For the month of April, we had 13 flyable days out of 30!

Wednesday, April 29

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Woke up early this morning, figured I can get up and jam out a bit on Guitar Hero: Metallica. That game ROCKS! I love it! Any time I get time to play I’m on it! We took the dogs out and the weather is pretty nice and clear. There is about less than half an inch of fresh snow/slush covering everything, making it look wintery and white again… What’s left on the boardwalk is slowly melting, making it really slippery and it gets your shoes/feet wet, and it’s about 34.5F out. Today is garbage day so we put our garbage out, then I went inside and I played on my game for a good hour before getting ready for work.

I brought down a box full of clothes that I won on eBay for my niece Kenzie. I wrote her a letter, then wrote my sister Shannon a letter and put them in after folding all the clothes neatly in to the box. I then sealed it up, addressed it and got it in the mail before the first flight came in. It was right on time, around 11:30AM. The office was pretty quiet this morning, I got a couple orders out to some of our vendors for the next shipping, which is May 8th.

For lunch we got beef cup-o-noodles and I made a red salmon spread that we had on pilot bread crackers.

Got back down to the office and had a couple people come up to cash their checks. Other than that pretty slow and quiet. So I watched our Video Professor DVD on the computer learning about bank reconciliation and some of the end of the year tax paperwork that has to be filed. About time I get this down! I will get more training next month from our auditing company. My mom does it great by hand, but she isn’t too great when it comes to putting it all on the computer. So I have to learn how in order to be able to help and hopefully just be able to do it myself and have her overlook it. So I’m excited about that!

The weather is starting to pick up and the wind is starting to blow pretty good from the southeast. The sky is overcast but it’s clear out. Temps have been in the high 30’s most the day. I don’t think the plane is going to come back this afternoon. I think the weather is supposed to be crappy for a couple days, and the plane is supposed to fly out for its “check-up,” so I don’t think we’ll have a plane for a bit. Which sucks because I think the school kids are supposed to come home today from their trip, so hopefully the weather is nice enough for a plane tomorrow!

After work I went home and jammed out more on my game! My hubby pulled out some halibut for me, I decided that I was going to pan fry up some halibut and have some white rice on the side. So that was dinner. After dinner I took a nice long relaxing bubble bath. Now we are watching The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (we saw him live twice!!!), then off to bed!

I hope everyone had a great Wednesday, I can't believe tomorrow is already end of April!!!! Well, until tomorrow- TTFN!

Tuesday, April 28

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Well today started as a foggy cool morning, the tide making its way back in, the smell of kelp and all the new plants growing makes it smell so good! There is fresh snow on the boardwalk!!! OMG it must have gotten pretty cold for it to freeze over and turn to slush! The dogs all were slipping on the boardwalks trying to chase each other to their potty spots!

I made my way down to the office, I thought I had the bike, and then I remembered my mom dropping me off last night! So I walked down, sliding down the boardwalks in the slush like a little kid! I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to wear my coat anymore, oh well… I got the charge slips entered in, and we had a couple Trident employees come up to cash their checks.

My mom and I got in a “Spring Cleaning” mode and started to clean and move the office around a bit. The guys want to paint our office; I asked my mom if they can do that when I leave here soon! So, instead of prepping for paining, we vacuumed up and moved some of the furniture and electronics around. The office looks pretty organized and clean now.

The weather this morning was too foggy for a plane this AM, but at lunch time it felt like the sun was trying to burn all the fog away, so we might get a plane later if it clears up. I got us some Stouffers Meatloaf and mashed potatoes for lunch; I added some frozen sweet white corn to it to make it a complete meal! I love how it’s the right amount of food, portioned just right!

I got back to the office this afternoon and finished up getting some paperwork into the computer. Then I went on to cleaning and moving the Fisheries office around. The guys want to paint in there too! Right now that office is this putrid ugly neon greenish-yellow color that hurts your eyes! I don’t know who picked that paint color out back in the day, but I don’t know what they were thinking!! It took me about an hour to get everything moved around, vacuumed, dusted and put back in to place! We fixed up the old IGAP office (the one we let our auditor’s use) and turned it into our break room. My mom and I are going to get some “munchies” to put in there; we have a coffee maker in there and a couple desks and chairs. We usually use that office for just storage, but we figured since its set up now, we can use it as a break room/meeting room! I am thinking of brining up my little fridge and putting it in there so I can store myself cold drinks for my break so I don’t have to go down stairs and hope that what I want is in the fridge down there! I am happy we took the day to clean up, rearrange the posters on the walls and to take away more the clutter!

My hubby decided that he’s going to cook steam bath this afternoon. So other than playing my game, I have something else to look forward to after work. We are working with our auditing company to get me trained up to do bank recs and some other stuff they want on excel and in QuickBooks. So I will be staying up in Anchor-town for a little longer than I was expecting, it’s all good as long as my hubby and little pups are with me!! I feel so lost without them! Not a good thing to do to get yourself depended on having someone around you all the time! We’ve never really been away from each other the whole time we’ve been together, only maybe a couple times when we both had something medical where we had to fly to the hospital and the other person couldn’t go, other than that we’re always together! I love it that way; I wouldn’t want it any other way! So I called the airlines, changed our tickets, and then changed our car rental. At least all that can be changed easily!

Well for dinner I got us everything for either chili dogs or just regular hot dogs. Something quick and easy. Today is a work out day, so I’ll get a 50 min yoga session knocked out later. Oh and the weather cleared up around 2:30 and the plane came in around 3PM. Its blue skies a little bit of scattered clouds and lots of sunshine!! It feels so good! The grass is starting to grow, the salmonberry bushes are pushing small buds out – spring has sprung I think… I just want the weather to warm up and stay that way!! Not sure if the plane was going to come back or not, I think it is because we have a couple people who were supposed to be coming in today for the hotel and they weren’t on the first flight. I think they are supposed to be here only over night. I heard that the Goose is heading out for its 50 hour check up – they fly it to Anchorage and do a complete over haul on it. So we won’t be having any flights from May 1st until May 6th, or until the replacement Goose makes its way down. So that’s going to suck… if it isn’t the weather then it’s something else!! As long as it’s back so I can get out of here, I don’t think there are any boats going back and forth…………

Well I had a great Tuesday. I know my hubby is patently waiting for the new episode of DC to come on. I have a story to tell everyone about that… but maybe I’ll save that for tomorrow! Ok well much luv to all! Until tomorrow, TTFN!!


PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA MARIE AND JEFF B.!!!!!!

Monday, April 27

Monday, April 27, 2009

Today is another beautiful day in the Aleutians! I love when it’s starting to smell like spring/summer and the weather is warming up!

Well last night was a pain in the ass. We have these 2 super cute foxes hanging out down our end of town, and they love getting into everything they can. Last night it was ripping my garbage, the same garbage we had to pick up off the yard yesterday!!! Now at like 1AM these 2 little misfits had all my garbage spread out over my front porch. I would open the door and they would just look at me, and not even run! I would yell at them and try to throw stuff, but they would only go so far then come back. Ohhhh I was pissed, not something I wanted to deal with at that time of the night. The only reason we knew they were out there was because Roscoe was barking like hell. Dante doesn’t really bark unless there is someone he doesn’t know in the house. So we had to bag it all back up and try to rig up a bunch of stuff on our porch to stop them from getting back into it before garbage pick-up in the AM!!

We got up this morning and hosed the porch off before letting the pups out. I don’t want them trying to eat anything that the foxes left behind! So we cleaned our porch and let the pups out. It’s a beautiful day today, the water in the bay is pretty flat calm. The skies seem mostly cloudy with open patches where the sun pours its bright warm rays thru! The temps are in the mid 40’s, and you can smell the sweet smell of the ocean and kelp with the serenading sounds of sea gulls playing with each other as they gather eating krill on the beaches. A handful of eagles joining the small feast lining the beach. I hate letting Roscoe out when there are a bunch of eagles around, we always say he’s “eagle bait!” Dante only goes out on a leash, he won’t come back inside if he’s loose. I will have to play the “I’m running away from you, better catch me” game. I never chase him… I let him chase me… then he feels all happy when he finally “catches” me! They are like a bunch of little kids with no ears when they are outside! They just want to run and play and chase each other or play fetch with a ball! Dante is slowly learning what “inside” means. Roscoe will hang his head and make his way towards the door, like “do I have to?” look on his face! Tug is pretty well behaved, other than the fact that I think he thinks’ he’s an overgrown Chihuahua!! He thinks he can jump in our laps or try to have us hold him and get loves like the little guys do! This sucks because I really don’t want him to be thinking he can just jump on people, he’s like 80lbs, not 10lbs or less! Oh I weighted both my little babies!! Roscoe is exactly 10lbs, and Dante is 7lbs 2 oz!! They don’t seem that big, but the scale doesn’t lie!

So I got down to the office this morning and finished working on the Corp’s fuel billing. The City had send me revised billing, so I went thru it all and entered into the QuickBooks the rest of the fuel billing that hadn’t been paid. After printing out the check I went down and hand delivered it to the City Office just before lunch. The first scheduled flight came in on time this morning, landing around 11:12AM. I went down and took a picture of the plane on the ramp! I happened to get my Guitar Hero Metallica and the microphone in today!! Oh yeah, I’ll be rockin’ out tonight!! I also got in some of the clothes that I bid on eBay for my niece in today! So I’ll get those washed up and send off to her tomorrow! I hope she likes them! Gee, L/XL in little girls looks bigger than some of my Medium sized shirts I own! I was looking at the cute shirts I got in for her and was thinking I could easily fit all the clothes I got her! I should go thru my closet and send her everything I don’t wear anymore!

For lunch I cooked us up grilled cheese sandwiches and my hubby had his with a beef veggie soup. I jammed out a bit on GH: Metallica. I can’t wait to get off work and go get a good jam session in! OMG, for Medium difficulty it was pretty challenging! I can’t wait to go work on my “career” mode and start opening up stuff and making “money”! On my way back down to work, one of those pesky foxes was sitting on my porch, like it was waiting for me to bring it something. I tried to shoo it away and it ran down the bank then sat in my neighbor’s yard. I took a couple pix of it, super cute looking fox and it didn’t even move as I got off the 4-wheeler and snapped a couple pix, then I took a good one of me pointing at it! (hard shot to get, but I’m getting good at it!)

I got back down to the office, and Sandra May came up with the check I took to her at the City office and she told me that I somehow over paid them and we went back over billing. So I went back into QuickBooks, voided that check and finally got them the check for the right amount. So now we should be zeroed out on our fuel bill until this month’s billing is done up! Yay, I’m happy to get that done and over with, and I know Sandra is happy we got it all cleared up. I guess billing got put off for a bit when she went off to school and her temp tried to do the best job they could do with it… but I guess some how someone messed it up and Sandra had to fix everything back up and explain to us. So we’re both happy that is out of the way! What a headache, at least now we have it squared off and everything is starting from a zero balance. See what happened is my mom got the fuel bill in, paid it – but they over charged us on accident and after they fixed it we ended up over paying and we had a credit with them. And the way we enter it in the computer, the computer doesn’t know when or even if we have a credit. So I had to put lots of notes into QuickBooks explaining the credit and what totals went to which buildings fuel bill (since we take care of about 5 different buildings each with their own fuel account). Hopefully nothing like that happens at the City again, and billing should go smoothly now… well as long as Sandra is doing it I know it will be done right! Thanks a lot for your help getting that figured out Sandra!!

I got all the charge slips from the weekend entered in the book. My mom had payroll done this morning by the time I got to work, so I’ve been handing out payroll checks to our employees all day. I have also been cashing a pretty good amount of local’s checks. I had about 4 people put money on their store accounts and we bought some cash from the Roadhouse!

I love the nice weather we are having today! The sun feels great, giving off some heat that can be felt even with the little breeze! I almost need to start keeping my jacket at home and store my DC shoes away for a rainy day and pull my flip-flops and heels out for the rest of the summer!!

Doc Borenin brought my mom up some “bidarkies” – gumboots or chitins. I used to eat them back when my maternal grandma was alive, but I haven’t really eaten once in over 15 years now, and I sadly think I won’t ever eat one again. I can’t get myself to do it, when I was a kid it was something grandma fed me… but once I found out what it was I didn’t want to eat it any more. Doc brought my mom up a pretty good amount, I held a couple and took some pictures of them. They seem to not get as big as I remember them getting, that or they just decided to take as many as they could off the Reef so everyone can get some and didn’t worry about how big they were. The salt water on them smells good, I love living near the ocean, and I love the smell of it, the taste and smell of fresh ocean water being sprayed from a skiff! The only thing I probably don’t like about it up here is how cold it is… In Hawaii it was hard to keep me out of the water – until I thought of sharks!

I don’t know what we are going to be eating for dinner tonight. I might just get us some Hebrew National Kosher hot dogs and some chili. Oh wait, my mom just told me that my brother is making beef stew and we’re invited over for dinner! Yay, don’t have to get my kitchen dirty tonight!!

Around 4:35PM the second flight came in. Well I hope everyone had a great Monday!! Until Tomorrow TTFN!!

Pix:
The Goose making is way to the plane ramp.

The Goose on the ramp, everyone going over to meet it.

Fox running from my porch to my neighbor's yard.

Cute Fox

Me pointing to the fox! I didn't want to get any closer, it might bite!

My Dante winking (for CB)

My little baby boys!

Bidarkies in a grocery bag, my mom's going to eat these later

Me holding a couple, showing the top and bottom sides!

Sunday, April 26

Sunday, April 26, 2009

OK, so we woke up really early this morning, couldn’t fall back asleep so we stayed up for a couple hours watching TV. Around 8AM I decided that I was going to go fall back asleep since I didn’t want to be getting up around 5:30AM on a Sunday!! I wanted to sleep in, so I went back to sleep. I woke up to the sound of the Goose flying over the house, landing in the water in front of my house, at this time it was noon and we had way over slept. So we got up and took the dogs out again, we took them out this morning but it was still kind of dark out. It has been getting light earlier and earlier every day and it doesn’t start to get dark until well after 11:15PM!

The weather today is pretty nice. It’s in the mid 40’s, no really any wind-just a breeze from the south, and it’s dry out. Overcast skies and the water in the harbor has very small waves in it. So I was very pissed to go out this morning and find my garbage had not been picked up yesterday and the contents of the two bags were strewn across the boardwalk and my yard. I was not very happy seeing all my garbage spread out with eagles and foxes helping themselves to anything edible. I grabbed a pair of gloves and my hubby and I started to pick up and re-bag all the garbage that could be picked up. Definitely not something you want to be waking up and doing first thing in the AM! I know I stuck my garbage out early enough!! It was way before noon when we stuck it out, and on the weekend noon is the time they usually pick it up. So I don’t know what’s up with that…. That seriously ruined my morning…

Today is my hubby’s mom’s birthday! So we called her and sang happy birthday to her!! After calling her we called my bro-in-law to see if he was down helping my father-in-law with the plane, and he told us that he was already down there. He then told me that my UPS package from Amazon had arrived and he was going to deliver it to me! I was super excited and the feeling from this morning’s incident was replaced with sheer excitement as I waited for my package. My hubby ordered me Guitar Hero Aerosmith for my Wii and I had been waiting for it to come in!! YAY!!! I think I spent about 7 hours playing it!! I worked on Career mode and passed it in Easy and started to work on Medium. I am looking forward to Hard! I’m not good enough to do Expert yet! I am waiting for my Guitar Hero Metallica to come in now! I hate Parcel Pool shipping though, sometimes Amazon used them and I seem to never receive my packages. But if they use UPS or USPS I never have a problem. So we’ll see how long it takes, that’s if it gets here!

Today around 4:50PM we ate tacos and I had mine with my Taco Bell Fire Sauce!!! I love that stuff, I’m happy I have a good amount! We watched that new show, Daisy of Love on VH1, not really what I expected but yet a bit… where the hell did they pick those guys out from??? OMG, I don’t see her really being with any of them… but whatever floats your boat I guess… We munched on some chips and candy and freeze pops for dinner – I know not healthy… but my weight has been holding steady and dropping slowly. I think I got my hubby a believer in the benefits of yoga and how it makes you not only physically stronger/fit, but it calms you and makes you feel better. Like you enjoy life and everything that’s given to you – it gets you in that peaceful state of mind that just makes you feel good, smile and be happy! I find him now asking me when we’re going to work out next! I’m happy to have him there to help motivate me and work out with me! What’s that saying “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!”….

Other than playing my game and watching TV, we just hung out at home and enjoyed the weekend together with our pups! Other than when we went to pick up the garbage, we didn’t really go outside at all today. My hubby went down to the store for us to get pop and the stuff for our taco dinner, but other than that, we were home bodies today! Which I don’t mind some days, it’s nice to be able to just sit and not worry about what’s going on and just relax! Today was a well needed day! Our auditors told my mom that they would like to send one of us out for some training in excel and QuickBooks, so we can do more than we already do, which will make auditing smoother. I would like to learn how to put almost all our stuff on the computer so that the auditing process can be easy and fast to go thru; well at least better than having to go through boxes of paperwork!! So that’s kind of exciting, but I know it’s just going to mean a bit more work, but once it’s done I won’t have to worry about it! Just make backup copies of everything on CDs and store those!

Well I enjoyed my weekend and I hope everyone enjoyed theirs!! Until tomorrow, TTFN!!

Saturday, April 25

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Well today is a super wet and rainy day! The wind is blowing a good 20MPH from the south, fog all the way down to the water. Today is garbage day and I know we put it out early enough but no one picked it up. I don’t even know if I heard the trash bike go by our house today! Definitely no plane today, so it’s a good thing our auditors are taking the tug back to Dutch Harbor.

We didn’t really do much today. A lot of lying around being bored channel surfing and playing with the pups. We didn’t really eat much… had some cheese on Ritz for lunch. Probably eat leftovers for dinner. I ran the bike back down to my mom so she could take our auditors and their stuff to the tug, my mom rode me back home. We were both soaked!!

I got a call earlier and I guess my new godchild was born at 12:50AM this morning, after 18 long hours of labor – Oxcenia Misty Anna Bereskin was born to proud the parents (my hubby’s cousin/bff) Joe and his girl Francine. They actually waited until baby was born to find out the sex, and it was a girl! She was 6 lbs 3 oz, 18 1/4inces long!! I can’t wait to meet my new godchild!! So exciting! They added the first name in honor of Joe’s grandma who recently passed away, which is very thoughtful and sweet of them to do!! I have to come up with a cute nickname that we’ll call her for the rest of her life! We had ones for a boy, but we didn’t come up with any for a girl… so time to start looking for something that sounds perfect!

Well today was a pretty slack day, which was nice! I hope everyone has a great Saturday night! TTFN!

Friday, April 24

Friday, April 24, 2009

Well today is kind of on the cooler side. The weather is blowing about 10 MPH from the south, over cast skies. It feels like it wants to rain, but it has been dry all morning. It’s pretty clear out, but it looks “hazy” over towards Akun. We played some catch with the pups and let them do their thing. Then I got ready to go down to the office.

Not as busy a day, but still busy. Almost finished up I hope, all is going pretty good! I joked with them about making their reservations to come back in a couple months to do this year’s audit! I don’t know if they want to be thinking about that when they are still working on getting what they are doing done first! Next year will go even more smoothly after taking some pointers on how to make their job a little easier by just filing stuff a little differently. Not a problem for us! I have been trying to make things easier for us to categorize, and they are making that way easier for me by showing me what they’d like them to be grouped up in! They are really happy with how well I get around on Excel!! We had a pretty good system already, but doesn’t mean we can’t update and improve a bit with the technology that we are already using these days! Pretty exciting to be getting everything on the computer instead of all hand written! As long as my back-up copies are tucked safely away in a secure and fireproof place I am happy!! Can save a lot of space putting everything on a disc and storing it instead of paper stored in boxes!

Well for lunch today we made tuna sandwiches. Nothing too exciting, I forgot to get sweet pickles, so it was pretty plain with just mayo, salt and pepper. My hubby got a call earlier from his best friend, who told us that his g/f’s water broke this morning! So yay, she should be going into birth anytime soon! They picked my hubby and me to be the godparents (Krusna’s) to their baby! As far as I know they said they weren’t going to look at the sex of the baby and let it be a surprise. But they really want a boy… and a couple people have told me they were having a boy, but like I said I thought they were going to wait. They didn’t say anything to us…. So hmmmmm… I am trying to think up strong but cute nic names for us to call their baby for the rest of the baby’s life! Like I call my sister Ivy’s baby Cupcake, I used to call my sister Shannon’s little girl (my first god child) Trinity, but I started to call her Kadie like everyone else since that’s what she knows – I need to try to call them and get more involved in my nieces lives! I love sending them stuff at least! So they know Aunty April is always getting them cute clothes and stuff!

Well the weather after lunch has gone to crap. The fog has dropped and it started to sprinkle. It’s that foggy kind of rain that seems like you don’t have to be out in it long to get soaked, even though it’s not like it’s big rain drops! I like to think of those mister/foggers at the grocery store that spray the produce, it’s like that! There really isn’t a wind, but the fog “creates” its own wind. There are some pretty good waves in the harbor even though the weather seems pretty calm. Here I was thinking we’d get a plane today, not anymore!

So this afternoon went by pretty smoothly. For some reason now our phones are ringing really quietly and my mom’s phone isn’t ringing at all… I know they were cleaning out the stock room up over in the store, and our phone connections are along a wall in there, hopefully no one or nothing bothered those connections. Either way I think we’ll call the phone company and see when they plan on sending a tech out this way so they can check out our phone system. Our internet still isn’t working, so we have to call GCI again and see if they did turn it back on or not. They said they accidentally put a hold on it, then they supposedly took it off and our internet was supposed to start working again, but we still don’t have a connection here in the office. Which kind of sucks when it comes to getting our business emails checked! At least the internet is working at my house, well it’s in and out but more in than out!

I cooked us up a pizza last night for dinner. I got everything for stir fry tonight, simple meat and veggies over rice with a little oriental flair to it. There really isn’t anything good on TV and we don’t really have anything planned for today. I am definitely looking forward to the weekend!!

Well I hope everyone has a great Friday night!! Until tomorrow, TTFN!

Thursday, April 23

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Today is my Brother Tommy’s 34th birthday today! Love ya lots bro! Hope you have an awesome day!!

What a beautiful day to wake up to! The skies have patches of blue peeking out and the sun is already up and shining. There is no wind and the water in the harbor is flat calm. The temps are in the high 30’s to low 40’s. The dogs definitely loved their outing this morning. My chi’s love the sun! I think Tug wanted to jump in the water for a swim!

Well another busy day at the office again. I feel that I am going to have busy days until the auditors are done doing what they are doing. A lot of finding paperwork and receipts and figuring out what went to what account and why. So far everything has been going smoothly, which is great!

We had our first scheduled flight come in on time, right around 11:30AM. The sun is shining, it’s about 45F out with no wind and it feels great! The skies are almost fully blue, with small patches of clouds in spots. The sea gulls singing their sweet songs to each other, I love the way they sound!

For lunch we had grilled cheese and my hubby has soup with his. I felt the weather was nice enough to ditch my DC brand skater shoes and put on my cute pair of heels that my older sister got me for my b-day!

I got back down to the office and continued to work with the auditors. I’m happy that so far I am finding and explaining everything they hand to me. I keep looking at the weather outside and just can’t wait for summer to finally appear. I can’t wait to wear my heels or flip flops and put my shoes away until a rainy day, I also can’t wait to start leaving my big coat at home and wear just my sweaters! The weather today is a tease of what’s to come! And here I heard that the pilot said it’s snowing in Dutch Harbor…. I really hope that weather doesn’t make its way here until late tonight!

I felt very accomplished at work today, for I seemed like I was never able to take a break from what I was doing: let it be looking up something for the auditors or making them copies. I didn’t get anything really exciting in the mail. I ordered my sister-in-law this really cute corset (I liked mine so I got her one) – I am trying to get her to embrace her feminine side and love her beautiful curves like I do with myself! So I asked her what color she liked more between red and blue and she picked red. So I got her a medium and took it over to her. Hope she likes it… I know her man’s going to have to like it, what guy doesn’t like their woman dressing sexy for him?!?!

Well today was another super busy day, which made the time fly right by! I am hoping the weather stays nice until tonight so that I can enjoy it after I get off work! I hear people saying its feeling a bit cold out and the wind is starting to pick up a little bit, not much, but a small breeze.

I so do not know what I am going to cook up for dinner tonight. I am at a loss of what to cook anymore. I get tired of eating the same stuff and I get tired of having to cook… I wish we had more food choices – like order out pizza or go through a drive thru really quick!! :P I don’t know what sounds good anymore. I have that seal, but I don’t know how or when I want to cook it. Seal is kind of tough if you don’t cook it right… you have to soak the meat out over night to get all the blood out of it. When you cut into a seal the meat looks so dark red it literately looks black/purple, until you soak it out then it looks like any other cut of red meat. If done right, you can ferment and age the blubber to make what we call “stinky blubber”, which renders down and gives us the seal oil that we eat dry fish with, the blubber is still edible. I think it has a sweet taste to it. But like I said, when you hear that something is a “delicacy” you know that it probably has an acquired taste to enjoy or like it. I know I would be scared to eat some of the stuff other natives eat! But I grew up eating seals and sea lions so it’s nothing new to me! No it doesn’t taste fishy, its “gamey” tasting, I am guessing since I have never tried any other 4 legged animals except cows and pigs…. But you can definitely tell it has a “wild” taste to it. The smell of the seal’s blubber, meat and blood is super hard to get off your skin too, no matter how much you wash your hands! I had fun feeing the eagles all the non-edible scraps! I was just hoping that none of them would hurt each other coming in for “the kill.”

I took a pic of the cute shoes/booties that my sis got me for my bday. I think I might “model” my shoes and take pics of them and post them… LOL… well I’ll at least post them on my MySpace account!

Well I hope everyone had a great Thursday. The second flight came in on schedule. I heard that there was a handful of mail that came in. Hell’s Kitchen tonight, it’s getting close to the end, which really sucks. I am kind of leaning towards that Paula chic, she seems the best out of all them right now… but we’ll see…. All new Gangland on History channel too!

Well until tomorrow, TTFN!!!
Pix:
My new cute shoes my sister Shannon and her family got me for my b-day!

Wednesday, April 22

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Woke up to a beautiful morning! There is no wind, the fog is lifted but the skies are overcast. It’s about 37.5F outside with no wind. The boardwalk looks wet but I haven’t heard any rain hitting the house. We took the dogs out, then I went down to the office. Today is also garbage day, but we forgot to put our out - opps....

Today was a very busy day working with our auditors, answering their questions and making copies for them. That’s practically all I did today. I eventually got the charge slips entered in by this afternoon. But other than that today was mostly working with the auditors. Mostly information I can not disclose on my blog.

I was busy on the phone with our auditors and was late for my lunch break, so we didn’t really have time to make or eat anything.

This afternoon my hubby decided to cook bath. So that’s something to look forward to.

We had our 2 scheduled flights today, and I got my birthday present in from my older sis and her family! Thanks a lot, I love what you got me! Also sometime today, someone got a seal and my hubby brought some home. So after bath I cleaned it up and threw the scraps to the eagles. I will post a video of me feeding them in our front yard.

I don’t know what we are going to eat for dinner today, probably munch on the brisket we cooked up the other day, that or PB&J….

Hopefully tomorrow isn’t as busy as today was! So until tomorrow, TTFN!

Video:
Pix:

Tuesday, April 21

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Today is my dad’s birthday! I love him lots and wish him the very best today and always!

Well we woke up early and went to church this morning. We were told last night that the Father came in and he was having church, we didn’t know they had church last night around 6PM. So last night we decided we’d go for the morning service. It is just pouring down rain outside, so I decided to wear raingear before stepping outside! I didn’t want to get soaked! It’s also blowing pretty good from the south, and the skies are overcast. We made the dogs go out in the rain, even though the little ones hate the rain, I don't think there is anything about getting wet that Tug don't like! You can definately tell he's a water dog!

So we walked down to church, where there were no more than 7 people including us. Which is really sad, what happened to the days when we didn’t have any room to fit any more people inside??? Church started at 9AM, and was over by 11. While I was in church my mom came up to get me to go run to my house and get the hotel keys because I guess one of our guest locked themselves out and our second key in the office wasn’t working on the door for some reason. So she let me use the 4-wheeler and I ran home and got the keys for her, then finished up church. After church I went to work.

Our auditors are here, and I guess everything is looking pretty good right now! This is really great and takes a load off both my mom’s and my shoulders, knowing our book work is correct. I hope that they can get everything they need done, done and be able to fly out when they want to. Hopefully the weather starts to warm up, clear up and summer finally makes its appearance! I got all the charge slips entered in the books, and then went down to check the mail since there was a plane yesterday. I was excited to see my shoe order had some in!! Other than that one box, all I got was mostly junk mail and bills.

For lunch we had Marie Calendar Pot Pies, I had a turkey and the hubby had chicken. It’s still raining hard out there!

I got back down to the office, where things went smoothly and quickly. We had problems with the furnace again, well that’s what we though. When here I guess we were just out of fuel. So I am happy that I still have my space heater up at the office! I helped my mom and the auditors with some paperwork, cashed some checks, a couple people put money on their store accounts, and in the mail we got a hotel payment in – so I wrote the receipt up and faxed it off to them.

I don’t know when it stopped raining, but by the time I got off work it was dry out. So no need for my rain gear anymore! Instead of wearing it, I just carried them. I got a ride home from my mom on the 4-wheeler. We didn’t have any planes today.

After sitting around for a bit, we decided we’d do a 50 min yoga work out, get showered up and then cook us hamburger meat with onions and gravy over rice. After dinner, we’re going to sit around, relax and watch TV then off to bed! I hope everyone had a great Tuesday!!

Until tomorrow, TTFN!

Monday, April 20

Monday, April 20, 2009

Today is my 26th birthday! I thought we were sleeping in, for I had felt like I had slept all night and some! The time was actually 8AM, and the phone was ringing (my first phone call of the day), but neither of us wanted to move so we let the answering machine get it. As the answering machine clicked on, I laid in my bed, smiling and listening to my younger sister Ivy singing happy birthday to me! I’m happy I let the answering machine get it, now I can keep that message! We felt like we slept enough and decided to get up and enjoy the day!

We took the dogs outside to what looks to be a beautiful, clear morning. It’s slightly warm feeling and the sun is trying to come out, the water in the bay is flat calm and there is no wind! My sister-in-law is stuck in Dutch, so I called her telling her the weather was nice and I was hoping she’d make it home! The dogs enjoyed running around, as the seagulls, eagles and ravens all made the morning sound that much more peaceful and serene. We went inside and watched some TV until the store opened, so we can go down and get pop and something to eat!

When we got ready to walk to the store, I opened the door and was instantly disappointed in what I was seeing. I was wishing hard for no snow on my b-day… and it’s blowing and snowing/raining out, fog coming down all the way to the water and you can barely see anything and its only 10AM! What happened to what it was like 2 hours ago?!?! So we bundled up and walked down to the store, where I found pizzas and corned beef brisket. So we went home and ate the pizzas, for “breakfast” and decided to cook up the brisket for dinner! Today is also my BFF Karen’s little girl’s 3rd birthday too!! And her party should be later tonight… at least I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to get some cake from! I know I am not depending on my hubby to make it!!

So I got calls from all my immediate family members and some calls from people I didn’t expect all saying happy birthday. Feels really good to be remembered… a couple people I guess forgot or said they didn’t know until they heard other people say something to me. Today turned out to be a great day for me. Spending it with the ones I love: either by visiting them or by chatting it up on the phone!!

The weather has been up and down most the day, mostly up though! It’s been nice and warm feeling, clear and the air filled with the sounds of all the birds. I was wishing hard for the plane to come in, but I don’t think they will try, I heard they were on weather hold – not sure who’s weather now… My sister-in-law, her b/f, our auditors and a couple other town people caught a ride on Trident’s freighter boat the Eastern Wind – that ride should be about 4 hours. Temps have been in the low 40’s all day, until it decides to have a rain/snow squall go through!

Around 5:30PM we were sitting down to eat dinner and I was just about to take a bite of food, when all the sudden I jumped up yelled “WHOA”, almost threw my food across the table and went running to the window. My hubby was all like “What’s going on?!” All I knew was I looked up and saw almost my whole front window get blacked out and all I can see is the belly of the goose as it was landing. I swear if they get any closer they are going to land on my house! Then I turned around and told him, “Oh, sorry! The plane is just here!” I was hoping that they would bring some mail, since I’m waiting on so much stuff that I ordered to come in and since all the people who were going to fly over go on that boat, which should be coming around the corner and heading in the bay anytime soon. They are supposed to be here a 6PM. My friend Karen’s mom is supposed to be on that boat, so Mia’s birthday party is going to be postponed until 7PM.

We sat around at home watching the season finale of For the Love of Ray J, and another episode of I love Money 2 comes on, then we headed down to the birthday party. I don’t have any kids to take to the party, but doesn’t mean I can’t come and celebrate with my friends and their kids! All the older kids are gone on the school trip, so there were just the “babies”, 2 boys and 3 girls all 3 or younger! It so cute watching kids play, eat and have fun! My camera’s batteries were dead, so I sadly wasn’t able to bring it with me or I would have been taking pix! The lil party was over with around 8:30PM, and everyone started to clean up… they had some pretty good food that Sandra May and Karen had cooked up! I made sure to take a plateful home for later! (I swore I ate way too much today, but it’s my birthday, can indulge a bit!) After making sure I ate a piece of cake, we all talked each other into meeting up and going up to “the other end” (Roadhouse) tonight around 10. I figured why not and we went home and got ready.

At around 10 we called my hubby’s brother and mom to see what they were doing… I guess my in-laws were just about to call us to come up, and my bro-in-law was just on his way out the door, so we walked a bit faster and caught up with him. After walking in, I don’t think we were there longer than 2-3 mins. Long enough for me to hang my coat and open my A&W Cream soda, and I walked to the heater to warm up, when all the sudden EVERYONE in the bar started to sing “Happy Birthday” to me. I turned red and felt like I didn’t need to be standing near the heater anymore! We hung out until quarter to midnight. I have work tomorrow and I need to shower after leaving the bar, since they smoke cigarettes in there – so everything from your hair to your clothes down to your skin you smell like an ashtray! On my way home I stopped by my parents and wished my dad an early happy birthday, since his birthday is tomorrow!

We got home showered up and went to bed. Today was a great day. I loved every moment of it! Thank you to everyone who wished me a great day!! So until tomorrow, TTFN!
Pix:
Us in a booth seat at the Roadhouse. I got a damn scratch by my right eye :(

Looking out the Bay

Looking towards town

The Goose taking off

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ME!!

APRIL DAWN PELKEY
APRIL 20, 1983
YAY... HAPPY 26TH BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Sunday, April 19

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Well we stayed up pretty late last night. So we slept in a bit today. Woke up around 10AM, walked the dogs… The weather is beautiful today. No wind, sea gulls gathered in front of town sound beautiful. There is a low fog hanging in the bay, but it’s warm in the low 40’s. The sun feels like it wants to burn through the fog. There was nothing on TV and we were still a bit sleepy, so at noon we lay back down and took a “nap”. I got a call from my younger sister saying Happy Easter.

We got back up around 2:45PM, and my mom called at 3PM and said Easter dinner was ready if we wanted to come down and eat. So we headed down to my parent’s house and ate turkey with everything on the side! It was really good! After we ate we went over to my in-law’s to see what was up with the plane. I guess it’s foggy in between.

On our walk back I snapped some pix of the sea gulls in front of town, and recorded their sweet sounds! I love how sea gulls sound!! I guess there is a bunch of krill on the beach and the sea gulls and eagles are gorging themselves on it.

Today we are just going to relax and maybe play our video games and watch TV. I have to call my older sister sometime today. My sister-in-law I believe was supposed to fly home today from meetings/classes, and seeing that it’s foggy out she’s probably going to get stuck in Dutch. I don’t know if there are any boats going back and forth this time of the year either.

Well I might work out again today… I’ll see how I feel later tonight… Tomorrow is my birthday, and I am spending the day at home relaxing. I have nothing really planned except sleep in and hang out with my hubby and the pups!

Until tomorrow, TTFN!!

Video of Seagulls:



Pix:

An Eagle sitting on top the school with the bluff in the background
My babies, Dante and Roscoe

Looking at town while walking home.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Well the weather today is still cold and blowing from the north at about 20MPH. Definitely no planes today. So last night I decided to bake up my kulich, cool them and put them in a box and see if someone who’s going over on the ferry can drop the box off to CB at the Grand for me, since we decided that we weren’t going to go over on the ferry. I baked up about 12 kulich, we kept 3 for ourselves, sent 7 to Dutch Harbor, gave one to my cousin Kay and one to my hubby’s Uncle Paul, he’s from King Cove and it’s always great to be able to see him when we can, and he decided that he’d take the first ferry trip down! So we frosted up a kulich and sent it home with him when the ferry came back from Dutch. I thought it was funny to get a call last night from Alvin telling me that he knew that I was making and sending him kulich, when I didn’t tell him yet. And I thought it was so cute when he asked me if I knew how he knew. All I could think of was “Who reads my blog that you talk to….?” Because I didn’t tell anyone but my hubby that I was going to make them and send them over, and I posted it in my blog! He let me know that a friend of his in King Cove called him and told him! I thought that was super cool!! I love knowing lots of people are reading my blog! I hope you all enjoy it!! :D

So we woke up around quarter to 4AM, so we can run up to Trident and find someone to take my box to Dutch Harbor for me. I swear I wasn’t even up yet wrapping up my unfrosted kulich and boxing it up! Then we took the very cold and slightly snowy ride up to Trident dock. There wasn’t very many town people who wanted to take this first trip since they were docking up at Trident instead of City dock, but I guess Trident had 120 people that they had to send over. I found my childhood BFF Karen who was going over and she said she’d take care of my box and deliver it for me. I was so thankful that she was going to do this for me last minute, she thought we were going until we told her we weren’t and I need that box of kulich to go over. After the town people loaded the ferry we rode back home and went back to bed. Around 5:30AM we heard the ferry heading out the bay.

We didn’t really do much today, sat around and cleaned up the house a bit. We ate a lot of kulich for breakfast, then frosted some and had that for lunch!! For dinner I opened a can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs and the hubby micro waved up a Marie Calendar’s Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Around 7 I talked my hubby into working out with me, since I was doing a 30 min yoga session. I told him it’s mostly stretching and not really aerobics. So he agreed and I think he was pretty happy afterwards that he did it with me. He said it felt good to have all your muscles stretched out then relaxed! Once we got done we showered up, by this time it’s getting close to 8PM, and we noticed the ferry coming back from Dutch Harbor, so we got ready and headed down to the City dock.

We decided to bring Tug with us down to the ferry. They didn’t really let people off for long but at least they let them off! I got to see my hubby’s Uncle Paul, and I got to see Cody (his mom used to live here, actually in the house I live in now & I used to baby sit him and his bro and sister when we were all younger!!). Cody is now an 18yr old young man who recently enlisted with the Marines! I am proud to see him decide to go down that lane! I have a cousin who is going to be 20, this year I believe, who is in the Marine Corp right now, and our family couldn’t be happier and proud of him. So I feel the same way towards Cody, I think I was the only person who recognized him! I saw him, yelled his name, and people were like “Whoa, no way Cody?!?!” Uncle Paul was really happy to receive a Kulich; you wouldn’t believe how many people were trying to take it from us saying, “He doesn’t need it.” Gee huh?!?! Also all the school kids were down with their parents and all of their stuff they need for their trip. I believe there are 8 of them all together including the chaperones. While the ferry was docked my in-law’s pit bull/mix pup got off his line and made it out of his pen and decided to greet the ferry too! His name is Brutus – but I call him my Boo-tus. He knows me and likes me, so I ran and grabbed him and put my Tug’s collar on him and leash and controlled him around all the people. Tug is a very good dog and listens pretty well, so I knew I could take him off his leash, he just gets too happy around a lot of people and sometimes becomes a handful! Worse than a little kid!!

Well the ferry took off, and we watched it take off with all the kids waving to everyone as they were embarking on their week long journey through the state. My mother-in-law wasn’t sure if my 11yr old bro-in-law was even going to go, but he was excited and ready to go; although he cried a bit as the ferry was pulling away from the dock, which made my mother-in-law start to tearing up. After the ferry was out the bay we headed back home. We were cold, but Tug couldn’t be happier running around and playing catch with his ball. We too Brutus back home and put him away. He’s like a little pulling machine, nothing but muscle and close to the ground. I would guess he’s about 50-55lbs, about half the size of my lab Tug. I’m lucky the leash I have is rated for a 220lb dog!

I was happy that CB received my kulich and was going to pass them out for me to everyone. I hope they frost them… I like them frosted… but like I said a lot of people like theirs different.

Well we had a small get together with some friends and hung out and played guitar hero over at their place. Talk about feeling guilty, no one reminded any of us that there was church, until church was over with then they called. WTF?!?! How come no one said anything to us earlier? I don’t know how we spaced it off… I feel so bad… I can’t explain how bad I feel. I want to crawl under a rock and not come out… I heard that only 14 people went to church, just enough to hold everything. And the weather was so windy that no one could keep their candles lit… I feel so bad L but can’t rewind time. I remember 10 years ago when so many people went to church we couldn’t fit everyone in the hallway and we’d be like burning each other with our candles because we’re so close to each other, and the body heat after a couple mins would start to get uncomfortable. But like I said can’t rewind time, and I can feel as guilty/bad as I want I guess, but I guess I’ll have to get over it.

Well today seemed like a pretty good day for a Saturday! So, until tomorrow, TTFN!

Friday, April 17

Friday, April 17, 2009

Well today is another cold and very windy day! If I didn’t have the park break set on the 4-wheeler it would have for sure blown over the bank on to the beach! We are having strong 45-55MPH sustained winds, gusting higher from the North, blowing super cold air from the Bering Sea. No precipitation, the skies are scattered with some clouds with patches of blue sky and the sun is peeking from around the clouds. The dogs ran out and didn’t like the wind, but did their thing and ran back in…

I was putting my gloves on when the wind decided to steal one out of my hand and started to blow it across the road. I chased it and caught up with my glove and put it on my hand so it couldn’t get away and jumped back on the bike. My hubby sat in the doorway giggling at me as I was running for it!

I made my way to the office, where I saw my mom and Eva were already there opening up the store for the day. My mom isn’t going to be in the office today since we can be officially closed for Russian Good Friday… but I decided to come in and get some stuff done up … like pricing the store order and making sure everything is ready for our auditor!

After entering the charge slips from yesterday into the charge book, I got to finishing up pricing what we have coming in on the freighter, made copies and gave them to Eva. I make 3 copies for the store: one stays in the store’s clip board, one gets the “stickers” from the pallets put on it and gets filed back up in the office, and the third is just to have for the stock person. The original gets filed in my desk with the billing from our vendor.

So I heard that the ferry might be tying up at Trident dock in the AM instead of our City dock: one because of the weather, and two because I guess Trident is going to send like 100 people over or something like that, which really makes me debate again whether or not to go, I hate traveling with that many people (especially when they all start to get sea sick and the ferry smells like puke or that’s all you hear)… Plus the muddy walk/ride to Trident that early in the AM makes me debate even more about going. I don’t want to get all muddy before getting on… And I really hate the thought of leaving Dante at home… so we’ll still see how I’m feeling… I don’t think we’ll be going… it was a nice thought… but we’ll be traveling next month – we can wait! But I’m going to try to find a way to get some kulich over on the ferry. I heard my hubby’s Uncle Paul is making the trip down and back… so I have to make sure to make one for him to take home with him!! I’m hoping I’m making enough for everyone…

For lunch we had grilled cheese and my hubby had soup with his. I worked out for about 45 mins last night… I did one of my belly dancing videos and my abs, hips and shoulders are feeling it today! But I think if I’m feeling up to it and have time, I might do another session tonight, maybe yoga. I realized that watching what I’m eating isn’t going to help me lose that last 10-15 lbs and that I’m going to have to get serious about my exercise routine.

Back at the office this afternoon was pretty quiet. I had one lady from Trident come down and cash her check. I also had the 2 older girls in our school come down and cash-in their smaller bills for larger ones. The school kids should be leaving on their week long excursion around the state either tonight on the ferry or tomorrow when they are heading back North. My mom and I were talking about doing fundraisers maybe every month or something when the ferry comes in and save up for their trip they are planning next year, they would like to take the kids down to Washington DC. I loved when I was in school and we went to DC!! OMG, we did so many fundraisers it wasn’t funny. I swear every other weekend or so or sometimes in between traveling for sports (volleyball & basketball), we’d have a spaghetti fundraiser or serve sit down meals in the gym. And we would all pitch in and “take orders” and go back to the kitchen and then bring it back out and serve it to them. We’d set it up with certain people controlling certain tables, like they do in big restaurants. We’d make some pretty good food too, making sure you left full! They don’t really do that anymore. I miss the way it used to be. I miss the way it was when I was in school. I feel these kids are missing out on some of the activities that were presented to us because of how many kids were in school when I was a teen. At least they still get to travel a bit…

Well today is my cousin Kay’s birthday, she is our Post Master at the Post office! I hope she has an awesome day and I hope she knows I love her lots and thank her for being a great listener – you can tell we’re related… when we start talking it’s hard to shut us up most the time, or for someone else to get a word in!!! LOL Luv ya KK!! I made her this super cute card on my computer, printed it out and gave it to her!!!

Well our internet at the office is still out, we have people trying to get on the roof today to spin our antenna back the way it’s supposed to be facing and push the reset button for us. I wish they would have installed it closer to our window so we can just do it from there! We just have to get the ladders and have a couple people so someone can hold the bottom since it’s still blowing pretty good out. Hopefully our antenna isn’t broken… would hate to have to wait for a replacement to have to be mailed out with the way our mail has been moving. I believe we’ve been averaging a plane every 10-12 days or so… wonder when the winter weather is going to decide to leave and let it warm up and get nice out?!?!?!?! Ok so we had them go up on the roof and push the reset button and the lights came on, but we still aren’t getting online, so we’re going to call GCI and see what’s going on!

Well my hubby decided that since we don’t have anything planned for this evening that he was going to cook steam bath tonight. Sounds good to me… relax and get my muscles feeling good, then work them out again, but a slower workout this time. Belly dancing can be dangerous if you push yourself too hard… it’s so easy to pull a muscle the wrong way, especially since you are using muscles that you rarely use!! It feels really good though. I wouldn’t mind trying out the “stripper” pole routine, I always laugh and tell my hubby we should put it in the living room because that’s where I work out! He was like “what if people see it?” LMAO!!! I heard that gives you a great workout, and I’m open to most exercise routines that add a bit of sexiness to it rather than just sweat and aerobics! But with yoga, I figured it would be an easy credit to earn in college since I needed to fill one more credit to reach a full 12 credit load. So I took it my first semester and was in for a surprise when I realized that it challenged me and I would be sore, but I stayed in great shape and never gained the “freshman 15!” I loved how it made me feel… not only physically but spiritually -I guess that’s how I can put it.

I had a couple different groups of Trident employees come down to cash their checks, the only problem is that I don’t accept Trident Employee ID cards, we only cash checks with a government issued identification that has an expiration date: like your driver’s license, passport, “green card”, or state ID. I guess they must cash/break down their checks with just their Trident employee ID because they just came from the City office and they want to cash their checks, but their real ID’s are back in their rooms at Trident. I’m sorry but it’s our policy that I have to have your ID, and we do not cash other people’s checks for other people either, you have to cash your own check. Never know if someone stole someone else’s ID and their check… that’s happened before up at the cannery! Most of them walk back up to Trident, and then come back down with their identification and cash their checks. Before walking out of the office they always seem to ask what time we close. I realized that when they took our door to paint it they took our hours sign down. So I printed a new one and stuck it up by our door so people know this is the Corp office and our hours! Then I also tacked up the sign letting people know that if you write a bad check and it bounces you are going to be charged a $30 dishonored check fee from our credit services company!

Well I feel happy with everything I got done in the office today. Not only did I get all the paperwork arranged and ready for the auditor, I also helped my mom clean the office up a bit. I giggled at our auditor when he called me and asked if we had a dress code. I told him yeah, casual and comfortable! LOL!!! I then laughed and told him “no, we don’t have a dress code.” Although it was nice of him to ask, I told him to just dress comfortably, no need to get gussied up here in the village! Out here, these are places you come to relax and not worry about how you’re dressed (although I seem to make sure I’m put together well most the time :P, jeans work great for me!!). My brother has been talking about putting his suit on for Easter, he likes to look nice in church! I when I was a little girl I used to get an Easter dress every year to wear to church and I remember being all proud all dressed up in my white dress! I don’t really dress up anymore like I probably should like I used to back in the day… but I guess you can say almost everything is different these days! Sad to see some things change, like how people act and what we used to do, and there is nothing you can really do to change it back… Like I said I guess there was just more to do when there were more of us kids back then, the adults had to find stuff to keep us occupied since there were so many of us when I was a kid! I believe we raised hell more than the kids do now!

Well I have steam bath to look forward to. Not sure what I am going to make for dinner tonight. I feel lazy to have to cook anything, but I hate starving! So I will look around for something. I know I got kulich to bake up tonight, but can’t eat just bread… I will find something… even if it means riding up Trident to get lettuce to make tacos… on wait shit… a boat bought up all the hamburger meat in the store… so scratch that idea… :P Hmmmm.. I guess I’m just going to have to find something… if not I’ll eat a can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meat balls and the hubby can eat whatever else I can find that he might find appealing…

Well today was a pretty Good Friday for being Russian Good Friday, LOL! The weather was crappy, windy and cold… but it’s clear and dry so can’t complain there! I hope everyone has a great Friday night and an even better weekend! I hope everyone who takes the ferry tonight has a safe and not so bumpy ride, for I will be sleeping soundly when the ferry arrives around 4:30AM!! Sorry CB, I’ll for sure be seeing you next month!! Make sure to pick up your kulich though! I will find someone to send it over with!!

Well until sometime tomorrow, TTFN!!

Thursday, April 16

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Well the weather man is actually right on with the weather today. We are having northerly winds blowing about 25-30MPH, definitely no planes today. The temps in the high 20’s. No snow falling from the sky, but the wind is blowing what’s on the ground. Patchy cloudy skies, the sun was actually out all day – drying off the boardwalks. We took the dogs out and they enjoyed running around in the yard for a bit before doing their thing then finally coming inside, we take them out about 3-4 times a day!

I made my way down to the office, didn’t really see anyone on the whole ride down. My mom had already entered the charge slips for the day. She was having problems with the fax machine, it wasn’t sending out faxes for her. So I checked it and they went through good for me, not sure why she couldn’t get it to fax out. This morning seemed to go by fast since I was busy trying to get the internet working, cashing checks and answering the phones! The internet at the office isn’t working, but my internet at home is working… and they are on the same system… so I don’t know why the internet isn’t working at the office – thinking we might have to climb up on the roof and hit the reset button on the antenna.

I didn’t know what to make/get for lunch… so I got the hubby a Dinty Moore beef stew and grabbed a Rice a Roni in beef flavor for me. On my way home my mom told me she made some alaadikax last night and that I can stop by and grab some if I wanted… I surely didn’t pass that up and went straight to her house before going home and grabbed about 6 – I’m going to save those for dinner tonight! I’m going to cut them in half and put pizza topping on them and broil them!! You have to try it, I think it tastes great!!

I got back down to the office this afternoon… nothing much happened for the first hour. Then the phone seemed to be ringing off the hook. Mostly people canceling their reservations for the hotel, since they can’t make it in and they don’t want to wait in Dutch any longer. I had a couple town people come up to cash their checks, a couple of them putting money on their store accounts. Most people are closed tomorrow for Russian Good Friday, but I will be at work. Don’t be expecting me to come in on Monday though! Not only is it the day we observe Russian Easter, but it’s also my 26th birthday!!! The store will be closed this Sunday, but will have regular hours on Monday. The Corp office is supposed to be closed on Monday, but our auditor is supposed to be here this weekend, so we might have to go in for a bit in case there is anything they need help with. But I don’t think we’ll be fully opening the office, we might be there but we’re closed!

Our corp. president contacted me today about a order he was getting done for the parts we needed to get ordered for one of the dryers – I guess the button to turn it on with wasn’t working anymore – and he was ordering it from the same place we order the small laundry supplies to fill our laundry “vending” machine – it’s one that you put quarters in the slide push and it falls in to the tray on the bottom, kind of like those sticker vending machines you find when you walk in/out of most grocery stores (not ours though). So I let him know we needed to order more Tide and Bounce since I put the last of them in the machine the other day when I stopped down at the corp. building. So he let me know not to worry about it and he would order them for me, I let him know we should have a credit with that company – which he wasn’t aware of until I told him.

We happened to get the fax in from one of our vendors on what they shipped to us on the freighter, which is supposed to be in on Saturday. So I got that ready and started to price it before I noticed that it was already 4:30PM, Eva had called me and asked if I was going to shop or not because the store was going to close and I hadn’t shopped yet. So I ran down stairs and got some pepperonis since I already have pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese and those alaadikax from my mom! After rushing to get my one item, the store closed and Eva did up the paperwork and brought it up to me, where I finished up my paperwork. Then I made my way home, picking Eva up on the way and dropping her off at her house (she lives next door!).

Tonight there is an all new Gangland on history channel, and then on Fox Hell’s Kitchen is on once again! YAY!!! Wonder who’s going on the chopping block tonight… I don’t know… none of them seem that great… but they are way better than I am!!

Well, my brother-in-law said he’s not going on the ferry, and he’s one of the only people I trust with my babies – well Roscoe loves him, but Dante is still “iffy” around people and likes to run and hide and bark… but if we do go over on the ferry, I want to get some kulich baked up, but I have to round up some cans from someone, get them baked, frosted and boxed up so I can bring them… not sure how many to bring… I know I have to bring one for Irene, Alvin B, Kathy McG, CB, Alena, Sharon, and Cookie Dough! If I’m missing anyone please let me know ASAP!!!! I need to get these baked up tomorrow at the latest!! Kulich is Russian Easter bread, and at Easter time we make them and share them with friends and family. I need to find out the true background on it and why they do it. I just know I’ve loved this time of the year, both my younger sister and I do!! And making kulich was just something we always looked forward to making and handing out every year!! I can’t wait to have kids and pass that on to them, I hope to show my nieces too since I don’t believe either of my sisters make kulich anymore since they moved out of the village. Most people who move away don’t seem to keep up their traditions… I said most not all… there are still a good amount of people out there who do make it (and I think we all make it different depending on what part of Alaska you’re from)… and I know there are all those like my sister’s, in Anchorage and Valdez, and my grandma, from Washington state, who will wait for someone to send one in the mail (hoping it gets there quickly so it’s still fresh!). I know my mom mails a lot out to people! It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth sharing with your family and friends!! I love getting kulich from other people and trying theirs, since everyone’s recipes are different they all have their own signature tastes, not to mention frosting techniques!!

Well today seemed pretty busy! At least the day went by quickly!! Well until tomorrow, TTFN!!

Wednesday, April 15

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Another snowy cold wintery day in the Aleutians again today… come one summer bring on the warmer weather and let the plants start growing so it can be beautiful lush green here!! I am getting tired of the snow and the cold already… winters just seem to like to drag on year after year! We let the dogs out and they didn’t like anything to do with being out in the blowing snow, but they had to do their thing, so they hid behind the porch out of the wind!

I got down to the office and my mom was just finishing up entering the charge slips in the book. She told me that the internet was still out… wonder what GCI is going to do and when they are going to fix the internet… I feel lost not being able to contact anyone – plus I was waiting for an email from the auditor, so that’s going to have to wait a bit. I ended up faxing him the rest of the paperwork he needed instead of scanning and emailing them – because the internet wasn’t working yesterday afternoon either… L

Well I called the Alaska State Ferry Reservations desk and asked about the requirements of how they let pets come on board and travel. They told me that all pets have to travel in the cargo hold… I really don’t want Dante’s first boat ride to be by himself… and I know Roscoe has gotten sea sick once before (well it was a really, really shitty ride!!)… And I DON’T want my babies to be taking that trip alone in the cold… I love them way too much to just leave them alone for 4-5 hours in unfamiliar, uncomfortable settings! Not unless it’s the only choice I have and this trip was just going to be for fun… so it’s not necessary for me to put my pups under that kind of stress for no reason. Now when I travel this summer, I will do anything to make sure they come with me! I’m sorry; don’t be expecting us on the ferry to Dutch this weekend, although it sounded like a great idea until I heard where my babies would be traveling! I have no one to babysit them here at home for us either, since Dante doesn’t really trust anyone except my hubby and me, and he likes my neighbor (our store manager) Eva -probably because she has a female min-pin, she’s fixed though L… Damn here I was kind of looking forward to coming over since CB should be home on the 17th and the ferry is the 18th!!! Oh well… I can wait until next month I guess!

So this morning in the office went by pretty slow. It feels super cold outside… The temp outside is right around freezing, but colder with the wind chill and the office feels a bit cold this morning even though the heat is on and pumping. It should warm up hopefully by after lunch. My mom realized when she got in this morning that our heat in the office was turned down, so she turned the heat back up.

Well we had chicken nuggets for lunch… I fed a good amount of mine to our pups! I’ll eat chicken nuggets and chicken strips once and a while… as long as I don’t really have to deal with a bone… but I rarely eat chicken at all anyways… but I’ve decided to slowly add it to my diet as long as I’m not eating it all the time (like my bro-in-law!)

The weather after lunch seemed to have calmed down a bit, the sun is coming out and the sky is clearing up showing patches of blue. The temps warmed up to the mid 30’s. In the clear weather you can see the fresh coating of snow on all the hills, all the way down to the water line! When the sun shines its blinds you making your eye’s close and start to water! Luckily I have my snow goggles (like sun glasses with a band) so the sun doesn’t bother me too much!

Well once the internet comes back on I have plans to order Guitar Hero Metallica… I really miss playing Guitar hero ever since my bro-in-law took his games back… so it’s about time I order our own, I think I’m going to order it for my Wii instead of the xbox360! I also want to get Guitar Hero Aerosmith and the Wii Fit – I heard it’s really cool! So those are on my game wish list… lol!

This afternoon went pretty slowly, nothing much going on for a Wednesday. Today is garbage day so I put all my office garbage down to be picked up. My mom checked the corp. mail the other day, and left one of the incoming boxes down in the store. I found it unopened, so I opened it to find some of the inventory that was missing from one of our orders we received via freighter. We have a new stock person working for us, his name is Travis (he’s one of my cousins), and he was the only one signed up for the job so he got it! Yay, the shelves down in the store are looking sorted and filled once again! He’s doing a really great job! Hopefully he keeps up with Eva on what we need up in the stock room so we can get everything ordered from our vendors.

My great-uncle Chris, he turns 79 next month, came up to the office and gave me an Easter card! He’s so sweet that way, always makes sure at almost every holiday to pass out cards to everyone! I guess it helps give him something to do. Back in his day when he was younger he used to be a pretty mean tap dancer! He used to give lessons, lol! I think old people are cute with their old school dances! I was thinking that when I was finishing up a book I was reading last night. When these two older people (in their 60’s-70’s) wanted to go out to a place to go dancing, and they were like they do the foxtrot, tango and a couple other ones… I always think back to my childhood days of watching my aunts trying to teach me to dance – doing the shoulder “wiggle” and stuff like that… there is a beauty in watching people who know how to swing dance, ball room dance and all that fancy stuff though!

Russian Good Friday this Friday, I wonder when they are going to put the church schedule up… I love our Easter Services – they bring back so many good memories of growing up and all the elders who also loved this time of the year. I love thinking about all them. I swear over my almost 26 years I have sadly seen at least over a quarter of the people who have lived here pass away and be buried in our church cemetery. There have been a lot of circumstances by which all of them passed too: cancer, heart attack, by drowning, burned in a house fire, asphyxiated from the smoke of a house fire, during child birth, some committed suicide, and a lot are natural from old age. Lately it’s been cancer that’s been eating at our people, I swear out of the last 10 funerals – at least half were due to something health-wise, mostly cancer! Most can be linked to tobacco related illnesses, but not all of them. This scares me a bit because as a teen I didn’t have the best of judgment… and I can admit I was a pretty heavy tobacco smoker from about 14-19. I don’t know but I do know kind of thing that it was stupid but “everyone was doing it”… stupid peer pressure to “want to fit in”… the rebelling and hiding from the parents doing something “forbidden”… The year I turned old enough to actually buy them I quit. There were always ways to find someone to buy them for you when you’re a teen willing to pay some pretty good babysitting/allowance money for them – just to turn around and sell/share them with friends for a dollar a piece… and make that money back… There also were a lot more kids around back when I was a teen then there are now. I swear there were at least 14 boys to the 7 of us girls who are all around 3-4 years apart from each other! With only like 3 of those 21 that didn’t smoke cigarettes at all!! Half the time kids would know who had them and who didn’t… and when you approached the ones who had some, they would automatically say “a dollar.” I am not proud that I smoked, but I can admit that it was a mistake that I made and I hope not to fall down that road again! It’s going to be 7 years since I quit, you get the urge every once and a while – especially in stressful situations – but you just have to over it. Mind over matter… it just scares me the fact that I smoked for that long a time during such a crucial growing period in my life………… can’t rewind time and take back all the stupid things we’ve ever done...

Well the internet decides to come on when it wants. Hopefully it’s on long enough to post my blog!!

Well I don’t know what we’re going to cook up for dinner tonight... I’ll go look around in the store and see if anything interests me… if not I guess we can have cereal tonight :P Hmmm, federal taxes are due today! I already did ours so I don't have to worry, but there are people scrambling to get theirs done and postmarked today!

Well I hope everyone had a great Wednesday!! Until tomorrow, TTFN!!

Tuesday, April 14

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Well it looks as if winter doesn’t want to go anywhere anytime soon. Woke up to blowing snow, a fresh 2-3 inches built up on everything (it can’t get any higher because it’s constantly being blown around). We made the dogs go out in the crappy weather to do their thing, and then I got ready to go down to the office.

As I made my way down to the office on the 4-wheeler, the snow/hail stung on any exposed skin. The reverse button was frozen up so I can only drive forward, if I want to back up I up the bike in neutral and push it to where I need it to be. I tried to park the bike in a good enough spot where I can get footing to push it later at lunch! I got up to the office and my mom had already entered the charge slips and was running around getting paper work ready for the auditor. I helped her find some paperwork and get it scanned into the computer and emailed off to our auditor. Then I went to help my hubby re-arrange one of our hotel rooms. He didn’t know what way the furniture was supposed to go. We rented the big room out to a couple different construction companies who used them as their office, so they had no use for the beds and other furniture in the room. So they piled everything in a couple different corners. So I went up and helped put everything back to where I remember where it always used to be (I used to clean those rooms for a good 2-3 years when I was back in the last years of high school!).

For lunch today I ate a bowl of Lucky Charms and the hubby had a Marie Calendar Sweet and Sour Chicken microwave meal. I didn’t feel too hungry so a bowl of cereal is good enough. Don’t know what to make for dinner tonight…. I get lazy to have to cook… but if I don’t then we don’t eat… so I have to find us something!

Back at work this afternoon seemed really busy and seemed to have blown by pretty quick. After some running around trying to find out what one of our bank accounts were, we finally found out that that account was supposed to be closed back when our cafĂ© closed back in the late 90’s! But I guess no one did it (it was way before my mom and I started working in here), so we didn’t know what this one account was, we just knew we got the statements in for it. So after playing phone tag with our president, vice-president, the auditor and the banks; we finally found out what was what and got copies of all the bank statements out to our auditor!

Then I guess we were having problems with our GCI business phone card. So I had to call GCI and spend over an hour waiting listening to their boring music waiting for someone to come on the phone, just to be told that I wasn’t authorized on the account and had to pass the call on to my mom, who didn’t know what I was doing. So I had to fill her in while they were on hold before she let them know why we were calling. I guess we haven’t gotten in the billing dated March 6, 2009. The last bill we got in the mail from them was back in February. So we had to pay our bill up current over the phone and our calling card was working again. Makes me wonder if that’s why our internet was so slow or not? Because if they cut off the phone card why was the internet was still working?!?! Well at least I know we got them paid up and the phone card is working once again. Our president works from home, but doesn’t like to use his home phone for business calls so he uses the phone card. And he was getting stuff done for the auditor but couldn’t call him back because the phone card wasn’t working. So at least we got that figured out.

Then to add on top of everything, I got a new fax in from Coastal Transportation for their freighter schedules… and I happened to notice that the freighter that left last week with our store order on it, all the sudden isn’t scheduled to come here… So I had to call the company and see what was going on. Because our harbor master told me that on his manifest he shows that we have at least 4 pallets of stuff on that freighter… and if they aren’t coming here… they why did they put it on the freighter then??? I think it might just be a typo on their end hopefully… They are scheduled to come here every 2 weeks… and this week was one of the weeks that they were supposed to stop by here… so I’ll wait for their call back and see what’s going on. Like I said, we have stuff on that freighter, so it better decide to pull into our harbor and drop everything off either on its way to or from Dutch! Ok so they called me back and apologized for the mistake on the schedule and they changed it online too! So yah, we do have stuff coming in this weekend like I thought we did!! :D Good thing I’m on the ball all the time!!

Well, the internet isn’t working today, and when it does it’s slower than molasses on a cold day!!! So I don’t know when my blog is going to get posted, hopefully today!

I helped my bro-in-law get his taxes done up. He had some self employment wages and wasn’t sure about how to file his taxes and I have to deal with that with mine. So I told him to bring them up to me and I got all his taxes filled out for him and he got them mailed today… well postmarked since the weather isn’t nice enough for a plane. Oh I heard that they got the part in for the Goose and flights are going to start back up once the weather allows!! Yay, that’s a good thing!! Parts for that plane are getting really hard to find I guess!

Hmmm….. I ended up getting us everything to make chili dogs again tonight… I might just have a hot dog on a bun with ketchup, mustard and relish!! Yum yum!! Ok well I hope everyone didn’t have as busy a Tuesday as I had!!!

Until Tomorrow, TTFN!