Little victories

There doesn't seem much in the world to be excited about or to feel we have control over--the economy is sinking, the housing market is sad sad sad, in three weeks we have to choose between the lesser of two evils as the most powerful person in the United States, Fox doesn't post a show online until eight days after it was shown on TV, etc.

Recently I've made myself happy by becoming victorious over one annoyance: Blogger word verification. Some sites use actual words to help our brains decipher the verification, and although some use random letters they do so in a nice non-fuzzy Arial font. Not our Blogger. They use many different colors and random serif(!) fonts whose letters blend together and create a string of letters that's far longer than it needs to be. Like this.

This drives me nuts! All I want to do is comment, not strain my eyes trying to figure out if that's two Vs or a W. Bah.

So I'm bucking the system. Instead of playing their game, if I get a long string of letters or a weird fuzzy font I merely input a random letter and press enter. Blogger then gives me an easier, shorter, sans-serif string of letters. Like this.

I feel so powerful.

It's the little things that make my days bright, people.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me--a jumper for my car battery

Women are hard to shop for, and sometimes we don't even know what we want (well, we do, but we're reasonable enough to know you can't have 100 pairs of shoes). I have an excellent gift idea, but it's not romantic or soft or peep-toey--it's functional, but awesome.

Last Christmas my brother- and sister-in-law got me this car battery jumper. It charges by being plugged into a regular outlet in your house. It has a meter on it so you can tell how much charge it has. And it's lightweight; the two times I've used it I had no problem lifting it from my trunk.

It has actual paddle thingies (see, it's obviously easy to use if someone who knows nothing about cars or car terms can use it effectively) that attach onto your car battery, just like if you used cables attached to another car. Except all you have to do is attach the paddles and then turn the charger on. Then start your car and viola! You have power again. It is honestly the coolest thing.

All women should have one of these, charged, in their cars at all times. Because batteries never die when men are around. They die after your husband leaves for work, they die when you're at the gym and no one will help you, or they die when you're stranded in a huge parking lot and it's getting dark. It's a huge safety issue as well as one of convenience. It's so nice to be able to restart your dead car battery all by yourself.

So there ya go. It's not pretty, but it's still one of my best gifts.

A very merry unBirthday to me

After making a stocking for Todd last Christmas, I remembered I actually enjoy sewing some things and being crafty with fabric. Since then I have been thinking of sewing projects I want to start. I am going to make this quilt some day, because I love the stark black and white, and because, hello! penguins. I also am going to make place mats and matching runners (based on these) for three holidays, and then another set for fun and my happiness.

The place mat project is actually going to happen soon, because on Saturday my mom and I went to Home Fabrics and Joann and found the most awesome and adorable fabric for the Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween sets. We also found the most eclectic color combination ever for my happiness set. As we were getting our fabric cut, my mom asked if I had thread, and I responded, "Do I have a sewing machine for the thread?" (the answer is no; luckily my mom has several sewing machines).

After I got home and had totally dorked out showing Todd all my fabric, he handed me a present and said he couldn't wait any longer to give me my birthday gift. My birthday is still a month and a half away, but the present was burning a hole in Todd's pocket (as it were) so he couldn't resist. I love that about him.

So I opened it, and it was . . . a sewing machine! My very own sewing machine! I'm so excited. And officially an adult.

Let the projects begin.

And I can see Russia from my house

Before we started our Alaska cruise we spent the weekend in the Seattle area, and we got to see this adorable face as well as my brother and sister-in-law.

We stayed in Sammamish with my parents' very good friends the Fowlers. They were great hosts and it was nice to spend so much time with them. We also got to spend an evening with Todd's very good friend Phil and his wife Jasmine. I had only met them at our wedding, so I really enjoyed getting to know them better. It's too bad they live far away.



We had a wonderful time in Alaska. We knew we were taking a risk with the last cruise of the year, but we got so lucky--every port day was sunny. That meant about five days of sunshine. In Alaska. It was unheard of, and we really appreciated it. It would've been mighty cold without the sun. And because we were the last or second-to-the-last boat, every souvenir shop was having 50-75% off sales. We bought lots of things just because we could.

Our first "port" was Glacier Bay National Park, where we stayed on the ship all day and looked at two glaciers. They were phenomenally beautiful, with the true blue colors and the surprising amount of dirt. As glaciers move they rub against the rocks and collect rock dust. I also loved all the ice floating in the bay.

Our second port was Juneau, and we took a float plane (I got to sit co-pilot!) to this lodge near a glacier, where they served us grilled salmon. It was beautiful there, too; so peaceful. When they grill the salmon the bears know what's coming, and the bears like to lick the grill and oil drops after the salmon is cooked. This guy had a head start and came around before the salmon were done grilling, so an employee used a stick to keep it in the tree until the tourists were inside. Black bears are amazingly agile in trees.

Next we went to Sitka, a city with early Russian influence. We rented bikes and drove around for a few hours. We saw a ton of salmon, although most of them were dead. We also went to a national park that had about 15 totem poles. And the closest we got to seeing a bald eagle was this one at a rehabilitation center.

Ketchikan was our last Alaska stop, and probably my favorite city adventure. They had this beautiful area of town called Creek Street, which was on an inlet surrounded by cool colorful buildings and a wooden sidewalk. In the inlet we saw lots of salmon again, including salmon jumping up waterfalls, and sea lions gearing up for their salmon buffet. It was so cool. We also got to watch a lumberjack show, where they competed in five events. I was amazed at the things those men could do.

That night we had terrible weather--hurricane-force winds and 18-foot waves (or 80-foot. Todd thought they said 80, I heard 18, but we all know about my iffy hearing). So the ship was moving a ton. Luckily my seasickness medicine works wonderfully well. But because of the weather, we were an hour late getting to Victoria, Canada. We didn't have much sunlight planned there to begin with, but we got there when it was dark so there wasn't too much to see. We had a fun walk into town from the ship, and one plus of being there at night was we got to see their legislative buildings lit up like Christmas.

Oh, and what was our opinion of Holland America?
It was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis great. We absolutely recommend them. Roomy accomodations (each bathroom had a tub!), only 1900 people on the ship, friendly staff, etc. It was great. Especially because of the deal we got from VacationsToGo.com. Check it out.

If you're so inclined, you can see every single (random) picture we took here. There are a lot of them.