Monday, January 30, 2012

who needs hip-flexors anyways?

It was 8pm. i was huddled next to a heater in a 500 ft apt, looking at blogs and trying to make my mind wind down. it snowed outside and there was another 6-10 inches in the forecast. i was fried from conducting trainings all day.

i know, how is this different from any other day....well that day i was crouched along side a heater on the floor in a corner trying to get wi-fi in my hotel in juneau. the night i got there it was a whiteout. by mid day today the rain had started, but post dinner it was back to snow and people whispering the "a" word all over the state office building. i see you out there....contemplating legislators and "a" words....the one we are going for here is AVALANCHE.

We are headed for a record cold January here in Anchorage. Record snowy Dec, record cold Jan. Nice, Alaska. I love you too.

This weekend that offensive little stripper on my thermometer didn't look like he was building an igloo. the temperature was finally in the positives, albeit by only three degrees, and the lovely downstairs neighbors (the one who fell through the ice last winter) offered to take neah with their husky, sable, to the park. adam and i girded up our loins and went cross-country skiing. 4km later, i can't seem to cross my legs. literally, i cannot lift my right leg up and over the left one without using my hands. it is pathetic. i did however manage to go the entire 4 km without stopping for more than 10 seconds at a time. so i guess that means psuedo-pathetic.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

why i hate moose-es. the start of an interminable list.

  1. i am nonsensically offended by their gangly-ness and molting.
  2. a 12 foot bull moose blocking Neah's path to her "business" location first thing in the morning doesn't bode well for my temper, neah's barking, or her bladder.
  3. see numbers 1 and 2.
  4. darwin's theory is lost on this animal. it is the stupidest thing alive and i am not sure why they aren't all dead.
oh...and we got some of this: hoarfrost, so you can read the last year post, since that's all there is to say about that. 

And about the house....we are still waiting to hear from the seller's bank. This could take months. I promise i will let you know if i ever hear anything.:)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

big girl update--confusion.

we didn't want to look confused. i really hate looking confused unless i'm doing it on purpose to be obnoxious. i have enough letters behind my name now that i should always look smart and competent. smart and competent and have killer shoes. killer shoes and confused lead to bad things (think barbie).

so there we were, standing in this townhouse, snow pouring down, walking from room to room turning on lights while christina our agent followed us turning them off. we'd wander around again with this lights on lights off game, moving in no coherent pattern, aimlessly moving through the two stories to decide if perhaps this was home. which led us back to the kitchen area, next to the doggy door, which i can already tell you neah will be afraid of, and to our confused looks.

so, we understand normal sales and we understand foreclosures, but what on earth is a short sale and why does it take so long? clearly i think there should be ominous music that accompanies those two words--ominous music that sounds an awful lot like britney spears' toxic for reasons i can't explain. anyways,  i could hear christina explaining, through the imaginary din of britney's singing, that it was called a short sale because essentially the seller has to make up the shortfall between what we offer and what they owe the bank in order to prevent foreclosure and credit demise. so we offer, the seller agrees and then the we send it to the bank--the two/four of us supplicating at the threshold of power brokerness. and we wait.

wait, huh, i think. i am pacing, counting the number of footsteps from the bathroom to the kitchen. clearly i still have the confused look, or maybe now it is just the attention span of a 5 year old look, because i derail the conversation to discuss painting the cabinets a fun color. adam turns back to christina with his list of questions about timeline and process. i pace back out to the stairs, contemplating area rugs and whether "Count Clockula" (my grandfather clock that Court so lovingly named as it lived in its coffin for a year) would be able to find a home in this place. i'm cautiously optimistic. maybe just cautious.

that was last thursday. saturday was spent wandering around furniture outlets--discount, too fancy for anchorage, and amish ones--in search of a whole host of things we don't need. although, i am pretty sure i need a blue washer and dryer. today the package went to the negotiator at the bank with the seller's signatures and ours scrawled across enough pages to give me carpal tunnel syndrome...

and now we wait on what could be the longest closing in the history of buying a house. if you have an in with property-gods, i would appreciate a sacrificial chocolate chip cookie or something being offered up on our behalf.

Friday, January 6, 2012

nye

I found a video to show one of my girlfriend-sisters of what we did for New Years Eve...and then i figured i would post it here, because it's pretty dope. Clearly, it isn't this year and i stole it from youtube.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

definitions

Saturday morning i took the neah monster out at 7am so she could do her thing. When i came back in i told adam it was cold outside.

**note: we have a thermometer that strips or adds clothes depending on the temperature outside.
i try to avoid this little exhibitionist like the plague.** 

as any good non-clairvoyant can tell you, his question was "how cold?". since we all know i am prone to slight exaggerations and embellishments to make stories more dramatic and, therefore, more interesting. not to disappoint, rather than cite an actual temperature which would have required looking at little mr.-i-take-my-clothes-off,  my response was "cold enough that my nose hairs froze on the second step."

yes dear friends, temperature is now defined by how fast nose hairs freeze. and for those of you who insist on actual degree calculations, minus six F is a two step freezing.
Surely you say to yourself, the little guy wouldn't be streaking around on the thermometer in -6, would he. Alas, it is true, the little temperature guy had his hat, mittens, jacket, boots and scarf on.