Dancing with Elevators: An Adventure in Wood Student Center

Life at UAF is not particularly ADA friendly. I knew that going in, so while I will focus my leadership projects in those areas, I am doing my best to address issues as they come up. Some things, like walking three to four times the distance than if I could take the stairs. Others are a little more of an issue, and these videos capture one of them. (Video filmed in the Wood Student Center's *only* elevator on Friday. It had similar problems on Wednesday and Thursday, and I called reports in each time there was a problem.)

And, when we got to the top.....

I am happy to report that these videos, taken last Friday, led to the elevator being fixed by the time I used it today. Simce I had called several times and shared the vudeo with several staff members, I got a call Friday late-afternoon, to tell me that the elevator was being closed down for the 3 day weekend, because the part to fix it had to be flown in. Hopefully this doesn't happen too often, since that elevator is the *only* way to get from upper campus, where the bus stop is, down to lower campus, where all my classes are taught.

A Beautiful Afternoon Sunset

I'm deep in the middle of the first week of UAF classes, so I don't have a lot of outside time to write. I am hoping that I will hit my stride soon, but until then, don't look for particularly long posts. This morning, when I was waiting for a delivery, I looked up from my Inside Reporting textbook, and saw these beautiful colors out the window.

I thought about going upstairs for socks, shoes and a sweater, but decided to brave the cold to get some shots right then. It was a good choice, since 5 minutes after I took these, the colors were gone. So, enjoy the pictures, and maybe this will inspire you to look up from your book or work, and take a peek out the window every once in awhile!

Life is busy; I needed this message today!

I am hoping to get more consistent time on the computer starting on Thursday, when classes start.  We have been busy figuring out how to get to UAF, how to get classes once we are on campus, getting established with care at the student health clinic, doing incoming student interviews with the VA, Student Support Services, Financial Aid, and Disability Services.  There are also the normal, purchasing textbooks, new student orientation (tomorrow on 1/15/2014) and making sure we have our student IDs.

How do I stay sane in the midst of change? That has become an important question!

In the midst of being this busy, we are also trying to get our bodies into a rhythm, of getting up earlier than we used to do, finding times for naps, (we still sleep through alarms occasionally) adjusting medications to help with the increase in activity level, and the adjustments to living in not only a much colder climate, but also in a desert.

It wasn't until we were talking to the nurse practitioner today, that we realized that in Fairbanks, we live in an arctic desert!

Wow!  An Arctic Desert? Yep!

While we have been keeping hydrated, we realized it is important not to let even a single day go by, without keeping as hydrated as we can.  We need to be drinking as much water as we would, if we were living in a hot desert.


Sometimes, especially during sleepless nights, as I am reflecting on the changes in my body's needs,  and being frustrated.  The changes come on several levels.  A big change is that we don't have a car or truck, (at least for now) and so I am both moving around on public transportation for almost all our shopping and trips to school, and under my own power with my walker accompanying me to most places once I am on campus, or running errands downtown, near our home. 

With all of this new and increased activity, I have no idea how many times I have said, "I hate my body!"  It isn't much farther from that in a stress spiral, and I am having fantasies of reclaiming the body that I had, back before nerve and spinal issues, (or even pre-kids) and just wishing I could get another body altogether.  In praying the last few mornings, I have asked for help in being kinder to myself, and to Scott, as we are going through this transition. I was thinking of that kindness in the realm of emotions and emotional interactions, but as the day has gone on, it has occurred to me, more than once, that physical factors are just as much to blame, as psychological ones, for creating stress.  Emotional and physical exhaustion play off each other, and not in healthy ways, most of the time.

When I watched this video this afternoon, I knew that part of being kinder to myself, is learning to say, "I love you," when I see, or think of, myself.  It always seems easier to apply this kind of thinking to other people, but expressing love for yourself is important, probably almost as important as loving God or the Savior.  I hope that watching this video gives you some insights too!

Just in case you find it as hard as I did, saying, "I love you" that first time, maybe it will help you to think that you are simply echoing the thoughts and feelings of Christ, and our Heavenly Parents.  Allowing my mind's eye to see this as an exercise in seeing myself as Heavenly Mother sees me, got me through the first one, which was the hardest one. I am committed to doing this twice a day for 2 minutes, (the timer on my iPhone pushes me to stay the whole two minutes) and it isn't easy. I think the fact that it is so hard, and I was so uncomfortable, means that it is something that I really need to do!



Stark Winter Beauty: Christmas Lights Edition

First, a quick reminder that all entries for naming my new walker, need to be turned in by the tenth. I prefer if people leave comments, but I have added suggestions from FaceBook, and that have been emailed, and will add any that come one of those two ways between now and then. You can email your entries here.

These pictures were taken a few days after we got to Fairbanks. It was at the home of some people who lived out of town. We were in our rental car, which ended up getting stuck. The family was very nice and helped get the car up the hill. It was fun, even with the misadventure, and the family was very welcoming. They are originally from Oregon, and have us some good tips. It is also the only "Christmasy" thing we did this year, and holds find memories because of that too!

We are officially vehicle-less, having turned in our rental on Tuesday. We got our errands done yesterday, and are planning on riding all 5 of the bus routes today, to we know where they all go, including the bus that goes to North Pole!

It's not snowing? The weather app doesn't agree with my eyes.

We have had a few glitches today. I'm hoping this will post from my phone, because we aren't going to get our Internet figured out tonight.

When we got up this morning, like every morning, we checked the weather. (I mentioned that this morning if you missed it.) Most of the time, it is pretty clear cut about whether we can expect snow, but with a hedge. If there is cloud cover, there is always some chance that it could snow, although if snow isn't expected, they pick a number between 10 and 30, add a % after, and that tells the locals, "Don't worry, no snow."

Last night when we went for a walk, we left to overcast and 30% snow, and spent more than half the walk with this cold powdery white stuff, (we are beginning to jokingly call this white stuff "30%") falling. Today, we started having problems with our Internet sometime during our post-church nap. We aren't sure exactly when, we had our eyes closed, and our joint ignoring of the world, means that we missed whatever the event was that started it. We are pretty sure that snow wasn't involved, but there is no way to know with 100% certainty.

We tried to do the "turn it on and off," method of fixing it, and we still didn't have the ability to connect to Mabel (our dealer for getting our Internet fix in our current location, named after the dog whose owners run the B&B whose suite is our current home) despite Scott's best efforts. It was only after much fiddling with the devices that need Mabel to work that we realized my phone, was also having connection issues. After trying to get it working, we finally gave up, and simply went to do our shopping. When we hit public wifi, we were glad to see that snowfall was only at a 10% possibility, and we proceeded to run our errands.

As we left our first errand, we looked outside to see the 10% falling, caught in the light here:

Our weather app still said it was only a 10% chance of snow, and it claimed it wasn't snowing. We kept checking, curious to see when the app would acknowledge the increasing rate, and size of the flakes, that we were driving through. It was almost 2 hours after the snow started falling, that the weather app changed to show that snow was currently falling, although it still had the chance of snow for the next 6 hours into the future, at less than 30%.

With the sky having dropped half an inch in an hour, the snowflakes continued to grow in size and rate. You can see the larger flakes here:

It isn't easy to take pictures of falling snow. These of the snow already on the ground are easier to get in focus. 

**I love falling snow, and hope I will get better at photographing it, as I take photography and photojournalism classes, but until then, I am pretty pleased to know that I was able to catch a general sense of the difference in the size of snowflakes. Of course, you can always cheat and use special effects, like this, but it is not authentic. 

Good Morning! Maddy Edition: It's Icicles Outside

Across the Lower 48, they are dealing with a cold snap that is dumping snow, and making it colder than usual. I can certainly commiserate, having dealt with blizzards in Wisconsin, and a prolonged ice storm, the winter I was pregnant with Maddy. As we have woken up each morning, we check our own weather, and then see how everyone else in our family is faring. We still haven't found anyone who is at colder temps from us, but we have had several mild days, (for Fairbanks) so they haven't been quite as far apart.

This morning we woke up for our new, 9:00 am church time, and got the chance to talk to Maddy. It was lunch time there, and she was very energetic. She is going with her dad and Miss Liz, (soon-to-be her stepmom) and she was pretty excited about going, and getting to listen to music with her iPod and headphones. She has been listening to Christmas music a lot, and reports that the snow and icicles outside, (including on their car every morning) makes it Christmas in New Jersey. I sure love that girl, and am always glad to have her share a little of her world.

This morning: Fairbanks is 12 F, Oregon City is 30 F, Gibbstown is 34 F (although Maddy reports snow and icicles, so it may be below freezing) and Castro Valley is 54 F right now. With a high of 18 for the day, we will be coldest, but not by all that much.

Last night, we went on a fun walk. It only had a 30% chance of snow listed for the evening, so we were surprised when it started falling about 20 minutes into our evening walk. (It has had the 30% chance listed for over 48 hours, and only 2 hours if that time did it snow. We were lucky to have been out at the right time for that winter magic.) We continued our hour long walk, with snow lightly building up on us and my walker. Here are a few pictures from the walk. More coming later as I get time to talk about Downtown Fairbanks!

Stark Winter Beauty: Week 1

There is no particular order to the pictures I will be sharing in this category. Really, they are just pictures I like, that don't necessarily tell an interesting story. They just share a little of the beauty I see, as I am moving through this new Alaskan world. (These will not be filtered or altered, except an occasional crop.)