I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!!

It is official!  The gauntlet has been thrown at my feet and I have to get off my toosh and do something.  You see, I am "that" person who could never, ever, ever sidestep the Double Dog Dares, nor did I want to.  I'm a Virgo and I hear we lead the way in avoiding conflicts and I am not remotely a competitive person (except with myself), BUT when a dare or a personal challenge is thrown at me I fall for it every single time.  This time may actual work for my benefit though.  The dare was to completely organize my entire home in 5 weeks.  This requires me to break my house into 10 zones and organize 2 zones per week for 5 weeks. He said "I'm giving you a challenge" but he may well have said "I Double Dog Dare you" so I jumped at it. Of course I can do it! I can do anything!

     Can I do this???  Can I have a completely organized and de-cluttered house in 5 weeks?  I think I could do it in ONE but the question really is can I do this while also keeping the house clean, cooking, teaching homeschool, working (I do have an actual away-from-home office and job), teach Sunday School and AWANA, get me and the kids to Bible Study, Cub Scouts, Music, Computer Club, Family Night at church, get groceries, study for Battle of the Books (technically Ellie's job but what momma doesn't help prepare??), take care of the farm, and I could go on and on with the Dare Defying activities I perform daily.  And on top of this I am supposed to Completely Organize Two Zones, each zone has 1-2 rooms, EACH WEEK??  

     When I put my mind to something I will get it done.  I have proved that to myself several times.  Not everybody thought I would graduate from college, give birth with no meds & no hollering, My problem is that I have a tendency to question my idea, question my actions, question my progress, and generally beat myself up before I even get started.  I can't do that this time because I've been Double Dog Dared and I'm about to rock this!!  Who does he think he is, daring ME to organize MY house?  I will show him what I'm made of and I'll make him pay for this challenge by having a party when I'm done, and making him and his whole family come to it.  That'll teach him to challenge me.

     So, starting Monday 13 Feb 2017, I will choose one area of my house to start organizing and I'll document it all for accountability.  I have to remember it doesn't necessarily mean decorating (which is what I know ahead of time will clog me up) but it just means to provide a place for everything to go, eliminate all piles, and have an organized way of moving things/work/projects through so that they are no longer hoarded or piled or cluttered.  And before I can post those pictures public, it means I'll have to clean that room spotlessly.  Lately, when my kids misbehave they get the consequence of earning themselves a chore of some sort.  Handing out chores over the next five weeks should be a breeze.  This is already seeming easier.  

     This weekend I will begin to gather the things I will need come Monday.  I will need my new Young Living cleaner, some cleaning supplies, some paper to draw out my designs, paper to list out my To Do's for each room, and mostly ..... MY MOTHER!  I could ask her to come help me watch the kids so I can concentrate but that's what "she" would like to do.  What's she even better at is de-cluttering and that was unfortunately not a trait that she handed down to me.  Nah, I'll watch the kids and I'll cook blueberry anything for her if she'll just come to Last Frontier and tell me what to throw, move, and move again.  I'll ask her -- right after I clean up all the dog hair under the couch and refrigerator.

WHAT'S YOUR GOAL FOR THIS NEW YEAR??

For the last year I have been always "just about" to get my blog going but I never made it happen.  The last several months I have spent countless wasted hours setting up sites with my photos sites that have blogs with them, but in the end they didn't work like they were supposed to.  All that time is gone and as fate (if fate is a real thing) would have it, it appears the best blog site for me is BlogSpot -- a site that I set up in 2009 before we drove to Alaska.  That's a long time to go full circle but at least it has happened.  Some of us don't go very far fast!  But THIS is a New Year and I have a renewed fervor for making the most of my life and having fun doing the things I love, and mostly a fervor (don't you love that word??) for teaching my kids and showing my husband that LIFE IS FUN if you let it be.  It's not that they don't already know that but isn't it "momma's" job to set the "Fun Tone" for the family?  Daddy's provide, give structure, teach lessons, and way more; but Momma's set the tone for loving, nurturing, patience, and fun.  That's my belief anyway.  Sometimes I get in a rut with life and it seems so mundane, so stressful, so busy, so non-productive yet hectic.  That isn't the life I want for my kiddos but they will probably have that life if it's all they know, and they won't even realize that it doesn't have to be that way.  So my New Year's Resolutions (not in order of importance because they are all important to me) are to:

1. Get fit and teach my kiddos how to live healthy
2. Have fun
3. Visit a place in Alaska that I have never before been
4. Get my photography business kicked off, website and ALL
5. Choose at least 5 people each week to target with encouragement

ALCAN trip Goodbyes

I have never seen a sadder group of kids than these three when they said "goodbye" this past week.  Just sitting on the couch knowing that they were supposed to tell each other 'bye' was sad so I told them all to do a silly picture before I took Kat home.  They all stuck out their tongues, hugged, and I hurried to get Kat out of there and walk her home before the maddness ensued.  By the time I got home the wailing had ended thank goodness.  When we were supposed to have left the day before, and the kids said their 'goodbyes' I got to witness the full force of the sadness, confusion, and anxiety felt over knowing it would be months before they could play dress-up with Katherine again.  The first morning on the ALCAN we ate breakfast and Garrett said his usual "Thank God for all my daddy" and Ellie was fast to add "Thank you God for the Clarks and please don't let them move before I get home."  I don't think they are moving but you know how kids are.  Then, I was told that Kat said prayer or blessings for these two.  The day we come back and they can get together again should be a blast!

Day #2 ALCAN trip

We slept about an hour late, ate a good breakfast, took some pictures and then headed out again.  We saw the largest gold pan in the World at Burwash Landing.  An interpretive exhibit of fire damage caused the kids to run around yelling "the fire is coming, the fire is coming" so I figured since nobody around would know me, I could do the same.  It felt good to cut loose and scream and run in a circle, and then load up fast and take off before somebody got my tag number.  We let the kids watch movies and they really did a wonderful job this whole trip. They are a little wild in public, going into the hotel and restaraunt, but I'm trying to be a little more understanding.  But, that said, I think if I hear the joke "knock, knock, who's there, orange..." again I just might scream.  Driving through White Horse we were surprised when our cell phones made noise alerting us that we had service.  There was a mad scramble for the console to pick up our phones and call somebody, anybody, with a status update.  Not all calls & texts went through initially so between us both, we probably sent 5 people the same text 5 times but at least somebody somewhere would know where we were.  Our plan was to stop there and look for some collector t-shirts for all the grandbabies that said "yukon" but we ended up talking on the phones while we breezed right through the 10 min span of town (the biggest city we had seen in two days), until we lost service and then realized that we had just blown through White Horse.  Momma scrambled for the Milepost to see where our next gift shop would be and over the next 150 miles we would drive disappointedly past one "closed for the season" gift shop after another.  Some of the places looked like ghost towns and some were just closed for the day at 5pm.  The most beautiful lake I have ever seen is just east of White Horse.  It is called Marsh Lake and is absolutely turquoise and the shores are cobble.  I would drive all the way back here with our boat just to explore it.  it was around there that I stopped to take pictures of the clouds; they looked like a large flat brush smeared stark white paint in a semi-circle on top of a bright blue canvas.  I have never seen clouds like that.  Every so often there were signs advising traffic to slow down and watch for school bus stops.  We kept looking for bus stops, driveways, schools, or anything that might show signs of civilization but they weren't apparent.  After the second or third of those it became something we would really laugh at.  Where is any school? any kids? any houses? any bus stops?  When we finally made it to Watson Lake (about 20 miles shy of our goal) we decided to stop because with the lack of cell service since Tok, we really wanted to find wifi so we could get online and email some updates.  Our priority was a room with free wifi so we got in, logged on the net, and then headed out to get pullups (one of those forgotten things that really couldn't remain forgotten if we wanted to sleep easy) and supper, but at 8pm both of the restaraunts (and one grocery store) were closed except at our hotel.  That might have been The Best BLT and onion rings I ever ate in my life.  We lost an hour coming into the Yukon and I just refuse to get onto another time zone.  My phone updated itself, my car didn't, my computer doesn't know what to do, my husband is an hour behind me, daddy is two hours ahead, and my employer is three hours ahead (but yesterday was four) ... i need a secretary to follow me around with an arm full of watches.  I need to end this.  We are trying to get up tomorrow and be at the Signpost Forest around daybreak, so we can explore Liard Hot Springs and find some t-shirts for the grandbabies, and get to our next stop before everything closes.  All total today we drove from Burwash Landing to Watson Lake - around 417 miles.  There is always a discrepancy between the road signs that say how far away something is (even after i convert km to miles), and the mile markers, and my actual odometer readings so I'm just recording mileage off my odometer at the end of the day.

Day #1 ALCAN trip

We had some schedule changes and last minute things to do but we finally made it on the road and got through the border.  All the way there, the things I had forgotten just seem to pile up into a bigger and longer list but at that point, what was forgotten needed to be forgotten.  The weather was great but we saw alot of trees that had fallen due to the recent wind storms.  Huge trees were laid over for miles down the road but the crews had gotten them all out of the way by the time we came through.  Momma got to see her first bull moose; he wasn't legal but he was a good size and he stood in the road so we could see him for a while.  I was caught by surprise when we were stopped by some Wildlife guys at a checkpoint.  They asked if we carried any craft items, skins, meat, or bone, etc.  They didn't search our vehicle but they did look in the windows and then let us go.  We got through customs without any problems. It wasn't busy at all like I thought it would be.  We took the time to take pictures and look around some as we drove but the best part was when we saw the grizzly bear on the side of the road.  The pics I took do not do justice to that beautiful beast.  An RV was stopped and the bear was sniffing around it, then it crossed the road and lay down in the ditch.  It was beautiful.  The road really was not as bad as I have heard.  It was bumpy in some places and there was a short section of rug-board but for the most part it was better than all the roads I grew up on.  We had a copy of the Milepost which is written from the opposite direction and we got a good laugh/sigh as we realized that we were looking for landmarks ahead of us, that were actually in our rear view mirror.  We made it to Burwash Landing Resort after dark and were a little amused at the different interpretations of the word "resort" but would definitely recommend this place.  The owner was very nice, we ate a good, reasonably priced breakfast there the next day and the view from the dining room is amazing.  All total we drove 330 miles (Delta Junction to Burwash Landing).

Finally Arrived

Well, this whole adventure morphed into something of a new adventure.  Absolutely the last minute, we switched from driving to Fort Greely, to flying here and that was something.  The movers were literally standing in front of us waiting for the answer to pack or not to pack.  We spend hundreds of dollars buying things for our car, planning a 10-day drive here and in the blink of an eye had to decide to pack it up and start over with  a plan to fly.  The kids did well on the flight. They slept alot thank goodness.  But we are finally here in the frozen tundra, without a vehicle or any of our stuff, and the adventure has begun!

Hurry Up and Wait

So we are still waiting on our orders but in the meanwhile I keep getting updates and questions answered from our wonderful sponsors in Alaska.  Our "To Do" list is getting out of control and at some point we have to just sit down and knock some of the things off the list.  Everytime I add something to the list, I can feel my chest tighten up more and more, but then Christina sends me a picture of a moose calving in the street where we're about to live, and then I smile inside and wish we could leave today!  I've been working on Ellie to get her excited but at 2yrs old, that excitement has to be renewed almost daily.  At first I asked if she was ready to go to Alaska and she would answer "NO! No Laska" and had no idea what she was talking about.  Nowdays, her answer is "YES Ma'am!!" and still has no idea what she's talking about but it makes me laugh which in turn makes her laugh, which in turn makes Garrett laugh.  So for now, just talking about Alaska makes our family happy :o).