Morning people, more volleyball and odds and ends

Mornings. Most who know me know that I am NOT a morning person. I used to be. As a child and right up through college I was a morning person. I was one of the rare few who signed up for 8 am classes and thought best at that time of day. I remained a morning person right up until the day I went to work for RG&E in downtown Rochester, NY. The work day was scheduled to start at 7:30 am, but traffic was such that if I left the house at 5:50, I could arrive at work by 7 am. If I didn't leave until 6, I could barely make it in by 7:30. Ten minutes made the difference between a quick, relaxed drive and a hectic, white knuckle drive. Every day for a number of years that I can't even remember now (at least 5, but I have no idea how many more than that) I would unenthusiastically set my alarm for 4:50 am. Really. I have no idea why it took so long to get ready in the morning - shower, breakfast, feed dogs, make lunch - but it did. And I grew to hate mornings. I never did get used to getting up that God-awful early.

Then we adopted children and God, who I know has a sense of humor, gave me a child that is a morning person. He's an up-and-at-them, 0-dark-hundred kind of morning person. Ick. Now the kids are teenagers and have FINALLY learned not to wake up the mother-unit until she stumbles down the stairs of her own accord. Waking up the mother-unit is a crime punishable by death or dismemberment, or maybe both. They have wisely learned not to go there. They also know better than to try to have intelligent conversation with me in the morning. The usual routine is ok. My body can go through the motions without any help from my conscious brain. For goodness sake though, do NOT ask me to go outside of the normal routine! It will NOT be pretty!

Since I was no longer suffering enough, God suddenly decided to turn my spouse into a morning person. When I was getting up at obscene hours of the morning, I used to slip out of the room and be as quiet as possible so as not to wake him from his happy slumber. One would think that he could extend the same courtesy. But no, he is a true morning person. He's CHEERFUL! There's nothing worse than a cheerful person early in the morning when you're not awake yet. They want to chatter. They want the world to be cheerful with them. They insist on getting in your face with their cheerfulness. Just makes you want to reach out and slug them. In case you're wondering where that rant came from, it was Rodney's suggestion to blog about morning people. As I was trying to force myself awake this morning he was pestering me to blog, as he has every day for the last 3-4 days. When I asked what I was supposed to blog about, he responded that I should blog about morning people. So here it is. My "morning person" rant, I mean blog post.

As for what is going on in life aside from morning people, the living room wall is now painted and waiting for us to rearrange furniture. I need to wait to do that on a day when my brain is with me though. I'll let you know if that happens this decade. I blame it on all the histamines and anti-histamines. They're constantly doing battle in my body, stealing whatever semblance of brain I ever had. So I'm still whining and not blogging. It's the cold. I was starting to have a brain again until I got this cold. Oksana was sweet enough to share her cold with me. It's not a bad one, but it has taken away whatever brain power I normally have, which isn't much to begin with. We are driving the truck up to the house now. That's exciting news! It makes life so much easier. You just climb in the truck and off you go. It takes a lot less planning and maneuvering but it makes my snow machine lonely. I need to go take it for a joy ride and cheer it up.

It was nice and cold this past week so the roads around camp are all nicely packed. Zero weather makes the snow nice and squeaky. We like it. :) It was back up in the 20s today, but we had almost a week where I don't think it got above zero. There was a group in from all over the country during the cold week. We had people from Florida and even one from India. When my friend Cheryl adopted her daughter Sumana from India, we figured out that Sumana had never experienced temperatures below 80. If that was the case for this poor gentleman, he must have thought that he was going to die! I saw him walking down the road with his hands over his face to breathe! Poor guy! A while back when my computer was dying I talked to technical support in India and the guy I talked to had a million questions about Alaska. He said it is one of his dreams to visit. I'm thinking that just for the whole physical shock of it, summer might be a better choice! ;)

The mixed 6 state championship volleyball tournament is this coming week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, December 9, 10 and 11 at Dimond High school in Anchorage. Yes, that is how they spell Dimond. The first time I saw it I was sure it was a misspelling. Maybe it was initially, but now it is the accepted spelling. It still makes me stop and think every time I see it or try to type it. I'll definitely update the blog as soon as I can with results of the games. We will be staying in Anchorage at a hotel which has Wi-Fi so I SHOULD be able to update on a daily basis.

Both of the Arctic Cats are still in the Arctic Cat Row of Shame, though one is only there in spirit. It is at the Gerwig's house waiting to be fixed while the other is in the actual Row of Shame - a line of non-running Cats outside the camp shop. One needs a new track and drivers, the other probably need the crank case drained (according to Mr Roub) but Rodney hasn't had the time to do that yet. We've got a good idea of where to get the new track, but just haven't gotten that together yet either. Sergei has been working with Ben Gerwig on that one.

We have a lot more chickadees visiting us this year. The feeders are incredibly busy these days! There are caribou antlers in velvet in the upper right corner. The chickadees love to sit on those. I love the little chickadees. They are so cheerful and they share nicely.

Let me know if you are sick of sunrise and sunset pictures. The sun comes up late enough now that even I am up when it comes up!


Naughty Ellie has taken to sleeping in Rodney's closet at night. There's certainly plenty of cushion for her little princess head. She's feeling better, though she didn't go out much when it was so cold last week. She's also eating better so she actually has a touch of meat over her ribs for once this year.
Doug Thiessen and/or Todd Busenitz give sleigh rides to the guests. Here Todd is driving Cisco who likes to GO so it was hard to catch him standing still.


Victory Peak over Miracle Lodge today