Just Another Day

For one reason or another, I’m finding it impossible to fall asleep tonight. I guess, perhaps, I should be waking up earlier. That makes too much sense, though.

To fill my time, I decided to start digging through my closet and found a box that I recognized from my first year of college. It is a covered shoe box in which I kept a bunch of letters and notes from that year. I normally don’t keep that kind of stuff, but tonight I am so happy I did and that I found it.

I started my college experience sad about leaving home and rooming with a girl who had different interests than me. (Okay, I was a basket case!) It’s amazing the way the notes and letters change after I moved rooms and made some more friends. I must say, though, I was so fortunate to have two sisters and a grandma that loaded my mail box with sweet notes and cards and my best friend just a floor away during that miserable time. And what seemed like a lifetime is almost forgotten to me now.

Amongst the letters I found notes from Bill written during our first couple months of dating. I can’t help but wonder just how confusing I must have been during that time! Even so, he was sweet to me. It’s so easy to let the years go by and to become so comfortable with each other that you forget what that “head over heels” beginning was like. I like to think, though, that we can still be head over heels. 🙂

The real treasure in the box was the stack of letters from Grandma Aune. I remember smiling every time I found one in my mailbox… almost all of them had a smiley face drawn on the back of the envelope. Inside there were the details of life at the lake… she knew I missed being there. So, I’m now home and working on adjusting to the fact that Gram and Gramp are living in Virginia now – it’s strange to me. There house is too quiet, so I have been going over to start a fire and watch a little TV now and again. I am sure they miss the lake every bit as much as I did.

Jack Johnson’s got a song by the title of this entry. It pretty much sums up my airport experiences… sitting around, waiting for a flight, wishing the travel was over. SIGH.

I snuck in to Bill’s presentation on Podcasting today… he and I have done several presentations over the past couple of years, and we’ve never had the chance to see each other in action. I am so proud of him. He does great work!

Now I’m sitting in the Boardroom…  Unfortunately, my flight to Chicago is delayed. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have enough time to make it to my Minneapolis connection so I arrive as scheduled in Duluth by noon tomorrow.

And so it begins…

As promised, here’s an update on my latest Alaskan Adventures. 🙂

I spent two days in Willow with the Holts. It was a fast couple of days – as they always seem to be.

We kept busy and I even managed to make Tiffany teach me to make a new kind of card – a magic card. 🙂 Tiff’s got more tales of our visit at their page.

I drove into Anchorage on Friday night to meet Bill at the Captain Cook. The hotel is a beautiful place with lots of great amenitites. So, while Bill has been busy in class this weekend, I’ve been taking advantage of the athletic club, steam room, and our cozy living room space in the Jr. Suite he lucked out with.

I did, however, spend some time at Costco and Fred Meyers yesterday. If you live in Alaska you know the drill – for the rest of you, though, it’s shopping at it’s worst. After filling up a cart with all the overstuffed items you think you could possibly need you haul everything out to the car to pack up for shipping. YUCK! I still have to get the stuff out to the post office, which can also be an ordeal, as it goes to a seperate part of the post office… and I generally drive into the wrong spot and feel like a complete idiot. You’d think I’d have this down by now!

Last night I got to do the “wife” thing and accompany Bill to a business dinner in the fancy restaraunt at the top of the hotel. The Apple reps took the BSSD ED Tech staff and their spouses, along with a few other Alaskan educators out. So, the conversation was right up Bill’s alley, but it was pretty interesting to me as well. Bill and I will continue to debate the role of technology in our lives… probably forever, but sitting with all those folks made me really think about their true passon. The question – are they passionate about technology, or are they passionate about giving kids a tool to explore life’s options? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter of the two. Anyway… dinner was delcious – complete with the Chocolate Venture dessert (and a few bites of Bill’s creme brulee)!

I’m going to head to the airport in just a few minutes to catch up with Barb as she flies in from Juneau and off to Valdez. I feel so fortunate that I get to see almost all of my family in just the next few days. I’m just missing out on Bill (Jr.) and Katie – hopefully we get some time together soon!

Finally, I think I’m going to start asking a survey kind of question at the end of some of my entries. Then you can put your answer in my comments and I will have something to read. 🙂 So – today’s question is: What is one thing you want to do this week that you’re just not sure you’ll get to? My answer: I want to get my bedroom closet (at Dad’s) cleaned out – stuff I don’t use to the Thrift Shop or the dump, other stuff organized and into our storage shed.

I’m all checked in for my flight out of Unalakleet. To be honest, it doesn’t really feel like I’m leaving today. Infact, it feels like I just got back from Christmas break. Time has been flying – the days have been getting longer and longer – the ground has been nearly snow-free… it’s been a good couple of months.

I was very spoiled today to be taken out to lunch by Stacie and James. We had some yummy sandwiches at Peace on Earth while we gabbed away. It was just a lovely day – and a fantastic way to spend the afternoon before heading on a plane. I, otherwise, would’ve just sat around my house waiting and waiting.

My new favorite game to play with Lo and Ape is Where’s Erin? Bill recently worked to get a Unalakleet web cam set up, so people all over the world can take a virtual visit to Unalakleet – live. Anyway, I made both of my sisters call up the camera and then look for me while I ran down the road to wave at them. I’m sure there are some people wondering what the crazy girl flailing her arms around was doing, but I think it’s good to keep people guessing. 😉 So, if you’d like to see what Unalakleet looks like right now visit the site: http://bssd.org/unkcam.html It’s just one of the many wonderful things my talented husband has worked on up here.

So, I guess I should run through my mental notes of what I packed and what I probably forgot. I’ll be jumping in a rental car tonight to drive to Tiff and Rick’s . I plan to keep them busy while I’m there… we’ll do lots of important things like stamping and playing pinnocle. 😉 Then it’s off to Anchorage for a coupld of days of errands. There’ll probably be another update then.

Happy Day, Everyone!

Well, technically it’s my mom’s birthday where she lives… I’m about an hour and fifty minutes shy of making it to February 19th – but, close enough! 🙂 Anyway, a very happy birthday to you, Mom! Hope your day is fantastic.

Here’s a picture of the birthday girl.

For those of you who don’t have a birthday today… celebrate anyway. Every day deserves cake. 🙂

April has this way of making up new words to better describe things. Occasionally I think it’s fun as well… this is how I arrived at the name for my new pink Nano iPod – my Pano.

 

Bill suprised me with this wonderful gift this week. While we really didn’t need an additional iPod, only the Nano works with the Nike+ system he also purchased for me. This is the piece I’m overly excited about! This little sensor that you wear in your shoe transmits a signal to it’s receiver that’s plugged into the Nano. It’s sort of like a pedometer on steroids!

Anyway, it tracks your workout and then sends your info off to Nike.com  where you can view your statistics and graphs. Plus you can set goals and create challenges for other folks who also have the system. So, here are a couple of the graphs from my past two days. (Notice, I’m not exactly a speed runner.)

        

Besides loving my new toy, I had a very nice week. We were fortunate enough to get together at the Johnson’s Tuesday night and down at Jason’s last night. Those types of things sure make the time move quickly.

I decided to be bossy and declare a “No Homework” day for Stacie and me yesterday. Instead we drank lattes, ate yummy muffins she’d made, and stamped our hearts out. I completed my card swap card for this round. Yahoo!

It’s nice that the days are moving quickly. I already leave Unalakleet this Wednesday on my journey to Minnesota. My first stop will be in Willow, AK for some time with the Holts. I’m very much looking forward to catching up with them before I head back to Anchorage to spend a couple of days with Bill. He will be presenting at / participating in the ASTE conference there, so he’ll be busy. I’m hoping to smuggle him away for an evening or two to go out to dinner and a movie before we spend a few more weeks apart. Then Monday the 26th I’ll be on my way down South. I’m so looking forward to hanging out with my family and possibly bumping into some friends.

I guess it’s time for me to get some housework done and move on to enjoying the weekend. It’s a beautifully sunny day here. I hope your life is bright!

I’m not into the commercialism of any holiday, but I do love every holiday for the traditions or memories it brings. Today I thought, vividly, of four Valentine’s of the past.

🙂 Last year I spent the day in Idaho training teachers in the latest computer tutoring program that SFA offers. I specificially packed my favorite pink sweater… the one I didn’t put on today, because I remembered wearing it last year.

🙂 Two years ago I was in Unalakleet for a facilitator training. There were terrible winter storms, and I ended up getting weathered in here for 2 extra nights while Bill held down the fort in Brevig Mission.

🙂 Eight years ago Bill showed up at my dorm room with a red carnation. We weren’t dating yet, and in fact I wasn’t sure WHAT we were. The carnation came from “Wally’s” – the campus cafeteria. They were giving them out for free. 😉

🙂 Nine years ago a group of my high school friends got dressed up and went out for a fancy dinner. None of us were dating anyone at the time, and it was perfectly wonderful. We ended up at my dad’s place and made fortune cookies that night.

This Valentine’s Day has been nice in its own right. I spent the afternoon working on my Culturally Responsive Schools assignments and made some orange chicken with rice for dinner. Bill and I are going to watch LOST in a bit.

Lots of LOVE coming your way – today, and ALWAYS!

xoxo!

I love waking up to daylight! Unfortunately, the extra time sleeping makes the weekends go way too fast. Luckily, it was a good one! 🙂

My latest stamping order arrived yesterday afternoon – it’s always exciting to get packages… even if I ordered it myself! So, tonight I indulged in two guilty pleasures… I cut a bunch of my new stamp sets out while I watched Desperate Housewives. I’ve already made a deal with myself that I need to complete two parts of my assignments tomorrow before I can even begin to think about creating cards.

Today I spent a couple of hours working on my web site for one of my continuing ED courses. It’s so easy to get lost in the world of the web. My pages will be something of an on-line resume. We’ll see…

The rest of the weekend was nice and relaxing. Last night we turned out living room into Bryson’s Cinema and projected My Super Ex-Girlfriend on our wall. One thing I miss a lot out in the bush is going to movies… so occasionally we pretend! I thought the movie we had would be a good one to see with Carrie and the Johnson’s – and being it was rated PG-13, it’d basically be appropriate for Abbie. Well, folks, I think the rating system has loosened up a bit since I was in the PG-13 category!

This afternoon Bill and I watched The DaVinci Code which was a good one. Unfortunately, I was so cozy in our warm livingroom that I decided to watch the last 30 minutes through my eyelids. I guess I’ll have to finish that up tomorrow and try to get the disk off to Netflix.

Well, my debate is whether I wash the dishes or take a shower before I head to bed. I neglected both today! it’s been a good weekend. 🙂

Today was Grandma and Grandpa’s Anniversary. I love their wedding picture! Grandpa never actually proposed to Gram, he just called her up from Kansas City and told her if she wanted to get married she should take the bus down. So, she did – and then she headed back to Cook on the bus while Gramp stayed in Kansas City and eventually went to India during WWII.

I’m happily camped out in Unalakleet for a couple of weeks. I finished up my work reports today – yea! – and will move on to my classes and job applications in the next couple of days. For now, though I’m enjoying some down time.

Bill and I got out on some wonderful walks this weekend, and I was hoping to head out after he got home this evening. It was awfully windy, though, so we decided to hit the climbing wall instead. I am also learning to post video in my blog – so you can have a look at me navigating my way around the wall. It’s not terribly exciting, but something new, I guess.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/erin/files/2007/02/erin_climb.mov 320 260]

Looking forward to the return of LOST tomorrow night. 🙂

Love to you all!

My blog has been tagged by my friend Tiff! The object of the game is to learn a few new things about people as well as see who’s reading blogs and blogging. You’re supposed to tag another 6 people, but I am having trouble with my links right now. So, I encourage you – if you’ve got a blog of your own – to keep the game going by leaving your blog address in the comments on this post so we can check out your entry and who you decide to tag.

You’re supposed to list six strange things about yourself that your readers might not know – so, here I go:

1. I was a cheerleader in highschool.

2. I don’t eat store-bought bread unless it’s toasted.

3.  My dimple is “homemade”. (alright, most of you have heard that story, but it’s still a strange fact… AND, I met a guy at my friend’s wedding this summer who has a homemade dimple as well! – that was a fun conversation!)

4.  I have to keep my feet outside the covers while I sleep.

5.  I’ve lived in six different houses/apartments in the past six years. (That’s a lot of packing & unpacking!)

6. I gave my sister, April, two bloody noses growing up.