The Porch Postscript

Good morning.  This is it, the last day of 2016.  Over the last week, I've read a lot about goal setting, resolutions, and saying goodbye to 2016. Just a few days ago I was asked about my goals for 2017.  It's always fascinating to me how so many people are always so gun-hoe about "making a fresh start" with the ringing in of the new year, then as the year goes on many of those "fresh starts" are lost along the way.  Why do you need a new year to make a "fresh start" or to set new goals?  But I digress. I confess I don't set goals and I don't make resolutions.  When I was in my 20's I used to fall victim to the resolution trap, only to fail by the end of January or at best late February.  Then I felt terrible for days and beat myself up about the failure.  Then one year I stopped.  I stopped setting myself up for the failures.  Since then I've figured out the connection between the world of goals/resolutions and me.  I feel...

Where have you been?  Oh, wait.  You're probably asking me that, aren't you?  Well, I ran away to paradise for a couple of weeks.  I've been on an island, soaking up the vitamin D, and enjoying 10 hours of daylight.  Did you just read that and think "What?  Who talks like this?"  If you aren't from Alaska and have never lived here then this might sound like some fresh brand of crazy talk, but it's not.  Okay, fine I'll explain. When you live in the Interior of Alaska, you experience the shortest day of the year, known as "Winter Solstice," in a totally different way.  On this day our area has only about four hours of daylight.  No, don't adjust your glasses or your computer screen.  You read that right.  FOUR FREAKING HOURS - that's it!!  You view this day as a right of passage and begin counting the minutes that will become hours of daylight.  You've survived the darkness.  With the lack of light, comes...

The flu!  Is there anything worse?  Yeah, I can't think of anything either.  I got sick over the weekend, spent most of two days in bed.  I finally feel human again, after three days!  The only upside, I lost 3.6 pounds.  It's a hell of a way to lose weight.  I'll spare the details, but this little bug sucked.  I'm thrilled it was just a few days of hell.  I'm not a good sick person, not that anyone is a good sick person, but I'm a terrible sick person.  I'm whiny, hard to be around, and unable to make decisions about anything.  I also spend a lot of time apologizing for things that I really can't control.  These are all things that are not a part of my natural personality, but we'll save that discussion for another day. So, now that the flu is over where do I go from here?  Moving past the flu, I've added a couple of new blogs to my reading list: Against All Grain - really inspiring to me, as of late I've been givin...

Winter storm warning, it's started snowing since 5:30 am yesterday morning.  It's more of the fine, dry snow.  The kind that limits visibility when a car passes you on the road.  The temp has risen to five below zero.  Regular heat wave here in the Interior.  I'm guessing when I say we got about four to five inches. I've officially reached an age where the cold bothers me.  This is the first winter where cold has really bothered my hands, as in my hands hurt and I'm still looking for the right gloves kind of hurt. Up until now, I've always been loyal to Isotoner gloves.  I love them.  They were the perfect gloves, warm enough, yet still great for functionality.  I own a pair of what I'll call ski gloves for lack of a better description, they're the big bulky kind.  Super warm, but totally dysfunctional for handling anything but ski poles.  Currently, I'm wearing a pair of Hubby's mittens with the flip-top, that expos...

Do your best friends know you love them?  No, I mean it.  The friends you've had the longest, the ones who could tell your secrets.  When was the last time you told them you cared?  I know there are zillions of people who've had the same best friend for their entire lives.  I'm not one of those zillions.  My best friends are the people I've picked up along the road of life. My oldest friend and I knew each other before we were born.  Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but it's true.  Our mom's bowled together, were pregnant at the same time and we were born days apart.  We grew up together.  We went to church together.  We teased each other through junior and senior high.  We haven't seen each other in over ten years and we live thousands of miles apart, but we stay in touch on Facebook.  He's a cop and I pray for his safety every day. In junior high, I met an upperclassman that took a liking to me.  I was in the ei...

How's the weather there?  The cold is starting to settle in.  It was below zero for a few days in a row.  Snow on the ground, cars plugged in, people nestled in cozy houses.  Winter has finally arrived in Alaska.  Today the wind has picked up and will blow away much of the powdery snow. The past couple of years we've had "mild" winters.  Temps dipping down to 20 or 30 below, but never staying there very long.  Limited snowfall, mostly of the dry powdery variety.  We haven't seen a really cold "traditional" winter since 2012 when we moved to Alaska. I'm pushing myself to take more winter photographs.  For help on this journey, I'm using the Capture Your 365 photo prompts.  Sharing my perspective of the world through the lens, any lens. This shot of a cabin I pass nearly every day, on my way to work.  I've played with a few editing effects, adding the border, the snow falling, and the focal blur, along with a little col...