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Oh what a day!

Peter got into last nights cookies!

Yesterday's rain turned to ice and we got 7-8 inches of snow, plus wind.  All that together made a SNOW DAY for the kids!  A snow day in Alaska.  That's like a heat day in Arizona!  So this is what it looked like out this morning around 8:30

This is that same tree a little later.

The day actually went really well.  Spencer was sent to his room for talking back and arguing with my by 10 o'clock.  But things really got better from there.  I went out with all the neighborhood kids for about an hour and we expanded yesterday's fort.

LOVE THIS ONE!

Lola came out and played with us for a while too!

So I learned one thing today. When you have 13 kids in your yard making snow forts and snowballs, they make a HUGE mess of your driveway and sidewalk.  And you have to shovel.  Oh and the snow is PACKED so it's a bitch to shovel!

I forgot that yesterday, when Peter brought the fort making supplies, he also left a note.

It says, "Thank you for the house.  It's amazing.  I love my comfy bed and the light kept me from being scared in the dark.  I brought you guys these for all your hard work".  My sweet daughter wrote him a note back today...

It says, "We love the things that you brout us.  ♥ Kayleigh"  She's so sweet!


There was a BEAUTIFUL sunset tonight, at 3:45ish,  So I ran inside and grabbed the camera in hopes of capturing the beautiful glow of the sky.  I should have came inside and tried to take the pictures from the upstairs window.  But we were still all outside playing.  Anyway, I was trying to capture the color.  So I took 70ish pictures.  I am going to look it up, but I think I may need to get some different equipment (filters maybe?) to take a picture that REALLY captures the beauty.  I don't really need all that equipment because I'm not a serisous photographer.  Anyway, I just played with the settings.  The problem to capture the red in the sky, I have to speed up the shutter speed, which make the foreground darker.  I wish I could take some from each picture.  So I am going to post a series of 8 pictures.  They all are done with the setting changed by one click.  And you can pick your favorite.  I like them all for different reasons.

The differences really are subtle from one to the next, but GREAT between the first and last ones.  This one isn't in the series, but I LOVE that cloud to the top left. 

Today I realized that I am bitter!  Stacey called to chat this morning.  And she asked me if I would look after her house next week because Chris told her that they are leaving for Hawaii on Friday!  Good. I can be happy for someone else.  But quite frankly I don't want to hear about their happy, tropical island family vacation.  Not that I want to go to Hawaii this week or anytime in the not too distant future.  I do love Alaska.  And I really had a great time out in the snow today.  But I am just having a hard time right now with the holidays and little sunlight.  I can feel the lack of vitamin d bringing me down.  And seeing families all happy and fucking "Christmasy" (or whatever) makes me angry.  Not at them.  I would never be angry at a family for just being there.  I'm just bitter that that isn't my family.  I feel I have the right to say a mental FU with big fat smile on my face.  I just am lonely and the holiday's are compounding that.  So this bitter old lady needs to go work on getting her kids in bed and putting up laundry, oh the fun!  Goodnight!