I hope everyone else occasionally has days like this and its not just me. It started out innocently and beautifully enough. It was already 60 degrees when I got up at 7 this morning, and for those of you who don't know Alaska that means its going to be a beautifully hot and sunny day. I had a busy three hours at my morning office job, for once I was actually pretty busy. The trouble started when I went home to get ready for my midday coaching job. Since the weather has been nice here lately I have actually been getting a little sunburnt, and figured that I should probably use some sunscreen today. Just a word of advice to those who wear contacts: Put those contacts in before you put the sunscren on, it burns just a little when you get it in your eyes!! So I was out the door to run wearing my glasses, which is never that much fun. Don't worry, it gets better. I get to the parking lot and as I get out of the car I take my car key off of my key chain to carry with me and leave the rest of the keys in the car. Oh, and I lock the door. But as soon as I close the door I realize that I have the key to my car in my hand, but I was actually driving my mom's car. Crap! Luckily I was coaching a bunch of wonderful motherly women who were more than willing to help me once the workout was over. Another word of advice that I didn't know before: If you bought your car at the dealer within at least the last 5 years they will have your key code on file and can cut you a new key for a quarter of the price it would cost to call a locksmith, who I found out are usually too busy to come rescue you anyways. You have to have someone that will drive you to the dealer to pick up said key, and luckily I did. So now that I have all of that fixed I have taken on the duty of watching a friend's shop/art gallery for the afternoon while they are entertaining visiting family. Luckily it's a sort of quiet place so I'm actually getting some quality knitting/reading time here (and I'm getting paid, it doesn't get much better than that). I'm kind of hoping that I'll get out of my evening coaching session so that I can go do a bike ride with Pam. Which reminds me.....
Pam and I have signed up to do the Ride for Life, July 23 and 24. Have I mentioned this before? Its a 120 mile bike ride from Anchorage, AK to Seward, AK along one of the most beautiful roads in the world (see the pics on the website), and it's for a great cause: The Lance Armstrong Foundation. Here's the deal: I paid my money to enter the race, but I also need a minimum of $200 of pledges/donations before they will let me actually do it. All of the donations goes directly to the foundation, none of it goes through the ride organizers. So, if you are interested let me know, and I'll give you more info.

Gaaaaah!

I just read Shannon's post that mentions people being stalked through their blogs! Is this true?? Do I need to censor myself more??


I did it!

Hooray! I put an offer on a condo, and things seem to be moving forward. This past weekend was probably the most hectic, crazy, stressful weekend I've had in a while, but the outcome was good. After 3 full days of looking with the real estate agent I was able to settle on something. The condo is 2 stories, with a full unfinished basement, and it has 3 bedrooms. Its about 5 miles from the University, further than the one block that I was used to in Salt Lake, but its in a nice neighborhood with some running trails nearby. We got a good price on the place. Unlike Anchorage where you have to offer at least $5000 above the list price, we were able to settle a few thousand below it. I'll most likely have to get a roommate to help me cover some of the costs but there will be plenty of room for two of us.
Here are some pictures...



And did I mention that the building that I will be working in at the University is called the Butterdome? Here's why:

Its much more yellow in real life, maybe to keep us happy in the winter?

Home buying

I'm going to Edmonton on Thursday with the hopes of finding and buying a condo in 4 days. For some reason this scares me....It sort of makes the fact that I am moving to Edmonton permanent, not to mention the fact that I will be looking at condos, making the biggest financial decision of my life and signing all the papers on my own! The original plan was to have one of my parents come with me but that isn't going to happen because of work. I am taking big breaths and telling myself that I am a big girl and can do this on my own.

I did get my study permit in the mail today from the consulate. They decided they would let me into the country, as I assumed that they would. Thank goodness Canada seems a little easier to deal with than Norway (with the exception of certain border people who think I'm abandoning my furniture there, honestly...if I'd wanted to do that I could have left it in Salt Lake).

In other news, I had a really nice weekend. I bought new shoes and pedals for my road bike, and then had to go try them out on Sunday. I did a 30 mile ride with my mom and Pam, part of our training for the Fireweed 400 The weather was the nicest that it has been since I've been home, with the exception of some random five minute thunderstorms, so we did a lot of work in the yard. I even got mildly sunburnt. something that rarely happens here. Too bad I had to go back to work today, when its still nice so nice out!

Mud + Mountain Bike = Lots of Fun

I came home today from a mountain bike ride with my friend Carl and I had two choices, I could take my clothes off outside or I could take them off in the bathtub. Thats how dirty I was. I wanted to take a picture of my mud encrusted legs but that just didn't give it justice. We had a fabulous ride around the Hillside trails that included lots of mud (obviously) and wet roots that I managed to survive. And thank goodness, we only ran into one moose.
I have another job now, which in addition to my biking ventures is either going to whip me into really good shape or make me exhausted. I'm going to be coaching a masters (over 30 years old) cross country skiing group for their summer training. There are two groups that meet, which means I get to work out twice a day, not including any fun workouts that I want to go do with my friends. Actually it's perfect because I was looking for a group to join for the summer, and now instead of having to pay a group to work out with them, they are paying me! Needless to say I'm a little tired today and I think I'm going to head to bed.....