Ducks, geese, and World Book Night (photo post)

Last night was World Book Night. The second annual one, and my family had a blast doing it last year so we signed up again this year.

It's a great project, and if you go to the site you can sign up for the newsletter and apply to be a book giver for 2014.
Even though we did it last year, my dad, once again didn't understand the concept. The stumbling block for him is the idea of me giving away books. He knows me too well. They aren't my books. They are published expressly for giving away, special editions, paid for by various publishers, printers and contributors. The authors give up their royalties for this special printing. You choose from a list of books which contains all sorts of things, classics like Mark Twain and current best sellers like Tina Fey's Bossypants. You pick 3 books, and agree to read the one you get if you haven't read it yet. The list has had books we've read before both times. Last year we choose Stephen King's The Stand, which my husband and I had read, but the kids hadn't. So they had to read it before giving it away. I bought them each a copy, and they knuckled down and both finished in time. This year, Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief was on the list. This is a book that TATG can give away very enthusiastically because he's her favorite author. To be fair, he was her favorite author BEFORE he put a photo of her on his website.(she's Anubis) But that just sealed the deal. So that was my first choice.
It was a drizzly, freezing rain, but that didn't deter anyone. We had so much fun doing it! If you do sign up for it, check out their resources. Sometimes it's very hard for some people to understand the idea of something for nothing. They think there has to be a string attached of some sort. If you're doing it with your family, practice conversation starters. Dress for the weather and pick a safe spot to give away books.

After we handed out books, we decided to go get something for dinner. On the way we spotted the surest possible sign of spring in Anchorage. All these photos can be clicked for more detail. I did not edit them other than cropping and resizing, so you can really get the effect of the drab, grey and brown mud. Ah SPRING!

Are they looking for spring?

Wanna see some ducks digging in the mud?

Not retouched. The legs are really that bright!

 I have another Kindle book out.

It's 5 cross stitch patterns for keys, and you can find it here. 

First Snowfall 2012

Yesterday morning was the first snow in Anchorage, AK.

SNOW. In September.

While on our way to the last Spenard Farmer Market and the Alaska Women's Show, we spotted some geese who were taking it in stride.

Look at those cold feet. BRR.

It was just a light dusting, it last through the day in the shade, but when the sun came out, and it did! It melted and made puddles.

So that's the earliest first snow in quite a few years. I grumbled a bit at this sign fall was ending quickly. Dad just said with his 50 years of experience in Anchorage "I knew it would snow. It was cold enough, and raining, Plus you could smell the snow on the air."
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The Alaska Women's Show is a typical sort of big show with a theme. Local businesses and other businesses with a strong focus on women's products and services were there. My daughter loves these shows, we pick up ball point pens for the whole year, pads of paper, she likes spinning all the prize wheels she can. We sample products and just have fun! It takes place at the Sullivan Arena, and my husband usually finds a seat on the mezzanine and just waits listening to music on his iPod. He abhors the crowds at these things. TG spun one wheel and won a coffee cup which made her day. Her favorite part was stopping at the Superstar Pastry Booth for a cup cake. They use a European cake recipe and an Italian butter cream frosting. You can choose your cake, filling, frosting and toppings. My favorite is a super vanilla concoction of  vanilla cupcake, Bavarian cream filling and vanilla butter cream. She gets creative, and it's always chocolate.

 We also picked up some reindeer sausage from a local company I've always liked.

After that, we went to the last day of the Spenard Market. We have a lot of summer farmers markets, and a few winter ones that sell mostly root veggies, meats and eggs through out the year. The Spenard Market is my favorite though, it has this strong indie community vibe. We went mostly because it was the last day, but also in hopes a local soapmaker I like was there. They sell very inexpensive soap ends and we use soap ends for most of our day to day soap needs. They were, and we bought the last bag of soap ends they have, a couple bars of soap, and some "Manly Man Elbow Grease", it's an all natural salve with a woodsy scent. I got it both for the psoriasis my husband has and more for my ankles. A lot of the time that I'm online or reading a book, I tuck my feet up under me, and my ankles have rough patches of skin because of it. They get better if I use the right kinds of salves on them and I have high hopes for this one. We also got some of their shampoo bars to try and found out where we can buy their soap ends through the winter. Then TG who wasn't sweeted out yet tried some gourmet marshmallows and got herself a package of Key Lime marshmallows to have later. Yum! Fresh marshmallows without the time it takes to make them!

Then we came home, and I worked on some beading for awhile. It was a very nice, very busy day with a lot of walking. And there was SNOW!

Silly Geese!

The geese are getting ready to fly back south for the winter, and there are small flocks at various bodies of waters around town. This is one I found yesterday, and got some photos of some very silly geese. The last one is a little gross. Just a warning! They've been re-sized, and I'm considering putting some of them on one of the photo printing sites if anyone is interested. I love the one above!

 Why they call some lamps "goose neck"

This one needs a friendship quote at some point.

Quick note- this one got split reactions with my family and friends. You'll have to be the judge. Rosemary said it's a good photograph and life is messy. TG thought it was just hilarious. My darling husband flinched and says "Ah, so majestic in flight. So completely gross when they eat."

The last week- with photos!

Yesterday was World Book Night USA, the first one we've had on this side of the Atlantic. I signed up for, and received my first book choice. Stephen King's The Stand. An epic post-apocalyptic story of good vs evil, and my husband's favorite book.

The way it works is that lots of publishers and writers waive their profits for specific books, and also help pay to get special editions printed. The people who signed up to give them were told where to pick up a box of 20 books with bookmarks. The goal is to give them to people who might not normally read, so it's very important to pick a book that you can recommend enthusiastically. William and TG were excited about the idea, and neither of them had read The Stand, so as soon as it was that I was getting my first choice book, they both started and finished it. They both liked it a lot.

We took our books downtown, to an area with lots of traffic of all sorts of people. Then we discovered something none of us had thought of, when you give away books for free, especially big thick books, people think you're trying to convert them. It's drilled into people's minds I guess that free books are things of a religious nature. Which makes me glad I chose a Stephen King book. His name being so well known helped convince people we were just giving away books.

William and TG putting bookmarks into the special edition copies.

I gave away the first copy, approaching a young lady and asking if she wanted a book. She told me that she saw almost all the movies based off his books and accepted happily. Then they started giving away copies. Walking up to people to ask if they wanted a book. We went through them fairly quickly once we found our rhythm. After it was all over, I asked them "So.. do you want to sign up next year?" and both said yes very quickly. It was so much fun!

Also this week, Michael and I went out on a tip from a friend to Potter's Marsh. We were looking for snow geese and didn't see any of them, but we did spot Green-Winged Teals, Canadian Geese and lots of nesting seagulls. I uploaded these pretty large, so click on them for lots of detail. 

Tonight, we had planned to see the aurora, but Michael's fighting a cold so we packed it in early when after 2 hours of sunset, it still wasn't dark enough. The sunset was gorgeous though. If you click through, you'll see the crescent moon over the sunset.

Alaska is even more gorgeous when it's summer properly. So far, the only thing coming up in my yard is my rhubarb. In the less gorgeous side of living in Alaska, there is also a bumper crop of newly revealed moose poop in my yard. Tomorrow I'm going to ask TG and William to  put plastic bags over there shoes and stomp it apart so it can be fertilizer instead of piles of nuggets. 

Alaska boxes and photos

I haven't done photo boxes since last summer. I hope you like these. I just resized some of my photographs to fit the cube templates to make these. Click on the images for the full sized 100 ppi printables.

The last one was an accidental photo.I was trying to take a picture of a raven in flight but it was too fast for me to get focused on it. So I wound up with a picture of the branches of the tree overhead!

Here are the photos. If you click on the images you'll get the 50% sized version.  You can use the photos for personal non-commercial use.

All taken with my HS10 Fujifilm camera.