Wood, Wind, and Work

One thing we've learned about living in a small town is that you have to find things to keep yourself busy!  There is no movie theater, or bowling alley, or shopping mall.  Our sources of entertainment are one gym, two grocery stores, one library, and about 3 bars.  You can only drink so much! Haha!

We took some advice from my friend Jen.  She talked us into doing a wood working class with her and her fiance.  The community is really good at offering different classes to help keep us entertained.  We call our class Wood Whittling 101.  It is actually a whole lot of fun!  We have five weeks to complete a project of our choice. 

This is my project...it will eventually be a rather spectacular wine rack that hangs on the wall.  Well, at least I hope it will eventually be a wine rack.  I chose a rather complicated project for my first ever project considering I have never even cut a piece of wood in half, much less used all of the wood working machines that we have access to.  What can I say, I aim high.

  

Steve is making a bookshelf in the shape of the hull of a boat.  It is coming along very nicely.

(I couldn't get his picture to download.  Just picture a bookshelf...in the shape of a boat!) :)

Jen is making a really nice mission style bench.  Stay tuned...I will post pictures of our finished products! 

We are gearing up for our first Alaskan winter.  Currently it is raining sideways!  The wind speed is 85 right now with gusts up to 100 mph.  My friend Nataliya and I tried to walk to the gym from work today and the wind was so strong that we couldn't even walk!  These pics were taken outside our house in my rain gear.  They don't really depict the craziness of the wind.  I had to brace myself with each step in order to stay upright on the ground.  Some of the mountains surrounding us have snow on the peak, but we have yet to have a snow storm.

 I have been working a lot and continue to love my job!  I really love all the people I work with and am settling in to seeing my own patients.  I am still getting used to being on call  (I take call every 4th or 5th night and one weekend a month) but I am sure that will take some time.  We went out for Halloween with some of my friends from work.  We were lame and didn't dress up this year.  Steve has taken to not shaving since we moved to Alaska so I call him Paul Bunyan...maybe that was his outfit :)  We had a great time!

  

 Jen and I. 

Some of the nurses from work dressed up and looked awesome!