I got out for another easy hike with Niko today and my friend Laura's dog who I've been watching over the weekend. I think I hiked three miles again, very slowly. The foot feels really good and I'm actually able to lift the toe a little bit. Check out all of this September sunshine we are having. My boot got a bit muddy, but I think I like it better this way.
Since I can only hike for about an hour, I have to fill my time with other activities. Before moving to Alaska I have always been into decorating whatever space I am living in as soon as I move in. I love a lot of bright colors and photos on the walls. But since we moved here there have been too many things going on outside our home that I haven't had time to decorate much at all.
Our house has become just a place where we store our gear, eat and sleep. There is always something better to do or something more fun to spend my money on. Besides, unless you plan on living here forever or have loads of expendable income, furnishing your house with expensive things in Alaska is just dumb. Eventually you are going to move and have to sell or give everything away.
But I have become painfully aware of the state of our home since I've been spending more time here over the past two weeks. I did manage to paint our bedroom and bathroom last fall, and Brian had the bathroom tiled and has been working on a few projects of his own, but the rest of the house is a series of unfinished projects and bare walls with colors that I don't like.
I have a dream of painting every room with different colors and framing all of my favorite photos for the walls. This weekend I managed to work on some projects that have been on my list for awhile. I even ordered some paint samples for a few rooms in the house.
Our backyard was an absolute mess. Brian started clearing out the weeds Saturday and I came in and finished and chopped up the hard soil, leveled it and put in a border where I plan on planting a perennial garden next year. In the rest of the yard we are going to plant grass with a path of stones that lead to the gate. I want to be able to come home from work, go out on the back deck with a beer and relax, instead of stressing out about the fact that it looks like we live in the ghetto.
I also got some silver spray paint and painted these two lamps that I loved, except for the fact that they were gold. They came from Brian's grandmother's house and I love the idea of keeping old stuff, but making it look new.
The last thing I did was go to value village and look for some cheap furniture that I could refurbish. I didn't find much, except this TV stand for 15 dollars that I painted brown. It will replace the old computer stand that we have the TV in our room teetering on.
I'm still looking for bookshelves to house the pile of about 100 books, some read, some half read, some new that are laying in piles on my side of the bed.
I'd like to try to find some time to work these projects into my routine even after my foot heals. So that I can slowly make our house a place that I love to come home to. By the time this is all done, though, we'll probably be moving again.
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