Twice now I've received a box of Girl Scout cookies as a gift. On both occasions, the box was emptied within 24 hours. Although I have been biking diligently and (albeit slowly) gaining both strength and stamina, my choices in eating habits have steadily declined in concordance with my lack of house-cleaning habits, which have really never existed. I have no more clean dishes to cook with, therefore I don't cook, and therefore I eat like crap, unless I eat with Judie and Sissy (God bless their souls), which is really not fair. I've turned into a bona fide mooch, and they have let me... I should really make them something. I should really, then, clean my house so that I can do such a thing. The only time I ever cleaned regularly was when I had one or more roommates. I was particularly good when we had a chore wheel - loved the chore wheel, especially when my name fell next to "kitchen" as it was also a house expectation that we basically cleaned our own messes. "Kitchen" was almost as good as a chore-free week, so I could basically be "normal." But anyway, I feel as though my healthy choice of biking so much is allowing me to give myself the freedom to pig out. I tell myself, "Oh, I'm biking - I can eat extra tater tots." But a "healthy choice" is not so much choosing to buy one bag of Funyons instead of two, but perhaps zero bags of Funyons and a few apples, which are more expensive to the bank, less expensive to my hips. Maybe a good house cleaning would burn some of those extra calories.

Well, that was about a week ago. This past week we started to get icky wet snow, so I haven't been as faithful in my intentions to work out. Perhaps next year I will invest in a trainer for my house... But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the right now, which I am still learning to appreciate as much as I look forward to the future and am thankful for the past.

Some call it the "great white expanse," or well, I think I read that somewhere. I am spending the weekend up in Koyuk. My good friends Kyle and Erika invited me up to visit, which is funny, because Kyle doesn't even live here yet. But he might as well. So, given that this has been a pretty crazy week for many reasons, I agreed. And it's my last weekend to visit here before the school year is out. It was a good decision. I got in on Friday afternoon, and I will leave here on Monday afternoon. (Thanks again for the personal day!) As I was walking back from Jenna's last night I looked out over the sea, and although Koyuk is known for its trees, I don't remember ever seeing anything so vastly blank and white in Unalakleet. At least in our ocean we can see the southern mountains and St. Michael and Besboro Island. Here, there is nothing. And it really is a "great white expanse." It feels very small - very, very small, and kind of like I really am in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I had to look to the other side of me where there are houses and people and dogs just to remind me that really, this is not the middle of nowhere. It just happens to be very far from somewhere else.

I wish I had pictures for you. Maybe when I post again about my visit, I will include some. But it has been a while since I've said anything, so I decided to just say something.

So here are some sweet photos of my cute dog, whom I like very much.





And, it's time for a blast from the past. I don't really know what we're trying to do with our faces in this picture, but whenever Michelle tried to sexy, sad, or mischievous for a photo, this is pretty much what she looked like. So who knows? Maybe her mouth is just full.