I think I've mentioned that Little Bear likes our garage. A lot. I really don't get it; he doesn't actually do much when I let him play in the garage, just wanders around saying "garage garage garage" and occasionally kicks a ball or plays with a broom, but try to bring him back into the house and he disolves into a kicking screaming sobbing puddle of two-year-old. Doing laundry without getting stuck standing around in the garage forever or having to deal with a meltdown has been tricky so far. Yesterday, though, I managed to stick him (sans boots) in the basket with the clean laundry and "drive" the basket/race car back into the house with him giggling. Later that evening, after Matt was home and I snuck away to write while they played, I heard Little Bear shouting "One, two, hree, go!" followed by the sound of pounding little feet over and over again as he drove cardboard boxes around the living room.
II
His obsession with the garage is really helpful when we're in town and he doesn't want to get in his carseat, though; all I have to do is ask if he wants to go back to the garage, and he gets all excited and sits down nicely right away.
III
My parents' ice cream maker came out on Wednesday when we visited, and Little Bear was very excited to take his turn cranking the churn. He had no trouble doing it all by himself! We made honey ice cream, which had just a hint of a honey flavor to it and was very light and refreshing.
IV
I think I can safely say that we're pretty much moved into the new house now. There's still a box of canning jars and wine glasses waiting to be assigned a home, and a stack of cans on the counter that can't really be organized in the cupboard until I find a small tray to keep spices together, but other than that... I've been over at the old apartment cleaning whenever I've had time this week, and we arranged to do a final walkthrough with the new owners on Saturday. For some reason our mail still hasn't started forwarding yet, but the new owner said she'd be happy to hold anything for us and let us come pick it up. We'll do a walkthrough of the new place with our new landlord on Monday morning, to make sure we're all clear on what the place looked like now as we've just moved in. I'm so glad that we're just about done!
V
This summer has to be the wettest I've ever seen. It just rains, and rains, and rains. Interior Alaska is officially classed as a desert; we don't know what to do with all this water! Rivers and streams have been flooding all summer. We broke the record for most rainfall recorded in June, and we're less than half an inch away from breaking July's record now too. Being able to take Little Bear out onto our covered deck (or into his beloved garage) once or twice a day to run around and "get the stink blown off him," as my great-grandmother would say, has been the salvation of my sanity this week. The ridiculous amount of rain has given us an incredible array of brightly-colored mushrooms in the woods around the house, though, and the thorough soaking has kept the usual summer forest fires away, so I'm grateful for it.
VI
I felt like quite the Alaskan wife this morning, standing in line outside Sportsman's Warehouse with a bunch of young guys in camo and long-bearded older men all waiting for the doors to open. It's been years now since Alaskan retailers have been able to get enough of many popular calibers of ammo to keep it on the shelf longer than a day or two, even though they've been rationing it when they do have it available. And .22, which used to be the cheapest and most readily-available ammo? Several retailers have had signs posted for the last six months that they don't have any and don't expect to any time soon. The places that have been able to get it in have been selling it in boxes of 25 or 50 instead of the 500-round "bricks" it used to come in. My dad heard from somebody that Sportsman's was getting a shipment at 9 o'clock this morning, though, and they were actually going to be selling bricks, so I found myself standing in line outside a store for the first time since Black Friday 2009.
VII
We still haven't made plans to celebrate Little Bear's now three-weeks-belated birthday. Not that he knows or cares, of course, and clearly I don't feel too badly about it or I would have made something happen this weekend. Maybe next weekend; we're only having my family over, but Matt says we shouldn't make people sit on the floor to eat, so we need to find a couch or some other seating first. One of my sister's friends was moving and giving away her couch last weekend, but she never called me back so that didn't work out. We have our old desk for sale on Craigslist right now... Maybe we should edit the ad to say we'd trade it for a couch?
Have a good weekend! Seven Quick Takes is being hosted by Svellerella this week, so stop on over!
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