Happy Easter!

How can you tell it's Easter in Kodiak? By the fresh snow!

We had snow showers all day yesterday, but the snow was melting quickly. The temperature dropped a few degrees last evening, and it snowed lightly all night. This is what I awoke to - 3-4 inches of new snow!


It almost never fails to snow on Easter here. It is beautiful, today especially with the sun shining so brightly. Our daylight hours already exceed 12 hours, increasing several minutes each day. I imagine the children hurrying to find eggs in the snow, their hiding spots betrayed - the snow around them dyed pastel red, blue and green!

Still Settling

I am still housesitting, and in the meantime, looking for a more permanent place. I had not counted on there being such a shortage of rentals in Kodiak, and on rents being so excessively high! It has been quite the sticker shock for me - to look at 450-sq. foot apartments going for $950/mo., or new, roomy apartments for $1375/mo. ! Maybe I am just picky - but so many places don't measure up to my standards of cleanliness or just decor. Of course, I left my own home that Bren & I decorated with our own hands and invested 'sweat' equity in over the past 5 years. It's decorated in our collaborative style of Asian modern with art work in all the rooms. The other hard part is finding a place with room and light to do my artwork. I need a space where I can make a mess, and where I can 'spread out', and that has good lighting. That is a challenge! I have been feeling increasingly discouraged.

It doesn't help that I am such a creature of habit, and a homebody. I miss my home, and my things - books, masks, art supplies - and most of all, my life-partner and my pets. Until I had traveled back to my home town, and slept in a strange house the first few nights, it hadn't occurred to me that I have never lived by myself. When I went away to college, I had roommates. Then my son was born, and after college, I lived with my mother for 10 years. Then I moved to Seattle and have lived with Bren for the past 11 years. It isn't that I can't stand to be alone - on the contrary, I've always relished my 'alone time' - having the house to myself for a few hours, or getting up early on a Saturday and drinking my coffee while reading or sketching, or just musing.

This is just a different phase of my life. I am too busy now to be lonely - there is always my mother to visit, or errands to run, or another apartment to view. The sun has lengthened her hours in the sky from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The cold winter days have persisted, and the hiking trails remain icy, but I can enjoy a brisk walk after work across the bridge to Near Island, toward the boat harbor.