Darkness

It is getting really dark up in Fairbanks, and it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. The shortest and darkest day will be sometime around December 21st. Thanks to my husband having to travel out of state for work for a week, I decided to not only be gone for 10 days in December, but to leave for the whole month. My son and I will be in Minnesota with family and then we'll all travel to Vancouver for a short Christmas vacation.

I'm not really a warm-weather beach fan unless the trip is incredibly remote or expensive and I have an area all to myself and I hate traveling with kids for longer than a day, so vacations just a day south combined with family suit me well. After all, if it's -40 here in Fairbanks, it is probably at least 40, maybe even 80, degrees warmer in Minnesota or Vancouver. Plus, compared to Fairbanks, Minnesota has about 4 and a half more hours of daylight per day. I'd say that's a great place to visit!

Until my trips, I am dealing with the lack of heat and light as best I can. To say people up here are grumpy, sad, etc is an understatement. It's universal. Strangely enough though, I have had a burst of energy lately and have been trying to finish up a bunch of projects. Here's me yesterday in a rush to finish touching up our walls before it became too dark to see anything. The sun was starting to set already in North Pole, AK: only 2:00 pm. But, from 10-2, it was a beautiful, clear day at -30F . . . crystal clear blue skies, pink mountains in the background, and delicately frosted white trees.

Married to a Shiftworker

I refuse to have a long-distance relationship with my husband. Some people put up with being apart for years: military deployments, frequently traveling out of state or flying to other towns for a week or two or more at a time, or even just plain old shift-work close to home.

I don't think it's healthy to be apart from your immediate family for more than about 10 hours. I've done the long-distance relationship thing, done travel, my husband's traveled, we've both been 12-hour shift-workers. I've been the child of a parent who travels for work. It all sucks. There's a good reason you are paid more for that type of work. It significantly reduces your quality of life. And it is 100x worse when there are children in the picture.

Anyway, this only comes to mind because for the first time in years my husband is a shift-worker. He's actually salaried for 40 hours a week, but because of a crisis at work he is stuck working 16 hour days, even on the weekend. So, it's like he's gone. We talk on the phone. They've been buying him food (whoopee). I can't help but wonder if he'll get a bonus for this stint.

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The Countdown Begins

I'm enjoying a quiet, what has turned out to be an hour, alone by the fire. My husband has assumed the role of "bedtime" duty tonight, which is quite long and lasts usually until 9pm since we started putting our son to sleep in his "big boy car bed." He gets out and wants to play, etc, and is quite smart. Sometimes he'll go to the door and hit it and then run back into his bed and pretend like it wasn't he who made the noise. Plus, he's been sick so the 5am awakenings and request for warm milk have turned into 4am and now 3am and every hour awakenings. I feel today like I'm dying and have a sore throat myself. Pregnancy the second time around, with this little monster at my feet 24/7, is really tough on me and the whole family.

It's November 6th. I feel like the countdown has begun for 1) the end of the semester 2) Christmas and 3) the arrival of our baby boy. Earlier this week, my calendar for November, December, and January was almost completely open, and by today, Friday, almost every week and weekend has something exciting going on. By exciting, I mean swim lessons, exams, a different type of play-date, a holiday party, a double date, a Saturday that grandpa watches his grand-toddler, travel plans for the holidays and for my husband's job . . . that kind of thing. Not really "exciting," but "stuff to do." I am grateful for these things to do, because it is very cold outside and daylight is a thing of the past. I need to socialize or things get hairy.

Anyway, although I like to be busy, the countdown and the plans kind of stress me out. I have my own agenda, which includes a long list of small household projects that I need my husband's help with, preparing the baby's room, redecorating my son's room, and finishing a project for my cousin's baby that has taken much longer than I anticipated. I'm making progress, but slowly. A friend who just moved up here took away a table and chairs and desk, freeing up some space in our house. Today, we replaced the smoke detector batteries, put doorstops on all of our doors, and puttied small holes (dents) in the walls. But, my son, keeping up our household, and doing my schoolwork always come first, so my list seems to become longer before it becomes shorter.