Alaska-Romania... and the World! Grandma goes wandering - by Kristin Lambert back to HOME PAGE! Weblog -- prevous months' journal entries are listed in archive at left ... And picture albums at: http://picasaweb.google.com/kristinalaska You can view PHOTO GALLERIES Now you can download this adventure as a 13 meg PDF book: Kristin Alaska-Romania 2011

Spring at last, and a New Beginning...

-- May, 2011

It seems like this winter has lasted forever, and it's still too cold to even put plants outdoors. I don't remember ever having such a long, slow spring here. It has been hard to write at all, or to feel like doing anything but hibernating. However, I went to Mexico in April, enjoyed warm sun and sand for three weeks, and posted photos to share:

Mexico Part 1: https://picasaweb.google.com/kristinalaska/2011AprilMexico02#
Mexico Part 2: https://picasaweb.google.com/kristinalaska/2011AprilMexicoPart2#
Video of Rotary Feeding Children at the Dump (3 1/2 minutes):
https://picasaweb.google.com/kristinalaska/PuertoVallartaFeedingMothersAndChildren#

I actually believed that when I came home to Alaska, the ice would be gone from the lake and there might be leaves and flowers and good smells everywhere. Wrong! Even now, almost a month later, the leaves are just beginning to emerge, there are still no flowers, and it is past the middle of May! But finally the ice is gone, and the Pacific loons have returned. Last week I took a couple of gardening classes, bought two rose bushes for the deck and a few plants for the greenhouse. I got fuchsias to make hanging baskets and also some herbs. On Friday I will take an all-day float trip on the Kenai River during this week's Spring Birding Festival, to see the birds and other critters. Unfortunately the weather is predicted to be cold and windy, so I suppose it might turn out to be a miserable day.

Worst of all, after climbing hundreds of stairs and many hills, and walking walking in Mexico, I have learned that I have bad knees. It was quite a shock when I got home to hardly be able to get up and down the stairs in my own house! "Degenerative joint disease" the doctor says, and promises that the arthritis will continue to get worse. Steroid shots might help, and someday the knees can be replaced, but in general he says "if it hurts, stop doing it", which seems to be pretty good advice for all of life. Advice that I have never heeded, I might add. That means a lot fewer stairs, hills, running, or stress, but plenty of walking on the level. At least there's that. On soft ground, he says, not pavement or concrete. Probably all that walking, carrying heavy loads, hauling groceries down the streets and up stairs in the Peace Corps didn't help. I'm not complaining, it could be a lot worse.

I think I probably needed this impetus to make some life changes that are inevitable anyway. Time to make new plans for the next chapter. And definitely I must figure out how to have more fun, travel lightly but more often, and laugh a lot more!

Thanks to those friends who keep in touch, even though I've drawn back into my cave. Please write and let me know how your lives are progressing. One of these days I might just come and visit!

Last weekend was the Kenai Birding Festival, and I enjoyed a C-C-COLD float trip on the Kenai River to look for birds, and the people on six drift boats saw 60 different species of birds!! For other locations that might not seem like a lot, but it was good for here! There were still areas with ice and snow along the way, but at least the birds knew it was spring. As usual, I didn't get any photos that have me in them, but you get the general idea...

...and, for Katie... the famous Mr. Whitekeys himself...