Accordion Time!

It's the 3rd Monday of the month so it's Anchorage Accordion Club Night! Join us from 6 to 8 pm at the BP Atrium for practice & play. I know this looks like me...you should stop bye & see if I look this good in my Lederhosen! :)

Monday Accordion Night!

It's the first Monday of the month so you know what that means....the Anchorage Accordion Club meets tonight from 6 to 8 pm at BP. Bring your accordion & join us for some music & fun!

Here's a link to the "Jimmy Hendrix of Accordion" as Steve Jordon is called in the music business. If you google him add Estaban. He's cool & probably one of the best accordion & button box players of all time. The link is to a story that NPR did in early June. Enjoy!

Finding the Time

Lately, it's been hard to find the time to blog, and garden, and read, and....You know how it goes. I've been busy with my glass work & re-orders. There always seems to be something around the house to clean or repair so when my partner wanted us to go camping & canoeing for a couple of days I really didn't want to go. I have work in the studio to do!

Yesterday afternoon while slowly paddling around a quiet lake I thought to myself, "why don't we do this more often??" It takes time to slow down, get calm, & centered. For me it's a time to think without distractions & noise. A time when new ideas come.

Today after arriving back in Anchorage & catching up on reading one of my favorite blogs, Just Enough Time, there was a link to a fabulous video about this very subject. Pour yourself a cup of coco & take the time to view it ~ you'll be glad you did!

Solstice & Myths

Solstice has come & gone. Something we really look forward to as we're gaining minutes of daylight & now we're on the other side gradually losing minutes everyday. The Solstice is celebrated in Alaska in a multitude of ways. I have participated in the fundraising festival for AWAIC (Abused Women's Aid in Crisis) on this weekend since in the late 80's. It's one of my favorite festivals & it's for a great cause.

I had some interesting conversations with people over the course of the two days so I thought I'd address some of the myths I heard & was questioned about since I've closed the store in January ~

Top 3 Myths:
1. "I heard you left the state"
2. "I heard you got divorced"
3. "I heard something happened to your son"

All of the above are FALSE. Rest assured that all is well with my family. I used to be surprised when people would say or ask things like this but after working in retail for 10 years nothing surprises me anymore. People seem to have a desire to believe the worst. I am concentrating on the positive! Life is good.

Accordion Gig

It's the second Tuesday of the month so it's our gig day at the Horizon House. It's actually Jill's gig & I just do back-up. I'm sort of her doo-bopp girl.

This past Tuesday we were joined by "Lee." He's the mystery man of the sax & flute. He just shows up & plays with us. We love it! Blue Moon was especially juicy with Lee on the sax.

Look at Jill (on the left) singing! She has a great voice & can play the accordion, sing & / or play the harmonica at the same time. It's amazing ~ truly. The accordion is challenging but such a fun instrument to play.

I'm on the right. I think I look a little too serious. Yes? I'm concentrating. I need to memorize more of my music so I can look up & smile at the crowd.

I had such a good time playing for the elders. Thanks for inviting me Jill! And thanks Lee for joining us. Next week we're at Providence Extended Care & on June 25th downtown Anchorage with the Anchorage Accordion Club.

The Ocean Festival!

Tomorrow, Saturday June, 6th is the Ocean Festival in downtown Anchorage. It's located at the west end of the Park Strip so if you're downtown & want to learn about the environment, the ocean & it's animals AND buy some cool glass items from me ~ Stop bye!!

There's also rides like the "bucking salmon" for kids (only in Alaska!), a kayak practice area, & a fishing pond. Great food & vendors. I'll be there selling glass "fishy" type things.

The event is from 12 noon until 10 pm. They also have stage with live music all day. Hope to see you there!

It was a Long & Winding Road!

I keep saying, "why didn't you tell me the road was so horrible??!?!?" I say this to everyone I know who told me that they drove the Alaska Canadian Highway (Alcan). I'm using the word "HIGHWAY" here very loosely! Now, they just sort of smile & nod! WTF!! This was club I didn't want to belong too. It only took 3 hours to fly to Portland but it took 5 -12 hour days of driving!

Hello people!! IT'S NOT A F&%KING HIGHWAY!! It's a little ole' 2 lane road without guard rails along the cliff side & pink markers every foot to identify road damage. The road was definitely the worst in British Columbia & the so called Milepost is outdated & useless. All of the road stops outside of a town (pop 5,000) were closed! Most have permanently closed & are not re-opening due to less traffic on the road, the economy or both. We nearly ran out of gas twice! There just wasn't another gas station open & in business between points on the road. The Milepost kept telling us there was but the wasn't!! Milepost BAD....very BAD!!

I have a need to rant about the Milepost but I may save that for my travel partner, Judy. No this isn't a picture of Judy it's a picture of my other travel companion the lovely, Molly.

We saw a lot of wildlife along the highway. After I get my photos downloaded I'll post about some of the wildlife along the road.

If anyone has any road stories (I am not calling it the "highway") I'd love to hear them ~ For now I'm happy to be home in own little world. Have a good Sunday everyone!