Ok, so carmen and I have been AWFUL about posting since our return from the great state of Alaska but, since the day we got back, our lives have taken a turn down a completely different road than we had ever expected. So, since our families have been adequately notiifed, here’s what’s going on. WE’RE MOVING. TO ALASKA! IN OCTOBER!!!

As such, we have been TERRIBLY busy lately. Preparing our house to sell, in a bad housing market ***but think happy thoughts***  has consumed almost every waking moment we have free. We’ve been packing up the house and trucking our crap to storage, we discovered the magical reuse center where lots of our belongings are being donated, cleaning, meeting with realtors, and NOW we’re doing repairs/painting around the house to prepare it to be on the market by the 4th of July EEK! Needless to say, we have been unfortunately distracted from our planetary saving and life changing tactics.

Alaska is an interesting place and unlike anywhere carmen has ever lived before – I’m from there so I know what to expect but to carmen everything will be new and uh, hopefully exciting! The thing about Alaska, especially where we’re moving, is that it is rural and there aren’t any city-wide recycling programs anywhere in the state. I have corresponded with a lot of Alaskan government officials including the Lt. Governor’s office, the mayors of the two cities we will live between, and many other people involved in the refuse community up there. I can’t legitimize anything but with very articulate explanations about why recycling currently won’t work for alaska (costs millions of dollars and requires trucking/shipping all recyclables to Washington state) it will be an interesting place to live. It was weird when we were there for 2 weeks and we were throwing away aluminum cans, soda cans, and plastic soda bottles. Knowing what I know now about recycling, thanks to carmen, it really bothered me. So one of our major projects when we move there is trying to recycle without a recycling program. There are places that take aluminum so we can just drive our metals over to them periodically but NO ONE takes plastic! It will be interesting to see what we do to minimize our use of plastics but how can some plastic use be avioded? It’ll definitely be a project to keep us busy during the long winter months that’s for sure…

So please readers (if there are any) don’t lose hope. We’re still here, we’re just super busy what with the moving and house selling plans AND trying to find jobs from 3,000 miles away! We’ll work hard to keep everyone posted of our progress and I’m sure we’ll have some wonderful stories to share once we move there. I mean really, who could not have stories after driving across canada with 2 big dogs and all our worldly posessions! And then there’s carmen, in nature! I’m sure she’ll be full of excitement about the moose and other wild animals she’s going to start seeing on a regular basis.