Currently: January

Currently living/working: I took a leave of absence from my job … Wait, who am I kidding? I’m a freelancer who makes her own schedule. For the foreseeable future, I’m an unpaid—but much appreciated—caregiver to my mom in NJ. It’s what I dubbed as my limbo life. Meanwhile, Justin is battling the dregs of winter…

Currently: October

Currently living/working: Writing while hibernating, as per the season. But we’ve also been regularly giving weekly virtual presentations (Life in the Last Frontier: Alaska) for libraries!   Current mood: I did not rush into any substantial writing projects after the seismic seasonal shift to winter, knowing I needed a minute to recover from the frenetic…

Currently: September

Currently living/working: We survived another summer of wrangling what seems like a 30-gallon bucket worth of income streams and logistics!!! From guiding to managing/cleaning investment properties to freelance writing/speaking gigs to passion projects, I love the diversity of our safety nets, but it is always admittedly exhausting. Now we’ll both make the shift to solely…

Exploring Alaska: Spencer Glacier

I have a penchant for exploring seldom-visited, off-the-beaten-path natural destinations, and since most of Alaska is inaccessible by roads, there’s no shortage of adventures I can dream of. Enter Spencer Glacier. I’ve had Spencer Glacier on my radar since we moved to Alaska. It sits 60 miles Southeast of Anchorage, but you have to take…

Currently: August

Currently living/working: As the summer season draws its curtains, I would say we more than earned our keep jam-packing the season with multiple jobs (guiding, cleaning, writing). I guided 15 trips in August, and Justin 18, making for the busiest month for both of us thus far!  Current mood: I always mourn the loss of…

Summer 2023 Friend Visitors

We’ve had most of our immediate family for a visit over the last few years since we made Alaska our permanent home, but we had our first set of FRIEND visitors! Pat is one of Justin’s buddies from high school, from the famed Seton Hall Prep Framily, which means that these 2 have been friends…

Currently: July

Currently living/working: We are in the trenches of a very typical Alaskan life: juggling multiple jobs in the long twilight days of latitude 64. Justin guided 16 trips this month! All while squeezing in a press trip and a smattering of cleanings when he could. Meanwhile I guided 14 trips!! And I took on the…

Currently: June

Currently living/working: I guided 9 trips this month, which is almost as many as Justin’s 14. I typically guide less than him since I’m managing the Airbnbs and cleaning, but he was away for a week for Telluride, so I was filling in for him. By day 7 in a row of hitting the alarm…

Summer 2023 Visitors

We have a limit on the number of visitors we can host during our work-heavy summers, so people need to “claim their spot,” ideally by November. Justin’s other sister was next in the line of family visitors, and we loved introducing them to our home–especially our 9- and 10-year-old nephews. They stayed in the yurt…

Currently: May

***You may have noticed that my website got hacked for most of May into June. My website guy said there is no rhyme or reason for why I was targeted, but “they” (not a real person) installed a pretty vicious malware virus that kept self-replicating. Then the backups to the server were taking crazy long…

Currently: April

Currently living/working: Neither Justin nor I had any deadlines in April, nor any virtual presentations, nor much cleaning, nor any hours working at the library, so it felt like we didn’t work since we didn’t get paid! But, we were pitching and prepping for future projects, which is a very important piece of the freelance…

Currently: March

Currently living/working: I mentioned last month that winter freelance work has been busier than any other winter—between writing projects, virtual presentations, pet-sitting, cleaning, and my library gig. We are grateful!! But I’m personally trying to slow the roll a bit for April, knowing that summertime means double time productivity. I wholeheartedly believe in off seasons,…

Currently: January

Currently living/working: Petsitting/Writing/Virtual Library Presentations/Cleaning. That’s basically the summary of our work this month—a little of everything, but a lot of staring into the glowing screen.  Current mood: This month, we spent an amazing 8 days in Hawaii (blog posts coming), where we eschewed the to-do list and stayed out of touch with calendars and…

Ted, Our Temporary Cat

I mentioned in my last Currently posts that we have a “temporary cat” (aka, cat sitting at our cabin). We’re more than one month in and are in love with Ted, so I thought I’d do a proper intro since she (yes, Ted is a she) will be with us for a few months!  So…

Currently: December

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Currently living/working: We’ve spent nearly the whole month in Alaska, and it’s been so incredible to settle into winter routines at home after so much fall travel. I’ll be honest, this month has been less about paying work and more of a mix of life tasks, relaxation and play during this holiday…