Currently: March

Currently living/working: I returned from the East Coast 3/1 to a very demanding work schedule! I know all you full-time jobbers laugh at my audacity, but I’m not used to a 40-hr workweek, especially in winter. And somehow, it feels less exhausting to me to work several jobs than one job 5 days straight for 40 hours. In any case, this month I’ve been working inside Denali National Park at their Winter Visitor Center—as what I call a pretend ranger—through my nonprofit Alaska Geographic job. Basically I was either on the front desk or answering phones in the back office because they are short-staffed, but really what I learned is to hug a ranger. They are working hard to make parks accessible! This job took precedence over subbing at the library, though there were still a few days of that squeezed in. Justin, on the other hand, spent from 3/5-3/20 volunteering on the Iditarod (more on that to come!), but is still trying working to keep Denali’s tourism department afloat as they search for a new director. 

Current mood: Alaska quickly re-grounded me, but more than that, I think returning to a busy routine helped. It’s weird to grasp that I am no longer living in limbo and have freed up bandwidth in my brain. I think it might take more than a minute to exhale and reset my life’s orbit to reverse the trauma of 7+ years of eldercare. 

Currently amazed by: There are far better weather stats circulating around Alaska referencing our epic-ly cold winter 2025-26, but this amateur weather nerd (hi!) took stock of the beta from our personal weather station at our cabin in Healy. From Dec. 4 until March 22, our average temperature at our cabin was -6.5° F!!!! Let me put it a different way: out of this ~100 day period, we spent at least 60 days below 0°F, many of which were -20°F or lower! March 29 was the first time we experienced an above freezing temperature (32°F) since November. We survived!!!!! (And Fairbanks, which is 2 hours north of us, broke its record & the 2025-26 winter season was the coldest with an average temp of -13.6°F since records began in 1904!)

Currently proud of: My rockstar of a colleague in the outdoor world released her 6th (?) book this month, and she featured me as one of the “inspiring women that are making their mark on the outdoor world in unique & modern ways” in Women Who Hike National Parks: Walking With America’s Most Inspiring Adventurers. Blushing. My copy is on its way in the mail! If you feel inclined to read it, remember the cheapest way for you to do that would be to request it from your local library! 

Currently regretting: The darkness of our winters is always an excuse for me to slow down and create an overly ambitious to-do list of menial life tasks. However, I feel like I didn’t really check many things off that I had hoped!!! The combo of my mom & winter work hindered me. Did I clean out my hellscape of an inbox? Did I read all those newsletters I meant to? Did I research new article pitches? Did I journal and/or blog about all the subjects I hoped to? Did I catch up on meaningful conversations with friends? Ugh, not enough!

Currently excited for: March is always a lovely month in Alaska, as the sun moves up versus sideways to float in the sky again resulting in 12+ hours of daylight (the sun actually feels blinding after winter). Despite the sublime return of the sun, most people remained cranky ice goblins for most of the month because our temps were still unseasonably cold (woke up to a few mornings of -40 still!). We accept the cold, but the hardships of this winter—failed heat sources, dead batteries, square tires, problems you can’t even imagine—have jaded us a little. I’m excited for no longer having to triple up on my layers and worry about my exposed skin.

Currently worried about: While we watch the temps slowly rise back into the plus range, we’ll all be digging out from our giant snowy behemoth. While there’s always a bit of spring flooding that comes with spring breakup, I’m pretty sure this April will be quite a mess as the overly frozen ground can’t warm up fast enough to absorb the melting snow. I wonder if our Airbnb guests will need to kayak to get to the outhouse? 

Currently not excited for: Justin & I are gearing up to take our Wilderness First Responder (WFR) recertification in April, and I always dread it. The courses are like brain marathons, and you’d think all this knowledge would be second nature after nearly 12 years of practice, but not for me. 

Current confession: I have so many thoughts about caregiving, aging, and grief. Informal poll: anyone interested in reading my thoughts on bleak topics? I don’t want to share from an unhealed and unprocessed place, but I also write to heal and process. Eventually I do hope to record some of my yammerings if I can make a modicum of sense, although not sure I’ll be brave enough to share them here!

Currently thankful for: Our shared custody of Ted the cat is going well! We had her for about 70 days this winter, and she really is just a love bug during the cold season. Her love language is human touch, and she kind of feels like velcro with how much she wants to snuggle, but I never complain. I was cheating on Ted this month by petsitting for some other cuties, but she seemed to forgive me. 

Current guilty pleasure:  We hardly eat red meat in an effort to help Justin’s Crohn’s, but I was so happy when someone in the community decided to sell corned beef platters out of our gas station for $12! It was always a favorite tradition of my mom’s to celebrate her Irish heritage, so I toasted to her! 

Currently reading: I read so many books for book club this winter … and then never made it to the discussion. The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston is one of them. I would have never picked this one up had it not been for book club, but it was quite a fun and heartwarming fiction read which actually paints nursing home life in a good light! That was my takeaway. 

Nemesis by Philip Roth was another book club pick, and I actually did make it to the potluck/discussion! Philip Roth has written like 50 books, but this was my first of his to read. I think I have mixed feelings about his writing style. On one hand, the dialogue is so simplistic that it felt like a made-for-TV movie to me. On the other hand, his books lean more toward the historical fiction genre, which I love. In this case, he broached the subject of the 1944 polio epidemic, which apparently hit Northeast New Jersey really hard. And I remember my mom telling me her uncle on her mom’s side had polio, which tracks, as she grew up in Jersey City. In any case, this book is informative, and actually has a twist I wasn’t expecting. Good book club discussion! 

Currently watching on Netflix/Peacock: With Justin gone until 3/20, I pretty much binged Chicago Med Season 1, and half of Season 2. I really love my medical shows! When he returned, we had a lot of catching up to do with Below Deck episodes and Survivor Season 50. We just started The Serpent on Netflix, an 8-part limited series based on true events about a serial killer in Bangkok in the 1970s that went after hippies. I love serial killer stories almost as much as I love medical drama.