Speaking of homes and renting, over spring we started looking for homes to buy. I took a home buyers class, and we began to realize that buying a home is really complicated. There were many factors to consider, but we still felt good about buying a home in Alaska. One huge consideration was that we could buy something outside of Anchorage that fit our families needs, and pay less than what we are paying now in rent for Anchorage. Anchorage doesn't really fit our family, nor does the rental we are in, so we looked in Palmer and Wasilla for something out of town with some land.
So the news is we are moving, and now when we have mold because our roof damns...well it is our mold. When you get to that crazy point where you would rather take on all the problems a house has, then I guess it is time to buy a house. I feel like this will be a great blessing for our family. I am very thankful.
I also finished up some classes this spring. I took Organic Gardening, Getting in Shape with Weights, and Art Appreciation. Just some fun classes to get out of the house and learn. I told myself that if I didn't get an A in Art Appreciation I was going to fire myself as an art teacher. My art teacher at U.A.A. kept telling the class to not be worried, she doesn't hand out very many As, so I stressed myself out to get one. If I could only have one minute to talk to the teacher and tell her..."I know you have no idea who I am, especially in a class of over 50, but I am a crazy worry freak...I don't know why, but I worry like crazy, so don't tell me not to worry because that makes me worry even more, and oh I am an art teacher, so anything but an A = inept art teacher!" When I handed in my final paper, she asked me my name...looked confused at my response, and said "oh ya, your Ashley, I know who you are, are you glad this class is over." My reply was, "yes!, I am so glad" and I just walked away...but then I felt bad, because it wasn't that I didn't like the class or her, I learned a lot, but I was just so tired of working my butt off and worrying in a stinking lower division course that I was taking for fun. Luckily I got an A and I don't have to fire myself...that would be hard to brake it to myself. My favorite class was Getting in Shape with Weights, it was easy, I just showed up, worked out, had an awesome personal trainer and I felt good afterwards. My Organic Gardening class ended up to be something different then I expected. I am not an auditory learner, so I was hoping the class would be hands on because it is all about dirt and planting, but it wasn't. I still learned a lot.
On that note, I started our garden for the year. I learned to start celery in January!! What!! So we are a little behind, hopefully we get some good produce this year. Kacy built me a nice growth stand to start my plants...he says he is going to build me a greenhouse maybe this year, yay! I love plants. I made a friend in my Organic Gardening class and we would just laugh and laugh about our weird obsession with gardening. She would say something like, "compost, Yayaa!"...with her fist in the air. I was a bit more silent and I didn't believe in garden fairies, but my heart would still skip a beat and my chest would swell with happy excitement over microorganisms eating each other-making a bunch of dead crap into healthy food. I just think it is awesome to create my own food. Here is a pic of our budding garden...
