Daughter #2 is married. That should have been a complete blog post of its own. It was a beautiful wedding. Everything was amazing. I loved the place where we had the wedding and reception. Even though all this went so well, I'm still not a happy party planner. But Kelsea loved it. Her husband is the best. We love him so much. Our 2 son-in-laws are just adored. I just wonder how I will manage the other 3 when the first 2 have been so hard for me.
As far as writing, well I'm writing lots, querying agents, and getting some close calls but nothing as of yet. It is a difficult and discouraging process and kind of deflates my creative energy. But I'm still weighing a few things, pulling myself up by the bootstraps as I keep plugging along.
The main thing I wanted to blog about was the hubby's experience in Alaska. He worked clear until mid-November and grew the love the Yupik people. There were a few Aleuts and Athabascans he got to know as well. He tried new foods-seal, walrus, and whale. He disliked the whale the most. We have a freezer full of moose we are still trying to figure how to cook with since some of it is so gamey flavored and us city people aren't use to that.
My husband has an enormous heart and is so giving and saw many of the needs in the remote Alaskan village. There are no thrift stores or dollar stores there. The whole reason he was there was to stimulate the economy teaching all he could job skills they could use to better their lives. What's hard is once summer is over and the snow flies, there is very little people can do there. They hunker down for winter and visit those they can. So there is great need especially in winter.
We have had a garage full of stuff I'm ashamed to admit. But now, I know why much of that stuff might have been sitting there for so long. My husband wanted to help. Of course I here the stories of need and I was right with him. I guess in the end it was me that did the work. He mailed the boxes.
I'm an excellent clearance shopper. Even though my husband was facing unemployment once he came home, I still went out and shopped trying to find socks and underwear for kids. My timing was a little off though. I found several packages of large girls socks and a big bunch of jrs socks. I bought some small stocking stuffer things for boys and girls, some dollar packages of perfumes and colognes for teens. I had some stockings in our garage sale stuff and I gathered all the pants, long sleeved shirts, and coats I could find and stuffed the boxes full. I also had a box full of stuffed animals. I packed 5 good sized boxes and it cost us $180 to send them and we sent them all on the same day. They were supposed to show up on Dec 23rd. I knew they wouldn't make it on time for Christmas but I sure hoped they would.
One box showed up a day or two after Christmas. That one was full of girls coats. I have all girls and I had planned on donating them to the coat drives here in town for several winters. I kind of missed getting them out the door. Finally these coats made it out of my house.
We shipped the boxes to one family in Pilot Station so they could give to things out to those who needed it. This family already has 6 kids of their own and took in 4 more whose parents weren't able to care for them. Likely due to alcoholism which runs rampant there. I'm not stereotyping. I know you here that, but it is the truth. But the children are shared with family members usually so they are cared for. So anyway, the first story we heard was how a widow with 3 daughters got 3 of the coats from the box.
Three of the boxes showed up on New Years Eve. My Christmas gifts I sent didn't get there in time but it didn't matter. The woman that recieved the boxes filled the stockings and took them to some of the children that didn't have any Christmas at all. That is when my heart breaks and yet is filled since they did in fact get something. All the stuffed animals found a home. The socks I sent, the ones where I couldn't find much in any other size, went to 2 girls. A 12 year old and 16 year old that had no socks at all. No socks in Alaska. Can you imagine? Then that is where I know why I found the socks I did. Those girls also didn't have a Christmas at all and got a stocking.
We got stories tricking in on where the clothes were going and time and time again they went to people in great need. The last box didn't get there until the middle of January. We had to call a couple of the post offices from Bethel to Pilot Station to find out what happened to that box. That is how the mail works there. The weather is bad, mail doesn't fly. Sometimes things sit a long time. But we had request for kid gloves. There was a kiddo that needed a pair. The man my husband was talking to was going to buy him a pair. But they were $50. When he decided to buy them anyway later, they were gone. I asked people if they could help, if they had any. I didn't get any response so I found some new ones. Some people from church had given me money to mail stuff. So I filled a package with gloves and mailed it off as soon as I could. I probably spent $50 buying about 6 or 7 pairs of gloves along with the cost of shipping them. That small package made it there before our lost 5th box.
I didn't have many boy clothes. We did get some after an event where our church had a community giving event for Christmas. We did give to that too by the way. Once everyone had finished shopping, we were able to get what boy clothes were left to shop to ship to Alaska. SInce money has been tight, I haven't been able to mail the big boxes as soon as I would have liked to. But a friend came through and gave us more money for shipping. So I sent a couple more boxes with the boy stuff and infant stuff. They are finding homes for everything we have sent.
My husband asks what they need, we had a request for boys shoes, I spent about $17.00 for a couple of pairs at Target and mailed them off with a few other pairs of used shoes I was able to collect.
Now I am on a hunt for boys pants and household kitchen items for a young mom with 3 kids who is starting over. She has nothing. There are no resources there and we are doing what we can. But it means so much to us to help them since their resources are so limited. Our resources are limited but I feel we have so much compared.
The hubby will be working in Scammon Bay this summer. I'm sure it will be another village he will want to adopt. There is a possibility we may go and visit for a couple weeks to have the experience ourselves. I'm brainstorming how I want to make it into something bigger so we can share our experiences with others. With my love of writing and my curiosity of life in the Alaskan bush, I think there might something we can do. It would all be to help all of them in the end.
