CJ & Autumn Miller

CJ bought a used snow machine. It was a huge deal for us, considering we have been fully self propelled for almost two years. It's just been us, our mountain bikes, our fat tire snow bikes, our skis, our tandem kayak, and a wheeled wagon. But this year we can cut wood on our subsistence permit & we needed to get busy stocking our wood pile. We purchased a wood burning stove for our new living room & hope to have many cozy winter evenings around the fire.

I went on some wood cutting trips with CJ the last couple of weeks & it was a real, manly adventure. For one, driving a snow machine was a totally new experience for me, the Alabama girl. We were driving out on the frozen lake, up mountain trails & forming new paths in the woods. The snow was deep & we got stuck a lot. Did I mention our machine doesn't have reverse? Secondly, it is still cold here & things like chainsaws & fingers start to freeze after a while. Fifteen hauls have been completed & we're getting better & it's getting easier. CJ is working off all his winter pounds & I'm going to have to start feeding him more. The whole experience is so much work & so much play combined. Storing up wood this winter has proven to be a wonderful chore.

Alan & Sam of Teeple Cabinets & Construction arrived in Port Alsworth Thursday night to begin installing our custom kitchen cabinets. They made the maple cabinets & butcher block counters in their shop in town which arrived on the last charter. You'll have to come visit to see the beautiful insides. We are more than pleased & I can't wait to move in!

We are at such a fun stage on the house. CJ & I are able to be heavily involved & we are seeing the rooms come to life. In February we mudded screw holes & sanded drywall in preparation for painting. I picked out paint colors from some samples I grabbed last time I was in Anchorage & ordered paint over the phone from Home Depot. When paint arrived, CJ & I spent a week of afternoons painting the living room, downstairs hall, kitchen & study. Ralph, David & Kiska installed the tongue & groove wood ceilings in the living room, study, solarium & our bedroom. Beam work went up shortly after & then all the wood & doors were sprayed with clear coat. CJ & I learned to tile & have been spending our afternoons covered with mortar & grout. Today I will tackle grouting the guest bathroom as CJ constructs a wood stove platform for the living room. Working at the house along with our normal jobs has proven to be exhausting, but very rewarding. It is so great to invest in our own home.

Thankful today particularly for good gifts from friends & for the realization of how much more the Lord gives good gifts.

"Every good & perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
James 1:17

- Fresh eggs from a neighbor's chicken coop

- Garden potatoes from the root cellar

- An abundance of garlic cloves from a friend as a thank you for using our car

- Moose roast from a summer trophy hunter

- Yellow flowers from CJ flown in from Anchorage to adorn my little kitchen table

I will proudly stand as Matron of Honor in my sister, Christy's wedding this May. This is a very big deal of course & I want to be involved, but living in Alaska has proven to be a distance problem in the area of wedding planning. I do have a lovely computer & some time, so I volunteered myself for the creation of the wedding slideshow. This involves scanning lots of old photos & boy, have I found some gems!

    Our winter travels have been wonderful, but I suffered the consequences. January was a key time logistically on the house. Our last charter full of house supplies is scheduled to arrive in Port Alsworth within the week & large amounts of effort went into picking out everything on board. That said, things have gone wrong. We walked in the door from Utah with 12 messages on the machine about our appliances & flooring & tile & lost delivery trucks & whatever else. My kitchen range, a LaZBoy chair & an ottoman were dropped off in the wrong remote village & they were charging us for holding them there. We lost a valuable worker to Anchorage for the birth & recovery of his premature son. I realized I ordered three square feet of tile for the guest bathroom instead of thirty, and there were fraudulent charges on our credit card. It is not a good time to be without a credit card.  I've never been that forceful on the phone before. I've never spent this much money before, and it's never been so obvious how much I needed God's help with anxiety & priorities.  

       Now we are starting to surface. We spend our free time picking out paint & sanding drywall mud, but we are learning to be content, thankful & blessed. I'm beginning to understand the stress of building a house.

We were blessed to be in Iowa to celebrate with some of our very favorite people!
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