Daily Alaska, Days are Getting Longer Edition!

This is a photo I took on the 6th of February. It's a gloomy cloudy day, but it was also still pre-sunrise at around 9 am. The street lights are still on, and everybody had their headlights on. You can even see the headlights of the snow plow shining on the road ahead of me.

And yes, I took this photo while I was driving. I point the camera in the general direction of what I want to photograph, and hope for the best. When my sister and I were driving from San Diego to Tucson last February, we took a bunch of photos this way...many of them ended up being shots of the sky with just the very tops of the rocks and trees and mountains. Sometimes it works better than others.

This is a photograph I took at around 9am on Monday. We are gaining almost 6 minutes of daylight a day right now. Which is awesome. Sunday night we were surprised to be driving home at 6:15 pm and it was still light out. Before we know it, we will be having the all day all night sunlight thing happening. Once again we will lose all track of time, and find ourselves preparing dinner or thinking we should run to the store and realize that it is actually 11 pm...At least I have made curtains for our bedroom so we can block out some of the light. I had trouble sleeping with all that light last summer. Funny how i can nap on the couch in the middle of a bright sunny day, but any light at night makes it really hard for me to sleep.

See? It's light out! Sunrise is already happening, we don't need our headlights, and woo! some of the snowpack is gone from the roads, because we have had more days with sunshine than snow lately. The freeway (that's right, we have a freeway in Alaska...one freeway, that ends in downtown Anchorage) is bare and dusty. There are long stretches where the lines are completely hidden by dirt and grime. Which sometimes makes it a little exciting to drive, since people wander between and straddle lanes.

I have lost 7 pounds, I feel compelled to use the elliptical trainer every day, and I am keeping track of every calorie I eat. I have more energy and I am still excited about the whole idea. And, amazingly, I still love spinach, even though I eat it almost every day...

Mark came back from Thailand, was home for about a week, and is leaving again for several weeks very soon. I will be relieved when he stays home for a while. I am so done with him being gone.