I've officially been in Fort McMurray for one year. Wow. Wednesday marks one year at my current job.

Seems hard to believe doesn't it.  And I am marking it on my own by going on vacation on Friday. Oh Friday how sweet you are and how I look forward to you. LOts left to do and not lots left to do. If I do too much ahead of time I get bored waiting for the day and start repacking and take too much. If I do too little ahead of time I am rushing on the last day and leaving a mess behind. It is a balancing act.

Gave the instructions to the cat sitter today. One of the gals from work is going to pop in a few times and check on them. The great part of having purries is that they can spend a few days alone.

It's Monday and I felt like jazzing things up a bit so I wore this:

They jingle as I walk and it makes me happy. The cats were not sure what to make of the noise tonight. I danced around for a bit to make them jingle more and it drove Tundra nuts.

My pinky finger has been sore for about a week now. I was having all kinds of thoughts around arthritis and left it for a week hoping it would go away. LOL. It didn't. But at the Dr office yesterday I finally asked about it and after a few minutes he said sprain. Apparently they don't do much if you break or sprain your pinky. He offered to tape it but I said no. Today though I broke down and taped it to my ring finger. It was painful to hit the a key before the taping and now I can barely hit just one key with my taped fingers. My touch typing has turned into garble. This is the pinky on my left hand--and I am left handed so it gets used a lot. And you hit or rest on your pinky a lot....which of course I never knew before. I am hoping it will get the break it needs while I am on holiday and by the time I return it will be healed. But for the next 8 days I will have crappy typing skills at work.

The latest in entertainment around my house is playing with bugs. The door to the deck is open most of the time I'm home and of course the occasional bug or fly comes in to visit. The girls love watching the flies zoom around and I'm often concerned for the household furnishings as they chase after the fly with no thought to what they are running over/through/around. The bugs slowly crawl along the carpet until the two furry hunters get bored and let it be. Each new bug and fly is given all their concentration and attention until....yeah, it doesn't last long.

The forest fire season has started and yesterday the air was rated a 7 out of 10 for poor quality. 10 being the worst. The slight smell of smoke was in the air all day and the hazy vision out the window confirmed the air quality. It doesn't affect me physically which is great but I know a lot of people who must stay indoors on days like that which makes enjoying our short summer difficult.

So....the upcoming vacation. YEAH!! I'm off to the Yukon. The only province/territory in Canada I haven't been to yet. And a short stop in Alaska. The trip is planned and not planned. We haven't booked a single camp site and the only real planning is that we are taking one highway there and another highway back. All stops in between are to be decided on a moments notice. I have a friend coming with me and I'm excited to have the company. She hasn't been this far North before and I'm sure she will enjoy. Another awesome friend gave me a charger for the truck so I can charge the camera battery when needed and not miss a shot.

I know many do not enjoy or appreciate my style of camping but I like it and really that is the most important thing. LOL. I love my tent and the open flame for cooking and at this point in my life don't need the creature comforts of a camper to hit the open road. I'm still in my less is more stage of camping.

I've been collecting twigs and sticks to help get the fires going at night and made my own fire starters out of dryer lint, egg cartons and candle wax. We used one of my homemade fire starters a couple weeks ago at the first bbq of the year and it worked like a charm.

The lint collected out of the dryer for the past few months.

The many egg cartons I have collected. I think I eat too many eggs.

Cutting up the wax from a couple of candles I bought at the Salvation Army.

Melting the wax in a can helps saves a pot. Although I did learn a trick to getting wax off a pot--vinegar.

Pouring the wax into the egg cartons to cover the lint and bits of egg carton I had.

A bit of string to hold it all together while it cooled.

Cut the cartons in half and then wrapped them in newspaper, tied up with string.

Egg cartons--free Lint--free string--already had it on hand--free newspaper--free wax--$3.99 Enjoyment at campfires--priceless.