8 Days without a smartphone

Nine Days ago I would have never given a second thought to leaving my bed without my Galaxy S7 Edge. It refused to charge one morning and I gave it 2 days to maybe come back to life. That is how ridiculously much I believed in the smartphone. Finally, I gave up the 3rd day and called in for a replacement on a phone that I still have payments on for an extra $199. That is quite the monopoly that you have on us individual blue collar consumers Android. Bravo to you, Fuckers.
This is for those lucky enough to have a properly working cellular that does not need replacing 4 times in a week until actually working for a solid thirteen months. After which it mysteriously burns out and costing me 2 extra Benjamin's.

Let me share my freedom.

Days 1-3: My brain was rebooting, I was in denial that I had an addiction to consuming internet content rather than creating it. I was missing the daily hilarious memes which my 20-year-old son posts constantly. Now that we are on that, who makes those useless but entertaining memes? Is it the private school kid with nothing better to do because she always finishes her prep school work ahead of time? Doubt it. I like to imagine that it is that welfare kid whose mother doesn't have any more food stamps by the 3rd week of the month and the kid is making these clever meme's to distract themselves from the reality of his ghetto ass life. Moving on.

Day 4: I am my own worst critic. I've been told this before. It's true. I was used to waking up at 4 or 5 A.M. but not without my lovely little platinum silver screen. My personal Vision became clearer without it this fourth morning. I also realized I have zero will power. I honestly wouldn't leave the phone in another room at night if I still had it in working condition. It was clearly good for me to be without access to the interwebs, I knew I was completely delusional with the fact that I was not a creator of content but a consumer of such. What a scab right? At this point of realization, I was still lying in bed mind you. I got up and made a plan to clean the house, take the kid for ice cream with her cousin and maybe write a plan of action. The only thing that actually happened on this day was the ice cream and cousin. Don't judge me, remember I'm a recovering smartphone addict.

Day 5: I actually asked for help! I logged onto my other addiction, Facebook and asked for help. I wanted to build a website but I always doubted my ability to do so. Terrible time-consuming mistake. Within just a few minutes of posting the only person who actually gets my sick dark humor answers with Wix! I built a website in about 3.5 hours. It at this point is up and running but there are only 2 items for sale and no POS link. That stands for Point Of Sale not Piece Of Shit. In later pieces, this acronym may change. The beauty of this day is, I created content and hardly consumed any.

Day 6: I started building My Gwich'in-Tlingit inspired moccasins earlier by about 4 hours. 4 Hours! That is the amount of time that I have been wasting on my phone. I was lazy. I know the time needed for a start up business. and I was wasting a quarter of the work day on a phone that distracts me for an embarrassing amount of time. So, I built a pair of shoes by 10 A.M.

My girl kid was fed, dishes done. I stood there reviewing all of the avenues of social media and content that I put out for selling my slippers. I was missing one thing. Real Life Advertising! How could I have missed this? It crossed my mind a few months ago that I should make actual flyers for brick and mortar businesses. But that quickly subsided when the "cash me ousside" girl memes blew up. Today, day six I actually left the house to work. I built flyers and to my surprise, I was so wrong about the businesses. I didn't think they would be open to my flyers. Everyone that I approached was so kind. I did not even think of my missing link to the internet anymore. My phone was out of site and out of mind. I was a free bird.

Day 7: My tracking number read that my replacement phone would be in today, Saturday. Of course, I thought the Post Office would be open all day like most others in the real world. Wrong again, it was open for 2 hours. I was 3 hours late. I didn't care. I was creating things 2 maybe 3 times as fast as I would've been with that little prison sentence of a smartphone. My connection to the world wide web is no longer an issue. I am enjoying this time away from everything that I thought was life, Immensely.

Day 8: I wrote it all down. This was written and brought to you by the lack of technology. I can actually be relieved that I have a different view to the outside world. Kind of as it was before smartphone's and instant access. I really enjoyed the experience. If you want to reboot and get creative, be lucky enough that your phone breaks for an extra couple of hundred bucks or just set it down for at least seven days.

In eight days, I started a website, Built and introduced a hard copy flyer to at least six local businesses, I began working 4 hours earlier in the day and completely forgot about the instant gratification of having a Smartphone. You can see more slippers at fb.me/sakarisfur or #sakarisfur or https://hopelorena.wixsite.com/sakarisfur

Please leave your thoughts about this piece after you share it to your social media outlet of choice. I've been told it's an utter waste of time to try and leave a comment below(I'm troubleshooting this issue.) Thank you and I am very interested in your feedback. Yours truly, Hope In Alaska.

Spotted Seal hunting in Alaska

I went Seal and Sea Otter hunting for the first time in the spring of 2013 in a small Kodiak Island village.  It was so successful that the host of our hunting trip wouldn't allow me to sit around and skin hides he instructed "Hope you can drop the knife and grab a new gas can, get back out there.  The other lady (she doesn't get a feature here) can finish your hides."  Well, My husband and I pleaded to just skin our own hides as we had about nine Northern Sea Otter's the first morning we were out.  To our dismay and hers, we dropped the knives and proceeded to shoot 6 more Otter's and he a Spotted seal which was on the move in a pod of about 21.  It was life changing, to say the least, watching an Inupiaq from Kotzebue, Alaska, hunt with such precision while standing in a moving skiff. I took photos and ran the small motor boat so we stayed just close enough to the moving pod so that he can shoot with obvious skill.  We only went back to the dock to offload the six huge Sea otters.  That is all we could carry on the boat. 

Alaska's Harbor Seal skin jewelry

Follow @TwitterDev

Most People have a thing called a "Bucket list" if you don't know what it is google should become your Best friend , One item on mine was to learn to make Alaskan Native crafts.  I went and tried beading with small beads, I didn't take to it very well.  So, I asked some Fellow sewers to no avail.  Apparently they have to accept you before they let you in on their secret sewing society, (I'm totally kidding in a positive way that this is why they couldn't help me.)   Any how I started practicing and I started to remember how to tack beads down and this is where it started leading me:
  

What you see there is a piece of a Seal skin that I shot (yes you read that right) I shot in the Prince William Sound out of Whittier, Alaska, using a .223 Winchester which I received as a gift.  Some gift, I know right? where are the diamonds and roses? none the less it has led me to create the beautiful piece you see below. I ordered metal bangle bracelets and the pearls at fire mountain gems for a great price.  I took a piece of paper and outlined the outside of the adjustable bracelet and used that as a pattern to carefully cut out pieces of the seal skin.  I wasn't sure which way to face the fur as you can see I chose horizontal.  I also used some dyed deer skin from the local fur store to have something to tack the pearls too. It took me about 2 hours to sew this with some dental floss like string, the out come was so pretty that I'm trying not to hoard every bracelet I make, as you know these things cost money. Still, I have a couple of these in my closet. 

The one thing I enjoyed most about this little project, is that even though I haven't been taught how to make traditional Alaskan Native clothing and jewelry. Is that, I love how gorgeous this idea turned out!

Fabulous French Lilac roll top desk

I started a recent habit and knew immediately when I saw this piece that I had to share it with anyone interested in my finished prize.  I have always wanted to start blogging I have many interests.  This restyled Roll top is the most recent diamond in the rough . I found this piece at an  Anchorage Salvation Army at 50% off which I paid 31 dollars and some change for. I should have taken into account that it weighs as much is I probably do or darn near close before I took it home.

After getting the desk moved from mid Anchorage to Chugiak, Alaska, I had left it for a couple of weeks while I finished a rifle cabinet that I started a week prior to finding this..  So, three weeks later I decided to get working on this as the brown makes me cringe. I used French Lilac spray paint in Satin to cover the roll cover and the insides of the drawers.. 

As you can see I have help to screw the re finished hardware back together, 5 year old's are so spunky you can get them to do anything if it looks fun.  I was originally going to replace the hardware, yet, when I sprayed 2 coats of brushed nickel paint on them they were just too pretty and provincial to let go. 

After all of the imagination and help from a very spry 5 year old this piece is done, It is so uplifting to look at, I am So happy with it. Also, I bought the very sturdy chair for $5 I took the seat off and added some left over new carpet padding to it (cheap fix), flipped the wood base over as it had a bow in it. I re stapled some tweed material over the padding that I had leftover from a project that I never finished a year ago.   I want to thank you for taking the time to look at my first blog.

Hope and Avi