Let me explain...

I thought about publishing two sentences as my first blog entry, in order to do a "test run," and make sure I don't make a fool of myself right off the bat.  But, that would be a drastic misrepresentation of my true self, so here you have it:

I'm a mid-twenties, Southern California born and raised, sunshine-loving newlywed, who's just been transplanted to balmy (ha!) Fairbanks, Alaska on account of marrying a military man. 

 Additionally, I add to my list of new accomplishments on a daily basis!  This morning's episode of exultation is going on the resume, for sure:

Before 8:00am this morning, I successfully took most of a shower ...

This enjoyable 66% of a shower occurred before the earth-shattering, heart-stopping, piercing screams of the smoke detector had the audacity to force me to leave my steamy, glorious cocoon of warmth (the shower, of course).  Now, seeing as I've only lived in this house a couple of weeks, for all I knew, I really did set the highly flammable log cabin ablaze through my amazing powers of potential-ineptness.

Of course, I did not spring forth from the shower (A.K.A. glorious cocoon of warmth) and frantically run in the nude through my window-laden-yet-curtain-lacking homestead like an excited bloodhound-sniffing every nook and cranny which I deemed devilish enough to produce potential combustion! Where areeee you, raging fireball of doom? I will sniff you out!

.

"Elementary, my dear flames, for you emit smoke, which allows my snout to detect you with ease!"

Okay, I did NOT do that, exactly.  

 In my initial 0.03 seconds of immediate cognitive response to the shrieking fire alarm, I thought the following: "I really don't want to call hubby and explain why I burned down the house by asking too much of the water heater for my scalding hot showers.  If the water heater can't hack it, why is it my fault that it burned down the house?! Well, if the house is on fire, I probably can't  save it myself, and I sure as heck am not gonna go meet the rest of the Fairbanks population and earn a reputation as 'the Southern California nudist who burned down the cabin she was renting.'"  I'll at least have the dignity of some clothing!" 

Time to make an excellent wardrobe selection!

Sure, those'll do!

I then donned my decade old ducky pajama pants, wrapped a towel around the rest of myself, and proceeded to sniff the basement, as well as the entirety of the upstairs and downstairs (I flatter myself by pretending it's large...only a Hobbit could comfortably traverse the tiny staircase between the two levels).  Yes, I did sniff the house roughly in the canine manner described above, which is to my shame, if any neighbors were home, and bored enough lucky enough to peer out their windows and into mine.  What a sight to have beheld: an adult woman, clutching a towel to her chest, wearing ducky pajama pants, running to and fro, manically inhaling what could probably only be assumed to be some sort of illegal, hallucinogenic substance.  

And, neighbors, that's me with dignity. 

My imagination's rendition of my fire-sniffing snout.  

Oh, I'll leave you with a tasty little tidbit of advice: steamy showers can set off older smoke detectors.  Trust me.