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Talkeetna’s a go! Y’all come.

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The bachelors of Talkeetna (http://bachelorsoftalkeetna.org/)

Are you close to your 40th birthday? Celebrating a divorce? Feeling the need to break out of a rut? Or just in the mood for an unforgettable road trip?

Come to Alaska, in December, on purpose, and drink in the nuttiness that is the Talkeetna Bachelors Auction and Wilderness Woman Competition.

The competition, auction and dance take place on Saturday, Dec. 1. My friend Linda B. has rented the entire top floor of the Latitude 62 so that a bunch of wild wimmen can spend the weekend eating, drinking and being merry.

There’s room at the inn. Why not come up and join us?

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What I learned from de-cluttering: The sequel.

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th-2Just before moving to Anchorage I wrote an MSN Money piece called “What I learned from de-cluttering.” But that was before I’d finished packing.

What I’ve learned since then? That I didn’t de-clutter enough.

It was shocking to see how many boxes I wound up putting in the moving van. As a result, I have half a dozen suggestions for your own future moves.

Here’s hoping these tips help you avoid merely paying lip service to de-cluttering.

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Think your money questions are dumb?

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Well, they’re not. Or so says my MSN Money colleague Liz Weston, aka the most widely read financial columnist on the Internet. Her latest book, “There Are No Dumb Questions About Money,” is this week’s giveaway.

Liz bases her text on real questions people have asked. In other words, this is information that people like you and I can use.

As a writer she is direct but also compassionate. While she understands how people can get into money trouble, she also is clear that the best person to help you usually is you.

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Ice road U-Haulers.

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Wood Bison © by Manik.

Thursday afternoon the temperature was in the mid-70s as my helpers and I rushed to pack my worldly goods into the 14-foot U-Haul parked outside my Seattle apartment building. A few days later? Driving through snow on the frost-heaved Al-Can.

Things may alter.

Fortunately, that was snow that had already fallen. Driving on frost heaves in blizzard conditions would have been a lot more unpleasant than bouncing over those same white-covered bumps. I’ll take slippery over zero-visibility any day.

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Like being at FinCon12 – or at the sponsor tables, anyway.

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Even though I had a bad cold I had a great time at the recent Financial Blogger Conference in Denver. If you want to know more about the event, check out my daughter’s posts over at I Pick Up Pennies:

And if you want to win some conference swag? Read on.

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Everything is elegiac.

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1918 Republic Trucks Moving Van © by aldenjewell

Yesterday I did my last real shopping trip at the nearby ethnic market: milk, yogurt starter, carrots, eggs, bananas, garlic, onion, a couple of oranges and some extra 99-cent spices to take up to Alaska. For example, I rarely see celery seed in most grocery stores — and when I do, it’s a teeny-tiny bottle for $5 or $6.

Rolling the shopping cart over there to stock up has become a pleasant little ritual for me. I’m really going to miss that store, especially as regards cheap produce. Fruits and vegetables are never cheap in Alaska.

Lately everything I do have been imbued with a ridiculous poignancy:

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FinCon12, with a cold — and a giveaway to match. Plus: An erudite vampire novel.

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I go for months and months without getting a cold. When it’s time to go to a conference, I get sick. But what makes that particularly amusing is the subject of this week’s giveaway: another cold and flu package.

If the items I’m giving away were here, I’d have been into them all by now.

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