Snow Day!

Okay, it wasn't a declared snow day.. not by the University. By my patience, it was most definitely a snow day.

I left my home at 7:45AM. I didn't know it was supposed to be a freaking blizzard outside. Nope. I don't have cable TV and I work strange hours. Watching the news (more importantly the weather) isn't something I do. All I cared about was that the app on my phone said it was going to be above zero today... an occasion to be celebrated these days.

Anyways, I get outside and have to dig my car out (a slight exaggeration.... 2 inches of snow had accumulated on my car). Starts up just fine, so I drive towards the ominous hill. Have I mentioned the hill? I don't know if I have. When you leave my apartment complex you have to go up a windy and steep hill. This hill is rarely plowed or salted and has caused MANY near death experiences in the past few months. I am getting ready to make the terrifying drive up the hill when I notice that there are literally cars stopped all the way in front of the hill (on Silver Bell) to the stop light. Not only are they at my hill, but they are backed up further down Silver Bell (towards Blackhawk). HOLY CRAP. Apparently everyone in the world/ Eagan knew that there was supposed to be a snow dumping this morning.

I take the sneaky way out of the neighborhood and head towards I-35E (which was a relief seeing as the cars were all backed up heading towards I-35W) only to find.. NOPE. The roads have not even been plowed at all. There are no plows out. People are idiots and from my on ramp, I could see about 8 cars in the ditch and the other bazillion cars weren't moving.

I got on the highway anyways, because I needed to get to campus. I got to this point by roughly 8:00AM.


I had moved MAYBE two miles by the time it was 9:00. Traffic was not clearing. The snow wasn't stopping. Plows weren't coming to rescue us. NOPE. It was just a dead stop.


I gave up at 9:45, exited (only about 7 miles from my apartment) and went home. By home, I definitely mean my sister's house.

It was a snow day. I did homework when I got home tonight. I feel less guilty.

HannahEilene

BIG Failures and LITTLE failures

Okay, so that whole January resolution to get more organized.. Failed.

Sort of.

The blog part failed. Because WOAH...  SCHOOL STARTED!!!

So, I haven't posted anything about cleaning or organizing my life.. but here's what I have done:

• I did ALL of my laundry and went through my clothes to find things to donate to Goodwill. I came up with 2 bags of clothes.
• I found all of the electronics that are broken or no longer of use to bring to the Recycling Center here in Eagan. 
• My sister and I took our bags and electronics to Goodwill and the Recycling Center to get rid of all of the clutter and extra "stuff" in our homes.
• I cleared out my backpack and went through last semester's papers and handouts and filed the few papers I felt should be saved, and I threw away all the ones that I didn't want to keep anymore.

Not quite as BIG a step as I had hoped to take each day, but for starting classes and having my whole

This is Devo, my cat. She's sticking her tongue out at you,

schedule flip upside down this past week.. I'd say it's pretty okay. 

Today, I cleaned my bookshelves (and reorganized them to accommodate my books from last semester and the ones I am not yet using this semester). You see, the problem with being an English Major, is that there are a lot of books. You're probably reading that sentence and thinking... No shit Hannah. Bravo. I'm not complaining that I have to read a lot, because I love that part of my major. The problem is that when the semester ends, I don't want to get rid of any of my books because I like what I've been reading. So, basically, I have ended up with an entire bookshelf worth of books from classes in addition to the books I own for personal reasons. 

I moved all of the DVDs off of my shelf and put them in a shoe box to clear out space for MORE BOOKS! 

In ten years, I'll be on the TV show Hoarders because I have a book-problem. 

Always, 

H.Eilene

Little Wooden Elephant

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately about minimalist lifestyles. You know, less junk and more efficient storage etc. My goal for the next 30 days is to trim down my stuff and get myself more organized. Every day fort eh next 30 days I will be taking one section of my room/my things and minimizing. The goal is to hopefully have less clutter and more open space.

First step: my desk

I have a ton of random cutesy things on my desk, things that I don't really want to get rid of. So, I probably wont. But, I can clean out the little storage shelf of my desk and maybe find more effective places to put my cute things so they aren't taking up as much space or cluttering my desk.

One of my special things is my little wooden elephant.  I wish it had an epic story behind how I came into possession of it, but it's not an epic tale. I was at the state fair in the International Bazaar right before my second year in Duluth. Elephants have always fascinated me because of their memory capability and their sheer beauty. I bought this little guy because I wanted it to remind me to remember everything. Remember the good, remember the bad, remember it all.

Before pictures:

Magic

Today, my friends, I learned two beautiful things. Both in the form of things I think are magical.

First, I got to spend a large portion of my day with the awesomely-interesting person who is the subject of my first collaborative memoir (for my own version of the Storytelling Project). We met this morning at The Black Sheep Coffeehouse. There, he and I talked for 4 hours about his life, his magic, his experiences with the world, and then some random interview ice-breaker questions (like my personal favorite: What is your favorite color? WHY?).

Anyways, he facilitated an exercise where I had to use my instinct to sort the cards by color (with out actually seeing the colors). When I was thinking about sorting/guessing which was black and red... I was wrong. When I had the deck of cards, face down, and focused on a happy memory and just made piles completely based on instinct... it was very nearly correctly sorted. The ONLY exception is when I thought about negative things for 4 cards of my sorting.

It was amazing. And awesome.

My happy memory:  Sitting in Caribou (from a Starbucks employee... eeeek) with my best friend playing Scrabble. It just filled me with this warmth and happiness remembering how amazing he is and how reuniting with him felt like the most amazing breath of fresh air.

My sad memory/ unhappy thought: The feeling I had when the man held his knife up to my throat. The cold sting of the metal is still crisp in my mind.

Second, this evening I learned how to make music by dancing my fingertip around the rim of a glass. It was so cool. I realize it isn't something that is very special, as most people already know how to do it.. but I felt SO much excitement.


Today, I learned a lot about humility and grace and beauty.
Today, I felt like ME for the first time in weeks, and it was just... amazing. Pure amazing.

H.Eilene

Lost: The Voice of a 20 year old Female

HELP! I've lost my voice and I can't find it! If you find it would you return it to me? Email me or text me and I will give you the return address. 

I have been struggling this week (well, the past four days) at work with the morality of making beverages even though I myself have some sort of disease taking over my voice and the rest of my respiratory system. I promise, I am not breathing while I make the drinks and I wash my hands about every five seconds.. I promise.. if you don't believe me, take a look at my very very dry skin. 

Also, I mean, I don't have a fever anymore, which tells me that this is really just the residual stuff. We had a rule at the daycare when we sent kids home: 24 hours fever free. I promise, I've been fever free for several days now. 

Anyways, I keep getting these disturbed looks when I call out people's drinks in my very very squeaky and sad excuse of a voice.. 

"ANN I HAVE YOUR TRIPLE GRANDE CARAMEL MACCHIATO FOR YOU!" Except, really it sounds like a young boy going through puberty as my voice squeaks its way through the words. 

Ann, and all of my other favorite patrons of the Bux, I'm so very sorry it sounds like someone with the plague is giving you coffee. I promise, I am taking every precaution to avoid spreading germs. 

Always,
H.Eilene