My Favorite Abode

This article was sent to me by bachelorsdegreeonline.com and is right up my alley especially since I am moving back into a dorm room (my home away from home going on four years) next week. Even though other 21-year-olds would feel like living in a dorm room puts a cramp in your style, I love it. I love being surrounded by people on the same life track and also learning how to make the most of our 12' 1/2" x 15' 9" space. This article is aptly titled, "48 Ways to Make Dorm Life Worth Living”.

The very first suggestion struck me as highly ironic. My mother is basically a pro gardener and loving guardian to plants. Thus, you would think those genes would pass themselves down but they haven't so much. However, this spring I was able to successfully grow a plant I don't know the name of in my "hot girl" coffee mug.

Another suggestion is to "Get Creative." For those of you privileged people that have seen my lovely dorm room, you realize this is my motto for my dorm room. I must also give my mom credit because otherwise the green vintage rocking chair, the creaky turquoise book shelf, the red and turquoise end table, the green owl lamp and the garland made of horses cut out of French magazines would all be blatantly missing from my dorm room.

Number 15 on the list is (drum roll please): "Run for office or apply to be an RA." You can guess how I feel about that.

Number 40 on the list encourages harmless pranks. If Jackie Miles had written this list that suggestion would have been much closer to the top.

Creating

My birthday is one of my favorite things and yes, even though it was nearly two months ago I am still talking about it. Mainly because my aunt, Jackie (my first Jackie) gave me my birthday present a couple weeks ago when we were in Spearfish. She is notorious for giving birthday presents late but I have always loved that about her because it keeps my favorite day going for months. Honestly, I was a little disappointed the one time I received a birthday present from her on my actual birthday.

Birthdays are so great because it demonstrates how well the people in your life know you. Jackie always hits it right on the head. This year she gave me a black running skirt after my incessant chatter about running in a skirt rather than boring old shorts or pants. I am convinced it makes me run faster. She also gave me a large pendant tucked inside a red velvet jewelry bag. One side of the pendant says, "Sometimes there was a storm in her brain" and the other side has an image of a girl with the word "Create" sprawling across her forehead. It was up to me to find a chain of some sort to sport the pendant.

Jackie picked out the pendant because it reminded her so much of me and thus needed something more original than simply a silver chain. So, I decided to make my own. I scrounged around through all three bedrooms and the kitchen, you know the normal places you would find crafty and jewelry-making materials...

I started with a big heap of things and redid three strands of the necklace until I was content with my creation.

Coffee, Swimming, and Skunks

This past weekend, Jackie, my mom, and I drove out to Spearfish to hang with the fam. We spent the weekend in coffee shops and one particular visit we happened to walk into Common Grounds during a folk band's practice session. They sang about not eating hot soup with your hands- to give you an idea of their musicality.

Jackie, Brytten and I hung out at the water park and I had one of the most adorable grown-up sister moments with Brytten. She and I went down a double-tube slide and she insisted on sitting backwards so we faced each other on our tube and giggled during the entire trip down. Its an odd realization when you and your only sister are both grownups. In the last year Brytten and I have only seen each other about half a dozen times which is completely different from living in the same house. She and I appreciate each other that much more because of how infrequently we see each other and when we say goodbye after a weekend we aren't always positive when we will see each other again.

On Friday night when we first got there we were all sitting on my grandparent's deck and my grandma started explaining how during a recent ending-of-a-skunk's-life on my grandpa's part, my grandma wanted the skunk's death to be used as a life lesson for my 7 and 5-year-old cousins because as she said, "Bad things get shot." This phrase became quite the thing particularly with my mom and my grandpa naming off the "bad things to be shot" in recent history. Everyone from Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde was named. The next morning in the newspaper my grandpa read an article about Bonnie and Clyde's entire gun collection being sold and my grandpa joked that he was going to mortgage the house to buy the coveted collection.

Sunday morning brought another skunk's death. My grandpa had trapped it in his garden by placing a duck egg in a trap and the skunk ate the entire egg, shell and all. So because no one else was awake at the time he asked my mom to go help him. As she started to say something he thought she was going to complain about having to shoot a gun and kill the skunk when in actuality she was about to complain about her being the last thing the skunk saw before it died. Then to enhance matters as only my mother could, when my grandpa fired his gun (which keep in mind- they live in a very peaceful residential neighborhood) all my mom could think was, "He popped a cap in his ass!" Then she got the hell out.

We didn't see my grandpa for a long time and when he finally emerged and thank god, smelled normal, I got in trouble for not being willing to rescue him if he had indeed needed rescuing. He said he would never rescue me. I don't really believe him.

Spearfish Creek 

It should not surprise anyone that I didn't get a picture of the skunk...

A Different Take on Mount Rushmore

After reading this next anecdote there will be no doubt that I am truly my grandpa's granddaughter. Good ol' Roger had this idea that became an adventure to add to the list for spring break. He subscribes to a duck raising magazine and the magazine conducts a contest in which readers pose with the magazine in front of famous spots around the world and then have the chance to appear on the cover of the magazine. His idea was for his two eldest granddaughters to pose holding the magazine in front of Mount Rushmore. He thought the editors of the magazine would "get a kick out of that."

Brytten wasn't super pumped about the idea but I loved it. I don't have any of the magazine-holding pics but you can guarantee once we get on the cover I will be talking about it!

A Spearfish/Deadwood Kind of Friday Evening

Last night Jackie and I ventured to Deadwood. In search of a chocolate store we walked basically around the entire city then finally checked out the jewelry stores, had chinese food, tried on ridiculous sunglasses, and ate ice cream. Then to top off our evening we saw "The Lorax" at the Spearfish theater. My grandma wasn't aware that movies show at 8:45...

A Spearfish Kind of Friday Morning

Where: The Green Bean (my favorite coffee shop in all the land)

Company: Jackie Miles

Accompanying Music playing through my owl headphones: Adele station on Pandora
- Look for a post on these headphones at a later date!

Drink: Blueberry Pomegranate Fruit Tea Blast (the very first blogpost featured this drink, which is quite possibly the greatest thing ever!)

Task: Completing a really crap-tastic English midterm before we journey to Deadwood this afternoon and reward ourselves with jewelry purchases

Good Things Come In Three's

As any good traveler to Spearfish should do, Jackie and I journeyed through Spearfish Canyon twice today. The second time we picked Brytten up and grabbed coffee for a little spin through the canyon. The best feeling is when you are surrounded by people who love you and know you better than you know yourself most days. These two incredible women fall under that category.

"Does it Feel Like You are Back Home?"

This is quite possibly the best week ever. I am sitting at my favorite coffee shop -The Green Bean- in my favorite place in the world -Spearfish- with two of my favorite people- my best friend, Jackie and my sister, Brytten. Jackie and I hit the road around 6:30 this morning and then drove a little bit on the fast side and pulled into my grandparents' driveway at 10:45 a.m. A.K.A. in record time!

Thus far in the day Jackie and I have taken two naps, visited the ducks, had lunch at Guadalajara's with my grandpa, drove to Belle Fourche for chicken feed, and are now sitting on the couches at the Green Bean. After I had picked Brytten up at her dorm room she asked from my backseat, if it felt like I was back home. It indeed does.

Jackie, Brytten and I came with the intention of doing homework but so far we have simply been listening to Brytten's stories she spews in between winks of a nap. We are now fully aware of the fact that she pulls hairs out of her boyfriends back (sooooo gross!), has been practicing her Donald Duck voice and has been told once she gets more comfortable with it she will be able to speak naturally (naturally, as in Donald Duck, of course), and she informed us that flies can lay about 1,000 eggs at a time. I am not sure if I believe that one...

Maybe whenever I am with Brytten, I am home.

Happy Thesaurus Day!

Today is my best friend Jackie's birthday. It also happens to be National Thesaurus Day which only makes sense that my love for words would be celebrated on the day of birth of someone I love very much. Jackie is truly a quintessential best friend.

My latest television obsession is How I Met Your Mother. In one episode Lily discusses the concept of the "Front Porch Test." This test determines whom you will sit on your front porch with in old age. My family and Jackie's family will definitely honor the Front Porch Test.

I could have posted 22 pictures of the two of us but that might have been just a little excessive!

Sparkle

Several times this semester when my girls have come to me with problems, I have suggested, in addition to giving actual intelligent advice, to buy something sparkly for themselves. One of my girls now owns sparkly Converse, a sparkly dress, a sparkly headband, and a sparkly cardigan. The combination of finals and feeling icky made me take my own advice over the weekend. I found adorable sparkly flats that have a lovely ballerina quality to them. Then when I was telling my best friend Jackie about them, she presented me with my Christmas present. This is why we are best friends... her gift to me was a large clear-pocket book with a pink sparkly cover to hold all of my ideas and dreams. She named it "Sanna's Great Big Book of Great Big Dreams."

She included this quote by Christopher Reeve (or Reeves as is written in the book!): "At first dreams seem impossible, then improbably, then inevitable."

So here I am sipping hot green tea and listening to the Classic Broadway Showtunes station on Pandora because that's what I do when I am sick and all I want to do is fill up my dream book! While also wearing sparkly shoes of course. But alas, I have to study for my Art History final.

Sanna's Great Big Book of Great Big Dreams

A Wednesday for the Record Books

Today was just absolutely wonderful and I am extra-cheery despite the rainy weather which normally is so not my thing. Some people would be annoyed with me today because as several of us were walking to take our chemistry test this morning and were complaining about the rain hitting our faces and eyelashes, I decided that I love it when my coffee has a splash of rain water. Think there would ever be a "Coffee with a Hint of Rain Water" Keurig blend?

Then I got my 35-page art history paper back that consumed my life a week ago and I got a great big ol' A on it! At that point nothing could have tampered with my great day, but it continued to get even better!

Jackie and I went to see "Footloose" at the cheap seats and besides it being an awesome movie and totally falling in love with the new Ren (even though I will always love Kevin Bacon), one of my greatest dreams came true! For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be at a movie where there was no one else in the theater. It finally happened today! And with my best friend Jackie, which made the experience even better!

This was quite possibly the best rainy day and best Wednesday ever!

Jackie (S)Miles

Many of us have that one person that we look to for help, guidance, compassion, and love in basically anything that life that throws at us. That person for me is Jackie Miles. Jackie was my PA my freshman year and although we have now been on staff together for two years I still think of her as my PA. Our relationship has definitely grown beyond that and I consider her one of my favorite people and one of my best friends.

She is truly one of the most caring individuals I have ever known. There is no doubt that this girl is going places and I love that I get to cheer her on for everything. And.... she is up for Homecoming Queen this year for Viking Days! I am almost exploded from excitement yesterday!