Coconut Shell Earrings

I love when people give gifts or souvenirs that mean something and are selected because the recipient will greatly admire them. My friend Samantha brought me back these earrings from a recent excursion that are made from coconut shells and then dyed with natural materials. She was worried I wouldn't be a fan of the yellow color but I love how organic they look.

Light as a Feather

I am bringing back my favorite kind of post: a feature on $5 earrings from World Market. This latest jewelry purchase was an easy decision and they are so delicate.  I love that all at the same time they look like a leaf, a feather, and a swan. And the enchanted feather duster from Beauty and the Beast.

Art.

I am back! I know I say/write this frequently but several times a week I think about how much I love writing and question why I don't do it enough. Then I recall this blog that I truly love. My February 20th resolution I guess is to devote more of my time to creating this blog once again. I promise!!

My friend Kristina and future Lady-in-Waiting in my wedding (details about the wedding party to come!) gave me this gorgeous bracelet today. She brought it back for me from the Cayman Islands and the beads are made from palm tree leaves. How cool is that?! As she put it, "It is bright and Sanna-like." True.

Also the green speckled ones look like Juicy Pear Jelly Belly Jelly Beans... which happen to be my favorite kind of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. 

Valid Excuse for New Shoes

Tomorrow will mark the second time Adam has been able to come home after we started our ridiculously long, long-distance relationship (1,260 driving miles and 1,040 miles in case you were wondering). As I anticipated him coming home the first time, I got so excited I had to buy something and the winning purchase was teal suede wedges. I reacted similarly in preparing for his second homecoming and bought a pair of leopard printed flats. Neither time did I put a whole lot of thought into the purchase but I somehow ended up in Target with coffee in my hand, to boot! Eventually I will have an entire closet of shoes that were purchased out of excitement for Adam coming home and I am perfectly fine with that notion.

South Dakota in Summer

This weekend I took advantage of all that South Dakota can offer for summer entertainment. Saturday morning, my friends, Katie and Jenny and I went to the Festival of Cultures at Falls Park. There was color everywhere and beautiful textiles. While Katie and Jenny noshed on authentic Ethiopian food I stroked silk bracelets, tried on rings made from semi-precious stones, and admired authentic dresses from around the world.

Then came Teapot Days which celebrates the lovely town of Tea, South Dakota, where my best friend, Jackie calls home. We attended a pork feed, explored the Tea Museum which contains exactly what you think such a museum would display and went to a carnival even though the Miles sisters were afraid of the ferris wheel.

Not a bad weekend at all!

Why I Love Meryl Streep...

My Kindred Spirit

My best friend, Becca is finally back after departing for India back on December 27th. Our reunion was filled with hugs, coffee and marveling at how much we missed each other and love each other. She brought me back a beautiful scarf she purchased in Darjeeling and authentic Indian bangles. She knows me too well!

Everyone Needs a Gigantic Scarf Pot

My pottery style is looking like it is defined by making massive vessels just for the hell of it. I take a huge lump of clay and see if I can use all of it to create a pot. And so far that method has worked very well for me! Here is my latest gigantic masterpiece (if I do say so myself). As I was building it and developing its huge depth and size I decided it would be a perfect pot to hold a few of my scarves. I am thrilled by this because it combines two of my favorite things: scarves and pottery.

Sparkly Jeans

Today I wore what Brytten refers to as my "old-lady shirt." It is really just a lace shirt but I made it a theme and decided that for my old-lady style I would throw on a brooch (because of course I have those!). Rather than wearing the brooch in the traditional place, (which I definitely don't know where that would be) I pinned it to my cuffed jeans!

Bells- More of them!

A quaint little jewelry store in Deadwood has beautiful baubles that tend to be above my price range but they also have these lovely bells at a cool 2 for $3! I bought several each time I went to Deadwood this summer and last night picked up two more. These two look like miniature wizard hats!

Sitting in the Sunshine

Colored glass bottles sitting on my giant windowsill in my dorm room are one of my favorite things and actually that giant windowsill is a primary reason of why I prefer living and working in Solberg rather than Bergsaker. Another one of my favorite things is that my friend, Kirsten knows that a perfect thank-you gift for me is colored glass bottles.

Winter Weather

Driving in ridiculous winter weather has prompted me to buy an exorbitant amount of nail polish this season. After this morning of driving a friend to her internship and being on the edge of my seat I decided the best stress reliever was painting my nails. And then I jumped the gun a little too quickly on writing this post and got some pink glitter polish on the "J" key of my keyboard.

Also as soon as I finish painting my nails the only thing I can think of doing is digging into an orange...

Thursdays are Back!

My new favorite thing to compliment my short do is wearing earrings that are longer than my hair. Earrings used to get lost in my waves of hair. Last Thursday I brought back my tradition of buying $5 earrings on my favorite day of the week at World Market. Camille helped me pick them out.

After spending so much time with me it will be amazing if she doesn't turn into an extremely girly-girl!

Best Friday Morning of 2012/EVER

This morning after 5 hours of sleep my mom picked me up armed with coffee to go to an estate sale. This was quite the event. We had to park a ways a way, take a number and wait for about an hour, part of time in the frigid cold and the other part in the car. I had my Michael Jackson notebook in hand studying for my test this afternoon. When we were waiting outside and knew we would be let into the house soon a woman walked out with an amazing rocking chair. I whacked my mom, as is my tendency to do when I am excited and exclaimed that we had to get in there. Once we did, we were stunned.

There were more rooms then I could count including a two-level attic and a perfect room with hardwood floors, oodles of windows and built in bookshelves that would be an ideal library. There were treasures lining every inch of the house. We quickly realized that we had the best attitudes to be scrounging for things we just had to have surrounded by a plethora of people quickly growing crabbier and crabbier. My mom and I just loved it. After an entire process that took about two and a half hours we exited the wonderful house with lovely new trinkets just in time to get in another hour of studying!

The whole morning is going down as one of my favorite mornings of 2012

Dainty porcelain mug

Autograph book from 1959 filled with humorous messages to the owner

Purse that I will probably carry everyday starting in April... or when I get utterly sick of winter in March

A Colorful Year

My mom gave me sharpies for Christmas in this...

And then I created these...

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

Friends and Shopping

Today I introduced my friend, Miranda to World Market and she jumped on my tradition of outings to the wonderful store every Thursday. This isn't the first trend I have ever started. Right away I had my jewelry purchase for the week decided upon. Miranda, being the most domestic of all my friends, had to look at all the kitchen and cooking goods. She was so impressed that we then had to loop through the whole store two more times and planned meals to make during J-term! In the very near future I will be enjoying pumpkin gnocchi!

Thursday jewelry purchase

Feeling Green

Last night's attempt to make my every-other-week-World-Market-Jewelry-purchase was not so successful. I dropped a beautiful pair of earrings and the yellow stones popped right out. Maybe it was the universe telling me not to wear yellow...

So since I was so bummed out I didn't buy anything. I instead finished a necklace that I have been progressively working on for weeks. I finally finished putting an entire bag of beads on a super long piece of elastic. The beads are different colors of green, turquoise, white and clear and the name was "Turning Over a New Leaf". That seems appropriate. The strand is unbelievably long but I am going to wear it all looped together.

On a completely different note, I got an A on my Art History test and I am super pumped about it!

On an even different note listen to these songs that I recently found on Pandora!
"Any Road"- George Harrison
"Inside Out"- The Traveling Wilburys

Mondays with Mom

Over the weekend while admiring the horses that reside at the Black Hills Equestrian Center I realized that God might have made a mistake and given me horse hair rather than regular people hair. My mane and the horses' are strikingly similar. I also dubbed a new word to describe my hair- flizzly. It isn't necessarily frizzy but it definitely isn't straight and smooth either. Thus, because of my flizzly hair and ungodly lack of hair product, I am rocking a ballerina bun for about the eighth day this month.

I was feeling majorly moderately depleted today when my mom picked me up for our Monday coffee date. There are a whole lot of stressors which is extra frustrating after having such a wonderful, stressless weekend in Spearfish. My mom has a subtle way of just doing her "Mom" thing and making me get my Sanna-groove back. Today in Coffea, we were doing our traditional Monday activities of drinking coffee, talking about life and love, while I work on homework. Eventually my mom noticed a girl around my age smiling at us. We guessed she probably missed her mom. We are just that adorable together. I came back to Augie feeling slightly more whole with some wounds healed.

I have not yet mentioned the massive actual wound that I acquired grinding flour to make wheat bread with my grandpa- how else? I managed to install insulation and use a staple gun and hammer in nails unscathed, yet when it comes to being domestic, I acquire a big, bad, and downright ugly blister. Seriously, this is a doozy. When I went to get a band-aid from my grandma to repair the palm of my hand she instead had to find cuticle cream for that problem. I still need a band-aid...
Anyways, growing what feels like five layers of skin back is rather painful and I have to wash my massive amount of hair with only one hand. I guess it is all part of building character.

Over the weekend my mom gave my sister and I very distinctly picked-out earrings. Brytten's are very Brytten-like and mine are very Sanna-like. I like having someone who knows me so well especially when it comes to making me feel better - so much so - that I stand up straighter. It takes a lot for me to not stand up straight but when it does happen, my mom is there with an invisible rod behind me to keep me upright. She also picks out B-E-A- uuuuutiful earrings.

More Turquoise Jewelry

My dorm room is a lovely compilation of nearly every vivid color imaginable displayed in furniture, lamps, garlands, glass, frames, and other "Sanna" things. One of the dominant colors in the palette is turquoise which is definitely my favorite color. It is such a happy color.

Yesterday was Payday which means that I take my every-other-week trip to World Market to find a new bauble to add to my jewelry collection. This week's jewelry purchases are both turquoise and mermaid-esque.