I fancy myself a carpenter!

I'm too excited to not post again tonight.

It's official.

I BUILT MY BOOK SHELF!

It only took two hours, but I am now the proud owner of a black, oak finished, book shelf.
It's beautiful. Wonderful. Perfect.
It fits exactly between my window and my desk. Right where I wanted to put it.
It has 3 shelves, just like I wanted.
It matches my comforter.
It's beautiful. Did I already say that?!
And I can put my plant (that is only now slightly frozen) on top of it.

Side story:

I brought a plant back to school from my home. I have had this plant since my freshman year of high school. I'm now a junior in college. I'm slightly attached to it. I get attached to everything. Don't judge. Any way. I specifically warmed my car up for this plant. My mom rushed it from our house to my car. It was on the floor of my back seat so I turned the warm air on to feet warming. I took the best care of it that I could all through transport. The instant I got back here, I grabbed my plant and rushed upstairs. After all, I didn't want it sitting out in the cold while I carried up useless things like my suit case... Turns out the 2 minute walk from the parking lot to my building was cold enough to freeze all but two of the plants leaves. And this plant had lots of leaves. First they turned brown. Then they started to shrivel. Now they are crunchy and black. The stems are all fine though. And the two surviving leaves are green and shiny. I read on the internet that the plant likes humidity. So since Sunday, when I do shower, I shower with my plant. It sits on the bathroom floor, soaks up the humidity, and hopefully feels better. I feel so bad I froze it. But really, what was I supposed to do? I just hope it bounces back.

My notebooks and textbooks and reading books all fit.
Wonderful!
and I made it myself! No boys. Woot!
My soup turned out well too. And I have four little tupperwares full of it for leftover meals.
Still haven't unpacked. But I haven't showered in a few days either and I think that takes priority.
Oh! And I finished another season of House. On to season three. Then shower. Unpack tomorrow....maybe...
:)

--Brynn

winter wonderlandish

It's blizzarding here.
So stinking cold.
I was actually enjoying the snow before it started falling again. It glittered in the light.
Now there is so much of it that it's practically impossible to navigate the streets, the sidewalks. The piles take over parking spots. They overflow into the outer lanes of traffic. They are a mess and they cause lots of problems. Being pretty isn't enough to make me like them.
I decided to go to work today against my better judgment.
It wasn't that bad when I left. Light, fluffy flakes floating down. They didn't really stick to anything. The streets weren't icy. It was easy to drive. Safe. Or at least I felt safe. I could manage my little car. I got to work just fine. Didn't even slide around that much walking to the building in my high heels.
On the way out however....eh!
It was so slick I almost fell and on my butt a ton of times. The wind made it super cold and snow was blowing in my face as I tried to scrape my car. It took me 30+ minutes to drive my usual less than 20 minutes route home. Didn't help that I had to make a side-trip.
I decided to make myself soup for dinner (a goal of mine is to actually cook myself meals and not eat out all the time). Last night I bought all the ingredients for baked potato soup, minus green onions. An essential part that I forgot! So typical. Because of this I had to go to Wal-Mart after work. For the second night in a row. Booooo!
I not only bought green onions, but also oranges (only 40 cents each!), blue Powerade, and a BOOK SHELF!
Tonight it is my duty to construct this book shelf, it's black!, and unpack.
Yes I have been back in Lincoln for 3 days now and no I have not unpacked. I hate it. So much. Unpacking means vacations are over and who wants that? Not me. I've decided to live out of my suitcase until I run out of excuses not to. It may end up taking me awhile to build my book shelf...
Did I mention the thing weighs 35 lbs.? YIKES! I carried it through the snow and wind and up the stairs. So ridiculous. It's times like these that I wish I had a boy friend.
I'll let you know how it all (soup, book shelf, storm) turns out!

--Brynn

back to the grind stone

I gave up the internet (almost completely) for the two weeks while I was home over Christmas.
Now I'm back at my apartment, watching Dawson's Creek, debating about when to shower, hating that I have to go to work tomorrow, hating more that working means I am going to have to shower on a regular basis. I've grown used to slightly greasy hair. I like it. It's homey. So is wearing sweats all day and eating breakfast at 11 followed by lunch at 2 and dinner at 8. Not sleeping until 2 a.m. waking up at 10:30. Lovely.
Tonight I am actually tired. It's shocking really. And I'm waiting for a friend to call me. I haven't talked to her for a couple days and she's having boy drama so it's imperative I stay awake.
Emotionally exhausted might be more accurate than saying I'm tired.
I already miss my sisters. It's always hard leaving my family, but today especially sucked. This is probably because I spent my entire break at my house. I went out one night. It was completely lame. I discovered I like sitting on my couch. I like letting my dog (illegally) sit on the couch next to me. I like harassing my sister's about the boys in their lives. I LOVE being lazy. And dirty. Good news, I was sick over break so I couldn't smell myself. Showering takes too much energy. My sisters are finally old enough to be my friends. Each day I would hang out with a different sister. Doing different things. Video games. Stalking. Watching movies. So much fun. So relaxing. Healthy. Helping me regain my life. And spirit.
I became addicted to crime shows. Mainly Criminal Minds (when that wasn't on I settled for NCIS or CSI, but I really did not like them as much). I am fascinated by serial killers and profiling. I love it. Death doesn't freak me out. My over active imagination didn't even get to me. Instead of dreaming about getting hurt, I dreamed I was a crime fighter. A bad ass with a gun (not that I would ever know how to shoot a gun, but in my dreams, I rocked!). I kicked some bad guy butt. Was smart enough to outwit killers and tough enough to take them down. Loving it. Perhaps I'll join the FBI after college. Good plan? I vote yes. Sounds better than more school or working in a dead end job.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying the New Year.
I guess I didn't mention Christmas because nothing remarkable happened. I had a perfectly normal, relaxed, family sitting around the tree opening presents Christmas. This is unusual for us because normally we skip presents and go on vacation. I can't remember the last time I stayed home for a holiday and spent time with my family. It was lovely. Which isn't normally something I associate with lots of family time. Good surprise. :)

--Brynn

can't breathe, can't sleep, can't eat

It's finals week and I am super sick.
I swear it's my luck that every year around this time I will be ill.
It all started on Friday night. I slept for 14 hours and when I woke up on Saturday morning I couldn't speak. I also felt extremely weak, Christmas shopping for 4 hours that day did me in. Sunday I woke up at 10 and laid in bed until 1ish. I was too lazy and exhausted to move. I did homework and things, but rarely did anything that involved standing up. I also couldn't really eat. Today I about passed out when I was putting my contacts in. I blacked out, grabbed our bathroom counter, and went back to my bed to lay down. I had to curl my hair while sitting on a bar stool from our kitchen. After my final today I went to our Student Health center and was given a Zip-Loc bag of drugs. Which I took this afternoon, but haven't touched since.
I'm starting to feel sick again but I am in our living room on the couch and am too lazy to move. I have a fever and I can feel it sneaking back over me. You know when you sweat just from sitting and then you get the chills because of it? This is the type of sick I am. Holding up my own head is daunting. My entire body also feels like I was hit by truck and left in the middle of the street. And it's finals week. I have a paper to write for Wednesday and a test to take tomorrow.
To top it all off, I have to work this week. I took the next two weeks off so I could go home for at least a portion of my break. This means that I really cannot call in sick and have to pretend that I am feeling decent while I am there even though I am miserable.
All this sickness came about with the snow. Therefore, I blame it. I want it to melt. I want to wear tank tops. I want to lay out and be tan. Booo!
--Brynn

I can't open my e-mail EITHER

F you Midwest Private College. F you.
After successfully completing a huge research paper on the Arthurian court, as well as a paper on Marriage-a-la-Mode, I e-mailed them to myself. "Kendall," I said to myself, "You are rockin for getting these papers done, yes, rockin. E-mail them to yourself, print them off over your lunch break."
F you Midwest Private College. F you.
Driving home to get my flashdrive in a bit? Unfortunately, yes.
Brynn-I feel your pain. Let's go to dinner tonight, yes?
I'll write more later, but for now . . . I'm saying to myself, "Fail, Kendall . . . you fail."

FAIL!
Kendall on the Dark Side

One Misfortune After the Other

I am having the worst night ever.
The badness started around 1 p.m. when I had to shovel my car out of 2 feet of snow so that I could go to work (a place I have been forgetting to miss during my past two snow days).
It continued when I got to work, did the things no one else wants to do, such as searching through 15,000 names trying to manually find matches that the computer missed because of spelling mistakes. This is just as fun as it sounds.
I then decided to be nice (bummer) and drive to pick dinner up for my room mate and I. It took me 20 minutes to get to Noodles & Co. from work. A drive that takes at most, if I hit every single red light, 10 minutes. It took me just as long to get from Noodles to the intersection where I work. 40 minutes of time wasted when I could have already been home. This was mistake number one.
It took me over an hour to get back to campus and when I got here I realized we have been banished from our largest parking lot. The grounds crew begged that we all stay out of the lot until after midnight tonight so that they could, please, oh please, clear away some of the snow so we could all safely drive/park.
I parked on the street, way too far away, and walked in heels over ice. Scary.
While eating, I decided I needed a break. My room mate and I popped in an episode of One Tree Hill (40ish minutes). Mistake number two: I watched the whole thing.
By this point it was 7:35 ish and I had a meeting to have my Spanish paper examined at 8. Seems okay right? Wrong. Half of my Spanish paper was written in English. I get lazy sometimes...Ooops. This ended up turning out fine, thanks to my new hero who can be found in my school's library. He is the nicest guy ever and puts up with my constant crap and moaning about Spanish. After he looked at my paper the first time I rushed down to the computer lab to translate the rest of it. I finished this 15 minutes before the editing place closed and the guy read over it too. (He's my hero, for real) Rather than save this to my flash drive however, I emailed it to myself thinking it would be just as easy and quicker. This will become mistake number three.
Back in my room, I allowed myself to be distracted way too often. By Facebook, by my room mates, by this blog. Eh. I started talking to a boy I meant to ignore until the end of time. We discussed things I have been trying to repress for about a month. Mistake number four.
While we were having this discussion I discovered....

I CAN'T LOG ONTO MY EMAIL.

What the hell am I supposed to do? Retype my Spanish paper which is due at 1 p.m. tomorrow? Go to sleep and say the hell with it? Cry? Sit in shock? I'm really at a loss. I finished all my other homework. Today, clearly was not my day. But I'm not feeling too bad about it. I think this is just because after tomorrow it will all be over. My finals week isn't that great, I love taking 18 credit hours!, but it won't be as bad as dead week has been. How ironic.

--Brynn

Explanation

My current state:
Sitting on my bed. Sideways. My back is against the wall and my feet are hanging over the side. I have papers scattered all around me and I'm trying to create an argumentative Spanish paper that is due on Friday. My trusty LifeSavers Gummies Sours are by my side (even though I have eaten almost all of them). I'm wondering how much longer it's going to be before they are gone and I have to move on to the Sour Patch Kids I have hiding in the kitchen.
Do you care about school lunches? If they are healthy or not? How much they cost? Did you know a large majority of schools do not serve lunches that meet health standards set by the USDA (the part of the US government that funds the lunch program)? Did you also know that the USDA does nothing about this because they don't want to fit the bill of feeding America's children fresh fruits and veggies? I did. And my Spanish teacher is about to.
I spent the entire weekend and the better part of this week in our living room with my papers all over our coffee table and my computer sitting on the couch. This allowed me to watch Grey's Anatomy (an entire season's worth) while writing a different paper and studying for a test. Brilliant, I know. It also let me watch the snow fall...and fall...and fall.
Currently there is over a foot of snow outside. It snowed all day yesterday up until about 2 a.m. I know this because I was awake and finishing my paper when the snow finally stopped. I built a snowman in it and it was great fun. I also haven't had to work in the past two days or go anywhere really. Not that I could if I wanted to, considering there is snow piled up to the license plate on the back of my car. I'm probably going to have to work tomorrow, which means I need to find me a shovel... :) That's going to be a great story.
I guess I'm writing this because I feel trapped due to the snow.
I also feel that I should explain that I am not a slutty person.
I do not kiss many boys.
I don't get attached to many boys.
I don't trust them and I don't feel the need to use them for random make-out sessions.
I want a relationship, but I don't want to look for one.
I expect all things to come to me.
Crazy, right?
The point is, this weekend was a strange twist for me. Which is perhaps why I feel dirtier about it than I should. And being trapped with my thoughts, and my homework, isn't really making me feel better.
Good news is, I don't regret what happened. I just know better for future endeavors.
--Brynn