Hannahlee Allers

It was snowing as I got in my car last night. I was on my way to mom and dad’s to ring in the new year. Ten minutes earlier, I’d been dressed up, make-uped and hair done, ready to go downtown and celebrate with friends. But I changed my mind at the last minute because the last year has been a distinct mixture of shit and of growth and I was feeling slightly lonely and very reflective.

There’s something about snow on New Year’s Eve that feels more romantic than on any other night. On a night like that, you can’t just go down to the bar and pay a $10 cover charge to drink with people you barely know. A night like that calls for hot cocoa and dad snoring in his chair to the sounds of Gonzaga beating Oklahoma, and two of the greatest dogs wrestling on the carpet.

So, that’s how the night started. And then I started making the ‘list.’ There’s a lot that I wanted to do this year that I didn’t, or couldn’t, get done. This year, it’s not so much about resolutions as it is about goals. Maybe there’s no difference. I don’t know. Anyhow, here goes.

This year I will:

• Sew an item every week
• Visit at least one new state (Maine?!?)
• See “Wicked” on the big stage
• Freelance three travel pieces
• Climb – and summit – Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier
• Buy a whitewater kayak
• Pay off my car and credit cards
• Make at least one trip to a new country
• Have a photo published
• Replace 1/2 of my driving with alternate transportation
• Become an active member of the Shrinking Violets Society
• Join the local mountaineering club
• Finish all three disks of Rosetta Stone Spanish
• Complete the 100 Pushups program

Happy 2010, friends.

Cheers.

By now this poem has probably made a full round about the blogosphere, but I simply feel like it’s applicable at this point in my life. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before, but sometimes old words strike a new chord. And I’m not afraid to jump on the bandwagon. So, here goes.

“Invictus”

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

Blogging, blogging, blogging. This particular blog was supposed to be written approximately two months ago. Obviously, this is a problem. It’s not so much a problem of laziness or putting it off as it is an issue of not really knowing what to say. I never feel like I really know what to say, really. So, maybe that means that a blog about the end of a road trip comes waaaayyy too long after the fact, but I guess that’s okay. At least I hope it is.

Although now, two months later, I don’t really have anything too say about said end of road trip. Let’s just say that I fell so hopelessly in love with Northwestern Montana, that I gave myself six months until I moved there permanently. FOREVER. Now it looks as though it may be a bit more than six months, but I still have my sights aimed at huckleberry pancakes in the morning and lazy evenings on the Flathead…

A special shout out goes to @kttape (for saving my knees on the High Line Trail), Hutchling 1 & Hutchling 2 (for being oh-so-darn-cute) and @outsideshane & @outsidehilary (for, well, everything).