my fullest year

It went so fast, didn't it?
Doesn't it feel like just yesterday was your first day?

Um, no.

Not at all.

This was the fullest year of my entire life.

I couldn't recount it all if I tried.
The pictures on my phone
The photos from my first month at school
They are from a lifetime ago.

I see myself in them
But who was I then?
I can't remember.

It's funny how
people that you didn't even know existed
a year ago
have become so embedded in your life
that you can't remember what it was like
to exist without them.

It was over before I knew it,

But that doesn't mean it went by quickly.

Biscuits are not Scones.

Me at my college cafeteria: "Ooo! Look! They have scones today!"

Friend: "Uh, hun? Those are biscuits. Not scones."

Me: "Oh okay please excuse me while I go back to my room and cry for a week bye."

These "biscuit" things are lies.THEY LOOK LIKE SCONES, BUT THEY DEFINITELY ARE NOT SCONES. THEY AREN'T BISCUITS EITHER. "Biscuits" are things you dip in your tea, not pour lumpy gravy on??

The things you learn at college!

There are a lot of great things about Southern California, but the lack of scones is definitely one of the place's downfalls. When I came home one of the first things I baked was a nice batch of proper scones. Since I'm classy, the recipe I used was one I found on snapchat. (I dunno it just happened)

It was a lot of fun, and the recipe was a really good one. (Here's the Recipe)

HOW TO MAKE SCONES IN FOURTEEN EASY, ENJOYABLE STEPS

1. Make sure you have all the ingredients. It's not fun to get all pumped up to make scones and then realize that you don't have any buttermilk to self-rising flour.*

2. Put on a colorful apron that clashes with your outfit (my outfit was my pajamas, so bonus points for me), some fun dancy music, and make yourself a cup of tea to sip on when the baking gets stressful.

3. Wash your hands.

*yes of course that is exactly what happened to me, but I just made my own like a boss. #thanksgoogle

4. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Do not get any flour in your tea.

5. Stir in the sugar, and then (with your fingers! Best part!) rub in the butter.

6. Stop rubbing when the mixture looks like nice, slightly clumpy sand. Don't overdo it unless you have a thing for scones that have the texture of rocks.

7. Pour in most of the "buttermilk" (A.K.A skim milk with lemon juice in it. It works). Save some for brushing over the top later.

8. Stir it up until it looks like this.

9. Gently pat it on a floured surface like this.

10. Find a cookie cutter like this.*

*Or not. Do your own thing. Be creative. You do you, man. 

11. After putting the scones on a floured baking sheet, brush each with some "buttermilk".

12. SPRINKLE WITH SUGAR.

13. Put em in the oven for like 10-15 minutes.

14. Once they cool a bit on a cooling rack, pick the prettiest one, slather it with butter and jam, and enjoy the glorious fact that it is not a gravy-smothered biscuit but is in fact a proper scone.

love,

Hannah

PS Thank you for all the sweet comments on my last post! I loved hearing from some of you lovely people again!

Not Dead.

So you know in BBC's Sherlock (spoiler alert if you haven't seen the show yet), Sherlock fakes his own death and completely disappears for two years. Not even his best friend, John, knows that he's not actually dead. Then, with absolutely no warning, Sherlock Holmes shows up again.

I figure Sherlock was expecting John to cry tears of utter happiness or something when he finally made his dramatic return after two years. I don't think he was expecting a death glare and a punch in the face.

John was MAAAAD.

Guys, I totally pulled a Sherlock on you. I just - disappeared. Without warning. Even though I deserve it, please don't pull a John and brutally attack me.

Surprise!!! Not. Dead.

I thought I was going to be able to blog in college. I really did. I just couldn't.

Writing a blog post takes a lot of time for me. I can't force myself to write a post, and I need to feel energized in order to be in the mood for writing. I realized that in college, time and energy gets spent up really quickly. Not much left over for blogging. Not much at all.

In college, free time isn't free.

Last week, I came home to Ireland for the summer. It's so good to be back here for a whole three and a half months. 

Being home reminded me of blogging. There's the desk in my room where I've spend hours writing blog posts at. There are my bookcases of books that I used to fly through and then rave about. There's my camera that I used every single day, and the kitchen where I created all of my fictional feasts. 

I'm currently writing this post whilst sitting crossed legged in my spinny chair (my feet are falling asleep now tbh) with an empty cup of tea beside me, and it feels so right. Something was missing about being home, and this was it. 

Being at college is so different. Blogging seemed like something I did in the past. It just didn't fit into my life, somehow.

I am still a blogger. It's one of my favorite things in the world. I love the blogging community. I miss you guys a lot. I miss writing for the sheer fun of it (as opposed to pumping out papers on a weekly basis). I miss reading big stacks of books each month and using my camera. 

Maybe blogging doesn't fit into my life at college. But for now, I'm back. And I'm super happy about it. 

If you're still out there, old friends, pretty pretty please leave me a comment and tell me about what I've missed and about the things you've been up to. Let's have a nice catch-up chat. Sound good?

Love,

Your Long Lost Hannah

Currently:                                                                                           

Listening to: Cleopatra by the Lumineers (so yummmm)                

Reading: Winter by Marissa Meyer                                                       

Wishing for: a chocolate chip banana muffin.