Wind - Not Today! And A Playlist Owed

Finally silence! After two days of big winds, there is nothing angry blowing outside today. Of course, this is happening a day too late for my trash and recycling. That's not so good because I'll be picking up recycling that's blown across my property and been caught by the trees and bushes around the creek for weeks to come. My own trash can was blown over three times, but we have things contained in that can. The recycling - not so much. We have mixed recycling in my area, we don't have to separate things into different bags, boxes, receptacles or piles. Also, my recycling tends to be lighter than my trash. After the third time of picking that can up from the ground, I gave up, picked up the blown stuff the best I could, put everything back into the garage, and I'll try again in two weeks. DH even had to sweep glass from broken beer bottles off our drive - and they weren't even ours! Good-bye cruel wind!

The Minnesota State Boys High School Hockey Tournament is big, rowdy,
always sold out, televised, and a place where a lot of professional players
are scouted and signed for colleges and professional teams. The
tournament finals are held at the Xcel Energy Center, on the same
ice as our professional team, the Minnesota Wild, play. Minnesota
is the State of Hockey and we love the sport. 

Now that the wind has left, however, we're back into the deep cold for the remainder of the week. It's going to feel like winter once more. That's OK, it really is early March, and spring doesn't actually come to the Frozen Northlands for another month. It's also State High School Boys Hockey Tournament time - one of two final hurrah times for a final snowstorm. If we don't get one this weekend, the State High School Boys Basketball Tournament is either next week or the week after. That's also often accompanied by snow.

Not my specific trash cans or location, but exactly what happened
to my neighborhood in yesterday's gnarly winds. Everywhere I
looked, the trash cans had been blown over by our 45 mph gusts.
It created a real mess for all of the homeowners who were scheduled
for trash pickup yesterday. 

I didn't get a chance to post any stories yesterday. I worked on one, but I'm going to trash it and go in a completely different direction with the prompt today. I should have story #9 up by the end of today, and hopefully also story #10 since I would like to try and stay ahead of the pack a bit. Breathing space is so important in these scheduled challenges. There are always many ways to go with a prompt - humor, terror, personal thoughts, outside viewpoints, etc. When a story line doesn't work, it's often easier to trash the story line and choose a different one. Prompts can usually be answered in several different ways.

I love my Underwater Audio iPod shuffle. I wear it on my goggles
strap similar to this and listen to it when swimming every day. It
keeps my rhythm going and allows me to zone out on the music and
the physical beat. I use a regular iPod for ground activities, but
my "Guppy" playlist for swimming is my favorite. 

Finally, I had skipped one item in the 365-Day Meme I posted a few days ago - the question about:

         Put your iPod on shuffle and write down the first ten songs that pop up. 

I listen to my underwater iPod every day and needed to recharge, so here's my list of what I listened to while swimming on March 6th. Do you listen to music every day? What type of music do you prefer? I suspect it will be quite different than my list. 

1                    Soldiers/Otherwise

2                    Master of Puppets/Metallica

3                    I Like it Heavy/Halestorm

4                    The Devil's Bleeding Crown/Volbeat

5                    I Don't Care (featuring Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace)/Apocalyptica

6                    Happy (From "Despicable Me 2")/Pharrell Williams

7                    Stronger (Extended Version)/Through Fire

8                    Fake It/Seether

9                    Don't Talk to Strangers/Dio

10                Bottom of a Bottle/Smile Empty Soul

11                Day of the Dead/Hollywood Undead

Have a wonderful Thursday, be productive, and do something kind. Let's keep good things around us to help shield us from all of the bad that's lurking in the shadows.