Every Other Year It's Been Different

I don't really know how I feel about being back. 
I can't say I'm thrilled... yet I can't say I hate it either. 
Weird. 

I honestly feel like my 'care-o-meter' this year is at around a 3 1/2 or maybe a 4. Every other year it was at least at an 8 1/2 or higher on a scale of 10. It really isn't too exciting anymore to come back to school. Freshman year it was exciting because it was my first year of college and I didn't know a soul, didn't know what to expect, and everyday was something I've never done before. Sophomore year was exciting because I was living in an apartment for the first time and had unforgettable memories. Junior year is here and I just feel like what I felt in high school. Going back to the same 'ol school, same 'ol people (now that I know a lot more souls), same 'ol dances and so on.... the excitement has dwindled. That and I miss home. 

How is it that I can never be completely satisfied with where I am? 

Nervous... but excited!

I can't believe summer is almost over. I feel like the beginning, from like May until the end of June, went by so slow. But, as soon as July hit it's been zooming by!

August is like the Sunday of summer.

I'm nervous for this upcoming semester and I have no idea why! Then again I always get the nerves right before a new school year.

I added a new class to my schedule. Voice lessons. Needless to say, it's been a while. Probably around 4 and a half years since I was in choir in high school! Ah! Wish me luck.

Just working on these vocals... 'cause lord knows they need some help. & Looking at my options I guess.

I like to record tid bits when I'm bored.

Happy Birthday Breanne!

Today one of my best friend's turns 20! I just thought I'd do something that a lot of bloggers do at least once for their friends and write a blog post dedicated to them!

I met Bre during my freshman year of college. She was my next door neighbor in the dorms. I remember the first night I stayed in the dorms I invited her to come watch The Notebook with Betsy and I. She told me she'd love to watch it and be over soon, but then never showed up! (I like to tease her about that all the time now). We probably didn't really even start talking until a few weeks later when I joined a group of people from the 3rd floor (the floor I lived on) on a night walk. I wanted to walk over by this place where a former crush lived so we all headed that way(we ended up just walking around Old Main) and I invented 'The Creeper Dance'. Bre was one of the people that really got into it and thought it was awesome! That night I dubbed her 'black' and since then we were pretty good friends!

We decided to become roommates for sophomore year when I was having issues deciding whether to live in a house with 20ish girls or go on my own.  She told me that she would be more than willing to be my roommate at Old Farm apartments if I decided I didn't want to go with the house decision. I decided I didn't and not too long after Bre and I decided we wanted to live at PineView with Amy!

 & Let me tell you... Being Bre's roommate has been the best! Bre is probably the one out of the very few that I genuinely feel like I can tell her anything! She is probably one of the best listeners I've ever met. She's also one of the few that I can be myself around in Utah. We love goofing off and joking around all the time. We're those friends that have a bird call for each other when we see each other at a distance on campus. It's the best. She has been there through my happiest college days and my most horrible. If I ever need to vent, I usually call up Bre. If I ever want to have a freaking hilarious text convo, she's the first person that comes to mind. As a matter of fact, here's a glimpse of some of our text convos:
Me: Holy crap.... I just watched the last ten minutes of the NBA finals by myself. Never thought you'd hear me say that huh?
Bre: What?! No I did not! Did hell freeze over?? ;)
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Me: Oh by the way.... It's freakin snowing. Did I know before I left? No.
Bre: Hahahaha you catch that bus before your hur gets all messed up.. Now go on!
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Bre: Yeah... Watching house of payne
Me: Awh yeah!! Shoot I wanna watch... Wish we had tv channels!
Bre: No kidding. HA jealous? Jk
Me: Haha YES.
Me: Oh btw way to tell me you went home!
Me: Oh wait.... you didn't!
Bre: Uh yeah dawg you were gone... Hace frio partner
Me: Ahhhhh! Macarena!
Bre: Dos coca colas por favor! Make that cuatro for my black amiga haha
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Me: At the rivaaa where black folk gather after Sunday service is through!! At the rivaaa which leads to the ocean... I'll be running my way back to youuuuu! There ya go ;)
Bre: Yeah that's it! Thanks you saved my sanity :)

Okay, granted, some of those texts are semi inside jokes. But they make me smile every time I read them!

Bre has become one of my best friend's in the past two years! I feel bad for anyone else that doesn't know her like I do... 'cause you're seriously missing out!

Happy Birthday Bre!! Lessss get it!

Pepper.

If we're friends, you have more than likely heard me talk about/met my dog Pepper. You would also know that usually the first thing I would tell people, to describe him, is that he's blind and wears a diaper. He wasn't always that way though. He has diabetes. Now, for a normal dog that has diabetes, they wouldn't live for longer than a year with it, once diagnosed. But the thing is, my dog is the exception to the rule. He wasn't a normal dog to begin with so he lived for a lot longer than the norm. But today was the day it was decided that it was time to let go.

A lot of people told me, that when a dog really loves you... they keep holding on to that little string of life. They aren't ready to let go until you are. Pepper held on for two years longer than a normal dog with diabetes. Today was the day though....that we had to let him go.

I'm glad I came home to spend time with Pepper before he past. I've had him since I was in the 4th grade. I remember the day we brought him home was so awkward. He would just look at Meredith and I like "Who are these people". I remember I started playing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' on my violin and he started howling to it while I played. The whole fam thought it was the cutest thing in the world. I remember when we got one of the old christmas music boxes from the basement, that was in storage, and played it for him so he could fall asleep. I remember I started calling him 'BaeBaeBee' and 'Baby' instead of Pepper. I remember my mom bringing him into my elementary school to show the librarians (she used to volunteer there when I went there) and they thought he was just the cutest puppy. I remember once I sat in my room with a 'Childrens Hymn' book and sang all the songs I knew in it and Pepper fell asleep on my bed to my singing. I remember how I would snuggle with him in my bed, even though he never really was the snuggling type (he'd always want to jump out after a few minutes of snuggling)I remember his favorite toy was this duck and when you squeezed it, it would quack. We had two of the same toy (originally it was an easter gift for Meredith and I) but we gave one to Pepper and he loved it. When it got really old and yucky though, we had to throw it out. We begged mom to let Pepper have the other duck, but for some reason she wouldn't let him have it. In the mean time Mer and I would quack the same quacking noise the toy would make to get him excited. It wasn't until he started to go blind that I found the second, untouched, un-slobbered on, toy hidden in mom's closet and gave it to him. When it quacked he knew exactly what it was.

I remember all those times he would bark and everything and everyone outside when I walked him. I remember, once, when mom wasn't home, my sister and I started howling until he would howl with us (we took advantage of this moment because lord knows mom would have told us to shut up if she were home). I remember whenever a firetruck drove by he would howl along with it. I remember how he would always stare at out the front window and there was always a nose mark from where he was. When we had our old car Willy, he could hear it from the house and was there at the front door when we got home. I remember how he was pretty much our alarm system. He would bark when someone he didn't know was around & when the doorbell rang.

I remember how every time I had friends over, he would want their attention more than anything. So he would always be howling in the background of random videos I made with my friends in high school. I never had a friend that met him say anything bad about him though (believe me, I have friends that would tell me my dog is insane if he was).

I remember how in high school I used him so much for photography because he had such a great profile.

I remember how he wasn't what I would call the most obedient dog (especially most recently)... but I loved him unconditionally none the less.

I remember one Christmas, how he fell in love with our Christmas doormate. We kept it out for the rest of the year and on because he loved laying on it so much

I remember how during my senior year of high school, when I let him outside in the backyard, he started drinking the water from the rain off the porch. That's when we found out he had diabetes. Turns out, most all Schnauzers get diabetes.  I remember the first time we noticed he was loosing eye sight, when we threw a piece of food on the ground and he was looking all over for it, but couldn't find it. He had even stepped right over it. I remember how every time I came home from school was was getting more blind, more skinny, and slower.  I could go on forever with memories too... but I think I'll stop there.

It was hard to see how my peppy pup was now not so peppy this summer... It's even hard not to see him in the house at all. All day, he's all I could think about. It was hard to walk downstairs and not hear his clicking paws on the kitchen floor. It was hard seeing the place where his crate used to be, no longer there. It was hard seeing all his toys but not him. When I went downstairs to grab something from the back room and I was expecting to see Pepper jump up from me turning on the lights... but he wasn't there.

My heart hurts. I loved and will forever love this dog of mine. He probably won't be my last dog, but he'll always have a special place in my heart as my first dog.
I love you BaeBaeBee.
Rest in Peace. September 15, 2001-August 1,2012