Progression of Obsession = Cat Leash

Our sunshine, princess, and best friend.

Let me get real, I love animals. A little fanatically as you may already know, but let me just describe a little bit. Going to the zoo is one of my favorite activities (I have been to the Hogle Zoo three times in the past year). Going to the national zoo in D.C. with my family still goes down in history as one of the best days of my life. Another dream is the San Diego Zoo, which will hopefully be visited this summer sometime. My family knows me as a horse fanatic. I have an entire collection of porcelain and glass horses that all have special meaning to me. Up until I was probably 10, if I saw a horse while driving I screamed "HORSIE!!!!" and felt compelled to say horsie for as many horses that were in the field. So, if there were a bunch in a pasture, you better just know that I'm going to annoyingly scream horsie multiple times. We went to Utah about every two years when I was a kid to visit family, but one of the main reasons I would be excited to go was always to see more horses. Tess has taken horseback riding lessons for a few years now and I couldn't be more jealous. She can jump and everything. When I was a senior, I went with her once and got permission to ride with the other students in the arena for a while. I was ecstatic. Another horse freaked out for some reason and caused my horse to bolt into a full-on gallop. I was freaking out, but loving it at the same time. As the horse slowed down, I had completely come out of the stirrups and was barely hanging on. I knew I was going to fall off so I just spread my legs into a beautiful split (ballet dancer perks). I had one foot on the ground and one foot on top of the horse and my body was somewhere in the middle. Tess's teacher started clapping and claimed it was the most graceful fall off of a horse she had ever seen. Still now I occasionally neigh really loudly and Ed loves it. Okay so you get it, I love horses. Well, I also love dogs. Our family dog, Spur, was the best. I remember begging him to talk and telling him that I wouldn't tell anyone if he did, but I just needed to know that he could hear and understand me. I would sing songs to him, tried to teach him how to jump over things (unsuccessful), and video taped Tess shooting her own African safari movies starring Spur as a deadly and dangerous lion (these tapes are hilarious by the way, Tess is like 14, I will definitely be showing it to her husband to ensure full-on embarrassment). When I knew Spur was getting old and maybe should be put down or something, I was too afraid to talk about it with Tess. This one night we were laying on the roof of the house (not allowed, but we got around that) and we were looking at the stars silently. I said, "Tess, do you think Spur is going to die soon?" and we both just started crying and hugging each other. Oh gosh, I love my Spur boy.
And now we have Kona. Ed and I have been married for a year and 8 months today and we have had Kona for 7 months. The first year of marriage was great and fun and wonderful and all that gushy stuff, but it was also hard and new and different and all that difficult stuff. When we got Kona, I swear she made our marriage better. It sounds weird, but it's kinda like a baby, just not as extreme. She's something to laugh about together, take care of together, and love together. We often send each other pictures of her being cute or crazy on our phones during the day and always have a story to tell the other when we see each other at the end of the day. She sleeps in between us at night and we both baby talk to her constantly. We love her sooo much. For some reason, my whole life I kinda thought I wouldn't be a good parent. I'm not the typical mommie driven girl who sees a baby and absolutely has to hold it. In fact, I've always been pretty afraid of babies and avoided holding them. I'm getting better about that, but still, I always felt like I wouldn't be able to be an unconditional loving parent because I really sometimes get annoyed with kids. Okay I'm sounding so heartless, but anyway, loving Kona together has made me feel like Ed and I could love a baby together. It's cool. Now I know that our babies will be so loved and even though it's something that most other people would be like "DUH!", it really is a comforting thought for me and it's all thanks to Kona. I'm not hinting at any baby-making by the way, that's going to be years. Anyway, that's a really long explanation of why we love Kona and why the obsession has progressed to a harness and leash.

right now

stressed about a summer job
really really really love some friends right now (melanie, this is your shout out)
kinda don't like a few friends right now (none read this, don't worry, it's not you)
test this week? why am I just finding this out?
wish I was a supermodel
Kona is in heat again?
loving Parenthood right now
want to go to GA in May
need a haircut
why did I faint the other day? still baffled
miss my sister
someone broke my couch this weekend, but it's fine
is it really almost April? my life is going way too fast, but at the same time, winter couldn't be going any slower here in Utah
okay done. no more thoughts. a summer job would make me happy right now, but over-easy eggs and my purring kitty cat will have to do for now.

Potential

Sometimes I can be contemplative.
I think thoughts that I never say out loud. Not secrets, just personal. It's odd to think that only me knows my thoughts. Even when I'm talking to other people, I can think my own thoughts and they won't even know it. They won't be offended that I'm looking at their lips move as they talk and not listening to the words they are saying. I won't even hurt their feelings if I'm thinking that what they are saying is meaningless to me. Let's be real, sometimes it just is. I'm sure I say a lot of meaningless crap throughout the day. Really though, when I get contemplative, it's usually about the past or the future. Today I was thinking about 5th grade. I was going to marry Joey and he thought he was going to marry me, but neither of us had the guts to tell each other, I lost the spelling bee because I froze and spelled jump: Gump, I had to get my best friend Christie to tell me what was written on the board because I hadn't discovered that I needed glasses yet, and at Christie's birthday party I stood on a table and sang and danced to the entire Britney Spears c.d. as provocatively as a ten year old possibly could. I felt so cool in 5th grade. I had a best friend at school, a best friend at dance, a crush, an awesome teacher, long hair to my butt, and wore huge (and I mean huge) bows in my hair every day. I remember learning about the Clinton/Bush election in Social Studies and mapping sentences in Language Arts. I got my first bra (which I initially hated, but then thought was awesome) and since I got braces two years earlier, I got to be one of the first kids to show off perfectly straight teeth to my class when I came back from the orthodontist the day I got those train tracks off my teeth. The whole class oooed and ahhhed and
I. Was. So. Cool.
It's not that I'm not "cool" anymore, but I just like to remember that feeling. I am cool. Currently, I mean. When I say cool, I don't even know what I mean. Sometimes it's hard for me to think good things about myself, but I still always know I'm cool. There's something about me that I like and I can use descriptive words like funny, motivated, or loving, but really it's kinda that same feeling of when I was in 5th grade. I probably didn't know what cool was then either, but I just knew I was special for some reason. I had no concept of what I would realistically be when I grew up, but I knew I would somehow succeed. I was going to be a professional dancer, duh! And that is success. Even now, I don't know what my life will be like, but I know I will succeed. Somehow, I will be "cool" my whole life because EVERY PERSON IS. I wish everyone knew this. I wish everyone knew that they were children of God and that they have the potential to do more than they can even imagine, and even when they don't use their potential, THEY ARE STILL SPECIAL. I've just been writing what's on my mind without knowing where my thoughts would end up, and now it's like an epiphany that I know where these thoughts are coming from. It comes from the state hospital where I see cuts and pain and young people who I know have tried to commit suicide. It's extreme and disturbing and more than anything it is so sad. I go back in my mind to my thoughts during high school and they were SO self-destructive. If we only knew our potential. If we could just see ourselves as our Heavenly Father does.
Wow, this entire post has been so easy to write and now I'm stuck, I've got nothing to follow that last sentence up. I can't tell you how good it feels to go back to 5th grade in my mind. I'm going to be 21 on Sunday and I want to live this year knowing that I'm cool. I want to recreate my confidence and recreate my attitude. My future is just a long path of more and more potential and I will not waste it.
Those are my contemplative thoughts for today.

Negative Nancy

Welp, I'm grumpy. Today was just one of those days, so blah. So stressful. I began and ended a full on research paper on dissociative identity disorder, hooray. I know everything there is to know about it so if you think you have it (which I'm sure you don't), I'm an expert (not really). I volunteered at the hospital and that went well: played some ping pong, speed, and colored shamrock pictures. Didn't wear green, not on purpose or anything, just didn't feel like it. Watched Les Mis on tv which was amazing, but I was writing the paper during it so I was mostly just annoyed that I couldn't really watch it. Watched BYU basketball dominate and missed my boy Brandon on the court, but luckily they showed him a couple times sitting on the side. It's okay, I'm really into Abouo now anyway. Kona ate glue today that Ed was using on his bike stuff that says "IF INGESTED, PLEASE SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL HELP" (and that's for a human). crap. She's still alive though, so hopefully she stays that way? I just went to the store to buy Gatorade for Ed and Almond Joys for me to eat on the 9 hour ride to Arizona. I still have to shower, blowdry, and straighten my hair and I'm getting up at 5 am. Ugh! You know what I mean? This day is so BLAH! Oh well. To be honest, I'm not very hopeful that this weekend will be so great either (I know I sound depressing, but sometimes I just am). Long story short, Ed has a race on Saturday in Arizona it's like the Regional Collegiate thing that leads to Nationals so it's a big deal to him and I want to see him race, BUT we have to travel in 12 person vans with the BYU trialthon club. It's just annoying because 1. they are tools and all they will talk about is triathlon which I have heard enough of, 2. we have to stick to their schedule, all 38 of them, 3. instead of leaving after the race we aren't leaving until after church on Sunday so we won't be back until late Sunday night and I have another paper due Monday that I haven't started. I'm done listing reasons, there are more, but I don't feel like it.

On a lighter note:
I milked a cow
Tess got into BYU
My birthday is really soon
My friend told me yesterday that I would be perfect on a season of the real housewives. It could be taken as a compliment or a major dis, but I'm taking it as the former because Ed and I LOVE the real housewives and no matter how dumb and petty they are, they are all divas.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day

I'm off to wallow. Goodnight.