BUNNNNNNYYYYY!!!

As I was walking Glock today I thought, you know, walking a puppy is a lot like going on a walk with an inquisitive 4 or 5 year old kid. "What's that?" "What's making that noise?" "What does this smell like?" "What's that spot on the road?" "What about that spot?" "Ohh, what about THAT one?" "BUNNY!" "LIZARD!" "BUNNNNNYYY!!" Half the time the puppy is trailing behind you, slowlllly walking, examining everything. You are creeping along trying to encourage him to go faster, walk beside you like he is supposed to. After all, you don't want it to look like you are dragging this poor puppy down the road. The other half of the time he is either right beside you (YAY!) or is charging off after something. "BUNNY!" "LIZARD!" Your arm is getting ripped out of it's socket by a 5 month 50+ pound German Shepherd puppy, oh wait yours isn't? You don't have a German Shepherd puppy? I pity you. :) Even with your arm leaving its socket and you loving and hating this phase, sometimes wanting that mature well trained dog that he will eventually grow into, you can't help put smile as he looks up into your face, smiles his puppy smile and licks at your hand. Love my monster puppy.

The wild mustang escape

So Thursday afternoon I picked up a few bales of hay, planning on unloading them later in the evening. Well that didn't happen. So Friday morning I had to unload them as I needed to feed my horses!! To unload the bales you have to go down to the road, up to the gate, up through the pasture and to the barn. So I drove to the gate and the horses were standing relatively close to it. Now they have been right there several times before when I have brought hay up, and they have always just followed the truck hoping to snag a mouthful of hay. Well as I walked up to the gate I had this thought, "Maybe I should go get Drew or Dad to come down and help me." Nah, it will be fine. Well as I was driving through Geronimo would decide that it would be fun to slip out the gate... The first thing through my head was I better hurry and get those gates shut, because I will be SOL if Lucy gets out! Then "crap, crap, crap"... or something along those lines *ahem* came out of my mouth. There was my 2.5 year old skittery mustang out on the road!

When it comes to my animals I am a worst case scenario person. I just KNEW a truck was going to come along and hit him, or something equally as dreadful. Of course he is prancing around, snorting and blowing and just looking beautiful. So I walk over to him and grab his halter and make it to the gate. Well Lucy is standing there and I couldn't get the gate open, hold onto him AND keep her out of the way. So as Geronimo walks away from me I climb through the fence and jump in my truck. I tear through the pasture to the other gate by the house and run into the barn to grab his lead rope... it wasn't there! "Where the heck is it?!!!" Or something very similar to that... I then realize it must be in my room with my saddle. Yes my saddle sits in my bedroom, sue me. So I run inside and yell to Drew, "I really need your help!" As I run to my room Elizabeth and Enya are freaking out yelling, "He's running away!" Just shut up you guys!!

I grab the lead rope and run back out. I jump back in my truck and tear back down through the pasture looking around to see where Geronimo had gone. He see him in our neighbors empty gateless pasture. Drew was standing guard at the gate. So I walk over there with lead rope and a chunk of hay in my hand. Drew calls out, "Well at least he fenced himself back in!" I walk about 15 feet away from Geronimo and ask him "What are you doing you dork?" He looks at me and comes trotting over, snorting and blowing and stops about 6 inches in front of me. He grabs the hay and I grab his halter clipping the lead rope on. *Sigh*. We head back over to our house and Dad comes out and yells at me to grab onto his lead rope tighter, surely the horse was going to bolt and get away. He hands me some gloves to put on. I do and then take them off. Geronimo does NOT like leather gloves. It makes me wonder if the lady who owned him for a bit didn't smack him with gloves. Or maybe it was the guys at the BLM who always wore gloves that scared him. Who knows, but I stick them in my pocket and he moves over to the other side away from the gloves. Now when it comes to me he doesn't hardly ever bolt or spook that much. He was a little skittery walking back, but nothing bad. So we get to the gate and I take him in. Dad had already headed up to the barn to chase Lucy up there and to wait to unload the hay. As I let Geronimo off his lead he takes off and starts running up to the barn. As I drive closer I can see Dad smiling as he watches him. I back up through the gate to the barn and get out. I look at Dad and say, "You gotta admit he sure is pretty when he runs!"

Later, after quickly getting dressed (and forgetting to brush my teeth) I head upstairs to leave. Janice tells me that when I was getting his lead rope Geronimo had taken off across the meadow on the other side of the road. She said he was just running and then stopped about half way across and kinda looked around. She said it was like he thought, you know this is really too far away from home, I better get a bit closer back. So he turned around and wound up in the neighbor's pasture. I love my dorky horse. Even if he is a bit of a trouble maker. That's how Amadeus was too. That's how I like my boys! Sweet, but a bit odd and a little bit of a trouble maker.

Stereotypes?

So I have just had this topic on my brain lately. It is one that comes and goes and when it comes it really aggravates me. I like to think that I do not fit into any one kind of group. I never have. However, I have had people try and neatly shove me into a group and call me things. I have been called a cowboy, a valley girl, etc. Now if you know me you will know that yes I actually do have some "cowboyish" tendencies. I love my truck, I love my horse, and country music is my fall back favorite. However, that being said I HATE being considered a cowboy. As quick as you call me that I will turn around and want to put on one of my many many pairs of heels, and get all pretty. And if I may so myself I look pretty good in a pair of heels. Or I may want to put on my imitation converse, a pair of slacks and a t-shirt. Or maybe I will put on one of my outfits that has gotten me called a valley girl. In addition to all of this I have been asked by many people at work if I was a cheerleader in high school. I am never quite sure what to say to this.. Ha um no, sorry I was about 60 pounds heavier in high school, NO I was not a cheerleader.

I may have some characteristics of different stereotypes, but I HATE HATE HATE being considered any one of these things. I think that there are people out there that do fit into some of these stereotypes, but I am not one of them. Some may say that this is because I am unsure of who I am. And that may have been true a few years ago, but now it is really just because I have a wide variety of interests. I like being a bit eclectic and surprising people. There is something really fun about wearing a skirt and heels to work, and then getting out of your dirty truck with hay in the back wearing said skirt and heels. Then later being in the same truck in an old pair of jeans and tennis shoes. Why would I have to fit into any one group?

Puppies and Horses

So I have had Geronimo for about 6 1/2 months now. He is 2 1/2 years old and the dorkiest horse I have met. He has such a funny and mellow personality most of the time, but is also the herd leader so he has to be the first one to look out for danger. This means that he is usually the first one to leave the barn if he thinks something might hurt them. While he is a bit jumpy, he is only mildly so. He doesn't have a major freak-out, and it is always easy to handle him. Yesterday Dad and I went out to work with the horses (on an extremely windy Taylor day) and poor Geronimo got traumatized. :) Dad was going to work with Lucy and in the end Geronimo got a bit spooked, which involved him bolting a bit. Even with his little bolt he was super easy to handle and just made me fall in love with him a little bit more. So while we were out in the wind Dad asked if I wanted to thrown the saddle on him, so after I bit I decided sure why not. So he went in and got my saddle and we put it on him. I don't know if it was Dad, the wind, or the combination of both but he was a bit more difficult than usual to put it on him. Then Dad goes, "Get up on him." Ha, in the wind and after you have him all sorts of traumatized? ... Okay. :) So I went inside and put on my boots, just in case he wound up on my toes while I was getting on him. So I came back out and did a little test mount. Totally fine, just a little tense on his part. So then I get up on him. A little bit of a startled step forward, but Dad had him and he was fine. :) So I rode him around for maybe 10-15 minutes. He was a little jumpy, but nothing bad. For the first time being on him ever, and as far as I know I am the first person to ever get on him, he was great. Dad told him he better get used to it, because it was going to be happening a lot more in the future. He was pouting a bit, his lower lip was sticking out and Dad was making fun of him, but he did great. I just love my dorky horse. Dad took a couple of pictures with his phone, but since we just had the halter on Geronmio, he had the lead rope so couldn't take great pictures. So yes that is me on my horse, even if you can't see my face!

 So, I never posted about this, just because first I didn't want to talk about it, and then I just haven't posted in forever. Back in October my 7 almost 8 year old Amadeus died. I have lost dogs before, but this time was the hardest. I had had him the longest and had the strongest bond with him. Usually it is about 6 months before I get a new puppy. Well after just a couple of months I realized I needed a new puppy, the hole he had left was a lot bigger than usual and I needed something to fill it up. I knew I wanted another German Shepherd so I started looking. I checked the classified ads and looked at breeders websites. I found two breeders that were in the valley that I emailed. One offered me a purebred puppy for about 1/3 the usual price. One of her females had gotten to two of the males and had one sable male puppy (which is what I decided I was going to get). After looking at the possible fathers and the mom online, I just didn't feel good about him. The other breeder had a litter to be born in about a week. I had been looking at her website several times since about December and decided to tell her I wanted to reserve a puppy. She told me that I was the fourth person to reserve a male, and she wasn't sure how many males the female would have as she usually had more female puppies than male puppies. Well on the 26th of January she emailed me and said that the mom had had 14 puppies, 9 males and 5 females!! I had my puppy. :) So the first weekend of April I will get to go pick up Glock and bring him home. I had to come up with a "G" name as this is the G litter.

Happiness

So it has taken me a long time to realize this, I have slowly developed this understanding over the past 2 years, but happiness is not a place, it is a state of mind. It is something you decide to be. Sure there are elements that may help you be happy, but in the end it is a personal choice. You just have to decide that whatever the circumstances you are in, you are just going to try your best to be happy. Obviously there are times and situations where you have to remove yourself and change things to be happy, but that is part of life. Ultimately, happiness comes from within yourself, not from the things around you. As a Latter-Day Saint I have always been brought up knowing that you can't find happiness in drinking, partying, sleeping around, or anything like that.

Why do I bring this up? Well I have had friends in the past and friends now that seem to forget this. People who have been raised in the church like I am, but through various circumstances and reasons are looking for happiness in other places. I have had "tipsy texts" or drunk calls from friends who I dearly love and care about. They are some of the people that I care most about and truly want them to be happy. They are people that I know are truly amazing people who can do incredible things with their lives. For different reasons they become unhappy with their life and think that they will find happiness by "going off the deep end" and/or going inactive. It has been awhile since I have had a really close friend do this and I had almost forgotten how hard it can be knowing that they are not going to find true happiness in the course they are taking. It is hard letting them know that I care about them and will never judge them on their choices, but knowing that ultimately they are not going to be happy in their current direction. I can honestly say that I do not judge these friends, I know from my own life that things happen that make you feel like you aren't going to be happy in your situation and that something has to change. When you feel like you have tried everything else, I can understand why they would feel the need to change the way they do. It is not our place here to judge others for the things they do, but rather to let them know that we care about them and want them to be happy, even if we do not agree with the choices they are making. And hope that eventually they really will find the happiness that they are looking for and deserve to find.

Long Time No Post!

Alright, where to begin! So last I posted I was still working at the high school. (Oh how I miss that.) Right before Veterans Day my dad informed me that I was being moved to the elementary school. After a horrible day, yeah he told me first thing in the MORNING, I went to the valley and the next Monday started at the elementary school. During that last day at the high school I spent the whole day either sobbing or trying not to cry. Poor Joey worked in on me crying in the office. Pathetic.

So the first day at the elementary school I was in the 1/2 class doing Math Lab. Most boring day of my LIFE! Next day I was moved up to the 3/4 class. Hey guess what you guys, they really did not need me up there! Another boring few days. Oh guess what the 5/6 teacher quit, so you are filling in until a new teacher is found. Yep I was a fill in teacher for a few days. It was actually pretty fun. Then I was moved to the Kindergarten to be a personal aide for a new... girl... *monster child*. After about two months of that and telling the bosses *AKA my dad and step-mom* that I was not cut out for this position I had a lovely break down and convinced my poor dad that it was not working. So now I am in the 2/3 class and my dear cousin Drew has taken over the girl. It isn't as exciting as the high school, but it is much better than Kindergarten. I have now, this year, been in every class but the 4/5 classroom.

Alright that gets us to the present day work wise. (Well down and dirty fast anyways!)

ACK!!

So I am sure most of us have been in a class and thought "why the heck do I have to know this??" I know I have been, but dealt with it and moved on. You realize, especially in high school, that you learn things that do not feel applicable to you and your life. Especially in life. And you want to know what? Some of those things really are NOT applicable to you and your life. Can anyone tell me when you are really going to use the quadratic formula? Anyone? I mean really. Sure I can still sing it to myself... -b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac over 2a. Whatever. Have I used it since then? Nope. Okay but what about surface area? Volume? Area? Heck yeah you use them. If I want to figure out how much paint to buy to paint a room, I need to know how to figure out surface area. If I want to fill something up and find out how much I can fit in there, that is volume. So yes, you use those things, correct? Unless you are my high school students are would rather waste the money that they do not have and will not make by just buying a bunch of paint, or run to Home Depot a billion times for paint.

You try to teach these kids and realize that you have to do things in a way that they can relate to. There are many teachers out there who use rap to teach different math terms to their kids. There is part of me who loves this idea, "Hey I can get them to learn it using something they like!" Then there is another part of me that says, "What the heck, why do I have to subject myself to something I hate in order for them to learn it? If they want to learn it, they need to apply themselves more." However, there is the problem. They do NOT want to learn it. They do not CARE if they learn it. Why should they? What is in it for them? What is the point? What good is it going to do them?

How do you inspire a bunch of kids to want MORE out of their life than they see around them? I cannot imagine being happy working at Burger King for the rest of my life, or living off of minimum wage. No I am not a snob, but hey you know what? I LIKE driving my truck. I like going out to dinner every now and then. I LIKE not living paycheck to paycheck. I plan on being able to retire at a decent age and having retirement set aside. It frustrates/irritates/saddens me that these kids are totally cool not having goals or aspirations. They feel that they are entitled to certain things, but do not take advantage or responsibility of the things that are rights. How can you have a free education shoved in your face and ignore it? It isn't like I loved high school, but I went and did my best. Am I ever going to use the calculus I learned? Probably not, but you know what, I like having that knowledge in my brain. I like knowing why when I jump on a trampoline the airplane over my head sounds different. (Thank you Mr. Flaherty senior year Physics!) Here I am 23 years old and putting myself thousands of dollars in debt to get an education. Yes, I complain about homework and how I will be in school FOREVER (and I will be), but at the same time I LOVE learning new things. There are days where I want to throw certain textbooks in the fireplace and yell "BURN BABY BURN!!" while I enjoy the bonfire that results..., yet I love gaining new knowledge. Am I the most intelligent person on Earth? No, just sitting around some of my cousins is dang good proof of that!! :) I will admit that I probably do not always reach my full potential, but I at least have some desire to improve myself and to get an education.

I have a billion more things running through my head right now, but I also have a billion more things that I need to get done today.