summer vacation, finally!

So it has been summer for approximately 3 months now and I am finally feeling like it is summer. I go back to school in a month (thank God) and I just finished my summer classes yesterday. Although I might have to retake 2 of them I am still relieved to be done with them. A huge pressure has been lifted off of me and it feels great! I went on a horse back ride this morning, by myself, for the first time in like a month and we went on a new trail and saw amazing things! Waterfalls, rivers, cliffs, ancient trees and much more. It was so peaceful, just me and the horse. There is no better feeling than being lost in the woods on a horse and putting all your trust in the horse and his instincts. Saber has never not gotten us out of a new patch of woods. His internal navigation always shows us the way out, all I have to do is hang on and trust him. The horse can feel the adrenaline rush when you know your lost. The unique, profound connection there is between you and the animal can never be repeated or remade. It is one of a kind. I have always been one to connect better with animals than with people. They are just so much easier to understand and get along with. I can look at an animal and immediately know so much about them, all of their trials and tribulations, joys and loves. They always listen to you and love you, no matter what. It is not many people that can listen to the animal too, that can feel there presence and conscious. I love my animals and never wish to be parted from them. They are my life.

On another note, Brandon is coming to visit this weekend! Abby and I are so excited! I get off work at 9 pm tonight so I'm going to her house to see him. He has become such a good friend of mine, I miss him a lot during the summer. It makes me wonder what I'm going to do when I move away after graduation. What will I do without my friends? Living in the real world won't be like living in college. I can imagine it will be substantially harder to make friends and keep them as an adult. I'm sure I will survive though. I always do.

new addition

So it all started when I got my younger sister a kitten before I came home from school. This kitten would naturally have to be spayed when it was old enough. So about two weeks ago we took the kitten to the shelter to get the surgery done. Yesterday we took her back to get the stitches out. We were looking around at the dogs there since I just lost my St. Bernard about a month ago. I wrote this the day before I lost her:

She is dying, my baby is dying. I lost one dog last year and now I’m losing another one. She has already lived past her expected age by 6 years. She is quite an old girl. Mum and I found her in her pen today breathing so heavily that her stomach moved by inches. It appeared she had not left her dog box in days, despite my mom’s raptures that she saw her up that morning. When we finally got her up and started to wash her we knew that she hadn’t left her box in days. She reeked of urine and feces. She could hardly move. How could this have happen between this week and last when I had her out for a bath and she bounded about joyfully. I am convinced that she had a small heart attack around Wednesday or Thursday of this week. This probably left her paralyzed from in her back legs and since she is such a large breed, she was unable to move. How could I have let this happen? I got her for my eighth birthday, you know. She has been my best friend my whole life. Ever since college started I have not had as much time to spend with her. I faithfully bath her once a week during the summer, since she has such a thick coat and lives outside, but that has not been enough. She is dying and there is absolutely nothing I can do.

She died the next day and it broke my heart. I wasn't ready to put this up until now. But being me, I have to have a dog. Something inside me just isn't right unless I have a dog that I know loves me more than anyone. I found that love in a skinny, brown, shy whippit/ visila cross from Action for Animals. We were walking past an outdoor kennel with a very loud furry dog and a frantic beagle, when I saw her. I remember the way she sat in the corner, ears back, watching us but not moving. Her regal, elegant figure commanded attention yet she was so shy. I stopped and knelt next to the pen. When the other two finally decided that I wasn't worth their attention and left, she came over. She sat in front of me and stuck out her giraffe neck to sniff my hand. She wagged her tail twice on the dirt. I knew she was the one I needed, so I adopted her. My mother was all for it, surprisingly, and she filled out the papers as I flew home to get my check book. 12o dollars later she was mine. She sat in the passenger seat just like a person, her long neck almost reaching the front windshield. Her name originally was sylvia, but I knew that she didn't like that name so I renamed her Kiatsa, Kia for short. When I said her new name out loud for the first time she whipped her head around and perked her ears up. I knew then that I had made the right decision, however rash. She was mine and I would take her every where with me, right after graduation that is. I think she will like Colorado when I move there. I'm not so scared about moving out on my own, because I won't be alone. I will have Kia, sitting in the passenger seat, smearing her nose all over my windshield, to keep me company.

Thursday, July 22, 2010- one month to go...

In college towards the end of the semester, one looks forward to summer so much. For the change of scenery, for family, for lack of class work. At the end of summer one cannot wait to get back to school. Friends, new classes, lack of family. It is a vigorous cycle that keeps us moving from kidergarten to graduation form college. Your whole life you are brought up to worship the summer as a break from work and stress. Imagine, suddenly, this cycle is brought to an abrupt end. Never again will you have class work to look forward to or hate. Never again the thrill of the first day of class or the last. Never setting up a dorm room, meeting a roommate, buying books, eating at the cafeteria, using quarters for laundry, getting ice-cream after an exam. suddenly it all just stops. ends. finishes. complete. fulfilled.

welcome to graduation from college, something I will be experiencing in approximitly 7 months. soon ,it will all be over.

My good friend, Abby Diamond, whom I write about often and have known for a very long time, and I were talking the other day. We talked of many things but mostly of life after college. She will be graduating in two years. I on the other hand will never experience another summer in college. This is my last summer as a child. Next summer I will be grown up and looking for a job, moving into an appartment and living my own life. In college, some believe that they are independent, but I know that this is not true. Even if parents are not present, we still have the school looking over us. What will I do after graduation, you might ask? Move out west hopefully, when we recently went on vacation there, I fell in love with the place. To my siblings it was mediocre, but to me it was heaven. They didn't see, but as the plane took off from Devner, and passed the mountains, I started to cry not wanting to leave. To me, there is nothing so beautiful as the Rocky Mountains or the plains that lead up to them. It is the main thing that is moving me towards graduation. The knowledge that as every day passes, it brings me one day closer to my mountains.

The start of a vacation

6:50 am July 2, 2010

We boarded the plane this morning at promptly 5:50 and by 6 am we were comfortably seated and prepared to take off. The gracious flight attendants demonstrated the exits and emergency procedures, though it was most likely unnecessary. The captain, a man with a pleasant voice, the kind that you could listen to for some time without getting annoyed, informed us of where we were headed, like we didn’t all ready know, and gave us the weather report. Mother was fretting, of course, about the inevitable take off and clung to fathers arm like a vice. She repeatedly inquired upon my sister as to her comfort status, and she replied in curt remarks, becoming annoyed. My older sister and younger brother attempted to share the view out of the diminutive window, watching the ground fly by as we rambled down the runway. Increasingly gaining speed we all looked at each other and grinned in enjoyment as we prepared for our favorite part of the trip.

I fell in love with the mountains that day. I was once proud of the small hill I have lived on my whole life but it is nothing to the foothills of the Rockies. Driving into them is like entering a wonderland of flowing cleffts. One easing into the next as easily as one ocean wave into another. I vowed that day that I would return, someday, and hopefully, live here. I have a new goal!