Garbage and groceries

I think all too often the only things in life that go continually forgotten in my life are buying groceries and taking out the garbage. The last thing on my mind on Sunday night or Monday morning is take the garbage out. I suppose leaving the garbage can out by the road would be the logical next move for an altogether important chore that is always forgotten. Call it laziness or forgetfulness I never remember to take the garbage out.

Groceries, this probably surprises everyone, because its food.  Everyone needs food to survive and what not. However with all of the fast food joints and family members willing to invite us in for dinner over and over again, who remembers to get groceries. Even tonight it is Josh's birthday so we are going out for lunch, and we were invited to a bbq tonight.  Ha, one more day that I can put off a necessary chore. This month was really bad, the only thing we bought was milk, bread and candy. I really wish that I liked shopping more.

Even as I am typing this I'm thinking yep I should really go get groceries, oh and take the garbage out.  I would probably tip the garbage man if he came and got the can for me...I know I would tip that man. I'd give him more if he did my shopping as well.

We ride into the sunset, often our destination in mind is the lake. Often our destination changes like the changing moon. Then our destination is unknown, only the sunset can determine our direction, and it is usually somewhere in the west. We rode towards the lake, but sitting at the gate was a fee. You can ride around the lake for four dollars, or you can wait for the season to change and stay for free. So we took an abrupt turn and rode the back roads.  The fields just irrigated leave goose bumps as it cools the night air, but soon after they appear they vanish. We took the first road west, again chasing the horizon.
That day was a special day, that day was my birthday.  And natures gift was just as grande as Nature herself. I sat behind the driver and peered around his helmeted head. As I looked I sat amazed, at all that opened up before me. The sunset lit up the western sky.  The sky was orange and on fire, and purple mountains majesty rose from the ground. The mountains and the sky meet on the horizon line, but not this time. They formed one and rose before us.
Chatter came from the driver in front of me and thank goodness.  An all too independent rider, I was too focused on catching every moment of the night, to transfixed to pay attention to road laws.  So he drove.  We chased the setting sun, until the sun had set. We were left alone with the world in darkness, here and there the occasional city light.

Girls want...

My mom asked me what the two things girls could never have too many of.  According to me it's cows and trucks.  The real answer was shoes and friends.  Sure I love my shoes, and my friends.  But keeping both at sane numbers keeps life organized and helpful. There will be an interview that will ask a very important question; describe yourself. Well okay. For those who have never met me I will, this might be dangerous with all the inter webs crime.  I will, just don't steal my identity.
I am 21, I grew up around animals and my exposure to people was limited until school which forced human interaction on me at an early age. I have three older brothers which makes me the youngest and only girl. I never liked sports until I got to college where I picked up running, and then like Forrest Gump, if I was going anywhere I was running.  Quite literally, you just get places faster.  I've run five and ten k's, full and half marathons. I also became the avid hiker and backpacker.  I love camping always have. Hunting was not always my favorite but I loved going with my family, riding four wheelers, sleeping outside, and eating camping/hunting food. I was given the nick name sharp eyes, for my ability to see deer, and other critters in the mountains. I'm not all tom boy I do love shopping on the rare occasion I need a new pair of jeans, and every other year I like to paint my nails and where jewelry. I love my best girlfriends; watching movies, eating ice cream, and talking in general.  I've had to make the distinction between favorite books and books I've been forced to read. I always say my favorites are textbooks, because honestly I don't remember the last book I read that wasn't a textbook. But I have recently started reading Lincoln Vampire Slayer, and I love it. I have always wanted to be a Veterinarian. Wanting to be a Vet is not something that happened freshman year of college when I had to decided what road I wanted to take.  This has been something I have been working towards since I was a kid. When we were three and four my mom would hold up cards with words, and the only one I remember is the one that said Veterinarian.  I fell in love with the meaning and hid the card under my pillow every night, and returned it to the stack every evening.  When other kids were playing on bikes at seven I was collecting fertilized eggs to stick in my incubators and training the chicks I had already hatched. Around my neighborhood I was known for taking care of animals.  Neighbors would bring me orphaned puppies, kittens, I got pigeons, chickens and pheasants, to take care of and then find homes for. In elementary I designed science experiments that took me to the regional and state science fairs, hoping this would look good to Vet schools ten and fifteen years down the road. Animals are my way of life and helping them is my dream.  I love working cars, I love driving cars, sometimes I wish I drove trucks for a living.

I like parades 

I like riding horses 

I love turtles 

I hate being cold and wet

I love being an aggie

I love halloween 

I love my friends and cookies 

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Home

It's weird to be home, back in Provo home, after being gone for so long. For the past four years I've been in Logan.  I never imagined Logan would capture me and change me.  In four years I grew so much, I learned so much, I lost so much. Now I am back in P town,  the P town, not to be mistaken for Payson or Pleasant Grove. I never imagined that USU would turn me into a true Aggie (not the kissing on the A kind).  For four years I couldn't wait to be done and leave, and now I can't wait to go back. From previous posts you may have noticed my discontent with UVU only because I love USU. I love the campus, the professors, the way they test, the student body, even the cold bitter Logan winters (okay that's a lie, I hat the cold and the bitter).

I can't believe they had the nerve to put the true blue school next to B why U

Manual

My whole life has been all about the automatics, yes even the '72 Chevy (this is the original dashboard in the Chevy) was an automatic.  It might surprise you to know we didn't even own a manual until two years ago, a '71 Chevy.  However, it would only surprise you if you knew my dad.  My dad has driven a "standard" since he started driving, he drove trucks cross country, and loves the manuals. Yet none of his kids knew how to drive one, until one week ago.  My brother learned very fast when he was put in charge of a tractor.  I learned Saturday in a church parking lot.  I didn't pick it up very fast, not that anyone does. I almost gave up when a little boy came riding through the parking lot on his bike. After about ten minutes his mom came driving up and stopped next to us, and asked if everything was alright.  And then she realized what was happening and said 'oh are you learning to drive a manual.' I said "Yes." She replied "Got it, my son said that someone was stuck at the church and the car kept dying, but I understand, everyone goes through this."
The church parking lot was my last experience with a stick.  I was fortunate, however, to get a job at a dairy, and all they have are manuals. So when I was riding with my boss and he left me with the truck and had to run an errand with another person, it was my sink or swim moment. The first hour of driving was rough, I didn't really kill it, because I didn't really get it started. Pushing in a clutch and then turning the key was new for me. I love manuals, I love shifting, and driving them, I'm not a pro, but I've definitely self  taught myself most everything I know, especially reverse. Manuals can be daunting if all you've had is automatics, but never stop driving them. I love it. Every weekend I get to go to the dairy and drive the trucks. Then after being in them for twelve plus hours, I get in my car and look for the clutch and have a bit of a panicked moment when I can't find it. Makes me wish I would have listened to Josh and got a manual after all. For me it's not a learn everything in one day, I am a slow self learner, and I have to do things myself I can't be taught through someone showing or telling me what to do. After two days I learned how to shift and start on hills without dying, after three days I was shifting into fifth gear, which is hard when all you have is short stretches of gravel roads.
Anyway manuals are the way to go, never stop trying. I never thought I would pick it up, buts its ten times easier than you will ever think it is.  My mistake was listening to other people telling me when to shift, listen to the car.

Periods

This is such a touchy topic, that usually goes avoided, but almost every woman will have one. This post is for my best friend, and hopefully I will remember to send it to her mission self.  Most women would say "I wish men had periods too", to which I would reply "I don't." Should they have them instead of women...well yeah.  The inspiration for this post is an unfortunate camping trip, and most of you will question my sanity after reading.
I went up to Logan for the weekend after feeling a little resentment of being in a committed relationship and losing my independence. I had a really good time, I stayed with my friend, and ex...roommate.  We ate pizza, and ice cream and watched all the movies. The next day I went and visited another friend, and we took a visit to the Logan Zoo, I held a chinchilla, and dove, and I want to say parrot. After holding the animals, we had to chase a crazy looking creature off it's nest. I promptly left Logan after that, and had a two hour drive to think of everything on mind. Relationships; mine and others, school, past, present, animals, houses, food, diets, exercising, movies, cars, army, careers, etc. So when I got to my boyfriend's house, I was in quite the mood. At first I wanted to see him, and then I wanted to go back to Logan, and then I wanted to go camping, and then I wanted to leave, and then I wanted to be next to him, and then I never wanted to see him again, and then I just wanted him to do what I wanted him to do. Gah! All of the hormones that come with being a girl, sometimes it gets old, but luckily it is almost never this bad.
Looking back on the weekend honestly I'm surprised we are still going strong.  I will give you a little insight to our adventure. It all started with a trip to Moroni to drop my new but broken car off at the shop. I stopped at my house to pick up some camping stuff (at this time I was in a good mood, we were doing what I wanted), and I told him I would meet him at the store. Then we drove to Moroni, (which was fine because I was driving). We dropped the car off and it was all downhill from there.  I love camping in the rain, because I love hearing rain on a tent in the mountains. We were in Moroni and it started raining, luckily we had a tarp in the truck, so we "covered" everything. Josh was hungry, I was hungry but didn't admit to it, we were both tired, and I was a factory of emotions. We plugged in the gps to tell us where food was, nothing came up. We turned around to find food, we turned around because I decided it was too dark to go camping, we turned around because I wanted to go camping again, we turned around because it was raining, we turned around again because I wanted to go in the rain, we turned around three times. But that was just the beginning.  We got to our camping location and parked.  I wanted to hike to the top of the mountain, but it was much too wet and dark for that to haul all of our stuff to the top. So instead I had to "settle" for halfway up the mountain camping. Then we got out of the truck to get our stuff only to find a small portion of it was wet. I picked up my pillow that was damp, and probably would have been fine and threw it back in the truck and stormed up the mountain carrying nothing but a small bag and pad. Josh took both blankets, pillows, the tent, one of those big foam sleeping pads, and his own camping stuff.  I didn't notice at the time, because I was too busy storming up the mountain through wet grass up to your waist, which only compounded things. I got to the spot in the dark, found a brick patio laid out my pad and laid on it.  Meanwhile Josh came tromping up the mountain, calling my name, and of course I didn't answer, I did sit up so he didn't pass me.  In the rain he set up the tent, put everything inside and then came to get me.  I didn't want any part of it, so he sat for a minute persuading me to go in, at which point I must have decided a dry tent was better than the rain. So I picked up my pad, only to find it muddy and even more wet (duh!). Well this made me even more upset. Josh took off the pad cover and all was well, so it was placed inside the tent. I crawled in only to find a damp pillow and blanket on my pad.  None of this was acceptable so I threw it off, and said I wouldn't have it. I then sent him down the mountain to get water that he left in the truck, and brought it back to me. Looking back on the way I acted, I can only laugh.

UVU Sucks

There are many reasons why UVU is the worst choice when looking for schools to attend. I suggest unless you are getting absolutely free tuition, this is including fees (yes they will pay your "tuition", but you still have to dish out another $500 in "school fees"), housing (however there is no on campus housing, the nearest UVU housing is across the freeway, and parking.  Don't get me started on their parking, or lack of parking. For another fee you can park next to a door and pay a dollar an hour, or you can opt for a permit and park a quarter mile away, don't worry their professors always have ample parking space. If you opt out of paid parking go ahead and check out their free lot a mile away, if you aren't there before eight, forget about finding a spot. Free sounds pretty good, but oh wait there is a mile trek you will encounter, so leave plenty of time. You don't want to walk? No worries, you can take the shuttle.  It comes oh about every 15 minutes and it leaves in another ten minutes.  So don't worry about running to catch the shuttle you have a good eight minutes before it leaves. They don't post times the shuttle comes, everything is just helter skelter, so good luck relying on that for transportation.
Now back to the Professors, or what they have termed professors, they have found the absolute worst God awful professors to "teach."  If you are expecting a "college education", by the time you leave this institution think again.  You will have gained nothing but frustration, or patience depending on your personality.  Most of their professors have an accent, deep accents, can't understand accents, so don't bother listening to lecture, you won't be able to understand it.  Second, their professors don't know how to teach, so don't expect to learn anything. If you happen to buy the book and teach yourself good luck, the only thing that is impressive is the tutoring labs.  I guess it should be because you will spend ninety percent of your time there. I'm 80% sure half of their professors are disgruntled BYU dropouts. If you happen to get a Professor that is understandable, and knowledgeable about the topic at hand then props.  Soon you will have your first test, and you can deal with their testing center, perhaps slightly more organized than their counseling center.
Transferring classes?  Don't bother. UVU likes to recognize...well UVU recognizes its own sub par classes and that is it. It will take you approximately three weeks of bullshit to transfer classes, so start early. During that time, you will transfer your classes by sending in your transcript (at an actual university this is all it will take), talk to an adviser, be transferred to another adviser, transferred to the head of the department, transferred to the "Professor" , back to the original adviser, to the next adviser, to a department head, back to a secretary who finally gets the go ahead. Wow! That was so worth it you will think to yourself.
Because this "University" is so new to universityhood don't expect to deal with professionals, who know their job. Don't expect a school that communicates with other universities. Most of all don't expect a school that likes or even appreciates their student body or the fact that they pay "fees." IF you don't expect anything from a university, then this is a great school.
I would never promote BYU, but yes even BYU is a better school than the little college in the valley that couldn't.

Jack

This is Jacks introduction to the world.  So world meet Jack.  Jack is a Border Collie, Black Lab Mix.  When he is not biting, chewing or clawing his way into our hearts, he is sleeping or peeing.  We found Jack in the great state of Wyoming.  His old owners were selling him at Fort Bridger like common cattle dogs. We stumbled across Jack's small family on the way to the bathroom, and after holding him, he was sold. I fell in love. He had a marshmallow sized belly, probably from having been snacking on them all afternoon. We went back to camp and talked everyone into the idea of buying Jack. Jack is eight weeks old, and growing like weed. He came with his first set of shots and puppy teeth intact.

Where Jack likes to ride, the worst spot possible actually, right by the drivers feet

The CRATE!!!!

After a long day of being  a puppy

We were lucky he is so smart. He picked up very fast on bathroom time being outside. We are now working on sitting, and crate training, and it makes my heart sing to find him sleeping in there without command.  Placing his food and water dishes and every toy he has accumulated in there are the main help.  His crate is large for a puppy, but we're hoping it will also fit him when he grows into his massive lab paws.