losing touch

In high school I was lucky to have a good group of friends. Girls that would take me home even though it was 25 minutes out of their way just so I didn't have to ride the bus. Girls to lend me lunch money when I couldn't get my locker open to get my purse out. Girls that spent the entire weekend working on crazy history projects without so much as a shower. Girls that pushed me outside my comfort zone and showed me how to have more fun than I knew possible. Girls that forgave me when silly high school drama crept into our lives. Girls that I had a ton in common with. Girls that I still talk to and girls that I have lost touch with. Girls that could make me smile on a bad day. Girls that watched an insane number of movies with me. Girls that joined clubs and sports with me just so we'd have longer to hang out together.

Girls.

But my best friend was a guy. We talked about everything under the sun. He knew me better than any of the girls even though I spent more time hanging out with the girls. I planned on naming one of my kids after him no matter what my future husband had to say about it. We were teased some about being friends but not 'liking' each other... kids that age can be mean. But really we were just great friends.

I was afraid to go to college with 15 of my friends from high school. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to really find myself. {P.S. I was stupid!} So we went to different colleges. {Did I mention I was stupid?!} He had a girlfriend at the time that was still in high school and did not like him having female friends, especially me. So our talks got fewer and farther between. By the time I finally figured out how stupid I had been and transferred to the school with all my friends we were in slightly different places in life. Our talks were still wonderful and comfortable and we were still close, but something had changed and even though we were in the same town again {and he was crazy-girlfriend-less} we didn't go right back to how it was before.

After college it all kinda fell apart. He moved away. Our phone calls got farther and farther apart until they just stopped all together. I got married. And even though Aaron was really good friends with this guy too, it just didn't feel right to track down and pursue this friendship with Aaron on the sideline.

This entire life story has a point. This guy's birthday was last week. He was on my mind most of the week - wondering where he is now, if he's at the same job, with the same girl, happy? Same kinds of things I wonder about my other high school friends that I've lost touch with {and some that just give me glimpses of their lives through facebook}. Then the night after his birthday I had a dream about him. I actually don't remember any specifics of the dream, just that I woke up feeling like he's troubled, like he needs a friend.

I have no clue how to get in touch with him. I have no clue if my brain is just playing tricks on me since I was already thinking about him last week. All I do know is we were friends through a lot of tough stuff in high school and college and if he needs a friend now, I'd love to be there for him.

I don't plan on turning into a crazy stalker now and there's really nothing I can do about it, but it's just nice to get that out so that it can stop rattling around in my brain. When I told Aaron he just thought I was crazy, so maybe telling the bloggy world will make me feel less crazy!

learn something new everyday

I'm currently in the midst of my longest stretch of not being enrolled in school (not counting those 4 years before I started preschool) and honestly I don't like it much!

I can definitely do without the homework. But I love figuring out all the connections that make a new (to me) topic finally click! I love feeling like part of the college community. I love the sense of accomplishment when I finish a paper or ace a test. I love knowing that I'm doing something to better myself. I love the opportunities that open up to me based on the papers framed on my dinning room wall.

My husband thinks I'm certifiably CRAZY! He hates school and couldn't wait to be done with his master's. I hated finishing my bachelors and my masters simply because that meant it was over. I want to go back again, but I'm not sure what I'd do. A Ph.D. sounds way toooooo intimidating but another masters seems redundant. Maybe a masters in a completely different field? After we have kid's I'd love a job that I could do part-time, but nothing in education really works that way, so maybe I'll get a whole new degree that gets me closer to something I can do part time eventually.

I've thought about just taking some classes to learn a new craft (because I reallllly need another one of those!) but for some reason, I'm more drawn to the academic side of it all. This whole thing started simply by reading a post on facebook about a friend sitting in class. Well thats what got me thinking about it tonight, I think about going back to school at least twice a month. Nothing will probably come of it right now since I can't make up my mind what to do, but it's nice to dream of being Amanda Ph.D. one day!

walk AWAY!

Part of having rescue dogs living in our house until they get adopted is figuring out their quirks so that we can be completely up front with potential adopters in order to find a home where they will live out the rest of their days. Sometimes we get dogs that have virtually no issues and are only turned into rescue for reasons like the economy or a divorce. However, much more often dogs come in that have some pretty big issues that could have easily been avoided if they had been taught manners as puppies and been socialized.

*side note - our dogs are by NO means perfect little angels! They bark at the wind and jump up in the front window to protect us from the mail. They don't always remember that they aren't allowed on the couch and occasionally if there is a really really tempting paper towel carelessly left hanging out of the trashcan, they eat it. But we try very hard to make sure they know their manners!*

Our foster Wilson, who we've had since May is an example of the later. He was kept outside for his entire first year and because of that the family had no reason to teach him manners. He didn't interact with anybody or anything, so what would he need manners for? He obviously got no socialization either. And now we have a problem!

We've been working with him and have had him evaluated by several different professionals, but it looks like he will always carry some baggage with him. He is S...L...O...W to learn new things. It took him almost 4 months to learn sit and then another several weeks to be able to perform consistently when asked to sit. He's also very leery of new things, especially men. That is a big problem when the vet that we see is a man! So bad in fact that he needs to be muzzled for everybody's safety!

{shredded an entire dog bed while I was sleepin... and he was proud of it!}

Wilson does so well at home when nothing is changing; when he's comfortable. But on Friday my Father -in- law came over which in and of itself was a change that Wilson did not like. Add to that the fact that my FIL (drives me crazy with the way he) tries to get the dogs all riled up and you've got trouble. Dogs were at the fence barking when FIL got out of his truck. That's what the dogs do. They're letting us know someone is here. Instead of ignoring it like ALL of our other visitors, FIL walks over to the fence. The girls get excited when they realize that they know who it is but Wilson is showing increased aggravation. He's barking and growling and has jumped up on the fence. This dog weighs 130 lbs. If a dog that big was barking/ growling/ jumping at me I'd be outta there. But FIL keeps walking over towards him. Wilson barks at him a couple more times and then reaches out and pinches his shirt sleeve between his teeth. FIL was close enough to Wilson that if Wilson had wanted to hurt him he really could have bitten him good, but he just pinched his sleeve.

Wilson was definitely in the wrong here for nipping, but I'm more upset with my FIL. He KNOWS that Wilson has issues. We've warned him numerous times that he can not get in Wilson's face and tease him like he does with the girls. Hubby told FIL not to get too close to Wilson when he was growling/ barking/ jumping and FIL didn't listen. Instead of giving me time to get to the fence and turn the whole thing into a teachable moment for Wilson, FIL turned it into an threatening, react NOW situation.


If Wilson had actually bitten my FIL we would have had to report it to the rescue and then Wilson would have had to be put down. I'm so thankful that my FIL didn't get hurt and that we don't have to deal with the painful possibility of putting Wilson down. But now I am intensely worried about the next person who walks up to our fence. I just hope they have enough sense to walk AWAY from a huge barking/ growling dog!