Recently I began volunteering at our local Humane Society. I’ve been crazy about animals since I was very young, dogs always being my favorite, and I figured my time and energy would be well spent helping homeless pets get taken care of and adopted. I figured correct because it has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Because not only am I a dog handler and get to spend lots of time with puppies and training dogs, which are two of my favorite things to do, but I also have become the photographer for the humane society’s site. My job is to take pictures of the new dogs/puppies that come in so we have updated pictures of the available pets on the website. I also put them on my Humane Society blog. 
It has been so much fun. I love working with my fellow animal lovers and making myself useful around the shelter. I’ve been able to combine my two passions and put them to work — and good work at that.
There’s just one teensy weensy problem…
I keep falling in love.
I can’t help that all of the puppies are 100% adorable and that I want to take them all home! I was actually doing okay…until today. When I met Bella.
Oh. My. Gosh. I wanted that puppy.
Most of the puppies go crazy when you take them out. Bella was content to curl up in my lap and fall asleep.
I loved the other pups and would have taken any of them home, but this one very quickly stole my heart. She fell in love with me, curling up against me and whining at the cage door when I wasn’t holding her, and I with her. She was amazingly sweet and cute.
But alas, my cruel parents said no. I could not take her home like I so longed to, and chances are I will not see her again since such a cute puppy is sure to adopt out very quickly. But I will never forget that cute little puppy that was content to snuggle in my lap and give me kisses.
And I’m sure I’ll fall in love all over again with another puppy next week. Cause, that’s just what I do.
Meet Matt and Chris.
Two of my closest friends have moved.
You think you’d get used to it, you know. People walking in and out of your life. It’s part of life, especially that of a military kid. You move, you meet people, you love people, you leave people, you start over. It should get easier, shouldn’t it? The pain of separation should lessen. After all, it happens all the time. We should be used to it, right?
It doesn’t happen. That pain doesn’t lessen at all. But it’s always worth it in the end. Every time. You never regret getting close because the memories you create make the ache worth it all.
Like the time we threw a Secret Santa party and all had to dress up “Christmas-y” for it.
Or the time Cliffy and Chris and I sat in the park listening to music randomly.
Or how Matt and Gabe would take these balls of sand home and stick them in the freezer just so they could carry them back the next day to make them bigger. This lasted about 2 weeks.
Numerous bowling trips.
Many beach days.
Countless memories.
Yeah, they’ve moved across the county and are living in the big apple now. But that doesn’t mean our friendships are over. Each of us still carry these memories, even as we all grow up and continue our lives. We will never forget our good times, or the ways we have impacted one another over the last year.
They say that friends are the family we choose for ourselves.
So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.
- Helen Keller
Dry air – X + allergies^2 = Oh my gosh I’m freaking dying. Also I don’t know what the X is for.
March 7, 2013The weather here in Jacksonville has been retarded lately.
It has been hopping from 70 to 50 degrees overnight, not exaggerating. I swear the weathermen are just throwing random numbers into the forecast because they’re predictions are completely inaccurate every single day. I seriously have no idea how to dress for the day until I actually step outside.
Now only that, but we have pollen alerts and also excessively low humidity. Yesterday the humidity level was at 20%. Usually it’s between 70%-90% here on the beach.
So not only are my allergies acting up like crazy, making me sneeze, endure lovely headaches, and have itchy sinuses, but the lack of moisture in the air is also leaving my throat sore and dry.
I got a whopping 4 hours of restless sleep last night.
Thanks Florida, you’re the best.
At least we can go to the beach on those warmer days.
My brother and his best friend.
They’re weird.
It’s been so blissfully boring around here lately. And by blissfully I mean it’s the crappiest thing ever.
February 7, 2013The last two weeks may have possibly been the most boring two weeks of my life ever. All that’s happened is a flu that struck conveniently two days before the 18th annual celebration of my successful trips around the sun, so I spent my birthday in bed, mostly fighting fevers, moaning, and wishing I was dead.
Mom had to remove any potentially harmful objects from my reach so I wasn’t tempted to take drastic measures. This included Fruit Rollups.
And not only that, but my wonderful family followed suit, and then my friends (who are always trying to be just like me because I’m obviously awesome) decided they would pick up the sickness too. One right after another. Christian for four days, then Cliffy for three, and now Chris has got it.
Guess what day Chris got it?
Two days ago.
On his birthday.
Happy birthday.
Love,
Karma
XOXO <3
I swear I’ve texted the question “How are you feeling” at least 8 dozen times over the last two weeks. They started looking into restraining orders for texting. Luckily such a thing doesn’t exist so I was able to bother them effectively.
So now, a week and a half later, I’ve yet to have my birthday party. I have no idea when we are actually going to have it. Luckily, I just don’t really care that much.
Plus I managed to go outside on the porch for a few minutes to talk to Clifford on my birthday and we got into a food fight.
Then I made him clean it all up.
So that was pretty much the highlight of the day. Nothing else happened.
Nor has anything happened since. Except the Superbowl. We watched that. That was actually a pretty good game, even though being the Steelers fans that we are, there really was no winning for us. We were happy when the Ravens won though. Can’t have those 50minus1ers tied for SB wins with us.
Course, the power did go out. Everyone was quite confused at that moment.
We were all waiting for Bane to come out and be like “Hello citizens of New Orleans”
Sadly(?) that never happened and 5 minutes later they had fixed the issue and the game resumed.
Really I was just hoping for this.
Also never happened.
Since the both of the boys missed half a week of school, they spent the other half making up for the homework they missed.
Needless to say, we haven’t seen much of them.
Hopefully things will be back to normal soon.
Until then, I have to find other ways to entertain myself. Like watching 5 seasons of Malcolm in the Middle and having text conversations like the one I had last night with Christian.
Christian: We are done playing.
Me: Ahoy matey.
Christian: Yeah
Me: I turned into a pirate while you were gone.
Christian: Sweet. Did you find any gold?
Me: I wish.
I did get a sweet hat though.
Christian: …Photoshop…
Me: No way. This is legit.
Christian: Arrrrgh
Me: It’s contagious! Are you going to be a pirate with me?
Christian: Heck yes.
Me:
Now we can rule the seven seas.
Then this morning I sent this as school started:
Have a spectacularly awesome and piratey day!
Needless to say, today has been a pretty good day so far.
January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
January First, Two Thousand and-freaking-Thirteen
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
My hardcore Auburn and Seminoles fan friends went out of town for the week. They shouldn’t have given me a key.
December 22, 2012
They got home today. First message I get from Christin? “Kait I’m home and so happy I can hang out with you because you’re the most awesome person ever!” was not it.
This was.
Mischief: Achieved.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas evvvverywhere but here because we’re in Florida and Florida hates Christmas and happiness. What the heck Jerry.
December 19, 2012
I don’t expect you to get it unless you’re really awesome. If you do get it, you win.
Mom’s yelling at me across the house at the moment because of this post’s title. “NO Kait just because it’s not snowing doesn’t mean Florida hates happiness. That means it LOVES people who can’t take the cold. I can’t believe you hate Florida.”
My response?
“JERRY DID IT. DANGIT JERRY!”
I’m sorry. No more Parks and Rec references. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.
So the Herd, as we call ourselves(and by that I mean, I call us the Herd and no one argues because they’re kinda scared of me. It was inspired by Ice Age, ok?) decided a few weeks back to do Secret Santa this year. Mom helped out and was the moderator. We each drew a name out of Chris’s fedora and had two weeks to get a gift for our person.
What did we learn from this experience?
Most of us are really bad a secret keeping.
By the time we exchanged gifts, I knew who Ian, Chris, Christian, Joe, and Gabe had as their people. And several knew who I had.
What else did we learn?
We are really a pretty darn awesome group.
It wasn’t originally going to be a full blown party, but Christin and I decided that we should because that was the only day that we all were going to be around this whole Christmas vacation. Matt and Chris left for the whole break this morning and won’t be back until the day school starts.
After deciding to go ahead and throw a party, the plan was to order pizza. But Christin insisted on making something I could eat, I’m on a gluten-free diet right now(long story) so instead we ran to the store and got stuff to make sloppy Joes.
Best. Gluten free meal. EVER. Sloppy Joes on Fritos was so good…definitely a new favorite of mine. Nom nom nom.
Basically, it was a huge success. And we all had a blast. The night followed with a games of manhunt, basketball, Animal, and lots of laughter. I was so glad that we all got to hang out together as a group before everyone dispersed for different vacations. ;)
Merry Christmas!
Happy day after Thanksgiving peoples. Hope your holiday was filled with fun, food, and fantastic company, as mine was.
