Happy Birthday Punk!

My girls all have their birthdays in March and today is Pumpkin's 3rd birthday! Here she is getting some love from Macy...

Love

Boys: if you gag when you see/hear something sappy, I recommend skipping this post...
I have a happy, deep thought type post to write! Yay! Apparently blogging about being out of ideas spurs the creative juices :)

As I sit here watching my doggy sleep and snore like a pot belly pig, I can't help but start thinking about the potential second dog that might be joining our family this summer. We've already got 3 cats and a dog, so I was wondering: how much love is the human heart (mine specifically) capable of?
This is something I worried about when we got Macy, then when we got Koopa, and yet again when we got Jilly. But each time, my heart opened up even more and I ended up loving each one as much as the other. And I love my boyfriend more and more every day, even though I didn't think I could ever love him more than the first time he told me he "liked me so much he loved me." :)

So why, if I've already loved so much more than I thought I could, am I worried about being able to love another dog? With all the people that are giving me crap for getting yet another animal, you'd think that it's them I'm worried about. That I wouldn't want to be looked at as the "crazy girl" with 5 animals.

Here's the deal: I know how we live. I know our house is cleaner and more organized than most all of theirs. I know that every one of our animals is completely loved and cared for. I know just how long (and it's been a long time) we've been considering this...going through our budget over and over, reconsidering how Koopa gets along with other dogs, doing test runs with his dog friends, making sure his training is complete enough that he won't act up once another dog is in the picture. So no, I'm not worried at all about the opinions of other people because I know we have prepared and are (physically) ready for another dog.

I'm worried about the unknowns- the things I can't control. Such as love. Can I love another dog? When Koopa was going through his teenage phase and rebelling against everything we had taught him, making it seem as though we'd never spent at least 30 minutes a day training him, I still loved him. When he was acting up and all I wanted to do was scream at him, I did the opposite (usually)...I loved him. I smiled at him, pet him, picked up a toy and played with him. Guess what that did? It made him snap out of it! We were told that this phase could last for up to a year and we broke though it in just a few months. What that tells me is that if I can open up my heart and let another dog in, so much good will come of it.

We will have another dog to bring us joy and Koopa will feel whole. If those people that call us idiots could see him with other dogs then compare that to when he's at home alone, I think they'd really understand one of the reasons we want another dog. Koopa is one of those dogs that needs a partner in crime. And we want to raise another puppy...and we CAN raise another puppy. All I have to do is figure out that my heart is capable of infinite love and everything will be ok.

Idea Drought

I'm having a thought drought. I've had zero blog ideas for quite a while. I guess it's just because I'm trying to focus as much of my attention on school that I possibly can, but it sucks that it has to affect the personal (fun) part of life.

One thing I can talk about- I switched to WordPress, in case you hadn't noticed. I'm getting used to it, slowly. I'm not really liking the vibe as I type here...it makes it really hard to focus on my words, and those are obviously an important part of my blog. One thing I like is that there are a lot of things you can change. Once you get used to all the controls, it's pretty cool. If you are worried about having to transfer over all of your old posts manually- don't worry! Josh & Jenny Solar were nice enough to help me figure out how to easily transfer them over. I have almost 300 posts between my 3 blogs, and it took all of 5 minutes to get it done. Let me know if you want help. Overall, I think I'm pretty excited to be using WordPress. I will miss how in depth Blogger Analytics was (maybe I can figure out how to incorporate that into my WordPress blogs), and I will miss a few other things about Blogger, but it's a good thing. I think. :)

I know there are SO MANY of you out there that hang on my every word, so to you all: I'm sorry. I'll try to get my creative juices flowing so you have interesting things to read, but I can't promise anything.

(You did catch the sarcasm in that last paragraph, right? Hehe)

I made the switch to Word Press

I'm not sure how I feel about it yet...I'll update ya'll if I switch back :)

http://rkinamrok.wordpress.com/

:(

My soul died today.

I'm damaged goods

You know how a lot of people that have dated and been hurt before tend to stay away from dating for a while? I just realized tonight that I'm the same way- but with friends.

All the close friends I've ever had have left me. Not the way a significant other would, but either I've moved away or they've moved away. So now I find myself hesitantly meeting new people. I'd really like to make new friends since almost all of mine have moved away, but I don't want to be left behind again.

When I make friends, I tend to become really close to most of them. As you can probably deduce from past posts, I don't get along very well with my family, so my friends become my family. But as I form close relationships, I'm afraid I'm going to be left behind...again. It's especially hard with where I'm at in school right now because although I've made a few acquaintances in pharmacy school, most of them are from other states. And most of the people my age that I meet outside pharmacy school are graduating this year.

So I tend to be slightly standoffish so I don't get too close to people, and if I do become close to someone, I start to pull away when I see that the dreaded moving away period is getting closer. I noticed that I'm starting to do it with Jacob. (I'm guessing he just did a double take after seeing his name lol) We're really good friends, (awww) but since he graduated I feel like he is moving past where we are in our lives. He's a grown up now, and I'm still stuck in school for 2 more years. He also keeps talking about moving away. So up goes my guard...I guess it's "hurt them before they hurt you."

But why do I have a problem with this? Why can't I just settle for short term friendships and just be happy with them while they last? I think part of it is because I look at my parents, and I'm terrified I'll end up like them. They both had tons of friends in college, but since they went to school out of state, they ended up friendless when they moved back home.

Maybe I just need to wait until I graduate college and focus on making lasting friendships then, when everyone is pretty much settled in where they want to be and aren't going anywhere. There are just so many people in my life right now that I want to have closer relationships with but a) I've been friends with my old friends for so long that I forgot how to make new ones and b) I'm scared that once they're a part of my life they're going to leave.

A woman came to talk to our class last week about her fight with breast cancer. As she told us about her chemo, she didn't cry. Then she told us about her mastectomy, still no tears. But then she started talking about how her friends were there with her through the whole thing, and she cried. Hard. So hard she couldn't talk for a few minutes. I want to have friends like that when I'm older. I just want meaningful and lasting friendships, and I don't want them to end.

Really good friendships that fade away are harder to get over than past boyfriends. When you enter into a relationship, it's common knowledge that both of you are going to try to make it work as long as you can. With friendships, it's not quite the same. With friends, it's more of "I'm here when you need me until I'm not." If a friend wants to move away, they usually won't stay just because you ask them to. And when they're gone, as hard as you try to keep the friendship going, it's never going to be the same. And here's where it's different from relationships- you will have new people come into your life, but you'll always think back to those really good friendships and miss them like hell. Old boyfriends- eh, it's better now, so you don't miss them so much, but with friends memories almost hurt. Maybe that's just me, but I feel like I lost a handful of brothers and no matter what I do I'll never get them back.

The feeling sucks. Missing them sucks. So why would I make new friends and go through that all over again?

Miss you guys!

(Michael look how naked your arm is!!!)