Long Time No Blog

Uuuugh.  I know I haven't blogged in forever...I guess it is because life is finally calming down and I don't feel the need to complain through my blog anymore, aha.  I've had some thoughts on blogs I'd like to write. To name a few I've wanted to rant off about the evolutionary hypothesis, strange things my cats do, Buddhism and mindfulness, marriage and families, other random things...but what it really comes down to is that I am so busy writing research papers I don't want to spend my time writing a blog.  Sad, I know.  When summer comes along there won't be anything significant happening besides with Buck so the blogs will be few and far between as well.  We will see (I think that's my favorite saying, haha).

SPRING BREAK! WOOOO! Adam and I went to sunny San Diego, CA for nine days.  It was much needed.  We didn't really do anything the entire time, and that was perfectly fine with us.  In fact, that's why we went there!  We wasted our days away walking and lying on the beach, looking at tide pools, and napping.  We also got incredibly sun burnt.  So burnt actually I am still peeling from it.  I was reminded how fair of skin I have when I turned beet red and people kept commenting on how painful it looked (it felt worse than it looked...).  Next time I'll be putting on some sunscreen.

We saw lots of adorable baby seals!

The tide pools were super fun and interesting.

A duck trying to be a flamingo.

We did go to the San Diego Zoo on one of the days.  I saw lots of ducks (my favorite part) and Okapis! They are so beautiful.  I wish they would have had a male Kudu on display, but their exhibit was under renovations.  One of my favorite parts was walking into the humming bird aviary.  The birds in there were brilliant in color and we were able to get pretty close to them.  All in all we had a great time walking around.  I think I did a pretty good job at keeping my mouth shut and not spouting out animal facts every 15 seconds ;)

We also got a full body massage, detox, and sauna.  I have never been touched on the butt so much in such a short amount of time.  I can't imagine how Adam felt, haha.  It was a bit weird, but man, it was sooo nice...

Buck and I have been working on a few new things as the weather has been getting nicer.  He is beginning to side pass towards me, he loves backing up to me when I am standing behind him, and we are getting better at bridleless.  In the picture shown to the left Buck is standing with all fours on a solid block of wood.  It took him a couple tries to get up there, but he did it!  He spent 20 minutes standing on it passed out before I asked him to get down.


Health. I hate talking about this but I know several people like to stay informed.  My doctors switched me from Lexapro to Zoloft because Lexapro had not been enough to keep the depression and anxiety away.  I've been on Zoloft for about three weeks and so far it seems to be working very well.  I've only felt depressed for half a day since I started it, and anxious just one or two times.  Unfortunately my sleep has been getting worse it seems.  I can't seem to stop having nightmarish and vivid dreams.  I get night sweats more nights than not because of them, too.  My sleep is not restful sleep at all.  As a result, it was decided by myself, my doctor, and my therapist to get me on a sleeping medication.  It's actually not a sleeping prescription, but a blood pressure medication.  It turns out this medication is used more to reduce sleep disturbances than to correct high blood pressure.  I hope it works...I am so tired of being tired.


Foxy died two years ago this Saturday.  I am trying not to think about it.  I feel a lot of panic when I start to think about what I am going to do and what happened, so I am doing my best to stay busy and keep my mind on other things.  Writing this isn't helping.  I did make a shadow box of her show halter, blue ribbons, and braided hair and hung it up in my room.  It looks really nice, especially with her name placed above it.



Random things to mention:

• I am not going to Pie Town, NM this year.  I don't want my parents to spend that much money on me.  I can make great strides and accomplishments with Buck here at home anyway!  I missed the EAGALA sign up for St. George, so I'm probably going to have to go to Prescott, AZ.  Talk about inconvenient!  The part II training is during Pie Town also, so I wouldn't be able to go even if I wanted to.
• I turned down the job at Petco. 
• I haven't gotten below a 90% on any exam this semester, and I have gotten A's on all my research papers.  A professor of mine even asked if she could have two of the papers I wrote as examples for future semesters.  It made me feel pretty awesome!
• I am running for department chair for the Family and Child Studies department.  If I don't get the position, I hope to be the department co-chair.  It would look fantastic on my resume, get me involved with the program more, and possibly lead to a job after graduation.
• The blood pressure medication my doctor wanted me to try for the pain in my legs did not work.  We have abandoned trying to figure it out until I am off my antidepressants. 
• I turn 21 in 47 days.  All I want to do for my birthday is go to the Humane Society of Utah and play with all the kitties :) 
• By the way, this is what an Okapi looks like.  They are basically a cross between a zebra, a giraffe (you should see their long, purple tongue!), and a deer.