two years

May 27, 2010.  It was a Thursday and I was in California for my high school choir trip.  That trip probably contains my happiest memories of my high school existence.

It was also the day I lost my best friend.

Thankfully, my parents are geniuses and threatened to kill my siblings if they told me before I got home (it was day 1 and I wouldn't be back until Monday).

{Is it bad that I'm already mentally done with the idea of writing?}

Anyway, Oscar was my best friend.  He got me through *a lot.*  People best friends are great...but sometimes I still would rather pick Oscar over humans if I could.

He was dependable.  I always knew he would be there.  I never had to worry about him ditching me for a boyfriend or other friends.  I liked being able to tell him anything and knowing he wouldn't/couldn't judge me.  Or at least if he was, I couldn't tell. I never had to worry he would repeat what I told him.  Honestly, just his little-fat-brown-lump-of-a-log presence was comforting.  And there's so much more, but as I said...I'm kind of mentally done for the day.

Thankfully when God took away one best friend, He gave another one in return.  He may not be as perfect as the first, but I still think he's pretty great :)

Two years ago on our choir trip
Still one of my favorite pictures :)

insomnia

The best time to write a blog post is at 2:30 in the morning, right?  As anyone can tell, I haven't had much of a care to write to the blog as often as I used to.  And honestly, that's mainly because my life is really not that exciting.  I'm not engaged or married like a gaggle of girls my age.  And I have nothing against them...most of the time I don't mind seeing people in love.  It's good to see people happy :)  But I'm not dating anyone either, and hell, now that I've moved home, I'm not even hanging out with anybody.  And, I don't know...I guess I don't feel like sharing *all* my thoughts with the entire world.  But, most are okay to share...just boring haha.

Words don't flow as easily as they used to...or maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist.  It's different when you write knowing other people will read it versus just writing for yourself...except I'm half-writing that way anyway considering I'm just rambling random things.

Anyway, here's life as of late:

• I moved home a week ago today....weird.  It feels like it's been two.
• I don't know how I'm going to handle four months here.
• I miss Logan.  Maybe not as much as the first three days of being home.  Or maybe just differently.  It doesn't make much sense to cry about it {anymore...}.  But I miss it.  And mainly people.  And it makes me sad knowing things are never going to be the same again.  But hopefully that just means greater things are in store.  They better be.
• Sophomore year definitely trumps freshman year.  It was like night and day.
  
• I dyed my hair after moving home.  My grandma has made sure to tell me how awful it looks and "why would you do such a thing?"  What I don't understand is, back in the day, she used to dye her hair even darker than mine, or so I hear.  Anyway, it's darker than I expected...but it's not bad and no one else seems to mind it haha.  I love old people and their honesty though :)
• Wednesday and Thursday I got super sunburned.  As I told the Facebook and Instagram worlds...I may be brunette, but I have skin that burns like a ginger.  My legs are still on fire...but at least my body doesn't seem to be in shock anymore :)
• 7 and half hours of painting posts and picnic tables is not really my idea of fun, especially when you're schedule for 5.  But hey, it's money!  That's where day 1's sunburn came from.  Day 2 came from being outside all day with Steph, Bailey, and the bunny {I swear that thing is her new child...it goes EVERYWHERE with her}
• The people I miss the most are still in Logan.  Thank heavens for technology.
• Bountiful's a lonely place.  Hopefully I'll figure out how to change that.
• Grades turned out okay.  Okay...better than okay.  I freak out over nothing, like all the time.  I still don't understand how I pulled off an A- in Spanish when I really can't speak the language...
• I got a phone call telling me I've officially been put into the apartment I want.  Yay!
• Since moving home I don't sleep as well.  I either can't fall asleep...or can't stay asleep.  Which probably explains why I'm up past three.
• My eyesight is horrible.  I've been too lazy to find my glasses...although I'm pretty sure they're in a tote within a foot or two...but anyway that's not the point of this bullet.  The point is to say my laptop is on my stomach and if I cover my left eye, I can't read a thing.  
• During Finals Week I was obsessed with The Cab and Andy Grammer.  Still kind of am...but now I have real radio in addition to Spotify.
• And here are some new lovelies I've discovered recently:
• Beware.  This next one has a little bit of language.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

• Isn't this so pretty?

Anywho...I guess this is enough rambling for tonight.  I'd apologize for not being completely happy, optimistic, and cheerful...but that's a stupid reason to apologize for haha.  I'd rather just be honest.

Anyway...nighty night!  Or good morning?

what i've been up to - life dump

Honestly, I don't know what I've been up to lately.

I remember once upon a time I was going to post about my spring break adventures.  And then I never did. 

So let's back track to March.

Creighton, Kevin, and I got sushi.  Delish.

 And we went on an epic zoo adventure.

And I went out to three movies that week:  This Means War, Chronicle, and The Lorax.  I had heard mixed things about the Lorax, but I loved it.  And we {Angie, Kevin, Creighton, and I} went up to North Salt Lake and just ended up staring at the city.  I love city lights :)  The rest of the week was made up of yoga, Killer Bunnies, and a slurpee run with a talk on the Boulevard.

The next week consisted of Humans vs Zombies.  After half-heartedly signing up, I ended up having a lot of fun.  It looks like the stupidest game...but if you allow yourself, you will have good time! :)

Some of the roommates and I decided to go to Festival of Colors.  We'll let pictures do the talking.

That same weekend we saw the Hunger Games.  Love, love, LOVE that movie :)

One day I decided to have a "Make Kelly Happy Day" and did so by dressing up adorably.  Then instead of going to class as I had planned, I decided to ditch.  I ended up spending two hours going to the bank and finding flowers and a vase.  Honestly all the flowers sucked.  That is, until I found tulips at Maceys.  Tulips are pretty.  I kind of have a thing for them.

Probably this whole past month I've been under a ton of stress.  Or maybe anxiety.  Either way, it was no bueno.  I would wake up each morning feeling so sick.  Sometimes I just let the big things...and even more so, the little things...take a toll on me.  

On one of the bad days Kevin surprised me with flowers.  They're super pretty :)

Thankfully I'm feeling a lot better lately.  I think much of the stress has subsided, although I know priesthood blessings and a trip to the temple were helpful too.

I've seen and fed plenty of ducks lately too!!!!

Oh and I have not seen my cute duck couple in Logan since I have seen them in Bountiful...I think they must have gotten lost.

We also went on a...not-hike up Logan Canyon.  It was more of a walk.  We went back later that night and had a fire with s'mores

Odds and ends:

considering I thought I was going to fail that test...I think an 89 is super awesome :)

Oh and I found out that my English essay was one of the top in my class.  I get extra credit because of it and Thursday I'll get some award at our assembly/ceremony/whatever it is of all the English 2010 classes at that time.  It felt pretty awesome being told that my essay was one of the top just because I know what went into writing it.  There was a lot of effort behind it...and even more heart.

Tonight I went to Kevin's choir concert:

I listened most of the time!  I lost focus in the middle though...

And this is my attempt at a sneaky photo of the cute old couple next to me.  It was a fail though.  But I decided I want to grow up and be like them.  They were cute and holding hands and just being adorable.

Sorry it's kind of a picture dump and awful writing...but sometimes...okay a lot of times that's just what happens.  It feels nice being as caught up as I'm going to get...although I've missed a lot of details, but that's okay with me.

fifteen

Tonight I decided to read part of an old journal I found.  And as I read, I laughed.

Sometimes you just can't help it.  Some entries really were funny.  I'll leave names out so I'm not too incriminating...but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out haha :)

..."S found out there was hair on the back of her leg like a couple weeks ago.  Maybe a week.  I don't know.  I think it's K who shaves her knee pits. (I learned how to shave in fourth grade.  Steph showed me!) Then we started talking about shaving our armpits.  S's like 'You grow hair in your armpits?!?' We're like 'Yeah.'  Then one of us mentioned one of our armpits was retarded and didn't grow hair."

This entry was even complete with pictures.

hair on the back of the leg :)

armpits.  notice the one of the right has only one hairy pit haha :)

I laughed at the "drama" fifteen year olds face.  With a dozen kids or so kids in my ward/neighborhood my age, there was bound to be some.

I read the gratitude of a fifteen year old for a friend: "I'm just glad I have a friend who likes me and is willing to do stuff with me.  I feel bad that she calls me a lot more than I call her.  I think it's because I've been used to being rejected for so many years that I forget how to be social."  {Don't get me wrong.  I had friends.  Kind of.  Angie moving in improved things a whole lot though}

I read the lessons I learned after a friend's mom had died: don't hold grudges, love everyone with everything I've got, remind people that I love them, be thankful to Heavenly Father for all the things I take for granted, etc. etc.  {I'm still grateful I haven't had to personally deal with this trial and hope I won't have to for years and years....and even more years to come.  According to my Marriage and Family class my parents don't even classify as "young-old" so therefore I vote they need to stick around until they're at least "old-old"}

I found one entry I wish I could have let 18 year old me read {or maybe have 15 year old me lecture 18 year old me}

And another where I wish I could go and talk to the girl who wrote it.  Some of what she wrote was true.  Some was completely false.  However, she was convinced it was all true.  And it took years to realize that that was not the case.

It's funny to see how life shapes us and where we end up.  I can only imagine what 25 year old me is going to want to tell the current me.  I have some ideas what it will be about...I just wish I knew what she'd say to answer all my problems!  Ha!  Too bad life doesn't work that way.

thoughts

Sometimes the brain is a funny thing.  It's interesting to realize what it allows itself to think.  Especially when you know what it's thinking or trying to tell you isn't the truth.

Somehow I always try to convince myself that I'm to blame when bad things happen.  But the thing is, I know I'm really not the cause and really I had no control over it.  Yet for some reason my brain tries to tell me: "if you would have done *this* better" or "you could have been a better example" or "because you said/did *this* it led them to do *this*".  Or any other variation.

It's awful.

Last night I decided I just needed to get out of my house and take a drive.  Except gas is super expensive so I decided to find a place to park.  

I went and parked on the hill next to the Logan Temple

And while there, I just let myself sob.  And swear.  They weren't innocent little hells and damns either.  Honestly, such words have no business even coming out of my mouth, especially parked where I was.  Sometimes life just fails at being awesome.  But what gave me the most comfort was remembering what was said in sacrament meeting on Sunday.  It was the only meeting I went to because face it...every once in a while I just can't handle three hour church.  It was fast and testimony meeting and many people bore their testimony about the atonement and the Savior.  It was comforting to know that Christ knows how I felt and that I wasn't completely alone.

This morning I had a lovely chat with Kylee.  She's pretty dang great.  I probably say that a lot about her...but it's true.  She forces me to talk and spill whatever I'm thinking, even when I don't want to share, and overall, it's beneficial in the long run.  Somehow I always manage to let my guard down when I'm around her and just cry and talk.  I always feel so stupid...but somehow around her it's okay.  I guess even around a bunch of strangers in the Hub too.  They probably wonder why the crazy girl in the booth is shedding tears haha.  Oh well.  It makes life somewhat better.

Life has just been a crazy whirlwind lately.  I'm not really sure what to think of it at the moment.  It's hard when you just stop caring and don't know what to do anymore.  But somehow you just get through it.