the Joneses

   In just under three months, I will be finishing up my five year stint as a college student. 29 days of class in this semester left followed by a three week summer course is all that stands between me and being a graduate. Days have never gone slower.

   It's funny to me the development in my level of nerdiness from high school to now. In high school, I was one of 109 (I think) in my graduating class. There was an assortment of personalities and achievement levels that made my life pretty easy. Though I attempted to excel by enrolling in Advanced Placement courses and was pretty A-oriented, I didn't feel like I was pushing myself very hard. I got A's and B's, participated in various clubs, played tennis, took the pre-SATs, and applied for scholarships to college. I had friends that all aimed very high which was a blessing in disguise when I found out I was very competitive. I'm pretty sure that if I had a different group of friends, I wouldn't have found out exactly how hard I was capable of pushing myself. 

   My freshman year of college I took Economics 101 and hated it. I didn't understand it and didn't care to, which led me to a harsh realization upon receiving my transcript. I looked at the B- (which, to a lot of people would lead to a fist pump in self-congratulation) and just got pissed off. I decided right then that I was not a B- kind of girl. I was paying for my education and the idea of carrying the burden of a $20,000 student debt for numerous years of my life for a bunch of average grades on my record made me very uneasy. I'm pretty sure that from that moment on, I became a mega-nerd.

   School became increasingly important to me, shifting my priorities from "boyfriend and a carefree outlook" to "school, homework, and getting an A". I soon found out I was capable of getting a 4.0 in college and felt mighty good about it. I merged into a group of friends that, to me, seemed normal. In hindsight, I don't think I could've picked a more ridiculous bunch to befriend. Grades, points, and scores were at the core of their worries and it caused me to care a whole lot more about my results than ever before. I soon began to look at my 95%s as simply not being 100%s. I forgot to celebrate and revel in the fact that I was at the top of my class. I looked around me at my peers' scores and the only ones I noticed were those better than mine. It was if they were written larger and in redder ink than all the others.

   My stress and anxiety levels increased the farther I got into the program. The friends I'd made in the earlier years were still there whereas a lot of the others had dropped. I went from being at the top of the pack to somewhere in the middle. Classes got harder and the average dropped lower, gaining me C's and B's on exams. I was not okay with my performance and beat myself up after realizing there were people getting 98%s. I didn't notice the people getting 60%s.

   I started to spend time with my friends less and phone conversations got shorter. I would lose sleep because I was convinced that if I stayed up two hours later studying, I'd do better this time. And yet I'd still do worse than the people who studied "for a couple of hours". It was starting to hurt.

   The worst part was no one seemed to understand. My parents would tell me to not worry as much, that I was doing great - couldn't I see that? My boyfriend just listened and told me it'd all work out. My close friends and roommates didn't understand as much as I'd hoped and I found myself harboring this bitter and self-degrading feeling inside of me. Why couldn't I just be the best?

   The level of competition my senior year and within the Graduate program has been completely insane. We're down to probably 25 people and we've all known each other for at least four years. We know what each other are capable of and are always sure to verify our standing within the group. Scores are compared, time spend studying is casually thrown into conversation, people whisper about others' performance and grades are peeked at over shoulders. And the worst part is how ok it is - everyone does it. It's normal.

   But it's so harmful. There are people that cry themselves to sleep, self-harm, pick up addictions, alienate themselves, hate themselves, become sick and unhappy. The people we should be cheering on and forming lifelong bonds with are the same people we pit ourselves against and compare abilities as if it's some sort of contest. We all will get the degree. We all will get jobs. We all are accountants. Why does it matter so much what the person next to you is doing? Or how they are doing it? How can you possibly compare the results of a single mother non-traditional student with the valedictorian of the graduating high school class of 2009? And why do they both care?

   As the end is looming for my experience at college, my hindsight really is 20/20. If I could, I would go back and do it all differently. I would make time to find myself instead of trying to fit myself inside of a very small box. I would've made more friends that were similar to me instead of ones that just happened to be interested in accounting like I was. I would've looked at the big picture. Mainly, I would've worked on being a happier, better me. 

   Of all the things I've learned along the way, one is the knowledge that competition will always be present. It will be there in my career, in my family, amongst my friends and even neighbors. I'm honestly worried that I've instilled this self-degrading concept of competition and comparison into myself for too long, and that it will be toxic to my life. I don't want to care so much about the person next to me and how "better" they are then me. The thought makes me tired, angry, and depressed. I want to be that person that congratulates, inspires, and shares in happiness with others. I don't want to keep up with the Joneses. 

This one time in Prince George…

   On our trip back down to the Lower 48 from Alaska this summer, we obviously traveled through Canada. Some parts were beautiful and entertaining, others were downright scary. Like Fort Nelson for example, but that’s another story.

   We wanted to take a different route down than we did up, so we went through some different parts of British Columbia. We liked BC a lot better than Alberta. Garrett was the Master Planner and took on the task of securing hotel rooms each night for whatever town we aimed to end up in.

   Prince George, BC was our goal for Day 3 (that rhymed). I was pretty excited about it because it sounded like a big place and I was ready to integrate into society after three days of driving through Northern Canada. We listened to a weird book on tape, had plenty of road trip snacks, took turns playing with the then-9-week-old Remy, and enjoyed the scenery.

   The hotel Garrett chose was one of the nicer ones. It was more of a motel because we had our own exterior door, which was nice with Remy for insta-bathroom action. We were pooped from our 10 hour drive (weird how that works…all we did was sit) so we didn’t get out and explore Prince George. I was okay with that though because it looked like we were in a not-so-nice part of town and it was getting dark.

   The next morning, Garrett took Remy out to go #1 before hopping in the shower.

Side Note   Puppy Rule #1: your puppy will ALWAYS have to go #2 in the morning. ALWAYS.

   I was aware of this rule and was somewhat irked that he hadn’t waited it out for her to let it out, knowwhatI’msayin’. I was irked because it required me to take her out, which isn’t beyond my capabilities as a pet owner, but it meant I had to put on a bra and do something with my unwashed hair and wipe the crusty drool off my face before facing the public.

   So I did, begrudgingly. I could tell Remy was doing the sniff-along-all-the-walls-while-walking-very-fast-I-gotta-poop dance so I quickly tidied myself up, grabbed the leash, and walked outside. I was careful not to shut the door all the way because it was the kind that automatically locks you out, and I didn’t bring a key.

   The first thing I noticed was that the air smelled exactly like you’d think a rancid porta-potty filled with waste and maybe dead things mixed with rotting things would. It literally made me stop in my tracks. Even Remy hesitated and began sniffing around all huffy-like. I was honestly looking for a bag of decomposing…something sitting outside our door or perhaps a pile of garbage nearby. But there was nothing. It was THE TOWN that smelled.

   After that crude awakening, Remy and I walked over to the nearest patch of grass so she could do her business. We passed a very slender elderly man in a stained brimmed hat smoking a cigarette while sitting on a chair outside of the door next to ours. I smiled meekly in greeting and he raised his cigarette as we passed. We made it over to the tiny 4x4 patch of grass and Remy was just about to get down to business when two Dobermans came charging at us at full throttle behind the nearby chain link fence. Not a big fan of violence, Remy hot-footed it out of there and proceeded to drag me across the parking lot. We passed the old man again and he raised his cigarette once more.

   There was another patch of grass a bit farther away in the opposite direction and we decided it’d be our best bet. We arrived right as the sprinklers turned on. I tried to rush Remy by setting her down on the corner of the grass patch and saying “ok! Go! It’s ok! Go! Go! Good girl! Go poopy! Come on!” But she was completely distracted by the sprinkler and began biting the water as it sprayed both of us.

   By this time, I was getting a bit irate. We were on our way to find the next patch of grass when Remy stopped and let it all go right in the middle of the hotel parking lot. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and the old man raised his cigarette.

Great. Not that I’m “that guy” that leaves dog poop in inconvenient places, but I didn’t grab a little baggie before we left the room. In fact, I didn’t even know where they were. But now that I knew the deed had been witnessed, I had to clean it up. We scurried back to the room and Garrett was still in the shower, surprisingly. I half expected him to come looking for us because he usually takes showers that last only a few minutes. I let Remy into the room and banged on the bathroom door.

“Garrett!”

Nothing.

“GAR-RETT!”

Nothing.

“GAAARRRETTTTT?!”

“WHAT?”

“WHERE ARE THE POOP BAGS?”

“THE WHAT?”

“POOP. BAGS.”

“IBLAGAR”

“WHAT?!”

“GAR!”

   Car. Got it. So I left Remy alone in the hotel room, grabbed Garrett’s keys from the desk, stormed out of the room, slammed the door behind me, retrieved a little blue baggy from his car, marched across the parking lot to the tiny pile of puppy turds, seized them, tied up the bag, marched back to the door, opened the – locked. The door locked behind me. 

   So there I stood in Prince George, British Columbia wearing dirty sweatpants with a T-Shirt that read “Walking For Nice Assets” and holding a tiny bag full of tiny, stinky turds outside of the locked door to our hotel room where Garrett was in the shower, Remy was alone with all of our things to chew on without supervision, and an old man sat less than six feet away from me, staring.

   I slowly turned around, slid my back down the door, plopped onto the metal doorstep, and began subtly banging my elbows against the barricade behind me. I could hear Remy whining from behind the door and the shower still running. LONGEST SHOWER EVER.

   I was in no mood for small talk, but I could sense the elderly gent was excited about the opportunity to chat.

“Mornin!”

“Oh, hi, good morning”

“Didja get yourself locked out?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“That is just too bad.”

I smiled meekly again.

“Sure is a pretty day out idnit?”

The irony was killing me.

“Uhhyep! It is.”

   He continued smoking and I pretended to be really focused on a three-inch piece of thread sprouting from the seam of my sweatpants. I was also still banging my unexposed elbow against the door repeatedly. Still no rescue attempts.

“You got breakfast plans?”

That one took me off-guard.

“Um I…”

“I could get some breakfast. You want to get some breakfast?”

“I actually…” harder pounding with elbow against door “…my husband and I are…”

   And then I fell backwards onto the gritty carpet of our hotel room while Remy stepped on my face and Garrett, wearing a towel around his waist, looked down at me and said “what’re you doing out here?”

everything is wrinkly

Oh hi. Yep, I’m still alive.

I still haven’t unpacked all of my clothes from Alaska yet, and it’s been almost two months. I still pick out my outfit for the day from a heap of clothing in the corner of our closet. My pile is right next to where we also throw our dirty clothes, which eventually get washed and put in slightly neater piles next to other piles. Sometimes Garrett picks out a shirt from one pile, thinking it was the clean one, only to realize it was simply between piles and was in fact dirty. Luckily, he doesn’t care.

There are also piles of things in the kitchen. There’s a pile of important papers that seems to multiply but never moves. There’s a pile of Garrett’s physical therapy workouts for his knee because of his accident last month at work. There’s also a pile of dirty hand towels that have yet to migrate to the laundry room pile. Sometimes there’s a pile of Remy’s toys in the living room until she disperses them throughout the house, mixing into other piles.

You’re a pile.

Basically I am at a standstill. I have time to do dishes, to do laundry, to vacuum, to take the garbage to the garbage can, to make the kitchen tidy, to sweep, to unpack my clothes, to make our house cute. I have that time right now. I had that time from the second I got home from work at 4:30. Now it’s almost 6:00 and I can’t get myself to give a crap.

Part of me hates living in in-between land. How everything is just temporarily stuck somewhere because out of sight, out of mind, right? How piles grow roots overnight. How boxes serve as furniture and places to set piles.

But on the other hand, what is the point of making everything neat and pretty? I mean, we have to be out of this place in less than a year. I’m really the only one who cares if the throw pillows go with our non-existent curtains or if the dinner plates match.

This is all sounding really whiny.

Luckily our house is already awesome and doesn’t need much fussing. My first two-level dwelling since I moved out of my parents’ house! There are huge windows, which are a gigantic step up from our Alaska place (which had four windows the size of a microwave). We don’t have much of a yard but there’s a park down the block for Remy to frolic in. I can see the sunrise from bed every morning and the showerhead is tall enough! We have “hard wood floors”, a dishwasher, and it takes seven minutes to get to campus.

Remy is growing like crazy now that she’s hit the three-month mark. She already lost four of her puppy teeth and her coat is changing texture. Her eyes are still blue and snow is now her favorite thing on the planet. Right now she’s lying by the front door, waiting for Garrett to get home even though he’s out of town. I guess I know who the favorite is ;)

big girl pants

   For some reason, I’m big on pro/con lists. On a piece of paper, slowly accumulated in the Memo app on my phone, mentally – it doesn’t matter the form. Can’t decide if you should take a trip? Pro/con list. Thinking of cutting your hair? Pro/con list. Wanna eat that brownie? Pro/con list for sure. But I’ve never had to make a pro/con list that will drastically change my life depending on either outcome. Change the next five minutes, maybe, but not the path I’m on in life.

   I just found out last Friday that the company I’ve been interning with this summer has decided to offer me a full time position once I complete my Masters degree next summer. It’s a great feeling to learn I made a positive impression and worked hard enough to be desired by such an impressive company! It was hard work and I definitely had some ups and downs, but overall it was a great experience and I don't regret it for a second. Being supported by Garrett and my family, having a handful of friends and family in Alaska, and the thrill of being somewhere new made for a great adventure.

But now for the biggest pro/con list EVER!

   If I take the offer, Garrett and I would make the big move up to Alaska in September 2014 and begin our lives in a very new environment. If I don’t take the offer, we would stick around Bozeman and hope for an offer from my other two internships with smaller local firms. Either way, I would be totally happy with my life! That’s the hard part. I just need to decide which life.

Moving to Alaska:

Pros – the adventure of living in a different state, new people, new places, a respectable job with a big company, the number of professional opportunities that will open up to me, the growth opportunity for Garrett and I, soul-searching, a big paycheck, the overall Alaska adventure

Cons – the distance between me and my family, Alaska weather, the complexity of working for a Big 4 firm, city life, not having our core group of friends, being completely out of my element

   So what’s a girl to DO?! There are so many good “goods” yet so many not-so-good “bads”. Luckily I’m not facing this decision alone. Garrett gives the best advice and I’m confident that whatever we mutually decide to do, we will be perfectly happy and everything will be just fine. I just sometimes wish I had a tiny crystal ball that I could take a quick peek in to see which choice would be the “best”…but that’s when you just learn to trust.

que sera, sera.

onto the next “home”

   2013 has been a weird year. On one hand it has been completely awesome: graduating from college, spending time at home, getting married, moving to Alaska, moving back to Montana, etc. On the other hand, it’s been extremely inconvenient. I’ve realized that for the last five months I haven’t felt like I’ve had a home. In April, I began moving out of my cozy little Bozeman apartment. I moved back in with my parents in May and spent a month in a weird transition stage, half of my things in a storage unit in Bozeman and the other half in produce boxes in the hallway of my parents’ house. After Garrett and I got married, we immediately left for Alaska and spent a week living out of a car that was so packed, you couldn’t even lean the seats back more than an inch. When we arrived in Anchorage, we tried to make our dinky little apartment feel like home but struggled. I still have a few boxes I don’t care to unpack because it’d just clutter the place more. Next weekend, we’re moving out of this place and in with Garrett’s grandparents for the weekend: more living out of the car. Then it’s back through the Yukon for a week: car living again. Then home for a couple days: produce boxes in the hallway again. Or, heck, we might not even unpack the car! Just lug in a few pair of undies, our toothbrushes, the puppy – you know, the necessities. Then back on the road to Bozeman where we can’t move into our new apartment until September 1^st so we’re staying with some friends for about a week – half of our stuff in the car, the other half in the storage unit. Ugh! I feel like a gypsy, but I’m assuming gypsies have way less stuff to keep track of. I’m so excited to move into the new place and live somewhere for a YEAR and not just a few months, a few weeks, a few days. But I also can’t help finding it to be bittersweet because it IS only for a year, and once again we’ll be moving. 

   Whenever I imagined my married life, I always pictured me and Garrett in a quaint little fixer-upper – decorated exactly how we’d want it, our dog lying on the living room rug, hanging out on the porch with friends. That isn’t how it’s turned out so far, obviously. I want to make a home for us, but it’s just so hard when you know it’s temporary. I find myself thinking “should I print out those pictures and buy some frames to put on the wall? Well, that’ll make holes…and our lease agreement said no holes…and we have to leave in a month…I guess we’ll just keep staring at the bad paint job and barren walls…” I see friends on Facebook who are also recently married, and they’ve got cute little kitchens with nice plates and leftovers in the fridge and a broom in the corner and it’s so obvious they live there together, happy and fresh into marriage land. Meanwhile, Garrett and I live in damp basement that I’m pretty sure grows mold in the corners (I’m assuming that’s what it is…) and is the PERFECT climate for fruit flies to prosper. I want to make Pinterest crafts, dang it! I want to make a nice place for us, I want to bake cookies without having to buy every single thing before doing so including the pan, I want to feel comfortable walking around in bare feet, I want my clothes to dry in less than five days if I hang them from the shower rod, I want to feel like I can lay on the couch without something crawling out of the depths and laying eggs in my ear, I don’t want to have to go out of the garage door every time I leave the house. I guess I’m complaining about a lot of mundane things. 

   I just have to keep telling myself “home is where the heart is”, and that’s wherever Mr. Morris is. And now Remy, too! 

i lied about the novel thing.

   You know what’s really, really hard? Completely recapping the last month of my life in a blog post. I keep putting it off and putting it off, but it just makes it add up more to the point that I get anxiety just thinking about all the WORDS I have to TYPE! And it’s all just so silly because I started blogging so I could keep my loved ones informed and instead I’m just hoarding all this juicy information. How cruel.

   So I just decided that instead of writing “part two” of the so-called novel I invented in my last post, I’m just going to say random things. Whatever pops into my head, no matter how important, regardless of the order they happened in, begins now.

• I am living in a humid, noisy, dirty, dark, cold, basement apartment in Anchorage, Alaska. I’ve been here for a little over a month now and I still can’t get over how weird it is that I am living in ALASKA? Who would have ever thought. I live with my new husband, Mr. Morris, and we are making due with our current predicament.
• I work at a fancy-shmancy accounting firm downtown in one of the tallest buildings looking out toward the beautiful inlet. I have a love/hate relationship with work right now because it’s summer and who wants to work? And it’s a hard job. I have to teach myself a lot and I use my brain more than I’d like to. But the view from my office is just….it’s just.
• We added a member to our new little family! A beautiful pure white “Alaskan” husky (that’s not a real breed but, you know what? No one cares) She’s the sweetest little girl and I already love her to pieces. We don’t officially get to take her home until next weekend so I am just PINING away.
• 
  
  
  
  
• I have no tan, whatsoever. This is important because I am a very, very pale person in real life and I genuinely depend on my summers to give me that “living” glow that I can sport until around the time of the first Montana snow. But not this year. As my dad used to say, “I’ll meet you next to the clear girl”. Alaska summers, you’re a bit different from what I’m used to.
• I eat far too many pita chips for my own good.
• My favorite place in AK so far has been…everywhere other than where people are. Alaskans are weird, ok? At least people in Anchorage are weird. There are a lot of homeless people, drunk people, homeless drunk people, homeless people that wish they were drunk, drunk people who think they’re homeless…etc, etc. But I love getting outside of the city and exploring! We’ve been hiking, biking, exploring, driving, walking, sitting, playing all over the place.
• 
  
  
  
  
• I am making some good money! It’s exciting. But I’m pretending it doesn’t exist because I have MARRIED WOMAN responsibilities. Boo. Hiss. Just kidding.
• Newsflash: men are less tidy than women.
• My upstairs neighbors are the LOUDEST PEOPLE ON EARTH.
• I still haven’t finished my wedding gift thank you notes?

And there you have it. My life in a very tiny nutshell. 

prepare for a novel - part one

   Presenting…Mrs. Morris! Yep, the big day has successfully passed and I am now a married woman - weird!

all photos property of Spotlight Photo and are not to be duplicated

A little lot about my special day(s):

   It rained and rained and rained the five days prior to Saturday, June 1^st and I didn’t want to admit it but I was in a slight panic. It wasn’t that the wedding would have had to be called off if it was a torrential downpour, but I so wanted pictures outside on a sunny day with the mountains and the trees and the grass..etc, etc. We had a Plan B for an indoor ceremony at the same venue, but I still secretly crossed my fingers before looking at the forecast each time. I told myself to only look at the proposed weather for Saturday once a day once the 10 day forecast was televised. The first time I peeked, it was supposed to be 82 with thunderstorms. The 82 part sounded great, but I was a bit worried about the thunderstorm aspect. The next day I snuck a glimpse and it said 62 and cloudy. Talk about a variation! A bit perturbed with the 20 degree shift, I now began to think it’d be too chilly. The forecast given for Saturday eventually began to even out and it looked like it’d be about 70 and partly cloudy. I decided I could deal with that.

   On Thursday, the wedding festivities began at the venue. I had the good fortune of Garrett’s mom, Angela, wanting to play a part in the decorating aspect for the event. We took a trip to a neighboring town to check out a rental shop and quickly discovered that we had the same vision for the wedding décor! I was so grateful for her interest and willingness to help because I genuinely wasn’t going to put much work into decorating – simply because I found it expensive, hard to tackle with just me and my bridesmaids, and pretty overwhelming. We rented furniture, chandeliers, trinkets, signs, and so much more – all so beautiful. I was excited to see what vision Angela had for everything and was completely blown away. Family on Angela’s side began to arrive during the week and dropped everything to help turn the barn into a scene from a fairy tale. It was rustic with a fancy country French theme, lights strung from every possible corner and chandeliers casting sparkling spotlights everywhere you looked. From high-backed upholstered chairs to mounted chipmunk heads, from heirloom lace to hand-made banners, and everything imaginable in between, my mind was completely blown. I could’ve just stared in awe for hours. The amount of time that family put in was incredible. All day Thursday and Friday, early Saturday morning, then again on Sunday to take it all down. You couldn’t have hired a better crew!

   The venue was a fairly obvious choice for me from the beginning because my parents are property managers and have rented this particular spot out for weddings for years now. It never occurred to me to look into different venues – not because this one was free (because it wasn’t), but because I once stumbled upon some wedding photos from a prior ceremony and they took my breath away. I decided I wanted those mountains behind me as I said “I do”. The spot came with a beautiful outdoor area for the ceremony and a two-story barn for the reception. The capacity of the barn is slightly over 200 folks which we originally thought was manageable, but we slowly discovered that it wasn’t realistic. Garrett’s dad’s family has farmed in the valley for about six generations now, which naturally means they are known by almost everyone. My situation was slightly different having lived in the area for a bit more than a decade. After working on our guest list we came up with a grand total of almost 400 people. 400! My parents couldn’t believe it and broke the news that it sadly wouldn’t work at the venue due to lack of space and a general hazard to the facility. I felt horrible having to tell Garrett to cut off people that he’s known for his whole life, but it turned out to not be so hard after all. We got the list down to about 275 and decided we just couldn’t cut it down anymore. We hoped that it would just work out. As a sort of saving grace, we learned that the Pastor that married Garrett’s mom and step-dad was willing to lend us his giant canopy he uses for the traveling church he operates. We couldn’t believe it and jumped on the opportunity because it allowed us the extra space we desperately needed. Although I was a smidge against the idea, feeling like it might take away from the simplicity of the barn and homestead idea, I quickly realized how beneficial it’d be. And it totally was. The wedding would not have been the same without it! Garrett’s groomsmen and usher took the canopy project on like a bunch of super heroes and I am so thankful for their hard work. Even the Pastor admitted it was the fastest he’d seen the monster go up! It was incredible.

   Friday was for decorating and I can’t even explain how happy I was that I didn’t have to direct people: put this here, that there, hang that over this, blah! That was the part I was not looking forward to. But, fortunately, Angela didn’t require that sort of direction and led Team Décor with ease. Lights went up, chandeliers were hung, furniture positioned, stuff hauled, mirrors and picture frames placed, …etc, etc. It was amazing to watch. Each time I stepped into a room, my socks were knocked off. The best part was that I couldn’t have envisioned it better myself. It was beautiful.

   Garrett’s dad and step-mom hosted the Rehearsal Dinner that night and it was equal parts fun and delicious. We hung out on the screened porch of the main house and enjoyed the slightly warmer weather, though we still looked apprehensively at the storm clouds swimming around in the sky. My fingers remained crossed despite the positive forecast for the next day. My bridesmaids helped with clean up, the groomsmen played yard volleyball in their nice clothes, grandparents chatted, Team Décor worked a bit more, parents relaxed…it was a great evening. We walked through the ceremony a couple times and it all started to get a bit more real. I was nervous standing in front of everyone, practicing vows. Nervous butterflies began to come alive in my stomach. My bridesmaids and I stayed in the main house that night while the groom and his guys stayed in a neighboring house down the road. They came over and we played card games and chatted for a few hours, relishing the last time we’d all be in the same place for quite some time. My sister/Maid of Honor notified us that the Northern Lights were dancing outside and we all excitedly went to the screened porch to watch. It was incredible! I’ve never seen them before, especially in Montana, and couldn’t help but see it as some sort of sign for the next day’s events. They lit up the sky for hours and my sister took some stunning photos. It was so cool!

   After getting to bed late due to festivities and a prank by the neighboring groomsmen (trying to scare us…those punks), we ladies finally got some beauty sleep. There was some unnecessary drama in the morning concerning some missing breakfast food and I had a brief Bridezilla moment, but luckily I think that was the only one. The guys may or may not have thought it was a free-for-all the night before and might have eaten/taken some stuff, but it all worked out. Then it was off to get our hair and nails done at one of my bridesmaid’s mom’s salon in town. It was so fun having us all in one place – some helping another paint fingernails, another pinning up curls. I was so happy with how my hair, fingernails, and toes turned out! We did a few practice rounds on a wedding style and mastered it the day it actually mattered. Each girl looked beautiful and unique because I didn’t specify a particular style for hair or nails. It worked out perfectly!

…to be continued

something big just happened.

   I completed my senior year of college! Just now! Well, like 38 minutes ago really. It’s over, just like that. Instead of getting all mushy-gushy in a giant essay about “how fast time flew” or “oh the memories we made”, I am presenting:

College: A Year FOUR YEARS In Review

In late August of 2009, my parents and I caravanned to Bozeman on a sunny day. I drove with my mom and my dad hauled all my “necessary items” in his truck behind us. Despite almost locking my keys in my car at a rest stop outside of Deerlodge, we made it to my new home safe and sound.

The day was a hot blur of over-excited 18 year olds, blue and yellow t-shirts, loud music, humid dorm rooms, introductions, organization, and temporary farewells. I will never forget my mom telling me she and my dad were sad as they made the four hour return trip. I was too prideful to tell her I was sad, too.

But I was excited! So excited. I was finally in college – no more curfews, no chores, no sibling who borrowed things without asking, new faces, a new job, responsibilities abound…

   Freshman Year consisted of awkward dorm living, bad cafeteria food, experimenting with the party scene, bad grades, bad study habits, new friends, homesickness, intimidating exams, freedom, finding myself, and homework. To say there were “ups and downs” would be an understatement.

I was lucky to be attending the same University as my significant other and spent 80% of my time on adventures with him. We learned that the year we spent apart was more than worth the angst, emotion, and distance. And I’m so thankful for that.

   Sophomore year brought huge changes. At 19 years old I signed my first lease to a blue triplex with mold and pot-smoking neighbors. It was definitely an awkward dance as three girls tried to cohabitate. One liked parties, one liked fishing, and I wasn’t really sure what I liked yet. I found myself stuck in the middle of a situation only three teenaged girls could ever create for themselves.

I discovered I was better at school than my current transcript said I was. I became interested in bike rides, novels, quiet drives, close friends, and dogs. School was #1, Garrett was #2, and everything else was in a giant cluster in third place. I still got homesick but I made new friends. I no longer had to eat cafeteria food but couldn’t cook a non-bland meal for myself to save my life. I got a job at a coffee shop and found a passion inside, but unfortunately had to quit due to a mean stalker :(

   Junior year brought another big move. Katie and I left the original apartment after basically getting booted and found a cute little place a few blocks from downtown and campus. We studied, gossiped, cooked, drank, cried, danced, exercised, laughed, and grew together. She became my second sister and my rock as I cranked through the hardest year of my college career.

I became tired of school and dreamed of a different life. I bought a bike, experimented with yoga, began eating healthier, and cut out some bad influences. Garrett and I realized we were it. He taught me to relax and to be calm, I taught him to plan and anticipate. I still got homesick and missed my real sister and my dog with my whole heart.

   Senior year went by in a flash. I entered the school year with a beautiful new addition to my ring finger and excitement coursing through my veins. I juggled wedding planning, internship applications, difficult classes, a new job, and club involvement and felt overwhelmed more often than not. I recognized my desire to prove myself wrong. I found that my current priorities were not making me happy.

I nervously accepted an opportunity to move to Alaska for the summer of 2013 and was thankful to have a man by my side to support such scary decisions. I dragged myself through two semesters of endless work and tried my darndest to do other things for my wedding, for work, for clubs, for friends, for family, for me. It came as a shock to realize my four year undergraduate stint at MSU was soon to end.

   And now it has ended. I completed my “final” final exam today at approximately 10:25am and left the building in a weird daze. I’m so happy! And yet, I’m so weirded out.

   Fortunately (or unfortunately), I will be returning to this familiar town and campus in the fall for Graduate School. The only things that will change are fewer familiar faces, a wedding band added to my ring finger, Alaska memories in my mind, and (hopefully) a little furry companion.

I can’t help it...: where did the time go?

so here's a funny story

   A few weeks ago, my roommate and pretty-much-sibling threw me an awesome bachelorette party at our little apartment. It was a great afternoon filled with white chocolate covered pretzels, “special punch”, dirty word games, laughter, sunshine, and friends.

Proof:

   Everyone was instructed to bring “downtown attire” to change into and our apartment eventually turned into a giant dressing room and hair/makeup studio.

   Getting to the root of this story: a few days after my bathroom had been bombarded with curling iron-wielding dress-wearing ladies, I was hanging up my hand towel when I saw something out of the corner of my eye in the drain of the left sink (I have 2, obvi). I should let you know I have a nasty fear of spiders and think they are the creepiest things in existence. Anyway, I stood there looking at the thing in the drain for a good 30 seconds when suddenly it moved! I swear it moved. I deduced right then and there that it was a nasty drain-inhabiting spider, gathered up my courage, took a tiny step closer to the sink, and quickly turned on the water to wash the hellish thing down to its sewer-y death. I only let the water run for a few seconds because I hate wasting water then took a peek to see if it was gone. It was still there! I figured I’d at least wounded it, though, so I left for class. Also, I’m not really sure how this is all relating to the fact that my bachelorette party occurred a few days prior to this situation. I think I subconsciously thought the drain-spider appeared because my bathroom had been a complete disaster ever since the female invasion. Anyway…

   Later that day I came home and it was still chilling there, all gross and whatnot. I turned on the water again but the turd still clung on! Irritated and grossed out, I ignored it and convinced myself that the probability of it crawling all the way to my bed and laying eggs in my ear cavity was pretty low.

   The same thing happened for about two more days: me peeking to see if it was there, getting irritated when it was, turning on the water, checking again, feeling exasperated and running away when it still didn’t go away. That was my life.

   Well on day four, I finally got fed up with having to avoid my left sink entirely due to fear. I somehow mustered up the courage to grab a Q-tip and prod at the thing to push it down the drain.

   It all happened in a matter of milliseconds: grab Q-tip, assume guarded stance, run water, aim Q-tip at spider…one…two…three…PROD!

   But the only thing that happened was the thing stuck to the Q-tip.

   Confused, I pulled my poking device out of the drain and attached to the end of it was…a craisin.

   So that was that. 

third time is not the charm.

   I'm currently in the process of mailing out my wedding invitations (with only 47 days 'til the "big day", I better be!) I was really lucky to have connections with a graphic designer who personalized my invitations and all the pieces-parts to a T. I love them SO MUCH and will probably keep seventeen of them just for myself to cherish.

   Anyway, Garrett and I had a cool last-minute idea to seal the back of the envelopes with wax - you know, like in the "olden days". Garrett hand-carved a cool "M" stamp and we bought some special sealing wax in an awesome green color. We were both totally stoked because we're into that stuff and whatnot.

   So we sit down to begin the addressing-stuffing-adhering-stamping-sealing process when I realized a potential problem - what if the wax makes the envelopes too heavy/bulky for the traditional "forever" stamp? I obviously didn't want to risk going through the entire process only to find out I needed three more cents of postage on each one, so we made up a "sample" to take to the post office the next day.

   On my lunch break that following day, I skipped to the post office (not really) and told the post office worker that I was about to be sending out a bajillion of the pretty wax-sealed envelopes. I asked him to weigh it and check the size for me to see if one stamp would cover it. So he weighed it - no issue there - then he slid it through the sizer thingumabob - no problem there, either. I subsequently purchased about five sheets of the cute "love" stamps and went on my merry way!

   A few days later, I returned to the same post office but was met with a different employee as I proceeded to send off about 50 completed envelopes. I asked him to weigh and size a few, just to be on the safe side, and once again was told that they were completely fine. 

   About a week after that, I once again visited the post office to mail about 50 more little beauties. The postal worker, a woman this time, weighed 'em and sized 'em and gave me the thumbs up. I was glad to be getting the invitations crossed off my list!

   Well, two days later my grandma called and told me some not-so-fortunate news: a family friend had received their invitation with a stamp on it that said "20 cents postage DUE"....

EMBARRASSING

   I was really caught offguard because how could that have happened? I'd taken all the precautionary measures and was told THREE TIMES that there would be no issues! None! Frustrated, I took the next batch of about 40 invitations to a different post office yesterday. I told the woman my predicament, and asked her why only one invitation out of over 100 had "postage due", and all she said was, "well, it depends on the delivery person."

What?

   What do you mean it "depends"? Aren't you a business? Aren't you supposed to have these things pretty set in stone? I mean, either it costs 42 cents or it costs 62 cents, right? Not sometimes one or the other. Of course I didn't say those things, but seriously??

   So my choices were to:
   a) take the risk and send off another bundle of envelopes that may or may not be stamped with the dreaded "postage due" warning, DEPENDING on the postal worker...

   or b) pay another thirty bucks to buy 20 cent stamps for the remaining invitations to cover my butt

Awesome!

   I immediately called my dad for his advice and he said it'd be safer to cover my bases and get the dumb stamps. Not that anyone would really care about the 20 cents due issue, but it is pretty embarrassing. Plus, in the scheme of wedding planning, an extra $30 really wasn't something to pull my hair out about.

   So I returned to the counter and told the woman I'd go ahead and buy the COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY stamps. She proceeded to pull some sheets of the 20 cent-ers out of her drawer with the face of our very own President George Washington on them and I couldn't help but say, "and I'm assuming those are the only 20 cent stamps you carry?" 

Yes, yes they are.

   So now my cute little invitations with the pretty green wax "M" on the back, the calligraphy addresses in lovely silver ink, and the relevant "LOVE" forever stamps are now tarnished with the pasty old man skin of Mr. Washington. 

These things, I tell ya.