Time after time

The story of my life for the past couple of weeks has been packing. I packed up my stuff from the house I've been living in and even though I hadn't been there very long it was the second time I've been sad about moving out of a place. I wasn't  sad when I moved out of my parents for college dorm life... granted I moved literally 3 minutes from home. 

Summer after my freshman year I moved into an apartment across town, now about 5-7 minutes from home, with a sorority sister and one of her friends. I had a rough end of freshman year and on into my sophomore year. I shall not digress into the details just that it was a time when I was shown the true colors of somebody I thought was my friend. But spring semester of sophomore year was when I became really close with my now best friend, Rebecca Taylor. She knows everything there is to know about me. She helped me decide on what I should do when I took time off from school. I was torn between staying in Oxford, going to Savannah, GA where my older sister was at SCAD, or convince my parents to let me do a NOLS course in Patagonia, Alaska, or in New Zealand. I ultimately decided on going to Savannah. When I moved in on July 2, 2006, I had very recently started dating a guy back in MS, like 2 months recent, and there was already drama from another female. But I was sad b/c I was in a place where I had no friends, just my sister. I admit I cried a number of times to sleep that first week. That first month there was hard b/c I didn't have a job just yet and the place I wanted to work kept giving me the run around. I gave the owner my resume 4 different times and each time she found something that was "unclear" and wanted me to clarify. The last time she did this to me, I told her that I obviously want to work here bad enough that I changed one word on my resume to clarify the reason why I wanted to work there. If she was not hiring or didn't want to take on one more person she should have just told me, and saved mine and her time. But I thanked her and never walked back through those doors.  

The last couple of times I had moved, I had my friends in the same town. Now I had moved exactly 598.6 miles from my parents driveway to my new apartment in GA. Granted, I met some wonderful people while I was there who challenged me spiritually and knew some details of my life. The RUF leader for SCAD became a big influence. He and his family were a big help more ways than they knew, and so were the individuals in the Bible study I became a part of. Savannah was a great decision on my part. I had job that made miserable and made me realize I needed to go back to college, but the people I met and became friends with are still apart of my life today.

I came back to MS Thanksgiving week, still dating the same guy, but fast forward to now. I've lived in three different places. There isn't any special attachment to any of the places. But last night for the first time since the Savannah move, I was sad about leaving a place. I think the main reason for my sadness was that I was moving back in with my parents. I'm frantically looking for a job and a place to live in the Chapel Hill, NC area. Why there you ask? Well, looking at grad school at UNC and I want to be able to claim in-state residency if and when I get in. But as I was packing up my things I was looking at all the pictures I had framed, collages of trips, and when I rolled up the rug in my room, I found a picture that I had been looking for since I had moved in. When I looked at the picture, all I could think was man we had a great time that night I want a repeat, but knowing that it wont. But it has been three years since Savannah to get to where I am today. Completely disoriented.

I'm studying for the GRE I have at the end of August. I have another phone call to make to the head of the graduate program I want to be apart of and also talking to my undergrad advisor about other things in grad school, and trying to remember which vacuum sealed space saver bag has my running shorts and socks in it so I can stop wearing my little sisters. My dad has hired me out to do a few tasks. Prepare some more meals for the family so my mom doesn't have an excuse to get out of packing and help with packing. So obviously while I'm digressing I'm putting off what I really need to be doing. 

The Grunt Monster

This is a photo of Cooper. He is a pure breed black lab. I love this dog. This was him at about 5 or 6 months. He was nicknamed the grunt monster from the start. If you have ever been at my parents house and Cooper is outside you understand why. He is one of the most vocal dogs I've ever encountered. He grunts and whimpers because he is excited. This picture was taken 9 years ago. He is now 102 pounds and intimidating. Anytime I go walking or running, he is with me. He is a protective dog, and he has actually scared friends that sneaked up on us; they quickly learned never to do that again. He has a mean growl and bark that it has stopped people that are about 20 yards away to reconsider walking in my direction.

Last night I took him walking over to the park, like always, and a cop was driving out. He stopped and told me that I shouldn't be walking alone at night at the park. Before he could finish his sentence, Cooper came and stood between me and the cop car with a little growl and muffled bark, hair on end. The cop looked at him then back at me, and said, "You should be fine with him with you." Cooper stayed there until the cop rolled up his window and drove off. Not even ten minutes later I was heading out of the park on the opposite side I came in and a kid that was playing tennis tops over the hill. Cooper was about 5 yards in front of me and when the kid came over, he growled and the kid stopped in his tracks. Poor kid started walking backwards and ran as fast as he could back over the hill. Cooper came back to me wagging his tail proud of what he did. 

He is full of personality and has always been protective of all of us. The picture above is from Thanksgiving at the Lazy A. He was in heaven. He would sleep on the bean bags in the den area and pretty much had free reign of the kitchen and den area. He loves the walks up there b/c it is a lot cooler there than in MS. It is funny when you tell him to go get on his bed, he looks at you in a way that says, really? My paw is touching it. Isn't that enough? As he lays down he gives out these grunts as if he is saying "happy now?" I love Cooper.

He is very well trained. He just never had the hunting dog quality in him. The picture above was taken about 4 or 5 years ago, and if I had the after photo you will understand how trained he is. My sister commanded him to roll over and play. He decided that he would tackle me and play in the snow with me while continuously pinning me down. All the snow that was there disappeared. My mom and dad came out and started laughing because he was having such a good time rough housing with me. I love my lab Cooper.

When he is outside on my parents porch when I drive up our driveway. He is sitting and waiting by my usually parking spot. As soon as I'm parked and getting out he is in full swing of his vocal welcoming. Our two cats are there as well (that is a whole other blog about them). It is the best thing when you have a bad day or just in a bad mood, Cooper puts you in a good mood and brightens your day. There has been a couple of times I've brought a guy over to my parents house and Cooper didn't go up to the guy and wasn't vocal towards him. This is a sure sign that if there was any potential of the relationship being anything more... shot down w/ Cooper not liking him from the get go. The first time he did it, I should have taken note b/c that relationship ended on a very bad note. Cooper knows. 

I love this dog and I'm talking my mom into getting two more lab puppies from the same breeder so we can still have a lab around the house and so I can have a lab with me where I end up living. I need another protector. 

It isn't a good feeling when you are looking at your phone and then realizing that you know you didn't call or send text messages to certain people. I realized it this morning around 11 when I got a phone call from a guy friend asking wtf about a text and what I was referring to. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Then I realized what had happened. My roommate had used my phone in her drunken state on Saturday. She called and mass texted multiple people in my phone that she thought were people that she knew. Some happen to have similar names but are not the same person. It isn't fun doing damage control for somebody else's drunken mistakes. I was looking through the sent messages and I started dying out laughing. I should post these on the website TFLN I made phone calls to some of the victims just before my class. This is how the first conversation went....

SN - "So just out of curiosity... what the F*@$ did you mean by 'i want you more than anything right now...'"

SL - "Ha ha um hey, and I never sent you that. That would be just too weird and wrong."

SN - "Well, you sent it to me Saturday afternoon. Then I had some missed calls from you as well that afternoon. The voicemail was interesting and you sounded weird."

SL - "ha ha oh man... My roommate used my phone to call (her boy). I guess that conversation didn't go well. I guess she thought you were the ATO SN that she knew. Ha ha wow. I've got to check and see who all got that text and or phone calls."

SN - "You are going to have some fun conversations. Were you wasted on Saturday with her?"

SL - "No, would have been fun to be packing up drunk. Talk about an interesting unpacking experience later."

So that text "i want you more than anything right now..." went to 13 different guys in my phone. I have only been able to talk to 3 of them before my class started.  Out of these 13 guys, I know that 4 of them are in serious relationships, but I'm good friends with the girls; at least I hope I still am. They are the first ones that I called and they started laughing and were like what the heck. I know that some of the guys that were texted will let this text inflate their egos even more. I try to steer clear of helping inflate guys egos in anyway. This is an interesting situation.

I called my roommate during my classes break and she just laughed. She said she would help with damage control but would be pointless b/c she doesn't know any of the people she called and texted. I think all I can do in this situation is laugh at it. Though some of the victims haven't answered phone calls or even on facebook. This is going to be a funny story to tell later in life I think.