My dog isn't going to like you and that's okay

Almost four years ago now my wonderful 100lb beauty was born. My adorable Sharpay-Lab is a giant lapdog who gives me all of the love in the world.

I met him in October three years ago just a few days before he was getting sent to the pound. 

A couple purchased him not knowing that both breeds of dog that he was mixed with are large dogs. Being a large dog he required a decent amount of space and yard to roam and run in, but the couple only had a backyard that was 8ft by 8ft, and so they decided it was best for him to put him in the pound. Before that could happen my dad overheard him talking about it and decided that since our dog had passed away about a year before that we could take him. (Even though my dad isn't an animal person he likes to have an outside guard dog because we live in the middle of nowhere and he can't argue since he was already fixed with shots and we were getting him for free) 

So that day my dad stopped by his house after work and picked up our new (at the time) 80lb friend Scrappy.

Honestly, that day was probably one of the best days I had had in a significant amount of time. Seeing that creature run in an acre of fenced land for the first time gave me so much joy it hurt. My mom is allergic to dogs so he doesn't come in very often, just when the weather is bad or we want him to come visit. 

Outside he has an insulated doghouse that is almost the size of my dorm room at college, with a heated bed that only turns on when he lays on it. So you can imagine that Michigan winters don't get the best of my best friend.

The only negative thing that my dog will do is not like you.

Scrappy is the definition of a guard dog. If anyone that isn't related to me shows up my dog can and will be very suspicious of you, and if you aren't around one of my family members or if we aren't home he WILL attack you. 

Especially if you're a man. For whatever reason, if you're a man he is twice as likely to attack you. As long as a member of my family is around he'll just bark at you and keep a close eye on you, but if a person shows up to my house and he doesn't know them he will bark and growl and probably scare the absolute shit out of you.

For whatever reason people think that because of this I need to put my dog down because he is too aggressive

 We do not take my dog to public places

We have signs at every entrance of our back yard saying "BEWARE OF DOG" and "GUARD DOG ON DUTY"

We only let him around others if family is around

 Scrappy has never harmed ONE person. EVER.

Yet, many people still think that my dog is evil. I've come to this conclusion: My dog is not evil, people who want me to kill my dog are evil.

I've read on the internet before of too many times that people have gotten bit by dogs and been forced to put their pets down. I personally feel that this needs to be more regulated because in MOST cases the dog was scared, or egged on. IF PEOPLE GET SCARED THEY ARE PROTECTED BY LAW AS SELF-DEFENSE BUT IF DOGS ARE SCARED THEY GET KILLED.

Although I understand that there are some cases in which the dog is not scared I would argue that almost HALF of these cases are SCARED DOGS. 

I love my dog, and I want more laws to protect him and other dogs like him.

If I had more time I'd go on to talk about Pitbulls. Stay tuned for that article!

Why I think social media is so cool

Every day we check our phones, we check our facebook, our twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, blog, Instagram whichever. We do it. Every day, and every day we look at these things that people post and whether we know it or not we're making all of these connections with all of these people. Every day I scroll through facebook and see someone share something about something they're passionate about and I learn something new about them and their views and what they care about.

By far, our generation is probably one of the most connected generations there is. I can tell you almost anything about anyone on my friends list and I barely know them. As a group, we've come together to make changes via the internet and social media that no other has before, and that's cool! It's cool that we can be so connected.

It's just so crazy, that I can literally just type this and press some buttons and YOU read it. You don't even know who I am, or what color my eyes are but you're reading things about my daily life. In a strange way we're connected, and that's fucking cool. 

I guess what I'm really getting at is that even though every generation before us thinks our generation is crap, they're wrong. It's cool, and it's interesting. We are literally just an enormous group of people that have connections to each other. Imagine in the future what we can do. 

Why I had to get a new fish

A few days ago I decided I was tired of changing my fish’s water every other day so I ordered a filter. It was like 10$ on amazon and if it meant that I wouldn’t have to change the water constantly I was very up to spending 10$. I love my fish, but since I can’t lift over 10lbs without my parents getting scared I’ll rupture an organ it just made sense to order a filter.

Today my filter came from amazon – a day early! Which was great.

What wasn’t great was going to install it and seeing my fish Rory (named from Doctor who) floating on top of my tank. Instinctively my dad reached in and grabbed the dead fish with his bare hands and picked him up and put him in the toilet. (Which he didn’t flush so that way when I went to the toilet next he could hear my screams).

Now I didn’t just buy that filter to not have fishes in it. I did have one more fish in that tank, but what people don’t know is that like people goldfish get lonely. Goldfish can live longer if they have a friend in the tank with them! Also, they live longer if they look healthier in the pet store.

Barry and Rory (may he rest in peace) were bought at a small pet store in my town, but when I bought them the day after Christmas they weren’t looking too healthy. Barry actually was sick too when I got him but now he’s happy and healthy thanks to proper care and love. I bought my new friend Simon from a local PetSmart and I’m actually fairly impressed with how friendly and helpful their workers were, and with how healthy their fish looked.

I know I only have two fantail goldfish but I’ve also had large aquariums my whole life and raising fish has become a hobby of my and my dad. He used to have a GIANT tank over 20 gallons of salt water life including electric eels and many other weird but cool creatures he could find or save from people who didn’t know how to take proper care of them.

Anyways – my new fish Simon (very colorful) is in the main picture of this article with my other fish Barry! (mostly colorless)

A different kind of cathouse

When I was really little my dad acquired my cousin's old playhouse. It's very small and has one door and two windows. Inside is a small little table perfect for the average four-year-old. 

After a certain age that playhouse kind of just sat around and began to rot. The idea for the cathouse didn't come to mind until my dad built something I'd like to call a deluxe doghouse. It has a hallway that leads to a dining hall, and a bedroom with a heated dog bed that only heats up when you put a certain amount of weight on it (50+lbs). Plus we had to make it large enough for our over 100lb dog to fit through the hallways. The entrance leads out into his cage. 

After a year or so of having a cat it kind of became troublesome. We love our cats, but we can't have them inside because my mom is more than fairly allergic to them and has to wash her hand every time she comes in contact with one. For a long while, we kept them in the garage but that proved to be not very useful for my dad who uses the space to weld and do other things that can end very dangerously with other animals staying around. 

Eventually, we realized that if we somehow changed my playhouse into a cathouse it would benefit everyone involved.

Inside the cathouse is an old square wooden shelf with square cubbies made for fabric pull-out drawers. Instead of fabric pullout drawers are fuzzy memory foam pads for cats to sleep on, and a foot or so in front of that is a floor of pine chips to cuddle in and keep warm in the winter time since sometimes cats like to cuddle and the cubbies are only big enough for one cat each.

In front of that area is the old game table that sits in front of the window. That's how they get in! There's a board diagonally placed like a ramp leading to the window so it's harder for larger animals to break in and hurt them or eat their food.  

On the main floor below the table is wood flooring with lot's of food and water dishes held in place by molded plastic mats so the water won't spill onto the wood and ruin it.

Also, I forgot to mention they have a fenced in yard with a special cat gate as a secondary preventative measure to help with larger animals breaking in. Inside their little cat yard are a brick tower, a small tree and lots of grass so they don't have to go too far in the winter time to use the bathroom. This fenced in area also has a roof for two purposes. One purpose is to prevent snow (since I live in Michigan) from taking over their entry into the house, and a second purpose is a little cat getaway. On the roof is a bunch of old pillows, and remember those old trampolines from your childhood that are really small and for one person? I used to store it up there, but it kind of grew into a part of the cat house. They LOVE it. They're up high, and they can hide in a dark space and watch everything around them. Also, since it's dark colored in the middle it attracts heat and makes for one very happy kitty!

This line is me apologizing because all of the pictures I took I realized it's sad and winter out and I should probably clean their caged part tomrrow whoops.

Don't get sick in college

On the third week of this semester, I got sick. For most people getting a throat infection like strep or similar isn't a big deal. It wasn't for me either. I drank my OJ, took my amoxicillin and tried to move on, but for some reason I couldn't. 

It kind of felt like my entire throat was swelling and I could barely breathe because my throat was swelling and I could barely breathe. Somehow some type of gland was swollen according to my doctor. 

And then, my entire body turned red with a rash. My ENTIRE body. After about three trips to urgent care and lots of different medicine's they finally gave me the right diagnosis. Mononucleosis. 

I noticed the constant need for sleep but I had associated it with being a college student who doesn't take good enough care of herself because I am. 

Disappointingly enough, a few other things were happening. There's this part of mono, where if you're not careful and you don't sleep enough your spleen and liver could swell up, and rupture. I so happened to have the beginning stages of that, and so here I am. On bedrest writing a new blog post every couple hours when I think of a new one. On top of that, they gave me steroids a while back when they thought I had something else that messed with my immune system, and I have also had a cold, and the flu since then on top of strep and mono. 

 I've been absent from classes for over a month. I am 7 weeks into the semester. I may have to drop out of this semester if I'm not better by the end of spring break, which started two days ago. All seems rough but have no fear. I can always just take the classes at a later time. I'm just more of upset I might not be able to get the money back from school, and housing. 

Sorry for the sad post, but I figured if I'm writing about everything else I might as well write what else is happening to me. 

On the bright side, I've been using the time I've been sick to sprout a new leaf and leave the past behind me. It's been fairly good for me so far. As a person, I've had a lot of time to grow and help decide what I want and need to be happy. 

I wish you all good health and a semester filled with grades better than mine!

A Letter to a Friend I Need to Leave Behind

Dear friend,

You owe no one happiness but yourself

– My mother

It isn't that I don't like you as a person. I just don't like aspects of our friendship anymore, and I need to concentrate on myself and do what makes me happy. 

Even though we still are similar in some aspects we've grown apart in a lot of others. 

For some time now I've just felt responsible for you in a way. Like for some reason you picked me to be your all-time-everything friend.

Which for a while I thought was really cool. You're funny, and you like cool things. 

Up until recent I've never been super independent. I was a follower, who liked to follow. Which is why in the past our friendship worked so well. 

You like to be in charge and make the decisions. That's not a bad thing. 

As you know though for the past while I've kind of morphed into this independent and strong person that I never thought I was going to be able to be. 

I never saw myself as a leader or any kind of strong person in general. Thanks to moving away from home I got to find myself and grow as a person. 

While I've came a long way I still have a lot more to go. I might be older and stronger but I know I can be better. 

I just don't feel like our friendship is benefitting either of us on an emotional or mental level anymore. 

I just need to do more things myself and move on to a new chapter of life. 

I need to take complete control and I don't think I'll be able to do that while maintaining such a large commitment to our friendship, especially because of how it's been affecting both of our daily lives.

With love.

no better title than preface

Here I am

1 month too sick, 1 year confused and 19 years looking for myself.

I'm still looking.

I have a really bad case of mononucleosis – which has forced me to take time off from college this semester and possibly take the whole semester.

That's okay, because I have no idea what I'm doing. At this point, I'm walking around just trying to figure out what I want. Which right now I want nothing. I want nothing but a grilled cheese sandwich maybe and someone to make it for me. I guess what I'm saying is I'm going to take this time here the next few months to try to figure out what the hell I'm doing. 

I guess I'm just ready to close the door on one path of my life and start something new. Something better.

and, begin.

Almost a musician someday

When I was 9 years old I started something that changed my life.

I played the trumpet in the band. Kind of a silly thing to change your life, but, strangely enough, playing music helps you overcome things in your life that you never thought you could. With each instrument I've learned to play I've overcome a new obstacle. 

When I was very young I got a guitar from my dad as a gift, and now I'm putting it to good use. To help me overcome the new obstacles in my life I'm picking up a new instrument. 

In my life, I've played trumpet, horn, tuba, flute, and as of this past year I started learning piano but I'm not very good yet.

Playing the guitar was inevitably going to happen at some point, and I'm kind of glad I waited until now because I think I needed this in my life. I feel like I've been in a rut and needed something new, and this is what I'm going to do to start. 

Music and doing new things with it helps you creatively and gives you new ways to look at life and solve problems. With each new project I start I feel as though I'm stepping into another world, and it's a feeling I've craved for a long time. 

Sometimes you just need to step into another world to watch your own world. To learn more about it and help yourself grow, and I've needed some kind of personal/spiritual fertilizer for some time now. 

"I am [in your world].’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

     -C.S.Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

What practicing music really feels like

Especially at a young age, you get under the impression that practicing is boring. Many have that misconception. I had that misconception until sophomore year of high school and then I accidentally figured out how immensely addicting practicing can be. Improving yourself for hours and hours like weight training. 

I remember practicing for performances and getting to the point where my lips are numb.

I just practiced guitar for 2 hours and I can't feel my fingertips. They're so raw I can barely pick up my credit card.

A gentle reminder to all my friends that just like you can over train in a fitness perspective you can also over practice! Practice makes permanent so make sure you're in the right mindset to practice and that you've rested and can use your best head to process what you're practicing. Unpracticing is a process that is about five times harder to do than regular practicing so get it right the first time my friends.

I'm just going to sit around trying to practice guitar and cry out in pain every time because of my fingertips. Whoops.

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