Troy Finished 5 Semesters!

We have definitely taken a hiatus from this blog.

Our last post was about 1.5 years ago. One reason it's taken me (Laura) so long to resume this blog is because there is so much sad in the last few posts. I really miss Jenny.

*sigh*

Anyway.

We went to a Cat Show. And wore our cat shirts that my brother made for us!

Me wearing my Chloe cat shirt while I hold a Chloe cat!

Troy was given a Diamond cat shirt because her love for him is undying.

Observe Diamond's love for Troy:

What else has happened...?

We stayed in Arizona for Christmas 2014. It was the first time Troy and I had a Christmas just the 2 of us. We fed the sister missionaries dinner that night, and Skyped with family. It was also the first time we made Christmas dinner, and one of our dinner guests (from Idaho) praised my mashed potatoes. Score!

I started a music blog on January 1, 2015, which I update weekly (usually... there's a video for each week of the year, sometimes it doesn't come out in the intended week): myfriendmusicandmusing.blogspot.com

Troy decided to shave only after finishing a semester:

Here's a good side profile of Troy's out-of-control facial hair. That's the Grand Canyon in the background (more in an upcoming blog post!).

We went to Texas for my family reunion:

Our breakfast in Houston: Shipley's doughnuts. If there was a soundtrack to this moment, it would be, "Reunited and it feels so good..."

We hung out on Galveston, and played on the beach with my nieces and nephews. It was cloudy this day, but the next day was beautiful. So beautiful I forgot to take pictures as we frolicked in the ocean.

Troy has done some pretty cool stuff over the past 5 semesters (handing blogger over to Troy now):

 

For my first Photoshop class's final, I had to make a movie poster for an existing movie.

I turned a picture I took atop South Mountain into a scene from Fallout New Vegas. This was my final for my art class, first semester.

In my second level Photoshop class I turned a photo of Laura into a painting.

Also in my second level Photoshop class we learned how to do photo restoration. I chose a random picture I found online.

In my typography class, I had to create a fake company and create an ad campaign based on it. I decided that Smart Mines was a middleware company that made digital explosions for movies and video games.

The rest of the pictures are posters I made for an art class I took this spring. We had an election on campus at the end of this past semester to decide if cats or dogs are better.

VOTE CAT!!!

6 months

Laura here. I usually write for the blog anyway, Troy usually does the final editing.

I miss Jenny so much. Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2014. It is the day before Thanksgiving. I have so many mixed feelings about Thanksgiving this year:

• dread for this happy occasion without Jenny
• sadness/grief/loneliness that Jenny is gone
• excitement to be with family for Thanksgiving
• happiness to be with my parents and with Jenny's parents and family
• and fear about how I will react. Will I cry the entire time? Worse, will I not be able to cry at all? 

Because today also marks 6 months since Jenny's passing.


6 months. Six months. S-I-X  M-O-N-T-H-S.


Thanksgiving was Jenny's favorite holiday. It's mine, too. (Who doesn't love a day dedicated to good food, good company and lounging? And giving thanks, of course.) But I don't know that I'll want to eat a whole lot this time around. I don't know that I'll be able to eat. Grief takes away my appetite.

*sigh*

I hope everyone has a wonderful, thankful holiday. I hope you are surrounded by good food and good company. I hope we all remember to be grateful. I hope we all remember to express love to our loved ones.


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Playing Catch Up

It has been a while since our last post, and a lot has happened since then.

There have been a few times that we wanted to update the blog, but every time I (Laura) logged in, I saw the last post, and became too sad to add anything.

*Sigh.*

So here's what's been going on since July (not necessarily in chronological order):

We celebrated 4th of July in Oceanside with a bunch of my family. This is only one family (from Utah). I don't think we got a group picture of everybody, and this picture isn't even everybody in this family, but it's the best picture I have from that weekend. Yay, cousin love!

Diamond and Chloe made the first steps to becoming friends. From the safety of Troy's backpack.

We hung out with Brooke, Erika, Harold and Major in San Diego before they moved to Washington D.C.

San Diego is nice. That's Mexico in the background.

CSUN's Music Therapy program turned 30. CSUN Music Therapy alumni went and bugged the director and founder of the program - Ron Borczon.

On CSUN grounds. College students are funny.

It took me a month to get the cats to the vet for routine shots. Diamond destroyed her previous carrier, and when she was forced into this new one, she forced her way out. No words can describe the frustration.

I quit my job. My co-workers threw me a farewell party, and one of my co-workers (also named Laura), gave me farewell flowers. The note says, "Laura, I hope your last couple of weeks here are happy ones. Laura" So sweet!

Troy quit his job, and his co-workers threw him a surprise farewell party.

We moved to Phoenix for Troy to go to school. It was a bittersweet farewell from Long Beach.

Our first (and second and fourth) meal(s) in Phoenix.

Our first encounter with the local street youths (in a neighborhood around the corner from us).

Diamond and Chloe are still working out their issues.

But they're friends, whether or not they realize it yet.

Phoenix was hit with a few monsoons.

We found a bird struggling to get dry after all the rain.

We went to the Phoenix Temple open house.

I went back to Long Beach twice. The first trip, I went back to assist my friend in the birth of her baby. (She's a really good friend.) And the beach was calling me.

The second trip was an overnight drive-there-and-back-really-quick-trip, and Troy was able to join me that time. He also let me french braid his dreads.

I dressed up as Cleopatra. Troy "dressed up" as a Batman Fanboy.

Troy got a cat toy stuck in the ceiling, and Diamond almost convinced herself she could jump high enough to reach it.

Chloe discovered a new favorite observation point.

I ran a half marathon. It took me 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 11 seconds. I almost fell over after I crossed the finish line.

Thanks for reading this very long blog post! Till next time, internet.

8 Weeks Today

In the last post, I (Laura) mentioned that I attended my first birth as a doula/music therapist. The very next day, my best friend died.

Jenny texted me a selfie, back before selfies were a thing. Back when cell phone pictures were new and exciting, when cell phone cameras weren't as good as the average stand-alone camera.

I wanted to mention her passing in the last post, as it's the biggest news of my life. But it didn't seem appropriate to lump that in with all the regular stuff going on. It also seems disrespectful to not mention her at all, so Jenny gets her own blog post. I thought about posting this the day after the last post, but I was too sad at the time to do any editing.

What a love.

Jenny and I have been best friends since we were 8 years old, when we met in 3rd grade. About a year and half after we met, my family moved across the street from Jenny's house! It was very exciting. My parents, and her parents, still live on that same street. 

I have 4 brothers, and 3 of them have awesome wives. Troy has 2 awesome sisters. But sisters-in-law are not the same as sisters (as fantastic as my sisters-in-law are in their own right). Jenny is the closest I've ever had to a sister. We grew up together, and I have no idea who I would be today if I had never met her. We were supposed to continue to grow up together, and I don't have a clue as to how life is going to be without her from now on.

High School Europe trip - here we are, somewhere in Europe together.

 Us again - in France, on a boat.

In my parent's kitchen.

In my parent's front room.

In Jenny's parent's front room.

When Troy and I got married.

Such a beauty.

Today (Monday, July 21, 2014) marks eight weeks since her passing. Each Monday is another reminder that she's physically gone. I know her spirit still exists. I know we're still sisters. I know she still loves me, her family, and all her other friends. I know we'll see each other again, in another life.... But her absence hurts so much.

I found this last weekend, cleaning out the computer desk. I started writing/drawing an epic letter to Jenny back in 2007, but the pad of paper got misplaced during my many moves. I found it again in 2012, and added some more notes/drawings on two different occasions, always with the intention to fill up the entire pad of paper and mail it to her. I found this pad of paper last weekend, and realized I had no one to send it to anymore. 

(How I felt when I realized I had no one to send the letter to anymore.)

It remains unfinished. Troy told me I can still write to her, which is true. I was never supposed to keep it, though, and seeing it again fills me with more waves of grief, regret, sadness and longing.




                                                          *sigh*

Some days are better than others, but I'm trying to still find ways to laugh. I'm trying to still look for and find all things silly, weird, and funny. I'm trying to still be silly, weird and funny. It's one way to connect with Jenny, one way to feel close to her. (Explanation of this picture: I wanted to take a picture of the sun bather in Hyde Park [I mean, c'mon! Look how hairy and gloriously unashamed he is!], but didn't want to look like a creep, so Jenny was my decoy.)

(What would life in the Bay Area be without at least one blurry BART picture?) Again, some days are better than others. But I'm trying to find ways to be happy, if for no other reason than to live like she did. I'm trying to have (and spread) hope, faith, and love - in her honor. When I do, it's another way to remember and connect with Jenny.

I love you, Jenny. I miss you terribly. But whatever the afterlife holds for us, I hope we can do everything we did here on Earth (and more!). And I hope that includes running around in handmade-from-Berkeley mukluks again. I'll keep my red and blue ones till then.