"Love Knows not it's own Depth until the Hour of Separation"

Well, we're back on the roller coaster of emotions. Hey, who knew roller coaster wasn't one word... not me! It's amazing how much pain people can endure just to be overjoyed with happiness a few days/weeks/months/years later. In the past year and a half so much has happened, and it has been a roller coaster. For the most part, the good has out-weighed the bad. As many of you know, and if you don't know.. I don't know why you are creepily reading this... my granddad passed away in February of 2011 after suffering PSP. However, with that downfall we officially adopted Arthur, the little rascal. Three months later, I tragically lost a friend. A month after that, I had my LAST surgery on my leg which inevitably changed my life for the better. However, unfortunately a few short days later, another friend tragically lost their life. Then in August, mom's entire side of the family got together for a memorial service/celebration of life for Feepapa. In December, I graduated from Clemson!!! Then three months later I decided to move to Argentina. A month or so after being here my grandmother got sick. I felt like my world was crashing down. I barely had any friends and the language barrier didn't help.. the last thing I needed was for something to happen to my best friend in the entire world. Luckily, she is doing great and I couldn't be happier... or so I thought. Everything was great on my end, mom and dad are coming in less than 3 weeks and life here is getting easier. Little did I know what was going on back home with my sweet angel, Maddie. My poor baby just celebrated her 13th birthday. She's old and gets disoriented very easily. Apparently she had wandered out of the electric fence twice and everyone had to search for her, but was finally found. However, on Saturday night she wandered off and has still not been found. I know she is old and inevitably we were going to lose her... I just don't want it to be this way. I knew it was coming eventually, but who knows what she is thinking right now. I am just as lost and confused is she is. She's my world, my rock, who I go to when things get bad. Yeah, I know... white girls and their dogs.  We had another dog before Maddie, but only for 6 months before she died. I've had Maddie for 13 years... that's a long time. I hope and pray someone finds her... and SOON! I don't know what it's like to go home and not be greeted by her kisses... that's all I've ever known for the past 13 years. Obviously it hurts so bad now, but nothing will be worse than walking into my house in November where I left her 8 months ago and her not being there. Everyone, please keep praying she comes home!! With that being said, I couldn't be more happier that we have the 1 man party now.  I don't even know what life would be without having a dog, especially one to come home to in November. No matter how sneaky he thinks he is and how weird he may be for not liking cheez-its, I still love him.  God has a plan, no matter whether or not we like it.. He is in control of the situation. As hard as it is, I have to constantly remind myself that.

Ok, on to something HAPPY! Mom and dad will be here in 18 days!!!!! I'm super excited. I've been trying to sort out a few details with getting our visa's to go to Brasil and figuring out places to go eat while they are in BA. Nothing too exciting has been going on recently. The dollar situation down here is awful. I have a friend going back to the states for 2 days JUST to get dollars out of the bank. It's crazy. This country never ceases to amaze me, there's always something crazy going on. Friday night, like always I went to Spanglish. I hung around with Maya and Johanna for a bit and talked. Thank God for them! Then came home and skyped a friend until 7am... dumbest idea ever! Seriously, I thought I was going to die on Saturday. I went to an Underground Market Saturday afternoon. Everything here is super unorganized so of course it was nuts. It was in an old factory which was pretty cool. There were a bunch of people from the states who cooked items and were selling them... like red beans and rice, bagels, chocolate chip cookies! The bagels and chocolate chip cookies were delicious. I am so glad that I got them, so nice to have a bite of the US sometimes. After that I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer so I came home and napped then went to Spanglish again. There were SO many people there.. it was awesome! Unfortunately it ended on a bad note with a friends bag getting stolen with her DNI, credit cards, house keys, etc. Like I said... something is always happening in this country.

Today was interesting. I had my classes and was obviously still upset about Maddie. I got very frustrated in the first one towards the end because I just wanted to skype mom to see if there was any update. I'll have to apologize to them on Wednesday. Then I had my classes at Duke Energy. The lady from HR came to observe one. This is the class that complains about absolutely everything. They told me that they liked a lot of conversation and that's what they wanted, but then complained to HR that we talked too much. That's not the case, it was an equal medium of both. Anyways, the HR lady observed for part of the class. Of course, we were talking about employee benefits and not being motivated by the company, all of that kind of stuff. None of my students said anything because they were nervous since the HR lady was there. They didn't want to say the wrong thing, which I'm sure made me look bad. She just picked a bad day to come. The lesson was planned and everything, but I had to semi-alter it because I could tell the students were super uncomfortable. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

That's all for now! Hope everyone is doing well. Please keep praying that Maddie finds her way home safely!

love -A