Nerves. They Suck.

I stayed up late last night in an attempt to slightly alter my sleep schedule, but I didn't make it much past ten thirty. Yeesh I feel old sometimes. Then I actually slept in until my revised alarm went off at eight, go me!

Still feel like I should be in bed, but I'll pop my vitamins here in a bit and feel better.

Anyway, I woke up and shut my alarm off, and rolled onto my back in bed, wondering why I reset my alarm and why I felt so tired, then I remembered.... the interview.

Nerves nerves nerves nerves!

One good thing, I have two classes today to distract me from focusing on how badly I'm going to tank it.

I can't help it, people. I'm following in the footsteps of blog giants like AD (who, by the way has reached his 200,000 visit in ten months that he's been blogging, cripes I'm jealous, I'm still pushing for 10,000 at four months) and LawDog and MattG and Babs. All of whom I read religiously in an attempt to better my own writing. And because they freaking RAWK.

So the fact that I've been asked to do an interview is a big thing for me. It's a definite honor, and I know I'm going to sound like a total dweeb. And probably, if asked about any of the above, an utter fangirl.

But that at least gives ya'll who listen a little entertainment, and that's kind of what I'm here for, so I guess it's all good.

Operation: Love From Home

I'll be spending some of my meager cash this holiday season on buying a couple of packs of holiday cards, and I'll be doing it soon. Why? Because I'm going to participate in Operation: Love From Home.

This is a project in which each person can send an actual, physical card to a soldier, thanking them for their service.

I've participated in some of the projects where you write a note on the website and they print it on a card, and then send it to a soldier, but there's something more viscerally satisfying about holding the card in your hands, writing out your own "thank you" and dropping it in the mail. Even if it is just to GA to be re-routed. I think the soldiers know there's a difference, too.

So, I'll be spending some time filling out cards to go to soldiers to tell them just how much I appreciate them, and what they do.

Ya'll go drop by and get the information too. To steal a method of persuasion from AD, I get about a hundred hits on this site a day. We'll assume that half of those are repeat visits. If even fifty of you write one card every day from now until November 17th (to allow time for the USPS to get their act together and get them there), that's fifty cards a day.

Fifty one days, not counting today, times fifty cards, that's two thousand, five hundred and fifty soldiers that get a card saying "thank you." All from this little blog thingy.

And all it takes is a few dollars to buy cards (get the boxes of them, they're inexpensive and you can get the blank inside ones so that if you feel like it, you can write a letter) a little time each day, and a few more dollars to mail them.

Show your appreciation to the people who are willing to fight for you and yours, folks, whether you agree with the political situation or not, those men and women are still there for you and your country.

I'll also be making fliers to post at the college, so consider putting the basics on a sheet of paper and posting it somewhere at work, at your school, or on the street. You can make a difference, and you can help with this, if you try.

Hat Tip to AD for pointing this one out to me.

*Edit: Kat at Yikes! (The web home of Operation: Love From Home) has provided me with a flier. If you want to post fliers, contact her and you can get it too. Trust me, it looks great, has all the info on it, and saves you some time. When it's this easy, why not do a little something to help out?

More on Monkey Horse (Long and Rambling)

So, today we practiced for our test tomorrow. We did a pleasure pattern, and Marilyn was sure to tell us that if the horse acted up, that was ok, she was looking at how we did as riders in asking the horse to do what we wanted, and making him do it if he didn't want to.

It was interesting. Part of the pattern was to lope in two circles, one in either direction. Now, I haven't done a lot of loping in circles with Monkey. He's still maintaining the battle to go back to the barn, or the herd, at the trot, so we haven't worked much at the lope.

Did I mention that today was also our first day with spurs? Since Monkey has decided to ignore my leg pressure and heel pressure on things like sidepassing and 180 degree turns, I went out and bought a pair of these:



Notice, if you will, that rather than a rowel, they have a ball. That's because I want him to respond to the dull pressure, not the poking. That way, when he's further along in his training, I can lose the spurs and still get the response.

Unfortunately, Monkey Horse didn't understand that there is virtually no way I can actually hurt him with these spurs. (No, really. Before I ever left the house with them, I sat in my chair and kicked myself in my own thighs and calves with them. I kicked the crap out of myself, and it didn't hurt except at the hardest, and I was really kicking.) He felt the metal, the first time I touched him with them, and I thought we were gonna have a rodeo. That long leggy sucker hunkered down like a freakin cat ready to jump either way, kind of skittered to one side, and then tried to take off running.

He eased up on it though, and good thing, or I never would have been able to get through the pattern.

He also sidepassed both ways today, which is an improvement, since he's been choosing a direction and only going that way before now.

Tomorrow, I'll go early and saddle up, and ride him in the big round pen, so that we can work that lope and burn off a lot of energy before the test.

Marilyn recommended another bit change, she says he's hauling on my arms, I say he's helping me develop fantastic biceps. Hey, it's still a major improvement over what he was doing. Maybe the new bit will make him that much better.

This one is out of the school's bit library, so I'll be putting it on my headstall, and giving back the headstall and bit loaned to me by one of the other students. Get that done tonight, and we'll see how he does tomorrow.

I still feel really good about how well he's doing, but I'm reminded every day how much I want to get him going on neck reining good. I neglected it for a while until I had to ride him one day with only one rein tied across, and was forced to ride one handed unless I was turning him.

I was reminded in a very obvious way that I learned to ride with one hand, neck reining, and riding with two hands is a very new thing to me. Once I dropped my left arm back by my thigh like I'm used to riding it, the ride smoothed out, I didn't have to work at it, and my body fell back into the rhythms that were established for it in my earliest years. A lot less work on me, so we've been doing more work on neck reining as a break between the newer things.

He grasps the concept, he's just not very good at following it if it's not the direction he wants to go, which is something that we're still working on.

Learn Something New Every Day...

Yesterday I whined over on ADs blog that I never got the nifty search results on my site meter. So, Babs explained why, I fixed the Java on my sitemeter, and now I get to see the referring URLs.

I kinda wish I didn't know this one, though....


..... I understand how they got here... my post about having to break into my apartment when I locked myself out did that..... but.... why?

Proof...

That middle easterners really think that Americans are all extremely stupid:

"We don't have homosexuals..." - President Ahmadinejad of Iran, at Columbia University, 9/24/07

That one made me spit gatorade.

I'm not usually political, I tend to steer clear of those kinds of things, because frankly I just don't want to deal with the trolls and BS that I've seen on others' blogs, but this guy pegged out my bullshit-o-meter so hard it broke the peg.

Jumping Jehosephat, I've stepped in things that smelled better than this guy's speech at the barn.

Random Early Morning Thoughts....

Jeff Dunham is freaking hilarious. His new special was on Comedy central late last night and this morning I reminded myself why I love my DVR.

Also last night, some nimwad decided it was a good idea to drive a steel spike through a piece of concrete in he hallway, at eleven oclock at night. Or something, they may have been trying to cram for their Finishing Class by shoving Miss Manners through their ear, via banging their head on my wall, I didn't check.

In all the time I've been up here I haven't used my MP3 player. I love my MP3 player. It's now loaded with a recorded show from my favorite online radio station. (These people are nuts. If you need proof just think about it... they keep me around.)

My neighbors' chihuahuas haven't barked in three days. I'm beginning to wonder if they chewed their way into the walls and died there.

I'm watching the news, and I've come to the conclusion that Columbia University had a staff meeting a few months ago, and someone said the following:

"Man, we aren't getting as many applications as we used to. It's not about how hard it is to get in anymore, kids today go to the schools they know about. We need commercials or something."

"Wait a minute, we don't want to pay for commercials, what are you thinking? What we need is free publicity. How can we get that?"

And in the back, the poli-sci professor is bouncing in his (or her, I don't freakin know) seat with his arm in the air, about to wet himself.

"I know, I know!!!!"

This horse will never have a permanent name....

So yeah after weeks of agonizing and wracking my brains for a name for The Big Bay Wonder Horse, I settled on Bubbah. I even thought of him as Bubbah. I thought his name was Bubbah.

Found out this morning how wrong I was.

His name is Monkey.

Why is his name Monkey, you ask?

Because that's what he comes to.

I'm not kidding.

Apparently all of these weeks of walking in, looking at his stall and saying "You are a disgusting little monkey, bubbah," or watching him play in the round pen and saying "Come on, bubbah, you silly monkey, time to go back to the barn," have taught him not that his name is bubbah, but that his name is Monkey.

I had to feed a couple of the rodeo horses today, the rodeo team is back but they arrived home at four in the morning, so I was asked to cover again today (I got a panicked call from E yesterday morning.)

So anyway, I had extra chores this morning so I put the Big Bay Wonder Horse in the round pen and let him goof off while I cleaned his stall, put his hay in his tire, filled his water buckets, AND walked across to the pens by the arena and searched in vain for the hay that's supposed to be kept back there... walked back to the barn, got my car, pulled up by the barn door, loaded half a bale of hay in my trunk, which didn't fit because I have cases of bottled water in there, drove back down to the pens with my white trash transport mode (something in the trunk that doesn't fit, trunk lid open and whatever oversized piece of junk that's keeping it from closing hanging half out) and fed and watered those horses, before taking my car back to the parking lot and hiking back to the round pen to get my horse and put him away.

Every time I walked by he was coming to the gate, wanting to go back to his stall because he knew there was food there by now. Except when I actually went to get him, then he was being stuck up.

"Come on bubbah, time to go back to the barn."

"Hey, I'm over here, I have your halter, there's alfalfa in your stall...."

"Hey! Come here, you silly monkey!"

And he finally came right over to me.

So, Farmmom, I'm sorry, but your horse has decided that his name is Monkey. I swear I called him Bubbah more than I mentioned Monkey, but he has made his wishes clear.

At least until he decides to change his mind and stop answering to anything.