aurora

God damn you RTD for making me bawl my fucking eyes out again.

( It's the end of time )

All I have to say, is NBC better fucking pick up David Tennant's TV pilot, because I need to see him on a weekly basis. Even if he does have an American accent.

...there are times I really wish I had a loud speaker mounted on my car so I could scream at dumbasses who do not understand the purpose of the "Yield" sign. This is why i don't drive the loop around the airport waiting to pick my dad up. Its much better for my sanity to just shuck out $2 to park and meet them in the airport.

I am really not looking forward to driving to the barn tomorrow. I'm kinda cringing at the thought of possible holiday shoppers clogging the already-hated Pleasant Hill Rd. But I haven't been out to ride Marlee in a week...which is probably a good thing that there were no therapy sessions this week. He did well last Monday, except for the right lead at the canter, he kept dropping his inside shoulder and trying to motorcycle it around the corners. We'll see what happens with that tomorrow. Blech, maybe I'll pull out the ground poles to give him something new to do.

...Oh my God...Jim Gaffigan is on the Daily Show. Oh, I'm sorry "Tom Brokaw Awannapoor", Senior somethingorother Correspondent. Didn't think this show could get much better, I'm glad to be proven wrong.

The new dog's training has been going okay, but it looks like he has a bit of a hitch in his back leg too. Sonuvabitch. I'm going to call the vet wednesday if he's still looking lame, but he's going in next week to get "snipped", so I might see if I can just wait to bring him in then to save on office fees. Dogs, you need to stay healthy!

alright, time to go read some and head to bed. later y'all.

We had a fairly quiet Thanksgiving for once. But maybe I'm just saying that because I wasn't the one running it and cooking about 6 things at once. My aunt coordinated and we ate over at my cousin's house. It was mainly my uncle's side of the family there, but it was good to see all the cousins and crazy kids.

Logan was not in a good mood, though. He did not like all the people and spent most of the time outside. Nothing like a cranky almost-2 year old. I took over distracting duties once I finished dinner, putting Logan in the driver's seat of Kim's car and let him play with all the switches, knobs, and car keys. Then Aunt KiKi showed him how to use the horn, oh then it was on. He couldn't honk the horn with his hand, but he accidentally learned he could honk it with his stomach. This lead to me alternating between dying laughing and trying to stop him from freaking out people walking on the street or driving by. His mood improved after a little while in the car and we eventually got inside, although he did stick close to his mom and dad for a bit.

We ate our meal ridiculously early (1 o'clock ish) so we got home and just chilled for the rest of the evening.

Today was spent out at the property in Madison, letting all the dogs run around while we went searching for an envelope of money my dad has managed to lose. We still can't find it, I have no clue where it got to. Ridiculous. The dogs had fun though, this was the first time we've had Buck and Molly out there since Molly decided to quit shunning the puppy.

Buck tried his hardest to keep up with Molly, but she is just too damn fast. Not to mention she can turn on a dime and perform some pretty impressive slides underneath my dad's truck. Unfortunately, by the end of our time out there Buck had a limp. Still has it this evening. I'm hoping its just a pulled muscle or he stepped on a stone or something. I can't find a sore spot on his leg or foot, and there are no cuts. He's not 3-legged lame, and its not so bad it stops him from playing. Ugh, maybe working with horses has just made me lameness paranoid. I dunno, hopefully it'll be fine in a day or two.

Kelly and I made a brief sojourn out into the shopping chaos, both of us buying a gift for the other. The two of us need to not go to white house/black market though, we get tempted too easily. We both tried on dresses, she tried a party dress and I tried this dress which would be great once I started teaching, and it fit perfectly. Both of us decided we against the purchases, Kelly because she "has enough black party dresses" and I'm not going to start teaching until next August.

It is amazing how easy it is to coerce christmas gifts from Kelly despite her insisting "I don't want anything" Give it 10 minutes at a store, that train of thought is quickly derailed.

Alright, I'm spent...its time for bed.

Apparently I got the flu. Whether its H1N1 or just the regular ol' flu, I have no clue. I'd had a sore throat since last Wednesday and had just a general "blah" feeling for most of the week, but nothing I would consider OMGZ Sick!

That is, until yesterday. I woke up feeling like ass. Congested, throat worse than before, chills, dizziness, achy, the whole shebang. I ended up spending most of the day sleeping, since I haven't had a full nights sleep since we brought Buck home (he STILL cries non-stop in his crate at night). I had a low grade fever (~99.0) that morning, but by the evening it had shot up to 101. I felt terrible. I decided to let Buck sleep in my room rather than in the kennel because I just couldn't handle his whining all night long again.

But that didn't really matter, it seems, because I couldn't stay asleep anyway. I woke up around 2:30 and had, what I'm going to call, restless arm syndrome. Just like restless leg, except my arm had that tingly "i've got to move!" feeling that resulted in me tossing and turning in bed the entire night.

When I woke up this morning around 6:30 my fever had broken, and while my throat still hurts and i'm still stuffed up, I'm feeling a lot more human. I dunno if I should still go to the doctor today or not. I'm hoping that was the worst of it and things will just continue to improve.

I do need to go out and get some more food and toys for the dogs. Molly and Buck have finally started playing, YAY! I was able to initiated a tug-o-war session with them, and that kind of broke the ice. They now play all the time, and Buck has learned how to instigate play from Molly.

Buck has turned out to be quite the escape artist. We usually keep our older dog, Charlie, blocked off from the rest of the house (he can go into the garage or upstairs to our bonus room, since he likes to pee on the hardwood floors and in my bedroom, especially. So we had some baby gates that we leaned together to keep him blocked off. Buck, however, has no fear of gates, and would just squeeze his way between them and roam the house. Now, this is a problem, because we would typically keep the garage door open to let charlie go outside and pee whenever he wants to, and that means buck could get loose outside. So I bought a new gate online, that was long enough to block that entire entry way, and I thought the problem solved.

Nope. Buck learned how to move that gate so he would have a gap to squeeze through. Dang dog. He's pretty smart, he just has no common sense whatsoever. I can finally take him out on walks around the neighborhood or to the dog park now, since he should be done shedding the parvovirus. He'll get his first round of puppy shots this week. And then in 3 weeks we will be able to take him in to have him neutered. Which will hopefully cut down on all the humping he seems to enjoy so much.

Ugh, well, i'm going to go lie down some more. Maybe watch some Fringe. Later y'all.

So for the last month I undertook a pretty big project. For me at least. I decided to knit my first normal-human sized garment (NOT an accessory).

I knit myself an argyle vest!



It turned out great! I have never done fair-isle knitting, so it was definitely a learning experience. The knitting also required steeks, which I have to say, is the most terrifying knitting technique I have ever heard of. You actually cut up your knitting.
( Here there be steeking )

Now, I had read a lot of people having issues with the arm holes with this project, so I got kinda scared. I considered trying to alter the pattern, but considering I have no clue how to do this, I decided to go with the original pattern and then could go back and fix it if its a problem. But nope! It worked. I kinda got lucky though. Because starting off, my stitches were looser, since I was trying to figure out knitting with two colors at once. And then as I learned how to knit with two hands, the stitches became tighter. This turned out to be a blessing, because if I had knit that bottom half tighter, the vest probably wouldn't have fit.

The neckline was the only thing that gave me problems. I couldn't seem to cast on the number of stitches the pattern described. So the first time I tried it with fewer, but it stretched the neckline out too much, so I pulled it out. The second time I had too many, ended up gappy, so I pulled it out. Finally the third time I got it and I was able to finish this bad boy.

Now if only the weather would cool off enough for me to actually wear it that would be fantastic.

I'm trying to post a bit more often now. Especially since there are actually exciting goings-on right now. With the puppy, working at the therapy barn, teaching certification classes starting this week, and maybe a 4-H meeting if it doesn't get canceled for the third time in a row.

First up, ( The puppy )

( Therapy Barn )

( classes )

And so that's what's been going on. Now I need to go get changed and take the puppies out to play so I can go ride and they will sleep.

Yup. We officially have a new dog. I was allowed to pick up Buck/Buckey from the vet yesterday evening. He finally started eating something on Tuesday night...even if it was just baby food (Chicken & Chicken broth flavored only). He only eats a little at a time, but we've managed to transition him to just wet dog food now, and he's kinda trying little bits of Molly's dry food.

He's definitely a different dog from the pathetic little guy we saw last friday. He's got more personality, although he is still shy and unsure about a lot. Apparently our hardwood floors are terrifying and any transition onto those floors tends to take a while. And even then he sticks close to the wall when walking on them. I don't know if he's afraid of slipping on the floor or what.

He was really good last night. I fixed up Molly's old kennel and used another old saddle pad of mine for the bed, which he liked a lot. He climbed right into the kennel and slept through the night, and I never heard a peep out of him. He's had 3 mini accidents in the house. I think he's been trying to mark territory in my bedroom. And then he actually peed in our living room this morning. But for a new puppy, that's not bad. I've been employing my grandfather's method of take-them-out-every-30-minutes. He pees every single time. He still has diarrhea, but that's a work in progress. plus he still hasn't really eaten much solid food.

Molly is kinda pissed at me about him. I thought she would like having him around...but she's jealous. He wants to play with her and follow her around and she just ignores him. I think she'll snap out of it, but she's been pretty much an only child for a while (Charlie stays in another part of the house, so he doesn't really count)...so it's going to take a bit of a transition. She likes to play with other dogs at their house or at the park. But on her territory? It's got her a quite pouty.

...make that 3 times he's peed in my bedroom. I thought we were getting close to his 30 minute window.

I think this dog will be good for my dad. I'm helping to train him, but he's essentially going to be his dog. It should be a good distraction for him, along with starting on getting the new house built.

Once he recuperates from his illness though, this dog is getting neutered. He's displaying a bit of a humping issue already. He stops pretty quick when I catch him at it...but yeah. it's there.

Anyway, I'm pretty beat and ready for bed. Here's hoping for another quiet night.

Guys, my geek brain just exploded.

First, there was the news that Joss Whedon was going to direct an episode of Glee.

And just now, I was watching the preview for next week's Halloween episode of Castle. And Nathan Fillion's character is dressed up as...wait for it...

Mal Reynolds

I SHIT YOU NOT. I have my Tivo paused right now with a shot of him with gun out, brown coat whipping around and the suspenders and The Tightpants.

So. Damn Happy. Right. Now.

and now I get to go ride again. This is a Good Day :)

Ahhhh muscle soreness has never been so rewarding.

I finally got to ride again after almost a year and a half. I rode one of the therapy horses, Marlee this morning. M showed me how she wanted things done with lunging and side reins. She had one regular english saddle (she rides dressage). And told me about his problem areas.

I hopped on after she rode him around a bit and he was really well behaved. He's very soft, doesn't require much leg or rein at all. I hate getting in the horse's face anyway (I R Hunter, yo) so I just tried to get him to relax and drop his head. Heh, right when I started riding M told me "Oh yeah, you're definitely a hunter" based on my seat and position riding :)

His problem areas mainly lie with cantering. M is older so she doesn't really push him too much. She was telling me she just got him to go 2 trips around the arena without breaking into a trot (and its a small arena). M likes to emphasize using voice commands before leg cues, mainly because its so helpful when on the ground during a therapy session. So that was a bit of difference, and Marlee decided that extended trot was better than the canter, so I got bounced around a bit. After a couple of tries, M got after him with the lunge whip and we finally got it. I got a couple rounds, and once he tried to break and kicked him. Marlee gave me a good buck in return. Hee! So much fun :)

(Yeah. it's been so long I had fun riding the buck)

The second direction, which was supposedly his worse side, was muuuch easier. M asked me if I wanted her to use the lunge whip right away. I said to hold off, since he might have the idea what I was trying to do now. No problems, he picked it up after only a few strides. I got him around 3 times without breaking.

Marlee just needs canter mileage. He doesn't have a whole lot of steering at the canter right now, and he likes to pop that shoulder out and drag me to the railing. I quit after that, to end on a good note and because he still had a couple of hours worth of therapy lessons later in the day.

M told me there were several days during the week that I can come out and ride. And she'd really like to do some trail rides with me once things decide to dry out. She also offered to give me some lessons in dressage if I want. She thinks that riding with a dressage seat would be better for my lower back issues, just because you tuck your butt under more and everything is more aligned (with hunters we keep more of a concave arch in our backs at all times). I'm going to wait until I get a little more used to Marlee before I try taking some dressage lessons. I still want to get back into hunters...but at the moment getting back into jumping isn't going to happen for a while.

So I'm very excited :) I get to do some riding again! So I welcome the soreness I'll have in the morning

Ahahahahaha!

"This isn't funny, Dean! The voice says I'm almost out of minutes!"

Heee!

Hooo drama-drama today.

I went out to the therapy barn today (they needed the help, and they didn't need me Thursday). The morning did not start out well. I left super early so I had time to go by and get some coffee. I go inside to order (had to check the breakfast choices at Starbucks) and after placing my order I wait around. There are only 3 other people inside (who then had ZOMG YOU HAVE NO REAL MUGS? drama). So I wait at a table for my coffee. And wait. And wait. And then they fixed the drinks for the drive-thru people. Then more came inside and THEY got their orders. The barista then got a death glare from me. "Oh, have you not gotten your drink?" "NO". I was then given an upgrade in my drink size and a coupon for a free drink since they forgot about me.

Because of this issue, I was now not running early enough to park my car and enjoy my coffee & muffin before hitting the barn. Piss. The route my GPS gave me to the barn was much faster (not as much Pleasant Hill traffic light congestion) although one of the roads was closed due to the flooding. So glad I had the GPS or I would've been screwed.

I get to the barn and I can tell something is wrong, the owner of the barn is absolutely in tears. One of the Therapy horses colicked last night and had to be taken to UGA for colic surgery. They had just brought the horses back to the barn, because they had to be evacuated due to flooding. M felt terrible and was just out of sorts, wondering if there was anyway she could have prevented the colic or if she just missed out on something. I told her it just happens some time, it may have been moving back and forth during the flooding just stressed him out. While we were working with the first girl the vet school called back and he made it through surgery, but they were still being cautious.

M was worried because the vets were telling her all these things that were going wrong, so she didn't know how bad this might be. It was a twist in the small intestine and they had to cut out about 4 feet of damaged tissue. The horse, Oreo, is only about 7 I think, so hopefully he'll be okay. I told M she was okay for the most part on feeding, although she might want to water down his hay, since I've known several post-colic surgery horses do this just as a precaution. At one point M just asked me, "So, what do you think the chances are of his being okay". I told her I honestly don't know, but she took him to one of the best colic vet schools in the country, so she gave him the best chance possible by taking him there. She didn't realize he'd be out for a few months, however. If I remember right, its 2-3 months. Even if all their riding is extremely light.

I was cleaning out my closet this week and brought M a whole box of old horse show ribbons to give to the kids. It became a prize at the end of the lesson for doing one of the exercise well. The kids loved them, I'm glad they're getting a second use, because other wise I would have just tossed them.

The first little girl was fairly uneventful. She was super cute and definitely did "Hands and Knees" (basically kneeling on the horses back. All the kids hate doing it) the best out of all the kids I've seen do it. She got a pink ribbon for doing and she got such a smile on her face with that.

They only had 2 kids in, so we had about an hour break between kids. I cleaned some stalls and got a lesson in how to lead the horses when there was a kid riding. Mainly you have to keep everything as smooth as possible, and stay right at the horses head. Marley, the horse I was leading, really likes to suck back and try to stop, so that's something I'll have to keep an eye on and try to keep from happening.

The second boy that rode today was definitely a pistol. M had warned me he could be handsy, and noted it was good I wasn't wearing any jewelry. Right off the bat he was trying to knock off M's hat during the lesson. And grabbing onto my pony tail. We spent a good part of the lesson with him getting to blow bubbles (not really sure the purpose of this) while sitting backwards in the saddle. But his posture definitely did improve.

A little later in the lesson things started to get interesting.

It started out with him pointing at me and then reaching out and patting my boob. He then started talking about how the three of us had "ping-pings". Yeaaaaaaaaah, it's what you're thinking. The woman leading the horse looked confused and asked what ping-pings were. M said "I don't think we want to know". A few minutes later P caught onto what he was talking about. Especially when the boy started asking M to lift her shirt and show him her ping pings.

He ended up having to do the hands-and-knees exercises every time he talked about ping-pings or tried to grab one of us after that. That calmed him down. For the record, he was probably between 8 and 10 years old.

That lesson ended and I helped pick everything up. I agreed to come out on Thursday and Saturday since they need the help. We also talked about me coming out and riding some of the horses. Marley, probably, but I might work Bruiser too (who P owns and lets them use for therapy). M is going to wait until things settle down at the barn for to schedule some riding times, which I told her was fine. She's going to instruct me some the first couple of times to make sure I'm riding them the way she wants (she rides dressage, so that's a good idea). Riding Bruiser is going to depend on what P's trainer thinks. They want to get him to a show at some point, so if the trainer believes that will help, i'll probably pay for a lesson with her while riding Bruiser to make sure I'm doing things correctly.

So yay! I might be getting back on a horse again! Uh, downside. I have no riding gear. It's all rather inaccessible in my trailer o'crap. No helmet, no half-chaps. The boots I'm using right now were some my mom had, but they're a little too small. I can deal with those, but I might have to go out and get some cheapo half chaps at horsetown or something.

Whoa. Weird ass dream that I actually remember, so I'm gonna write it down.

I was back in Europe (a common theme in my dreams now) and I was with my tour group in Greece. Except there was one extra person, a little girl. Who if we didn't play with her she murdered/tortured us. Along with her transformer-like lobster. You had to put happy faces on around her because she might turn at any moment, and the lobster would spy and rat anyone out who talked about rebelling/escaping. Because we were trapped in the hotel in Greece with her. I finally got ahold of a knife and stabbed the shit out of the lobster-thing, crushing each of the segments in its back. But when I thought I was done, it grew back together!! So I did it again,and I don't remember what I did that time, but it stayed dead (along with its own little transformer bug cohort). And since in my dreams I'm apparently a master chef (wha?) I filleted that sucker, who I guess transformed again, because I had perfect lines of salmon filets when I was done. Psycho-girl came down for breakfast, and I offered the freshly killed "fish" to. She exclaimed how much she liked fish and tore in, and everyone else was hip to the jive and kinda started backing away from me and her. I don't remember what happened after that, but the girl wasn't around anymore. I got upgraded to another hotel (sorry tour mates, and randomly my family) and then I woke up when I heard a bunch of my knitting needles falling on the floor and I panicked that they fell out of my current project

*gasping for air* geez. I'm going to blame at least the little girl part of that dream on Supernatural. She was very Lilith-like (when she was actually the creepy girl and not a ...well, whore).

Watching Glee right now. I love this show.

Terri(?) is such a bitch. I can't wait for eventual downfall. Of course she lies about the baby. There is no way the deception could last long. Not when you are married to the person. Also, wouldn't it be a little early to know the sex of the baby anyway? She's just crazy.

The Golddigger segment was fantastic, especially the flashes back to Terri. There are so many little things I love about this show. Like all the fliers in the counselor's office "Radon: The Silent Killer" "So You Like to Throw Up".

"Lady Justice wept today" ohhh, Jane Lynch just wins this.

[Will]: Honey, I've got some bad news
[Terri]: A wealthy relative died?!
[Will]: Uh, no

"Now remember, if the balloon pops, an angel cries"

I desperately need a Glee icon, because this show is made of so much win. Now i need to go buy the new songs on iTunes...

Things might be finally falling into place, you guys. I'll update once I get a bit more information (I've got some meetings with people next week) so I'm not going to say much so I don't totally jinx myself.

I'm getting excited :)

Okay. I finally finished watching all of Supernatural. Here are my general thoughts about each season thus far

( Carry on my wayward son )

Best. Lyrics. Ever.

Got a call from my ex today
telling me she got engaged.
She only told me to hurt me,
cause that's how she was
and she still hasn't changed.
She said "Tell me that you're happy for me,
you know I'd be happy for you!"

If "happy for you" means "I hate you",
then I'm happy for you.
If crying all night means
I'm out getting drunk,
then I'm crying too.
I know you're only calling to make you feel good,
to see if I'm blue.
So if happy for you means I hate you
then I'm happy for you

I ran into a guy the other day
I never really liked him anyway.
And he wouldn't shut up
about all the things he had,
I was counting the seconds 'til he went away.
He said "Buddy, aren't you happy for me?
You know I'd be happy for you!"

If "happy for you" means "I hate you",
then I'm happy for you.
If "jealous of you" meant "out getting laid"
then I'm jealous too.
I know you're only talking to make you feel good
To see if I'm feeling blue

Does anybody think that somebody else
wants to hear them talking about themselves.
It's hard enough to getting by each day.
I know you want to hear it,
but you'll hear it my way

If "happy for you means" means "I hate you"
then I'm happy for you
If "crying all night" means
"I'm out getting drunk",
then I'd be crying too
I know you're talking to make you feel good,
and to see if I'm feeling blue
So if "happy for you" means "I hate you",
then I'm happy for you

I've picked up another TV series to watch. And watching it has led me to an important discovery:

Viewing episodes of Supernatural at night, when you are the only one in the house is not the smartest of ideas. I've had some funky dreams and general late night-quiet twitchiness.

Holy shit. This new design on shirt.woot just completely rocked me back and brought a nostalgic tear to my eye. I guess whoever writes the funny "description" at the bottom had no fucking CLUE what the source material was from (Krull? WTF?). But to those of us that know of ka, killer choo choos, and Susan Delgado (shudder) know the real meaning. It really makes me want to read the series again...but that would mean having to slog through Wizard and Glass. Well, maybe I could skip it.

Of course, having gushed all about that, I ordered one. I also toyed with the idea of buying the shirt with the Back to the Future Delorean crashing into the Tardis...but held off.

However, I have had some luck with reading lately. I'd kind of had a dry spell, picking up a couple of books, usually the 1st of a series, and just not digging them. At all. I'd finish it, but there was no compulsion there for me to pick up the next book. Then we went to the beach and I got several good books in a row. The Monster of Florence (real life serial killer in Italy, case still unsolved. Italian police/prosecutors being certifiably insane), Cape Storm (umpteenth book of the Weather Wardens series), Julie & Julia (fantastic book, haven't seen the movie. She writes like I think, and has kind of inspired me to write a legitimate blog. Will update if this ever happens), Midnight's Daughter (Eh, this one was "okay", a spin off of another series I'd read) and I'm currently reading The Shadow Way, first in the Night Angel series. I'm really liking it so far.

Oh! And on top of that, I've been dabbling in comics. Real comics. I read about 50 issues of Ultimate X-Men (that is Rogue rocking my hairstyle in my icon. Then they changed artists and she went back to being a straight-y. Laaaame). Right now I'm working my way through Fables which is freaking fantastic. Fairy tale characters fleeing to our world due to "The Adversary" invading theirs. Bigby (the big bad wolf) rocks, and I rather like Snow White and her sister Rose Red. I could go without the Jack side stories though. But its not all sunshine and flowers, it's a pretty gritty series, fairly gruesome and a far cry from G rated(or PG. or PG-13) disney films.

Wow, that's more than I've written in a while. Too bad I'm tired and need some sleep now...and my "mood" picture turned out to be the same picture as my old default icon. That was not planned.