It's as easy as falling off a horse

You know, falling off a horse is surprisingly easy. It's the hitting the ground part that is hard. Actually, even hitting the ground isn't that bad. Hitting other stuff on the way to the ground is rather painful, though.

I fell off my horse yesterday and I hit the gate on the way to the ground. I have a bruise on my ass the shape and size of one of the gate rails and another bruise on my arm that I just found this morning. My entire left side hurts, and that's not the side that hit the ground. That's the side that hit the gate. Some of it seems to be pulled muscles from fighting to stay on, too. The only thing on my right side that hurts is my jaw. I have a bruise along it. I must have bounced it off the ground.

I've discovered something, though. The worse has happened, and I survived. I'm not even really hurt. It wasn't that bad. Sure, I cried. It hurt like a motherfucker at the time. I've got bruises and sore muscles. But I'm ok. Hell, the side that actually hit the ground isn't even sore.

When I got back into riding a year ago, I found I had developed a fear of falling off the horse. It made me nervous all the time. I've got this fear of failure in other parts of my life, too. It shows up most noticeably in my writing. I'm afraid of failing, so I avoid actually writing. If I never finish, I can't get rejections, can I? But I have gotten a rejection, and it wasn't that bad. All that bruised was my ego, and not even that much because I knew that the manuscript I submitted wasn't all that fabulous since it was one of the first ones I'd ever written.

I got back on the horse, though. She freaked again but I landed on my feet that time. I've kept writing, and I'll land on my feet with that, too.

Don't be afraid to do the things you love. There are worse things than falling, like never getting on in the first place.

I'm happy to report

We are married after all! Mother was able to get us a copy of our marriage certificate. Yay Mom!
It is still a mystery as to what I showed the SS people all those years ago, but there you go.

Are we married, or not?

It seems that the manwhore's employer wants to see proof of our marriage so that I can stay on his health insurance plan. Something about saving money. Just a copy of your marriage certificate, they said. Ok, we said. So, we started looking for it. After going through files of 15 yr old bank statements, even older traffic tickets (his, not mine), old research papers and college notes, we haven't managed to find hide nor hair of a marriage certificate.

Neither one of us can actually remember getting one or sending off for it when we got back from our honeymoon. But I somehow managed to change my name on my Social Security card, and I do remember having to show them some proof that we were married. You would think that proof would have been a marriage certificate. I don't know what we showed to the human resources people way back then, either. Maybe they didn't ask. But if we had a copy of our marriage certificate, it has disappeared into the black hole of missing things, likely to never be seen again.

Fortunately for me, the State of Alabama seems to be lackadaisical about who they give them out to, so long as the person has all the right info. So, I've sweet talked my mother into going to get us one on Mon. If she fails in this task, I will have to make the trip down there and get it myself, which I really don't want to do. So much easier to have Mother to it for me and stick it in the mail.

But, are we married without the proof? Maybe. Maybe the kids are proof enough. That and the ball and chain around his ankle...

Some Mother's Day thoughts from my daughters

They did these at school with the help of their teacher, who laminated them. Of course, they will go in the cedar chest. Mrs. S had them answer questions about their mom and fill in the blanks. I put their answers in quotes because I can't figure out how to do underlining in blogger.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! by Ellie

My mom's name is "Amanda." I call her "Mommy." I think she is "30" years old. Her hair is "brown." My mom is pretty as "a flower" and smells as sweet as "a flower." She can do many things. I think she is best at "cooking." My mom is very smart! She even know "2+2." If I had a million dollars, I would buy my mom "flowers." I love my mom because "she kisses me ever night!"

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! by Emma

My mom's name is "Amanda." I call her "Mommy." I think she is "32" years old. Her hair is "blond." My mom is pretty as "a princess" and smells as sweet as "a cherry." She can do many things. I think she's best at "writing books." My mom is very smart! She even knows "how to ride a horse." If I had a million dollars, I would buy my mom "roses." I love my mom because "she kisses me every night."

A little poetry for a Sunday afternoon

"Some Wishes for You" by Charles Stephens

I wish for you...The thrill of knowing
Who you are,
Where you stand,
And why.
Especially why.

I wish for you...Not great prosperity, but great dreams;
Not riches, but a sense of your own worth,
These are what I wish for you.

Not even long life - however proud I'd be to have it so -
Instead, I wish for you...A life that is crammed with living,
Hour by hour.

I wish for you...an occasional troubled heart
To know and feel and change the woes and injustice
of a world that keeps you sleepless.

I wish for you...Solitude in the midst of company,
And a mind full of company within your quiet times.

I wish for you...Full todays and full tomorrows.

And love...I do wish for you...a bounty of precious love.
May you have it, and give it away frequently and abundantly.

Yay, cows!

The girls had a field trip to the MTSU dairy farm today. It was fun and educational. I found out that diary farms are much stinkier than I thought they would be. It wasn't cow smell or poop smell. The barn where they milked the cows and stored the milk before transport smelled like rotten milk. Yummy! I also discovered that cows are expensive to feed. They eat 30+ lbs of grain a day at a cost of about $5 a day. No wonder milk is so expensive.

Furthermore, I think that there is something really wrong with the world when it is more cost effective for a dairy farmer to not allow calves to nurse at all and feed them from a bottle. WTF? They loose money when the cow is out of production because she is nursing her calf, and apparently bovine milk replacer is cheaper than bovine milk. So they pump off the colostrum for the calf (humans don't get that yummy bit) and give it to them by bottle, along with every other feeding until they are eating hay and grain. It's a strange, strange world.

We got to pet a cow, and that one obliged us by pooping just as we were walking up. All the kids had great fun yelling "EEEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!! POOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP!"

And we got to drink some chocolate milk, which was very appetizing after smelling the rotten milk smell in the barn.

The barn cats seemed to steal the show with our class, though. The kids were more interested in petting them than learning about cows. It was a fun trip, though. And now I want ice cream.

Book Review: Jenny Crusie's Faking It

I've been on a Jenny Crusie kick lately. Her books are generally fun, funny, fast paced and pretty hot. Faking It was no exception and might just be one of her best books. Tilda is an art forger gon straight and Davy is a con man gone straight. She just wants to save her family and stay out of jail. He just wants to get back the money that his former lover swindled from him, that he swindled from her. When Tilda and Davy meet in a closet and agree to help each other, tempers ignite, passions flare and secrets will be revealed.

Throw in the sister that has an alternte personality, her gay ex-husband, the hit man, an attempted murder or two and it's just all good. I give it an A+.

Maybe I should indulge my horse's maternal desires

Every so often, I email the very nice lady from whom we bought Hope. I sent her an email this week with a picture of Hope watching over the new foal at the farm and asked her if Hope had ever had any foals. J told me that yes, she's had one foal, before she bought Hope. The people she bought Hope from were in the process of negotiating that sale as well, and supposedly sold the cold for $40,000. No, my fingers didn't stutter. Forty-fucking-thousand dollars. Da-yum! That kind of money is enough to make me rethink my stance on exploiting my horse's uterus.

Of course, I don't have a clue who Hope was bred to, I'm not a trainer, and not going to allow any foals she might have in the future to be trained in the "Big Lick" Walking Horse world. And "Big Lick" people are the only ones who are going to drop $40,000 on a Walking Horse colt. Of course, there is still the biggest reason of all: if we breed her, it will be because we want the foal, and I'm not going to be willing to sell it. So, no exploitations here. But $40,000 is enough to make me fantasize anyway.

Remebering Maggie

Today is my beautiful Sundust Maggie's birthday. She would have been 18 yrs old. I've thought about her so much these last few weeks, thought about all the things I was looking forward to doing with her that we never got to do. I still miss her every single day. Having Hope is a blessing and a balm. She so clearly needed us, needed the love that we have to give. She eases the ache in my heart. But Maggie is not forgotten, is still loved and there will always be a piece of my heart that belongs to her.

Storm trauma

Last Friday, we had some sever storms to come through middle TN. The tornado that left 2 dead and 35 injured and many houses destroyed was less than 10 miles from my house. My kids spent about 45 mins or longer huddled in the downstairs bathroom while I stood watch at the back door, looking to the SW so I could see what was coming at us. I watched a rotating clouds go over my house, clouds that in less than 5 miles from here had a funnel cloud hanging from them. I don't know if it ever touched down. There were so many small tornadoes in the area that day that it might have been one of those or it might have just made a funnel and then fallen apart.

Monday afternoon, we had yet another line of thunderstorms come through. They hit just as school was letting out, and wouldn't you know, the kids all had dentist appointments that afternoon. We had to stop by the house and get the stroller for Sam, because he had gone to sleep, and while I was out of the car getting it, we had some lightening to hit really close by. FLASHCRACKBOOM! And I screamed. I was a little bit wound up.

Well, apparently so were the kids, or at least Ellie, because when we got to the dentist, we sat for a bit to let the rain slack off, and then I pushed the button to open the door and told them to jump out and run to the door. But Ellie wouldn't jump out. She got practically hysterically crying and saying "No, I don't want to go out! I'm scared. Please, let's go home, can we please just go home, Mommy?"

Dude, I just about fell apart over that. But, it also snapped me back together and made me realize I can't let my fears get a hold of me so badly. I mommied up and got her calmed down and we went on in to the dentist and she was fine.

The only blip after that was Sam had a come apart when we tried to wake him up for his turn in the chair. I ended up having to reschedule him for a time that wasn't nap time.

Thank god the rain and storm was done and over with and the sun shining by the time we came back out, though.

Man, other countries get all the good commercials

This might just be the funniest commercial, evah: http://tinyurl.com/ck8kra

Warning, not safe for work, contains some innuendo about shaved pusses.

You might be a redneck if...

...you transport a horse in the back of your van. Well, it is a "mini" van and the horse is a mini horse.

After the pro haircut

I took Em to see Ms. Jane, our hairstylist tonight. She did a great job with what she had to work with. Emma likes her hair, though, so I guess that is all that matters.

Kids and scissors

My mother tells me that every child goes through a phase with scissors. Ellie had a short phase where she liked to cut hair off of her stuffed animals. When she was 4. The girls are 6.5 now. And yet, apparently Emma is just now having her scissor phase. She claims that her hair was getting on her nerves.

I almost cried. I might still cry. I was on the phone with our hairstylist less than 10 minutes after we saw what Emma had done. Behold the damage:

Two good eye doctor visits

Sam and I have both had visits to the eye doctor in the last few days and we both had good reports.

I went last Thur and everything is great. I made him do a visual field test because I've pulled out in front of two cars recently, and my visual field is just fine. Apparently I just need to pay more attention when I'm driving.

Sam had his check up today. Other than some minor screaming when he had to have eye drops put in to dilate his eyes, he was fabulous. And his vision hasn't changed any, which is wonderful. He earned himself a trip to Target as a reward. I was surprised that we came out with a Lightening McQueen and not a Thomas, but he is thrilled. Probably because it is loud.

Clearly I am the vision of a delicate flower of frail feminity today.

I stopped by Home Depot to buy some play sand for the kids' sandbox. HD employees are a little overly helpful in general. When I'm in a funk and just enjoying roaming around the store, it gets annoying having every person in an orange vest asking me if I need help finding something. Ironically, it usually never fails that when I actually do need help finding something, there isn't an orange vest to be seen. But I digress.
Today, I was after play sand, which comes in 50 lbs bags. Not light, but hey, one of my kids weighs almost that much and I can pick her up, as well as feed bags, hay and the like. I was picking up my third bag when a lady rushed up offering to help. She wasn't even an employee, as she wasn't clad in orange. I told her several times that I didn't really need help, all the while thinking it was really easier to do it myself. She watched me put it in the cart and walked away saying "Oh wow, those are heavy, wow."
Pushed my cart to the register and the lady there asked me twice if I needed help out. On the way out the door, another employee, male this time, told me to just pull my car up and he'd load it for me. When I said no thanks, he asked me twice if I was sure and "it would be no problem, ma'am."

By the time I got out of the store, I was ready to scream "I can fucking pick it up all by myself!" Because I'm ladylike like that.

Smooshed toe, Part 2

I don't think it is broken, but I'm yet again limping because of a smooshed toe. This time a horse stepped on it. Not my horse, but one of the lesson horses. He was being a total PITA and wanting to graze, not be ridden. I was lead lining Ellie around because she whined through her entire lesson last time. She was doing fine this time. The horse was not. And he stepped on my damned toe and just stood there.
I don't think it is the same toe as last year. I'm not going to the ER for Xrays this time, either. For $200, I can sit at home and eat advil and put ice packs on it. Besides, it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as when Sam broke my other toe last year, so I'm not wasting a copay on the ER.

I'm ready for spring, Part 108478910485701875

One more in the list of many reasons I'm ready for spring: I'm so very tired of have to soak and rewash Sam's shirts because he has smeared food on the sleeves. Short sleeves eliminate at least that one laundry hassle.

Current temp on this the 13th day of March: 38F. Yesterday it was raining, sleeting and snowing all while the Bradford pears and buttercups were in full bloom. Gotta love springtime in the South.

I don't know! I just don't fucking know the answer!

I swear, I'm going to rip all of my hair out. I can't handle the questions any longer. My children have officially driven me over the edge.
Kid, "What's that?"
Me, driving the car and not admiring the scenery "I don't know, I can't see what you are looking at."
Kid, "But what is it?"
Me, "I don't know. What color is it?"
Kid, "Square."
Me, starting to twitch, "That's not a color. What color is it?"
Kid, "Oh, it's black."
Me, not seeing anything black, "I still don't know what it is because I can't see it. What does it look like?"
Kid, "It looked like a cow."
Me, resists the urge to bang head repeatedly against the steering wheel.

Cupcakes and horses

This week was the birthday of the late Dr. Seuss and the girl's school celebrated all week with readings and activities, including making green eggs and ham on Friday. We finished out the week with cupcakes for afternoon snack on Friday. I was asked to bring them and make them as dr. Seuss-ish as possible. So, I did my best to make "Hat" cupcakes from The Cat in the Hat. They were a huge hit.






Adding to our busy week, on Thursday, we finally brought home our new mare, Hopes and Dreams. She has settled into the routine at the barn nicely, although she is still shy about being caught. Hope is completely in love with Ellie, though. And the feeling is mutual. We spent a most of the day there yesterday and I caught her up to brush her and just handle her some. Hope was dancing around a little, totally unsure of what was going on. Ellie came up to the fence and wanted to help me brush. I swear that the minute Hope saw Ellie, she just gave a big sigh and stood stock still. Ellie brushed Hope from head to toe and Hope never moved a muscle.















We went back over today and Hope was clearly delighted to see Ellie. We hung out at the fence for a while and if Ellie walked down the fence, Hope would follow. When Ellie walked away, Hope would snort at her to come back. It is a total love affair between the two of them.








Hope let me kiss all over her face, too, and I'm just in love with her, as well, but I completely realize that Hope likes the girls more than she likes me.




P.S. For any horse people that might read this post, yes, I am quite aware that her feet are horrible. The farrier is coming on Friday, and she will not be ridden before we have clearance from him. Her teeth need floating, too, and that will be done in April when the vet is out.