Results!!!!

Well the show was a success!!! We accomplished our goal of having a relaxed ride and there was no incidents. Romeo could not of behaved any better!!!

As far as competition goes we placed 6th out of 7 in our first class and 6th out of 8th in our second class. Considering that all of those riders have been doing this way longer then me and that most of those horses were high class horses.... aka, high dollar horses, we did pretty darn well!!! Our scores were very fair and higher then I thought they would be:)

Our day started off early.... horses were loaded at 6am... yes I said LOADED at 6 AM. We arrived at the how grounds around 6:30.

As one of the first to arrive we got the spot right next to the arena.

Tif and Jo were up first and had a great ride.

She rode at 8 and again close to 10. Then we had the pleasure of waiting in the horribly lovely AR weather, which was 94 and humid:-/ till my first ride at 3. In between we got to watch our trainer's other-half ride his lovely mare and one of her student's on her horse.

M and Jeeves:)

Usually Dressage shows are very prime and proper and require you to follow strict dress codes. However because this is just a local schooling show... (because this is AR and dressage is a foreign sport in this state and hardly anyone does it, so we have a local group that puts together somewhat cheap shows so we can practice in order to go to the BIG shows out of state where you pay ridiculous amounts of money. And yes I know this makes no sense and I won't even try to explain it because frankly horse people are known for doing crazy and senseless things all the time.)
All that to say... since this is a schooling show the organization does a tropical-themed show for June and July when it's crazy hot and we need some sort of extra motivation to get out. So no, normally the horses are not wearing silly flowers in their manes and the riders don't usually wear pick feathers on their helmets but we did have a lot of fun with it!!

Next up was Romeo and I!! But first let me show you my crafty side.... These are the browbands I made. One for Romeo, one for Ria. I sewed in the beads and such on them. They are super hard to capture on film. So much prettier in person.

The far one is mine and it has some blue crystals in, the near one is Ria's and it has some green crystals in it.

Here we are about to go in the ring, I stuck with the classy look and added a few flowers to his mane.  Love the completed look:) 

And here we are in the ring.

Trainer M had nothing but praise for both of us.

All smiles:)

Our second test was much better then our first as my nerves were settled. I was so proud of how well he did.

Tif had the best score of the day on her mare Ria.

And Trainer M's other student was by far the cutest of the day:-)

Overall it was a fantastic day and besides the heat it couldn't of been a better show!

Now it's time to get back to work... only 3 1/2 weeks till the next one and this time Romeo and I have to actually look like a dressage pair.
*Notice how he holds his head in the ring compared to the other horses.... we have to be there.... but trust me when I say it is way easier said then done and takes TONS of practice to get there.

It's show time!!

Well really I have no excuse as to why I haven't updated recently. I have quite a few things mulling around in my head to write about but have yet to start typing any of them.

I did however think that an update was necessary. The past two weeks I have done very little other then ride, or think about riding. My show is tomorrow.... It has been several years since I last showed and when I did it was on the mare who always carried me through, not the other way around. Dutch is the rock and I always was nervous so she took charge.

Well Romeo is the opposite..... tomorrow will be his first show and I know that I will have to reach down and find that courage that I know is there. He will need me to carry him and be confident as he will not be!!!

We visited our trainer in hot springs over memorial day for a 4- day clinic/vacation were we had what I call a mini-bootcamp. Romeo received many fantastic compliments from my trainer... I can't even begin to tell you how happy that made me!! All that hard work over the winter had paid off!!! Now we just have to put all that training together, pray for some confidence for me, obedience from Romeo and show off that hard work tomorrow afternoon.

Here are some pics from our clinic weekend....

Hope to have some pics next week of the show... and maybe a video, lol.

Hope all of you are having a fabulous weekend!!!

Weekend update

It's been a little while since I have done a random updating post and I figured that now would be a good time for one:-) It's spring here in Arkansas and since I now live on a 10 acre farm that means LOTS of work. My roomate/the farm owner does most of the work but I try to help where and when I can. This years spring task was to reseed 5 acres and split up the current pastures into smaller 1-horse paddocks. Not-so-easy of a task. All that to say there has been little time for riding.... which probably contributes to the downer attitude I have over the last few months. Maybe you have heard the old saying from Winston Churchill, "There is something about the outside of the horse that is good for the inside of a man." Let me tell..... man is that true. Thankfully most of the farm work is done and as long as the weather holds out riding can be the primary focus in the evenings after work. My soul is very thankful and is praying for good weather!!!

So other things going on besides farm work..... well..... not much, lol. Actually this week has been kinda quiet, although I forsee the next week to be extremely busy!!!

Well I'm a fantastic aunt.... really, I am:-) I just helped my sis find my nephew a puppy for his 4th birthday:-o Oh and he is a cutie!!! He is part aussie part who knows, a shelter find and sweet as they come. He is currently staying at the Flying Solo as we await the little guy's birthday.... the puppy is actually is a present from his grandparents but they are out of town so I stepped up, lol.

Reason #1 for a crazy week.... I now have a 5 month old puppy for a week to deal with. A puppy who is not housebroke and not crate trained:-/ I will say that the first day/night wasn't so bad. While he has no idea that he is supposed to pee outside, he does understand that peeing in the crate is a no-no, the bathroom floor is far more inviting!! Crate training isn't so bad. He only barked for a few minutes last nights and was quiet the rest of the night, and even went in quietly after our 2 am potty break (which after 10 min out in the windy cold air he still wouldn't go). Hopefully he will only get better!!

I will try and post some pics of the little guy... whose name is Bentley (it suited him  so we just left it) and show off all his cuteness!!! My dog strider doesn't really know what to think of this new puppy..... I think he will be glad to see him go, he gets a little jealous, lol.

Reason #2 for a crazy week..... I am, along with the bestie, taking 2 p girls to the Disney Princess on ice for their 5th and 11th birthday. Bestie and I are picking them up for a picnik then meeting their mom, other 2 sisters, and 3 friends for the show. It's going to be an awesome day but will kinda through the week off since I have to figure out how to get my Wed job done in the evenings after work and find time to ride as well, plus keep tabs on a puppy.

Hoepfully I will find some time to jump on here and post a few this week.... we will see!!! Hope your weekend has been fabulous and that your week will be quieter then mine will:-)

What a week

Well a quick side trip from Ann's book. This past week has been CRAZY!!! It actually sorta started a few weeks ago when my cat started showing some weird symptoms that I just wasn't sure if they were odd or just a phase she was going through, then she started having accidents and that is extremely odd for her so then I started to worry and scheduled a vet appointment. After doing some research I became very worried that she had some major disease that would require me to have to put her down. I can deal with many things but not accidents, especially not from a cat.

Well Sunday morning my dumb, er lovely dog darted out the door and into the sun. Something he does every other week or so and it really just makes me mad. He was running off almost every day so that caused him to have to be tied up instead of having his freedom to run around the farm. Dogs who don't stay on the farm on their own are confined to a rope.

So Sunday morning I'm tired, not yet awake and he takes advantage of the door opening, and away he goes. No big deal really, I'm already running late so whatever I'll deal with him later. After all the dog always comes back within 12 hours. Meanwhile I go about my Sunday as usual with a few moments spent worrying about tomorrows appointment for Pippin. She is after all my companion of 8 years and has moved everywhere with me and is very well behaved, she's my baby. The dog is NOT my baby, he is my dog, whom I love but he is not well behaved thus not as special as the cat (mind you this is being written shortly after he ran off so not many good thoughts about him right now, however I really do love him).

So I come home, late, no dog. Hmmmm.... ok whatever, I'm tired so I'm going to bed. So be it if he wants to sleep out in the cold and the rain. Monday morning and still.... no dog. At this point maybe I should of started to be worried. My roommate I think thought of him more then I did as she kept asking if he had come home, but not me, remember I'm worried about my baby. So cat is loaded in carrier, she's a nervous traveler so I'm not thrilled about having to do this but I need to know what if something is wrong so we are going.

We get to vet, spend an hour with the vet, and a huge vet bill later I walk out in a daze..... diabetes..... my cat has diabetes. Really??!!??? Oh and a bladder infection, with urinary problems that require a special diet.  Oh, and did I mention.... diabetes??? Yep, I am also leaving with a vial of insulin and a package of needles because my cat now needs a shot twice a day for the rest of her life.... and a special diet which is different then the urinary diet.

And then the roomie texts again about the dog.... ummmm, the dog?? What dog??? I can no longer afford a dog..... he better not come home!!!! That's how I felt about the dog at that moment.

Back to the diabetes, who has a cat that has diabetes???? What the heck??? I mean for real!!! So I decided that I was going to treat it for a month. See how it goes, see if I can find a way to pay for insulin, and see if Pip doesn't hate me after giving her a shot. Oh and did I mention she has to have shots. I mean with a real needle. Needles make me lightheaded, like I can't even watch the vet give my horses, my dog, my cat a shot.... and now I am going to be giving a shot twice a day!!!!

Meanwhile, someone else is texting me about the dog... grrrr, I really want at this moment to NOT own a dog.

Roommate comes home and comments, not on the cat's diabetes, but on how weird it is that Strider is still missing. I smile and say something polite.... really Strider.... I'm so not worried about you.

He apparently doesn't care that I'm not worried about him, after all he always has, and always will do whatever he wants to do, not what I want him to do. Because..... Monday night he appears..... and not in way that would at all improve upon my feelings towards him.

The cat and I, after a long stressful day, had gone to bed early, before midnight actually (never happens). But around midnight I am jolted awake by this horrendous noise..... after I register what is going on I realize exactly what that noise is..... my dog!!! Some siren is going off somewhere and it hurts his ears, so he howls. Not a pretty howl but a loud obnoxious howl that I would recognize anywhere. So like a good mom, I crawl out of bed and let him and pet him, and tell him I'm glad he is home, and even feed him dinner (ok, so maybe I was a little worried about him).

Thankfully although the week started out on a crazy note, it didn't continue like that. I have done an enormous amount of research on diabetes and have resolved to get over my fear of giving shots. The dog and I are trying to communicate better and hopefully he will lose his stubborn-I-don't-want-to-listen-to-you attitude someday before he dies (he is 7, and pretty stuck in ways but I remain hopeful!!!).

A Gingerbread football stadium

A few years ago the oldest P kid and I decided to build a real gingerbread house.... not one of those things out of a kit.

The first one was a Victorian style house complete with a bay window. It was about a foot tall and we were really impressed with ourselves.

Little did I know what I was getting myself into:-o

This year I asked Aust what we were going to make and he didn't bat an eye, "the razorback stadium."

"Oh really!" said a very surprised me.

"Yep, I thought we could use a challenge."

"Hmmmm.... welll...... ok as long as you figured out how to support it."

While shopping for materials the 8 yr old P daughter and I ran into a friend and was asked what we were doing... she replies, "getting stuff to build a gingerbread football stadium." To which I just smiled and said that we didn't know how to do simple at the P house. KK didn't miss a beat!! She just looked at me and said, "Well that would be boring!"

Oh my, what kind of monsters have I created??!!!

Since my handy iPhone has been causing me all sorts of problems I don't have pictures of the first few stages. But here are the first ones I took.....

At this point we had already spent 10+ hours on it

Yes that is a hot glue gun you see.... we are cheaters.... but did you really expect us to use just icing???

Other then hot glue and some popsicle sticks baked into the gingerbread for support, everything else is somewhat edible.

For those of you who are Arkansans you will notice this is NOT Donald W Reynolds football stadium, it happens to be War Memorial!!

We decided to scale back just a bit when we saw that our original plans wouldn't fit on the 4x5 (FOOT!!) table Aust built to hold the thing:-) So no upper deck and the stands don't go all the way around.

Here are the two end zones in process

The words are M&M's cut in half and glued down.
The middle picture is the field house (I know War Memorial doesn't have one but the original plan was for this to be the D.W.R. so we just stuck with the field house) and behind the field house is the where the jumbo tron will go.

Monkey wanted to help and she LOVES washing dishes and did so for over an hour:-)

Ok so next up is the almost finished field... this process of laying white coconut and green coconut took FOREVER!!! At least 4 hours with three of us working on it!!!

This pic shows the almost complete stands. The corner took a few times to get right:-/

And this is what it looks like after at least 20 hours put into it.... Jumbo tron still needs to be finished, i.e. the final score of that wonderful AR vs LSU game that was played a few weeks ago:-)

Closeup of the finished field with the uprights in place.

I tried to get an aerial pick my phone wouldn't cooperate with me. Here's the best one I got.

It really is pretty sweet.... (no pun intended, hehe)

Now what to create next year..........

Completely off topic post

So I really didn't think I would write on here about this.... but really I can't help myself.

You see I like football.... well maybe that's an understatement. I LOVE football.

College is fantastic and I am a true Arkansas Razorback fan. I love them hogs and when my 3 yr old nephew feels like I'm ignoring him he starts that wooooooooooo pig sooooooey and it always works (I've trained him well) :-):-)

However, nothing compares to my dedication and love for my Patriots. I am a loyal, die hard New England fan.

Like so loyal that this morning at about 7 I get a twitter update from Mike Reese, their media guy, saying that Tom Brady was in a car wreck. That was it. I think my heart might have stopped. It was a long 5 min before the next update came that said he was ok.

Needless to say... that's not a good way to be woken up in the morning.

Are you catching on to the fact that I sorta like football:-)

Well... tonight is the kickoff for the NFL. I love watching college football, especially SEC, but I completely and utterly enjoying watching NFL. Tonight the Vikings play the Saints and I am practically jumping up and down with excitement!

Oh and I get my iphone today:-)

So really... its a perfect day:-)

Roomie had to remind me of that after some things that happened earlier today. But I'm looking past those things and counting down the hours till kickoff

5 and a half hours!!!!!!!!!!

Moving...house sitting... fractured toe

Sorry about the neglect here lately. Let's just say that life has been a bit hectic the last few weeks.

I HATE moving... the word hate is not strong enough for my feelings toward moving.

Everything... er... well... almost everything is out of my old house, which is awaiting the deep cleaning that is required to get my deposit back by next Monday night. I took 2 extra days of work this week (what was I thinking??).  My parents have left for 2 weeks... my brother has left for 5 months... so that leaves me to care for their house, plus look out for my lil sis. Which wouldn't be that bad except for the fact that my life is in boxes... my bed is in pieces... my clothes are in bags... and I can't find my Bible.

If life wasn't already stressful enough... my dog went and fractured his toe... no, I'm not kidding. My dog has fractured his toe. It's not funny, well sorta, but not in the haha funny way. This dog is a survivor of heart worms and lime disease. I informed him that this is not to become a habit. We are not switching from deadly diseases to broken bones. He has used up his life savings already so there's no more vet money with his name on it. Period!! I'm done. He cannot do this anymore.

The vet said he should heal just fine... he could put a splint on it which won't speed up the healing process but might make it less painful... just one problem... it can't get wet he said. LOL... right... my lab/golden retriever stay dry... you have got to be kidding me. The dog could be on his death bed yet would still find some way to get soaking wet. I told him that I think it would be beast just to leave him be. Good thing I did... that x-ray + pain meds was enough to make me want to cry. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't just paid the horses $300 vet bill the day before...sigh... when it rains it pours right. That is what savings accounts are for (I have to keep telling myself that).

Not 1 but 2 Awards!!!!

I'm so excited!!!! I got to work this morning and checked my e-mail and to my surprise I had an e-mail announcing that I had received my first award and then just a bit later I received another one!!! Thanks to Peggy Ann and my fabulous little sis Kelsey for the awards(:


Here's the first one:

Here are the guidelines:
1. Thank the person who gave this award to you
2. Copy the award and put it on your blog.
3. List three things which you love about yourself.
4. Post a picture you love.
5. Tag five people you wish to pass this award on to.


So here are 3 things I love about myself
1. My Independence (although it sometimes gets me in trouble)
2. My blue eyes(:
3. My love for reading

A pic I love:  I love that this precious boy enjoys this precious horse that I am blessed to be able to share with him.

And last but not least.... 5 people who deserve this award are:

1. Jenny at Cupcakes, sprinkles, and other happy things - She is the lead singer for Addison Road... this is her ya'll, funny, smart, and honest. I've had the privilege of working a few camps in the past with her and her writing reflects her heart and her love for Jesus
2. Kristina at Dew on the Rose - A new friend that God has recently blessed me with
3. Paula at In Passionate Pursuit - this girl was born a writer... check it out
4. Kelsey over at Tattered and Inked - my amazing and talented little sister who got ALL the creative genes but thankfully shares with her less talented older sister(:
5. Amber at The Working Mom - she has a great blog and leaves sweet comments on mine so thanks Amber!!


Blog number 2 is from my sister... here it is:

The directions are to send to 7 however since I'm relatively new to this whole blogging world I don't have quite enough people to hand out awards to. I know of 2 that I see fit to hand this award out to and they are Heather , who has a lovely blog full of fantastic photos and other random goodness, and Tabitha, who writes about a little bit of everything.

Thanks to those who gave out awards and I hope that those of you who received some enjoy!!!