Saturday, September 27, 2008

Bye Bye Oakley...

Well, it is official. Oakley has been leased out to a GREAT girl named Amanda. I signed a 2yr lease and I could not be happier!!! She is 21 and was looking for a QH project that she can start showing, possibly gaming in the future, maybe some trail riding and who knows what else the future holds for them. I think Amanda & Oakley are a fantastic pair and I am excited to see how far she can take him, they both have great potential. The only bummer is he is clear down in Longview WA so I dont get to watch her work him, I just look forward to visiting them some day on the showgrounds...

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Wheelin' & Dealin'

Here goes...

We are trading our awesome, super fun, great car in! Sorry little Kia, I love ya to death, but we want a bigger truck and we just cannot afford 2 auto payments, so ya gots ta go! I will miss you, I will be sad, but probably won't be thinkin too much about ya as I'm driving my new 3/4 ton down the road.. Took it in the shorts a little on the trade in of the Kia, but got the truck for 2K less than blue book. We decided if we were ever going to get a truck, NOW was the time to do it while the economy is still in the shitter and truck prices are still low. The plan is to sell our 1/2 ton green truck outright and use that cash to buy a different car, so we are just swappin cars all around.

IF YOU KNOW ANYONE LOOKIN FOR A DECENT 1/2 TON TRUCK, OUR GREEN CHEVY IS A GOOD TRUCK! ASKING $5500 FOR IT, WHICH IS LESS THAN LOWEST BLUE BOOK.

So here is our perfect little Kia car we will miss dearly....

And here is the NEW truck!! 2005 4x4 Chevy 2500HD, extended cab short bed....

And here is good 'ole greeny that needs to find a new owner as soon as possible...

Sunday, September 21, 2008

An Accomplished Weekend...

This has been a great weekend! I took Friday off of work so that I could help with that prize ride our club was having. Spent 5.5 hours in the saddle that day, Edgar was tired. It drizzled most of the day, nothing serious. On the way home, I was feeling a little achy as far as my throat was bothering me and my head was feelin stuffy. I fell asleep on the couch at 7:30! Woke up at 7am on Saturday morning with crackly ears, suffed up nose.. dang! And it was raining outside. I could not back out of my obligation to help with our prize ride though. I picked up Edgar who had a very sore back. I did not want to have to ride him, but again, no choice at this point. I was the only one who was scheduled to help on that day, so there was no backup help. So we did our duty and rode the trail one more time, I did find Wendy who volunteered to ride with me, so I had company. Another 3.5 hours in the saddle. Pour Edgar.. I told him he could have a few days off. He is gettin his feet re-done on Monday, he really needs it. He was a little trippy on the trail, at one point OMG, he started to trip and I knew he was going all the way down on his front end... His entire front end dropped out from under me, I had a rain poncho on with open sides and as he went down, that damn poncho flew up and over my face, completely blinding me... I had to drop the reins because pulling his head up would not help him to recover from the fall and with the fall, the reins were too short for me to hang onto. So here I am on the back of this horse, completely blinded by my poncho, with no hands on the reins, just hoping it was not my time and hoping he would recover w/o me having to fall off. Sure enough, he recovered on his own and when he finally did, I was able to pull the poncho off my face! lol It was not real funny at the time, but I can laugh now.

I'm feelin much better today, stuffy head/nose but the ear crackling is gone. yeah!

I have been advertising Oakley for Lease and had a girl come out today. She is from down south in Longview. She is 21 and is looking for a project horse to show at AQHA shows. I am very excited and really hope this works out. I dont want to get too excited, it seems they really liked Oakley. He was on his best behavior for the most part, he got kinda upset when it really started to pour down rain on us. This could be a great opportunity for Oakley and he would be shown, so I am excited.

With Oakley possibly finding a new lease home, we will soon get Derek in the saddle. He still wants to give HotRod a shot and see how that works for him. HotRod is the black horse belonging to my friend Angela. Carrie used to ride HotRod a lot, he is the one pictured on my entryway wall with Carrie riding him. A nice horse that Angela wants ridden and I think would be a great horse for Derek to build up some experience on. So I have lots to hope for this week.

I should know within a few days if they will be taking Oakley or not. So the weekend could not have been any better.. well okay, if it had been sunny, that would have been nice! :) Off to do dishes and laundry, whoopie!!

Oh and we have premiere week this week on the tube, so I'm sure my *ss will be planted in front of that darn TV all week! lol

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

A Quest to Overcome my Fear!

I went back out this past Monday.. I ventured down the road on my horse to the same trail where I saw the bear last week. My heart was racing, I was nervous and a little scared if I am being completely honest. The last thing I wanted to do was ride that powerline again, back into bear eating territory, but I wanted to ride and my fears can be so silly and irrational, that I knew I needed to push myself through it. I did decide to go without Oakley this time, I figured if I saw a bear or was attacked by one, I'd rather not worry about dragging him along or having his rope get in my way of getting the heck out of there! ;) But.... no bear that day. Just me and my crazy thoughts. We had a good ride, gets kinda lonely riding by yourself, but it is kinda peaceful too. I am running out of time to get my horse in any kind of shape before Friday, lol.

I have someone coming up to see Oakley on Sunday. She was supposed to come up this past weekend, but had car troubles. She is from way down by the OR border, is helping her friend find a horse to lease. I decided to try to find a home for Oakley for a year or two so he can get worked and exposed to things while Derek builds confidence and experience on an experienced older horse. Here are a couple pics I took of Oakley, he looks really good! :)


Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I SAW A BEAR TODAY!!!

OMG... I decided I had about an hour of "leasure" time today after work to go riding. I've been trying to make a conscious effort to get my behind in the saddle again, I miss riding! I decided to pony Oakley while riding Edgar. Oak needs the excersize as much as Edgar and he could use the exposure. He actually is great to pony, nothing really spooks him (well except that dead raccoon in the road today!). As we were about 30 minutes into our ride with only about 15 more to go before getting home, I am strolling downhill through the power lines, when something catches my eye down the hill close to the edge of the woods... OH MY Heart just about leaped out of my chest, it was a black bear! It was just strolling along, didnt seem to notice me or if it did, it didnt care. But being a good distance away, I was able to see it was probably atleast close to mid thigh tall to the top of its back, I didnt know how old it was, so all I could think about was that momma bear must be above me on the hill looking down on her kid and gonna have to run right through me to get to baby.

Who knows, maybe it was a few years old, but it didnt make me feel any better not knowing! So I just scanned left and right and left and right looking for a second bear to come attack me. In the meantime, the one I DID see, strolled into the woods to be unseen. I noticed that the entire powerlines I was on, was FULL of very ripe blackberries, EVERYWHERE! and as I looked in more detail, I could see places where bears had gone into the bushes a little to eat berries and I could see paths going over the top of the berries that only a bear would make. It was a little unnerving, OKAY I LIED, A LOT unnerving! I just rode along as calm as could be to keep my horse calm, who didnt seem to even notice I was in a mind panic ontop of him, I just pictured myself calling Derek and trying to explain to him where I was at as I was getting eaten and beaten by a bear! lol I am such a freak...

I'm not sure I want to go ride by myself... I love the peace of it, but is it really a good idea. Maybe I need to start packin a gun so I have a fighting chance. What if that bear had been on the trail, what if my horse spooked and I came off.

OMG, I just remembered, before I saw the bear, and I mean literally not even 5 minutes before, I thought about the scenario of running across a bear and how would my parents deal with me being "gone". I honestly was thinking about that and worried about dying, and then WTF I come across a damn bear.. whew, riding has become an interesting thing for me. I almost feel like I have slight premonitions.. I mean this is only the 2nd time this has happened, but still..

about 4-5 months ago, I was riding by myself at Lords Hill. As I was starting out my ride and crossing the bridges, I looked to the sky and did something I never thought I would do. I verbally (aloud) asked my sister to protect me and watch over me, not because I felt scared, I really dont know why I asked her that day. I had a beautiful ride that day, but then... I decided to explore a trail I had not been on. Very long story short, my horse and I got ourselves into a very sticky situation which caused me to fall off him, falling OVER 6 feet down, flat on my back on a very very rocky trail. Now, normally when I fall off (yes it does happen occassionally) I consciously tell myself to tense my neck muscles to avoid hitting my head on the ground (and yes I know I should wear a helmet but I just am not there yet). Well this time it was like my mind went blank and I did not tell myself anything, I just fell hard as a rock if you can believe that. I landed pretty flat on my back and I am still 100% unsure and 100% amazed that my head DID NOT touch the ground.

How do you fall 6' flat on your back and NOT hit your head. Call it weird, but it was like a pillow was thrown under my head to protect it. I hurt BAD all over my body for days, my back was in serious pain, but my neck and head were just fine.

So I want to know, what is the deal? First I ask for protection from Carrie like something inside me knew I would need it that day, then today I worry about being eaten and dying from a bear attack while riding and minutes later I see a goddamn bear! WOW

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Some Pics

Just a few pics to share.. these were taken by either my aunt or her boyfriend Paul.

Here is my aunt and my little Kidos at the Fair! :)


Me & Derek at the wedding


A Great pic of my parents

Monday, September 8, 2008

Finished Deck



So the deck is done.. It has Derek saying a little.. ooohhhhh.... we bought the corrugated tan plastic sheets for the roof material, I guess in my head I thought the tan might be slightly transparent and let a little light in, but nope.. it's solid tan and no light is gonna get by! lol So the inside of the house in the kitchen and especially living/dining room, is quite dark in the middle of the afternoon! Too late now ;) The deck itself is a little dark too, but what do ya do? It will grow on us and as winter approaches and if we get any more hot summer days, we certainly will love having a covered deck. Derek did a great job on it for never having built anything like that. He designed some brackets that we are considering having patented, they are genious!!! I am thinking the positive in all this darkness is that the house will stay cooler in the hot summer because the sun sets on the backside of the house and before, the sun would blare through the kitchen and living room windows and the slider. Now it cannot reach those, so should help to keep the inside cool, that is a good thing. We went pretty dark with this house, brown carpet, tan walls, darker countertops and now a dark (was supposed to be light) deck cover.. lol I'm not going to complain.. One BIG project down...

Another Softball Injury

I forgot to mention that Derek got hit Again! this past weekend while playing softball. He had a nice base hit and was rounding first base, the ball was thrown towards home (or 3rd, cant remember) so Derek thought he could make it to 2nd base. I think he forgot he is no spring chicken and doesnt run as fast as he used to. Well the ball was intercepted by the pitcher who saw Derek running and threw the ball to 2nd base. Unfortunately for Derek, he saw that the ball was heading straight for himself and as he was sliding into 2nd base, he covered his head. He should have covered his shoulder cuz the ball hit him square on top of his shoulder/collar bone. So he was safe, but safe with injury and a nice bruise to show for it. :(

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Just another weekend.... right!

One more weekend gone by... So we did the dozing last weekend, here are some pics of that.
Before
Before
Before
& After!
& After!!
Oh and here are a couple of him bulldozing and then a pic of what I was doing while he dozed! It's all I could do really...


We just need to divide the pasture in half now to bring the medium children home first (goats) and then we'll bring the horses home in a month or two when we finally run out of the free grass for them to eat at their summer homes. I moved the big kids (horses) from their Roosevelt Rd pasture back to my parents. And I did it on old fashioned fuel, horsepower! :) I rode Edgar and ponied Oakley down the road, somewhat busy roads I might add. In some places there was not much of a shoulder to ride on, so unfortunately I was in the road more often than not, but I did not get honked at, cussed at, flipped off or run over, so overall, successful. It was an hour and a half ride and it felt GREAT to be back in the saddle. Oh, but at one point I did twist to look behind me for traffic and it tweaked a muscle in my thigh and whew, that was interesting to deal with.. Thigh is cramping up, but I cant get off my horse, it finally went away after a minute or two. :)

Now that the BBQ is done, the plan is to relax a little, get out and ride a little more and hopefully get some other projects done before fall gets here too quickly. I love the fall, I'm not complaining about that, my favorite time of year actually. But we need to build a shed, paint the house, move some hay, finish the pasture... all before the rain sets in.

We had softball Nationals in Puyallup this weekend. Team lost Friday night, won Saturday morning and then lost the next game. It was perfect weather, not too hot. Here is a pic of the team that was able to play this weekend. We volunteered our place for a team BBQ, probably will happen end of the month, what was I thinking! Just when I thought I could relax and not worry about things, I go and plan a BBQ here.. lol j/k It will be nice to have the guys drive north for a change vs us always coming down south.

I took a few pics of the inside of the house. oh and the fenceline as well. The neighbor did a GREAT job with the boards and it looks very nice. Now we just have to find time to burn that crap wood and get rid of that ugly mess. We are building a cover over our deck too, so there's a pic of how far we are as of this very minute. Derek is working on it as we speak (okay, well as I type and as you read if you are reading this at 5:25pm on Sunday 9/7) lol

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Crazy Weekend

Whew, am I glad the work week is here... lol j/k but really, it was a very busy weekend for us. I took Friday off, I wanted a 4-day weekend. The plan was to get a million things done in the house. Here is what I wanted to get done: paint shelf, organize/unpack office, wash/scrape all windows, pick up garbage outside, clear off deck, clean bathrooms, unpack boxes in laundry room, unpack/organize bathroom boxes, assemble shelf for bathroom, assemble shelf for craft room, unpack craft room and organize onto shelving units, finish spare bedroom, organize garage, take empty boxes to the dump, clean floors, assemble pictures/frames. All that does not seem unreasonable does it?


We get our bulldozer rental on Friday afternoon, so Derek finished up with his day job (he worked at home all day Friday) while I painted a shelf, and then he got on the dozer.. he wanted me to stay out in the field while he worked incase he went over the edge or something happened, so for a couple hours I sat in a chair with my feet propped up and watched him move dirt! :) It was funner than it sounds, but really it wasnt necessarily fun but it was kinda cool to watch him wipe out trees and dig up stumps.

Saturday morning he got up early (we got up early) and were back out in the pasture by 9am bulldozing. I watched for a couple hours until Tyler showed up, then I was able to go in the house and get some of my things done. I didnt get much done, because my dad came over to help us finish with the yard fencing. We all worked on the fence for an hour or more and got it finished! Yippy.. meanwhile, the neighbor was sssslllll...oooowwllllyyyy working on his side and getting the word section done. I have to give him credit though, it is beautiful and he did have it finished by Monday, just in time for the BBQ. After finishing the fence, dad and I ran some errands in town, we hung the gates, installed some lattice and by the time we were finished, we decided eating at home and cooking after a hard days work, was not an option, so El Paraiso we went...

Sunday morning Derek finished with the last of the dozing. I stressed some cuz I felt like I did not get hardly anything on my list done and the big house-warming BBQ was the next day! George & Rachel were on their way to our house... They showed up and the guys were doing something, dont really remember what.. hmmmm. But we decided to go to the fair for a couple hours on Sunday afternoon. We just walked around, ate some, saw the exhibit barns and animals and left. No games or rides. I did go see my baby kids at the petting farm and it was very sad. They were in the resting pen and they just hung their heads and looked exhausted. I was REALLY glad that they were going home the next day cuz they didnt seem themselves and I felt sad for them.

We left the fair, and at home Derek/George started working on the deck cover while Rachel and I worked on my craft room. Here is what I got done from my list above. Built both shelves (almost took my thumb off, the electric drill slipped off the screw and went straight into my thumb, OUCH!!) finished the spare bedroom (yeah!) unpacked 1/2 the craft room, painted shelf and organized office, organized 1/2 of garage mess and delivered 1/2 the boxes to Julie. There were some other things I got done, but looking back, I was crazy to think I could get my entire to-do list done. I feel good about what I did accomplish, but was stressing because I didnt feel the house was 100% ready for the BBQ. I soon realized that it did not matter and it is what it is!

So I got up early Monday morning to get some things done, still needed to vaccum and go grocery shopping for the BBQ. The guys started working on the deck and were still working on it deck as people showed up. They got the framing all done, the only part left is the roof. OMGosh, it is going to be so nice when it is done! I just LOVE my deck now.. I cant even believe the difference it makes having even just a framed cover on it. Completely redefines my deck and the back of the house.

The BBQ/housewarming went well. There were 35 adults & 7 kids & 6 dogs! :) It was a great day, the sun was 1/2 out, but it felt very much like fall! Russell was exhausted, he played all day with the kids and this morning he didnt want to move much. He's a little stiff. It is always stressful throwing together friends and family that dont really know eachother, but it turned out okay and noone seemed uncomfortable. It was a nice day, people started showing up around 2 and the last person left at 9. Thanks to all those that came over, hope you had a great time. If you couldnt make it out, stop by anytime.