Month: October 2011

This song hits the nail on the head!

Some of you may remember back to this post I wrote to my {step}daughter on my wedding day.

I was driving to lunch yesterday and the song by Darius Rucker came on, “It won’t be like this for long.”  That song hits me on so many levels.  The first time I heard the song was late 2008, driving down the road, I believe I was in the truck with my parents, and yes I had tears running down my eyes.

I saw my dad/parents in the guys shoes… and me as the daughter.

He didn’t have to wake up
He’d been up all night
Layin’ there in bed listenin’
To his new born baby cry
He makes a pot of coffee
He splashes water on his face
His wife gives him a kiss and says
It gonna be OK

It won’t be like this for long
One day we’ll look back laughin’
At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
‘Cause it won’t be like this for long

My first day of Kindergarden they tell me my dad had a hard time… I didn’t want him to take me to school, I was going to ride the bus with the “big kids”.  By 2nd grade I had to change schools and I almost cried when he just wanted to drop me off and wouldn’t walk me into the school.  He didn’t ever get out of walking me into the school building again until late late grade school or junior high.

Four years later ‘bout 4:30
She’s crawling in their bed
And when he drops her off at preschool
She’s clinging to his leg
The teacher peels her off of him
He says what can I do
She says now don’t you worry
This’ll only last a week or two

It won’t be like this for long
One day soon you’ll drop her off
And she won’t even know you’re gone
This phase is gonna fly by
If you can just hold on
It won’t be like this for long

As a teenager, I guess I got along fairly well with my parents.  Not to many fights broke loose at our house until my senior year when I was freaking out about going on to college.  College seemed like 2nd grade all over again, new school, bigger school, new town, dorms, so much to change, I was freaked out!  In fact toward the latter part of my senior year all hell broke loose at our house a few times when I missed deadlines for college applications, scholarships, etc, or trying to make sure I didn’t miss deadlines.

A lot had happened to my family during my high school years and I was just extremely nervous to move on.  I wasn’t ready.  High school was good to me and college scared the crap out of me.

Some day soon she’ll be a teenager
And at times he’ll think she hates him

But we made it through high school, the teenage years and even college too :).  I was out of college for 3 years by the time I’d heard this song and at that time in life I wasn’t in a good place… I was in a relationship that wasn’t the best but I hoped would get better and as we all know it didn’t.  But the best thing happened, I got into a great relationship, one that my parents loved the guy and the guy treats me awesome and I went on to get married and while I was at it became a {step}mom to a great girl.

Then he’ll walk her down the aisle
And he’ll raise her veil
But right now she’s up and cryin’
And the truth is that he don’t mind
As he kisses her good night
And she says her prayers

He lays down there beside her
‘Til her eyes are finally closed
And just watchin’ her it breaks his heart
Cause he already knows

It won’t be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be
All grown up and gone
Yeah, this phase is gonna fly by
So, he’s tryin’ to hold on

‘Cause it won’t be like this for long

It won’t be like this for long

It won’t be like this for long

Every time I hear this song I break down in tears thinking of my dad (& mom too).

But

I was driving to lunch yesterday and I heard this song come on the radio and a different scenario popped into my head for the first time and of course the silly song proceeded to bring tears down my eyes again.

I may not have given birth to Tbug, but she is very much mine.  A couple weekends ago when we bought her new boots and then went to go ride horses at my parents, she went to put her spurs on her new boots and they wouldn’t fit.  I told her to bring them with us and I’d figure something out when we got to mom & dad’s house.  I went in the house and grabbed a pair of my old spurs, pulled my old straps off of them and put her straps on my old spurs and they fit.

We put them on her boots and I asked hubs what to do with her old spurs and he told me to put them in the truck, we may need them again someday and silly me as I was walking to the truck with her “kid” spurs in my hands I started tearing up.  He grinned at me and I told him to shut up and walked on.  But even days that we have to take her back to her mom, driving down the road my silly eyes well up with tears.  I miss that I wasn’t there for her birth, her first steps, words (although sometimes I wish she didn’t know how to talk), etc… but I’m here now.

I still remember that she told her dad she didn’t want an evil step mom so she didn’t want him to re-marry for that reason, but he married me and I hope she never thinks of me that way, but I can’t help but admit that I’m afraid someday she’ll hate my guts.  When that time comes it’ll break my heart!

So I’m sorry this was a really long post today and a very deep but this is how I feel and some of the things I’ve been dealing with lately.

So I’ll leave you with this song 🙂

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5zCaRaJ-kE]

Stressed Out & Some Photos

Do you ever get stressed out?

I mean like rip roaring mad, stressed out…?

No?

You’re telling me I’m alone?

Well I guess I’m not b/c I don’t quite get rip roaring mad 🙂

I do however have a mouth like a sailor sometimes…. woops.  I’ve been told to blame it on my grandfather, my mother, my Greek roots, lots of things… sometimes I’ve been told to blame it on the fact that you learn how to cuss when you’re 16 years old and start driving.

I’ve been working on this.  Working real hard.  In fact trying to get the Fbomb out of my language all together.

I also make it a point NOT to swear around kids… yeah sometimes it slips, but not very often.  Doesn’t matter if it’s my kid, their kids, your kids, her kids, his kids, it doesn’t matter…. even if other people are swearing around the kids, I try NOT to.

Anyway….. I think I’m off topic…. Stressed out… ok back….

Whatever the case is… sometimes I get stressed out.

Yesterday and Last night both contributed to last night.

I’m having to wash all our dishes.  Long story, I don’t want to talk about it… but part of it is b/c milk got left in the container in the sink…. yeah that’s just part of it :).  We won’t go into further details.  So anyway I keep unloading cabinets right into the dishwasher and then back into the cabinet.  I haven’t seen my cabinets in a couple days… that’s stressful enough.  I feel like a bad wife!

On a positive note, I made homemade apple sauce (before I had to wash all my dishes :)) and it puts the store bought stuff to shame!  Shame I tell ya!

Anyway back to yesterday, I worked on the same project at work most of the afternoon.  It took me with the help of 4 other people at different times to figure things out.  No, I’m not that dumb and slow… I just stared at it long enough I needed more eyes to look for what I was missing and then they had to call in more people.  It was fun :).

When you take over a project someone else was working on, then they leave and you get it… you have to figure out just what in the world were they thinking!

I then came home to the dish mess and Anatomy & Physiology homework.  YUCK!  I thought Monday & yesterday were supposed to be fall break… but oh no… I had to work on dumb homework both nights.  By the time husband got home (he was in a meeting until later) I was cussing up a storm b/c I wasn’t finding the answers I needed.  I guess at one point I stood in the living room and yelled “F*** It! F*** It! F*** It!” to which later last night hubs said, I’ve known some pretty crass people but I’m not sure one of them would yell F*** It 3 times in a row like that.  They’d interchange it with other words too.

Listening to him say that and almost on the point of mocking me made me giggle.  I took a shower and settled back in on working on homework.  I was finally done about 10:30 or so.

Now I just have to finish tonight’s homework, which is taking my food diary from the first week of Nutrition and finding fat grams for everything I ate.  Fun… So a woman is only supposed to have 30 fat grams per day.  A man can have up to 40 grams of fat per day.  That’s it…. um… an avocado,  if you eat the whole thing is great when it comes to fiber, 17 grams, but bad when it comes to fat grams…. 27-31 depending on the type.  Anyway that’s what the teacher told us.  Yeah more useless trivia there.  Sorry 🙂

Guess I’ll leave you with these photos 🙂

Ah to be young again and worried more about learning my multiplication tables than this A&P stuff… letting my parent’s pay for things and wash the dishes…   That was the day! 🙂

Happy Hump Day!

10 Years Later

It’s still hard to believe that 10 years ago May I/we graduated from high school!  Seriously?  And as I told you the other day, one of the guys, really hasn’t grown up… but after a couple people called him out on our facebook page, well then his tune changed a bit.  He tried to talk nicely and joke around with people.  I still think a lot ignored/avoided him though.  He didn’t change his mind and show up to the reunion though, which I think might have been a good thing… I don’t know and I guess we’ll never know, but either way our reunion came and went.

Pokey & Aerielle asked if we wanted to go up with them and we said sure.  Earlier on Saturday I sent Earl (Aerielle) a message and asked her what time they were picking us up, this is how the text convo went….

Me: What time you guys gonna be by tonight?
Earl: I’m thinking like 5:15ish
Me: Ok 5:30 it is 😉
Me: j/k we’ll be ready
Earl: Uh huh, we’ll prolly be waiting on PC!
Me: Yeah it’ll take him at least 2 hrs to do his hair 😉
Earl: Then buff his nails…….
Me: Mani/pedi 🙂
Earl: Then polish his shoes……
Me: Starch his jeans
Earl: Then change shirts 10 times
Me: Then storm outta the closet, “I’m not going, I’m fat!!!!”
Earl: Hahahahahaha I was struggling with my next comment and you just put the icing on!!!
Me: Then put on the sweat pants and catch up on some correspondence.
Me: Finally 2 mins before it’s time to go, he’ll get ready.

Then hubs starts texting Earl and giving her fits while he’s getting on to me too for our story 😉

Earl: Hehehe I’m getting in trouble from him 🙁
Me: Me too 🙁
Earl: Let’s go to the corner 🙁
Me: Time out for us……

Like our story 🙂

I guess I must admit that not to long after that I felt like a failure, fat, any other thing you could possibly thing negative about yourself and decided I wasn’t going.  Hubs told me he was dragging me there by my teeth if he had to, but I WAS going.  And then while getting ready I stormed out of the closet with a big pouty face, said I had nothing to wear, I was fat, and I wasn’t going.  He rolled his eyes at me and I cracked up laughing, although truth be told… I kind of wasn’t lying!!

The reunion was from 6-9pm.  There was music, an open cash bar, dinner, and the best part…

25 of our graduates were hypnotized at Project graduation… I was one of them.  I finally got to see all the crazy things we got conned into doing like the person next to us smelled good, in fact 2 of the people almost looked like they were making out… we were “naked”, the person next to us “stunk”, we got to dance, we lost our belly buttons… all kinds of crazy things.  I always heard about it but never got to see the video until Saturday night.

The 25 of us who were actually hypnotized kept getting asked if we were embarrassed by the video and things we did.  We all just laughed and said, no not really.  It was hilarious!

Unfortunately they didn’t hire a photographer (maybe not needed, but would have been kind of cool) and I didn’t take my camera, but one of the girls toward the end of the evening grabbed her camera and went around taking pictures of this event.  I stole the accompanying photos off her facebook site 🙂

Ashley, Aerielle, Crystal, Me (I look like a friggin giant), Hubs

Trevor

Marty, Hubs & Earl

Taria, Keith, Michelle, Shawn – These 2 used to be my bestestest friends from 5th grade through high school, around Junior year we parted ways though.  They went on to marry brothers.

Jordan & his girlfriend

Mandy, Ashley, Jared, Jake

Jordan (yes he’s in a kilt, there’s one in every crowd), Kirby

Cherie & her husband

Adam

April, Ashley, Kristian & Marty

Here we’re all watching the hypnotist.

Heather’s boyfriend, Heather, Ashley, Allison & John

The best 2 1/2 Minutes of your life

So as last Friday’s post stated, Practice Makes Perfect.

And oh so long ago I tried to briefly explain what a Cutting Horse is, or really how you show one… all the rules, guidelines, etc.

And I didn’t do such a hot job of trying to explain… but it’s really so in depth at times that a small blog post doesn’t do it justice.

So… Every year starting around Thanksgiving and ending about 2 weekends before Christmas (give or take) is a thing called the NCHA Futurity.  These are 3 year old babies (of the equine persuasion) who have never been shown in front of a judge for a score, ever.  It’s their first run out.  There are 3 categories, Amateur (Rider has won less than $50,000 Lifetime earnings, never been a trainer), Non Pro (not currently a trainer, gave up training status or never been a trainer), and Open (all the Big dogs or trainers, haha).  So the rider pays their entry fees to take these babies out for their first big showing in Ft. Worth, TX.  There are 2 go-rounds, Semi-finals and the Finals and it is a weeding out process as in so many go back, so many go back and eventually you wind up with 25 in the Finals battling it out for the title to be called Champion.  (and the money too 😉 Open wins $250,000)

So… here is the 2010 NCHA Futurity Open Champion, One Time Royalty Marking a 230**; Lloyd Cox trainer/rider; Jeffrey Matthews, Matthews Cutting Horses of Weatherford TX, Owner

**At the NCHA futurity you show in front of 5 judges, the top and bottom scores get thrown out, then they add the 3 middle scores together and that is your score for that ride.**

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysol98Jf9GY]

The best seat in the house is on the back of the horse.  The second best is in the Judges stand (right out front watching it all happen).

One of these days when we have the flag working, I’ll video that for you as well 🙂  Enjoy!

Strange things in random places

Project 52: Books

Earlier this fall we were going through things in my mother-in-laws shop, trying to clean a pathway to get a big tank out.  I just so happened to stumble across this book and wondered what it was so I picked it up and started taking a gander at it.

When I opened the front cover I noticed the name on it.  Really?  So I looked at my mother-in-law (Memaw) and asked her where she got this.  She said she couldn’t remember, just knew that it was in her shop.  She asked me why?  I said, um…. that was my grandma’s name. 

So I ran outside and called my grandma to ask her if she knew the other name on the book, the from person.  She said, well yes, that was my Sunday school teacher, why?  I told her about the book I found and what it said.  She wondered how Memaw got it.

Isn’t it crazy how small of a world we live in?

This book could just as easily have wound up in someone else’s possession but nope, it was in my MIL’s possession.

Memaw let me take it to my grandma.  But really, how cool is that!

Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe

A while back I was scouting out a good Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe for the cookie challenge on October 7th when I stumbled across this recipe.

A few years back I got a recipe in an email for Neiman Marcus Cookies that the recipe made 112 cookies and it had some story about a lady paying $X for it and now she’s getting revenge… you may have even seen it.

Now when you see a recipe like that in email… I’m not sure about you but I’m a little skeptical to try it, but I did and absolutely Loved them!  Well then I ran across another Chocolate Chip cookie recipe for Neiman Marcus Cookies and this is on their website… free for all :).  So I grabbed it and tried it.  Let me tell you, they are so worth it!

Neiman Marcus Cookies

Yield:   2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder
  • 1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

    • Directions

    1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)

    2. Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.

    3. In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.

    4. Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.

    Practice Makes Perfect

    For the type of horses we show, there is a way to practice without live cattle or buffalo, it’s called a flag or a mechanical cow.

    Now we’ve really stepped up our game b/c when I say flag, our old flag was an old wheel of a bicycle on one side of the arena and the other part with the pedals on the other.  There was a rope between the tires and you had a person who sat there and hand cranked the bicycle.  The “cow” was an old towel, feedsack, shirt, etc that was tied in the middle and it moved back and forth as the “cow operator” moved the pedals of the bike.  Let me clarify a bit, you were actually standing on the ground, your hands were operating the pedals… just so we’re all clear.  I tried googling a picture, but couldn’t find one… so hopefully my description did it a little justice 🙂

    We now have a mechanical cow.  It runs off a motor & electricity.  In fact the person on the horse runs the controller so you don’t have to have 2 people to practice… just one and a horse :)… oh and electricity ;).

    Here dad is strapping the remote on to his wrist.

    And their off.

    Muddy bites at the real cows, I guess he thinks he should bite at this one too?

    It’s also a great learning tool in a controlled environment to teach Tbug how to show cutting horses.

    And of course the “babysitter” Aloha takes real good care of Tbug.

    I was actually sitting on the ground, in the sand, on the other side of the cow.

    KG is scared to death of the cow.  No this isn’t a picture of him scared, he’s actually working, but he works further back than any of the other horses.  See where hubs and Tbug are sitting… they actually had to move back, this is how far away from the cow KG works.  Now real cows you don’t have that problem but he hates this fake cow.

    Then hubs jumped on Aloha.  He’s actually working without stirrups b/c he’s on Tbug’s saddle.  He was “correcting” Aloha after Tbug was done.

    I almost didn’t get to go home in the front of the truck b/c I was sitting in the sand.

    Working on the flag isn’t always the best method because the horses tend to learn to “cheat” but at the same time, it’s great practice if you don’t wanna bring the cattle up or if you’re trying to teach the youngun how it all works.  It keeps her in a nice controlled environment.

    Out Take with a Story

    A couple weeks ago we worked on taking some family photos.

    We got some cute ones.. We got some weird ones.  We got some funny ones.

    But this one… is GREAT!

    My mom conjured up a story for it even… {Hubs don’t be mad at me please!}

    My mom said it looks like Hubs farted.  I smelled it.  And Tbug was blaming Audrey for it.

    Now in all honesty, hubs had the remote so he knew the camera was getting ready to go off… I really can’t explain me… and Tbug was yelling at Audrey for jumping up on her. and I just noticed the slight almost non-existent bunny ears hubs is giving me… Thanks hunny!

    Nutrition Chapter 4 Test – Help me!

    So the average on the Chapter 3 Test was an 85%.  Teacher said she was ok with that.  Said if the average was a low 90’s number that she’d have to re-write the tests b/c they were too easy.  I’m ok with too easy but she didn’t ask my opinion.  There were in fact people who failed that last test too.  Although on her tests, you’ll never get a F, she’ll round it up to a D as long as you were there the night of the test.  That’s the key, be present the night of the tests and you get to ride the curve grade.  Take it after and well, you’re stuck with what you got.

    So here are the Chapter 4 test notes.  I don’t know why I feel like you want to see them.. but I feel like sharing.  This time though I didn’t type them up all neatly, nope, I took a photo of my notes… good luck reading my handwriting especially since they are iPhone photos….  I sometimes question what I wrote…  But there are some good pieces of tidbits here so you might just learn something.  Remember, you should learn something new every day! {and you can click on the photos to make them bigger ;)}

    Eureka Springs {AR} in Pictures

    Very seldom can the hubs and I just “run off” like a lot of newly married couples do, what with our hectic schedule anyway and throw in every other weekend we have his daughter with things she has to do, wants to do, etc, it seems like we’re always on the run anyway.

    Sunday, other than studying, I had nothing planned and neither did he… so we hopped in the car and headed off toward Eureka Springs, AR.  It was a Beautiful drive in!  Oh my goodness.

    For the first time in what seems like years, we’re having a beautiful fall, given the high high temps we had this summer! 

    As we were driving in we noticed a “detour”  Now if you’ve driven down around Eureka Springs, it’s 2 lanes all the way up and down and all around swervey mountains… so we were wondering about this detour.  Well if you notice, the road just fell off the mountain, so they moved the lane over.

    When we got there, we drove to the bottom of the hill, parked and went and played around the railroad station.  This building here was gorgeous, but condemned :(. 

    The Eureka Springs & Northern Arkansas Railroad Company.

    Plus old farm machinery there too… HOW COOL! 🙂

    I loved this sign!

    Where you filled up the old steam engines.

    Isn’t it amazing that is what holds one car to another and this was hooked to the engine, can you imagine how many thousands of lbs that holds by dragging all the cars together.  Amazing!

    Then we walked around the area for a bit before driving back up into the “hustling” part of the city.

    The famous Crescent Hotel that is supposedly haunted…. whooooooooooooooooo 🙂

    Then we found the Crescent Spring.  Click on the photo to make it bigger if you’d like to read the writing 🙂

    Now this manikin cracked me up… the wind was blowing just right that her sleeve was waving as if it were waving you in to the shop.  Obviously a still photo won’t show that though :(.

    We got in my car at one point and this was what the temp read out… Holy cow in October? 

    Then we went and found the winery in town.  Keels Creek Winery & Art Gallery.  Hubs and I aren’t huge wine people, but we have a few we like and we are always willing to try :).  They had wine tastings 6 types for $5 plus you got to keep the glass.  We were like ok sure :).  Plus you get to try wines you might not try otherwise, and yes, there were a few I didn’t much care for.

    Awe and this lovely thing came to great us.  I wanted to take her home!

    I loved the wreath.  And at one point she opened a bottle for our tasting and we asked what they did with all the corks.  She said they make things out of them (ie) but they also give them to visitors so they gave me all the wine corks they had sitting around.  Now I’m ready to make my own wreath!

    After we left the winery we headed for Beaver Dam/Beaver Lake

    So not to shabby for an impromptu day, right 🙂