Facebook.

What would you do if Facebook suddenly deleted your past albums?

I had over two thousand pictures of me tagged. I just deleted a bunch more of questionable content. (Heh.)

What would the me in those early photos, wearing a "booby" sweater and eyeliner and short, curled hair and squishing in as many people at the party into one frame say to the person I am now? I think I would've realized my life is pretty blessed at age twenty four (and I might've noticed that I stopped getting haircuts after college) but I wonder what else.

It's so cool to look back. A few moments of slapping my palm to my face a nanosecond before untagging— the worst were some of my comments. Why did I just not leave the caption fields blank?! But it makes me miss some of my friends, reflect on a couple of old boyfriends, wonder why I ever thought "orange" was an appropriate interior decorating scheme, shudder at the thought of gulping down drinks I wouldn't touch in my mid-twenties, remember Europe better, curse myself for ever thinking myself fat in college, and really, it makes me so happy I've found what I have.

Sort of as an aside, I miss flying to Killinchy and Newcastle over Christmas. Even though I will always take having Richard here over the separation, it was thrilling to get to visit somewhere and become a part of a vastly different and very welcoming new family. There are a lot of things we could use some extra money for at the minute, but I hope in the next year we find the resources to go back. I think it would be good for both of us, and for Richard's family especially. I would also like to go up to the McConnells' house for tea and cookies and bring them something nice from Texas. I think about those gentle ladies a lot for some reason, almost as much as the rest of his family.

The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods. —Bill Cosby

What I Want for Christmas

I don't normally make Christmas lists and have certainly never been encouraged to, but this is sort of a general wish list for myself.

Mountain Horse Sportive High Rider II Boot


Kerrits Sit Tight Lite Breech

Aaaand, most importantly, more riding lessons, please.

(What?! Natalie asked. So I researched.)

Pre Thanksgiving

November doesn't have an excellent track record with my family, taking into consideration the past two and the loss of all of the males on the Phelps side of the family, but I still enjoy Thanksgiving. We aren't really having much of one this year as my Grandma and mom don't feel the urge to celebrate, but there will be food and the five of us, plus the normal dog assembly, plus a 140-lb Great Dane, plus the parrot. Somehow by injecting droves of animals into my parents' modest suburban home, I think I'm hoping to keep things light and hopefully out of the reach of the Dane.

I'm looking forward to a new camera, sort of a by-product of my mother investing in a new Mac Book Pro. We aren't exactly drowning in money here currently, as every animal and every vehicle seems to have expressed their opinion on breaking somehow (transmission, ear infection, viruses, alternators, ACLs, etc.) and we insist on driving a lot and having pricey hobbies (okay, last one is my fault) but we are doing alright. Having a lot of fun thanks to friends and good weather and being outside a good deal. Last weekend, a couple of great friends hosted us in College Station for Richard's first Aggie game. I was happy to go to see them and let Richard get the A&M experience, but ended up having a great time watching all of the excitement that surrounds a game in Aggieland and then enjoying someone else's nice family and friends. Totally worth the drive.

R's been working a lot, fifteen or so hours today alone, but we are driving to San Antonio tonight as soon as he gets off work. It has been pretty super to have him to work with the youngsters on trimming, plus Pax can get her pancake toes trimmed more often and Indy is having to deal with rasping instead of nippers. He's been riding one of the 5 year old bucksins for me, too and dealing with some of his crap that I wasn't fond of. My Thursday lesson girls are in love with him and his horse "Whiskers" and made him run the barrels twice last week. And by run, I mean, cajole obese Whiskey into trotting farty circles around the barrels angrily. He wants to do a NATRC ride with me, but we don't have a horse conditioned early enough for next weekend. He's tagging along anyway to run P&R checks again and be a good camp manager for me and El Bandito.

All in all, life is good. My dozen lesson students seem to have finally balanced out (moreso that I've gotten a better handle on things and started laying a few more diligent ground rules about scheduling.) Now I can enjoy that part of my job a lot more than I was— my riding instructor, Ashley, pretty much hung the moon as far as I was concerned at age 10 and 11, and while the fun —but correct— legalities of the YMCA prevent me from having the same kind of open-door-policy on the barn and horses, getting girls in the saddle who might not otherwise have a chance is what I'm pretty sure I'm cut out to do. The main thing that bothers me is the lack of weekends.. Not because I mind working 6+ days a week, but because I have a deeply burning desire to pursue my own competitive riding for the first time in my entire life. It isn't as though I don't enjoy weekend retreats— on the flip side, I love having our loving and very fun summer staff here to help run the place, not the least of which is Tiff. I just think I've found a sport both my wacko horse and I click at, somewhat. And to add to that, I now have a burning desire to ride dressage, because clearly that's an affordable and practical solution to having too many other things on the plate.

Ah well. Did I say life was good? It is.