Lost time

I resolve to blog more!

.. Hopefully. :)

This is what's new:

1. Richard turned 24 last week and is now in love with mountain biking. He got a bike for his birthday. It's red and seems fancy. That's more or less the extent of my knowledge, but I am trying to learn.
2. I realize, in retrospect, my husband and I missed the Glee bandwagon. We are now clinging to the tail pipe of said wagon and singing along in loud bravado. It's beyond a guilty pleasure.
3. I've started barefoot running, and so far, I love it. One has to start slow, however. Combining it with yoga this morning has made for some blissfully stretched and sore calves, arches, and abdominals.
4. It's been cold-ish and rainy and everything is very muddy.
5. Adopt-a-Horse is going well. An interesting spectrum of interested participants, but well.
6. This weekend, I am riding in a classical dressage clinic. (Your silence is understood.) I was semi-talked into it after expressing vague interest, and I'm very excited, but borderline terrified. I'm taking a favorite camp horse who may or may not crap kittens at the sight of a new place and new people, and no, I have absolutely no experience with dressage. I'll be riding in my work saddle, and chinks, and stovepipe boots. I will look like a yahoo. But I'm desperate to learn, and haven't taken a proper lesson in over six years.
7. Something about marriage has rendered me useless at housecleaning. I swear I was neat at some point in my life.

That's about all I can muster. Going to take a nap (yes, a nap, at 945 at night) waiting for Richard to come home from his Man Date with Bill so we can go feed the caballos and put everybody to bed.

Thinking on Christmas.

This isn't a very personally exploitative blog, but it's Christmas, and at Christmas (according to my favorite seasonal film, Love Actually) you tell the truth, so..

I really, really enjoyed having Richard here this year. I could not have fathomed how weird it would be to not be visiting his family in Belfast. I miss them, and for that I love their son and brother all the more. Since getting married, I have become eighty times happier and we've been more full of family and love than ever before. I've also somehow become at least twice as scatterbrained, messy, and unorganized. I've also gained fifteen plus pounds since the summer. That's painful. I don't doubt I can change that, but it's scary how quickly you can fall into a poor routine of work, play, and eating. My elderly dad is seeing some serious health problems. Making twice the money just means twice the bills for us, though we can't complain.

No, no complaints. In our current state of affairs, I am so happy.

I like to write down my Christmas exchanges somewhere, because I always have a tough time remembering months later. (What does that say about our culture? Not sure, but it's not particularly good.) So with that, I'll conclude this sporadic update.

For Richard, I bought a Gerber folding knife (which I ended up keeping, and he kept the gorgeous but large Horseman's Emerson knife he ordered for me, haha,) a soft grey bath robe, a handful of Transformers and Star Wars accessories for the new truck, some deerskin gloves and a Carhartt beanie, and to top it off, I woke him up by dumping Hopalong on our bed dressed in a Yoda costume. Which was epically cute, despite not fitting and my mom's dog, Rembrandt, desperately wanting to eat off Yoda's useless, floppy arms. He also got a motorized Lego AT-AT model (the Star Wars walking thing? idunfreakinknow..) and seemingly lots of pajamas. We also sort of consider his recent Tony Lamas a Christmas gift in extension. They're awesome, and at least well on their way to being broken in.

I received a pair of roughout chinks from my parents, plus pajamas and slippers shaped like cowboy boots! So cute. Richard bought me a fabulous Emerson blade which we decided was better for him (but the thought was awesome; it's considered "The" horseman's tool) in the long run. Still awesome. He got me the Waldemar Cookbook which I've wanted for awhile, and a card to get Hopalong DNA tested so we can figure out what makes up our fabulous best-friend mutt! Plus a little Blackaloosa (a black appaloosa.. don't ask, it went well with the Barak-Arama vanilla-scented air freshener he added)

Richard's family sent a darling compact and makeup bag and lots of our favorite Burt's Bees products. (I thought British people didn't get Burt's Bees but I guess they are pretty global. Hah.) He got a box of his favorite chocolate bars from home as well and a comedy DVD you probably wouldn't on any shelf in an American Target. I got a journal as well, and we both received a pair of beautiful, tiny silver spoons from Eve. We're a bit tore up that the present we designed and expedited to them is apparently being delivered in four days.. Richard is calling up the company (photobox.co.uk) tomorrow and raising hell. I felt awful that we didn't have something under their tree.

We also got a little money and books from my grandma. (Picked out by us, yay-- The Man With an Iron Heart for him and The Omnivore's Dilemma for me) My aunt and uncle got us a small handheld digital video recorder, good for short little clips.. I get the feeling we'll be taking LOTS of shots of Pax doing cute things. And we inherited like eight pounds of Starbucks Christmas coffee beans or something ridiculous since my family isn't completely partial to flavored coffees. I love them. So that was lucky.

I am not sure what we're going to do with the money. If we split it, there'd be enough for him to get a decent flat screen and for me to maybe find a used Wintec like the one I want.. But we could also just pay off a lot of bills.. hmm. Decisions. ;) Oh and I definitely need to invest in a horse soccer ball..

It's nice to be sitting here, typing and listening to my husband very busily crashing through his trough of several thousand Lego parts. It's a different Christmas, but it's a good one.

Training blog

http://paxfilly.blogspot.com/

New blog, for the sole purpose of recording my work with the new filly.
Should still be here, too, when deeper thoughts possess me. :)

Life's not about what's better than.

As I write this, Richard is solemnly glued to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the cat is sitting outside our front door window, on the gate, staring into my soul with a look of thorough resentment and— oop, he just turned his back on us, whapped his tail around, and is now standing sentinel against the People He Hates Most: The People Who Won't Allow Me To Sleep On The Couch.

My mind has more or less been thoroughly consumed with thoughts of the new filly. I bought Bandit at the age of thirteen and the things he's taught me make up a generous portion of my skills today; I hope I can put that amount of knowledge and all the rest I've caught from various friends and employers and professionals into bringing along a horse with a much more level mind and a wider range of ability. That seems to be cutting into my faith in the good horse I have— not so! The stuff we have conquered and the fact that he makes a workable camp horse (for a confident rider) speaks volumes for his ability to learn (slowly) and then re-learn as time progresses.. But at the end of the day, someone who really goddamn sucked at starting colts started him, hit him, repeatedly, and there are elements of his flight instinct that are too far reinforced to be unwritten.

But $1500 to bring a horse out of the slaughter pens of Canada to Texas? Worth it, I hope.

Having a tough time blogging recently, in so much of the fact that life is good, I love being married, and politically I'm bordering on apathy, which isn't a feature I like to exacerbate. Money has been tight on a single salary, but thanks to the failings of the Texas Tomorrow Fund, my refund check is paying for the horse and some of the fairly minor remainder of my student loans. (Our wedding present from Grandma was not flashy, but did involve a major debt relief off of Sallie Mae's fannie.) Plus, when your house and basic utilities are already covered, it's really hard to starve, even if saving is a bit difficult.

Waiting

I would really prefer to be sleeping at the minute, but I was up at six this morning without sore muscles to speak of —surprisingly; see below— and now with a horse down in the pasture, I may be up for a few more. I know it is her time, but she's kept comfortable for now and well attended to.

This Saturday was the Adventure Race at Camp Eagle. I'll spare you the sweaty detail, but in seven and a half hours, our team mountain biked, kayaked, mountain scootered, rappelled, portaged, caved, ate meal worms, held hands, trekked, orienteered, ran, climbed, Sherpa walked, bushwacked, and got slightly lost. It was thoroughly worth it and I hope I get a chance to do another one.

And in about a month.. Should be driving up to Dallas to get the rescue filly. More detail again later, but it'll be a big day.

I promise I'm not schitzophrenic..

..But I have changed my g-mail address three times in the past year, so for the third (and hopefully final) time, I have a "new" blogger profile. Sort of annoying how its linked to Gmail but I suppose that saves time.. Somewhere.

I'm at the tail end of a work day with a cat in my lap which does, indeed, lead to allergies. But despite Richard's protests that I spoil him, Atticus would have only made a good-for-show barn cat as he has far too much charisma to bother with chasing mice all day. He trots out like he owns the place when a group arrives and ends up sleeping in some 7-year-old's bunk for the weekend, so its not my fault that he's now used to waking us up by screaming in the bedroom window and then coming in for a quick spot of milk. We buy too much milk anyway..

The adventure race is in a week and a half and therefore this week is supposed to be crunch time as far as fitness goes. Getting married and going on a honeymoon allotted my body an additional fifteen pounds or something of that nature (oops, guess I just got kicked out of the fat-o-sphere bloggers for mentioning my weight) and while I'm not on a diet binge, it does feel fantastic to raise your level of fitness several notches in the span of just three weeks or so. I am not in any way, shape, or form a swimmer, but Polly had us doing 500 meters in a couple of days. It wasn't pretty, but it was an accomplishment. Definitely feeling the desire to get back into yoga

Yesterday was cool, this morning zoomed up to seventy-three degrees when I walked to the barn at 8:30, and as I was getting off the tractor at 10:30 we had dropped down to sixty. It's starkly fall outside and not at all sunny, which lamely discouraged me from riding. I'm hanging on to hope that the round pen will not be dropped from the 2010 camp budget as that will make things wildly better. The arena footing is terrible (I swear there's a ten degree elevation change in any direction) and what is supposed to be a round pen strikes me as somewhat dangerous depending on the situation-- the footing is better and it's fine for long line work, but I am really crossing my fingers for a 66' pen with lots of riding space and level ground. Hope hope hope.

I think we might splurge and go see Where The Wild Things Are tonight, because as per usual, we're the last to see any movie that's any good. Richard's been doing pretty well on his own and volunteering and riding quite a bit, but it will definitely be nice to have two incomes after the green card comes through. Cross your fingers.

All in all, marriage makes me disgustingly happy. We're only two and a half months in but surviving pretty well on a single salary and a single vehicle and I can't say there has been a discernible "adjustment period." Though you probably ought to ask Richard as I would not be hard pressed to admit I'm eighty times higher than he is on the temperamental scale. It just feels natural to be together, with our dog in our little house and the big, communal back yard. I can't get over how lucky I've gotten.

And as for the future.. I have been scouring the most reputable rescue websites I can find for a young draft horse. Bringing in a PMU horse from Canada would run upwards of $1500 and I know we aren't in that spot now, but perhaps by the new year..

In my defense, I have had one (1!) crazy-pants horse for the past ten years without ever the desperate desire to have another. One more person in the family means one more horse.. right?

Catching Up

The honeymoon was beyond survivable and more like epic, tumultuous, thrilling, tiring, spur-of-the-moment, and at certain times of sundown and sunup, at least partially magical.

Tonight I finally got around to writing a few thank-you cards —postcards created from friends' wedding photos which I'm more than a little proud of — and the good memories of the day return. Frankly, I didn't really enjoy the wedding day. It was perfect in execution (or at least as close as I had dared to hope) but I was too caught up in micromanagement and trying to make sure the gathered had a good time; what I hear was that it was quite a good little party, though so much of it I missed. All that aside it was the greatest thing that's happened in my life thus far, so I suppose I can't really complain.

Married life, as I am guessing most newlyweds write, is wonderful. There's plenty to fight about but an unfair amount of those moments where we look at each other, finally together in the same country on a reasonably permanent basis, and say "Wow. We are so lucky." We've been riding together (job status changed dramatically; I'm the equestrian director at a camp just a little way up the road from La Junta and so far it's a great reason to wake up every morning) and training for a beginners' adventure race at Camp Eagle in Rocksprings, Texas, along with the two other young directors working here at camp. The only thing I'm passably good at is trail running, but the swimming (we swam our first ever 500m last week: momentous), mountain biking, high ropes and rock climbing will at least give me a kick in the face and some good stories to tell.

Bandit loves his new job with all the prissy mares in the pasture, and Hopalong has two new buddies to go chase / wallow in stuff with. My parents are well (dad's birthday was yesterday and we absolutely nailed the task of baking The Birthday Cake) and our new house is slathered in simple Ikea furniture and every color that caught my eye. Richard indulges me by keeping it pretty darn tidy, volunteers his free time (pre-green card, which may come as early as January) for our new camp, and plays copious amounts of Call of Duty on the xBox. Did I mention he's started riding with me fairly often? I love it, and he's surprisingly really good. But then he tends to be one of those annoying people that's good at any physical thing he tries.

I'll do my best to keep tabs on this blog and update frequently, though it saddens me that I have no friends who write regularly anymore! (Hint, hint.)

Honeymoonbeams

Well, hello there. I'm in Georgia.

Rather, we are in Georgia. As of a week ago, I'm a married girl. Wifey material. Tied down and committed to one person to argue with forever. And after recouperating from intensive end-of-camp time, family travels and reunioning, we loaded down Sullivan the Dodge Caliber with camping gear and food and at least three or four cameras and drove for 28 hours to finally land here, a spot on the map we arbitrarily picked, Blairsville, Georgia, in the north of the state in the Chatahoochee National Forest. Speeding through Nacadoches, Texas to Shreveport, Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi and eventually on up through Georgia. It's gorgeous. We're holed up in a snug motel on the square with a quasi-mountain view and easy access to our cooler full of leftover wedding beer. (Tonight is a Dos Equis and Tecate evening.) Tomorrow night or so we're going to camp and then it's on to the Carolinas or up the Appalachian Trail.

On the definite list to visit so far are:

• Washington, DC: museumry (Smithsonian!) and monumentally things and the like.
• Assateague Island, Virginia: wild horses and kayaking and camping on the beach. (Did you read Marguerite Henry books as a child? Then clearly you weren't a little horse girl. I so was.)
• Wherever in Kentucky our friend Tobbe lives.

The only real complaint we've had is a plethora of fast food on the drive from Texas, which we did relatively non-stop. Hopefully we'll fix that with more picnicking and less Chick Fil A.

Mmm, waffle fries. And mountains. Great combination.

Bring it on.

Camp kicks into high gear this afternoon, as the riding staff arrives for training tonight and everyone else should be ready on Wednesday for the full staff events to begin. Next Sunday will see herds of boys (and parents; gack!) and then I suppose we will be in full swing.

Richard arrives tomorrow. I always get a tiny bit nervous about his flights, but no overwhelming anxiety. It will feel a relief on all levels to just have him back again, with the shaky promise (come on now, US Immigration) that he'll never have to leave again. Kara came yesterday, which was exciting and I feel like any worries I had about being friends-with-an-internet-friend seem to be for naught. She is very cool. The horses are ready. Wedding plans are not, but I've left my mother with some creative projects for the effort and my dad with hotel and food concerns. Bandit's goofy eye is fixed and though he isn't quite where I'd like him, weight-wise, he is fifteen now and deserves some allowances.

City Year is a go. I spoke with John, who will be one of the senior staff / team leaders, so to speak, next year and that conversation gave me some renewed energies for the service year. Watching some of the PSAs on YouTube had me a little nervous that I was the wrong sort, or too old, or perhaps not a perfect fit for the organization, but it seems like I was well wrong in that thinking. I'm looking forward to the challenges of working with a wide assortment of people, and happy at the thought of meeting those kids.

I'm off to go pick up some staff at SA International, and then my mind is sadly going to be lost to June second when Richard gets here.. Hopefully with some British chocolate and the new Dave Matthews Band CD in tow. He has learned well the lesson on how to appease a girl.

Inviting!

invite inside
Originally uploaded by topochicovase

Well, I fell off of a cliff and died. Proverbially.

But here I am! Invitations completed, a few personal dramas circumnavigated, more books read, and the weather hotter than balls.

Three weeks until Richard's here, and before that, staff training to plan and term schedules and cleaning out the mismanaged lot that was once my once-über-tidy shack.

Molly has passed, and now RosePup. Very sad day that was, though we still have a tiny bit of hope that Rose could be returned— no real sign where she went, but there are enough coyotes and snakes to have done her in, theoretically, though its strange she wasn't harmed by them before. Hopalong has tallied up three encounters with porcupine quills to the face and has cost us well over $300 for that fact. Little snot.

Had another job lead with an environmental non-profit which would have been better for Richard's green card status and our poverty levels, but AmeriCorps has taken precedence. It's just going to be a tight year, and a couple of uncomfortably close months with some lucky members of my family..

(And here's the outside wording for them there invitations.)