Exchange Student

We have a French exchange student living with us. Please call and ask to talk to her. She likes to practice her English.

Not a Horsewoman

I've always loved horses....and cowboys....and cowboys on horses....and me on a horse....with a cowboy.

But I've never had a riding lesson. Although Victor did try to teach me, but we were living in KY, and I wasn't able to work with him and Patches often enough. And like Guitar Hero, I really wanted to be a natural at riding. But I wasn't it.

On Saturday, Abbie wanted to go trail riding, and we found a place in Marshall, NC and chose a 1 hour ride. Someday, we may go back for the 3 hour ride.
Abbie was on Baby Doll and the guide led her horse by a rope. Paul was on Cotton, and I was on Butterball.

Butterball and I got along fine, but I didn't ride Butterball so well. I was all over the place in the saddle. I will take complete blame on not knowing how to ride, but I still think Butterball's gait was a little off. Afterwards, I told the guide that I wondered if Butterball's hooves needed to be cleaned out. I kind of got the impression that his feet were bothering him. Maybe he was tired.

I was also nervous. I think horses pick up on that - especially if you're not confident. The horses were definitely used to following. I didn't have to do much, but anytime Butterball seemed like he was going to move ahead of another horse or step off the trail, I would almost holler for Norman, our guide. But I didn't. I just thought about it a whole lot!

Because of my inexperience, I couldn't wait for the ride to be over. I worried that my horse would throw me or startle and rear up and numerous other things. And I worried about Abbie's horse too. Wasn't worried about Paul - he was the natural. If he had on boots, chaps, and a cowboy hat, I would have just jumped on the back of his horse.

The trail was awesome. The trail wound in and out of some woods, and we kept climbing (gently) higher into the hills. Even though the trees don't have leaves yet and the grass hasn't completely greened up; the scenery was amazing. I don't know how high we went, but we were UP THERE.

Along the way, we came upon a big herd of goats and two saint bernards that guard them. It was sweet.

By the time we were done, my bum was killing me. I was openly groaning, and Paul would turn around and give me advice on how to ride better. Abbie had no complaints. She loved it.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Misc.

Abbie is on Spring Break. We've been taking it easy this week - definitely enjoying sleeping in (except the sound of Paul's garage door opening as he leaves in the morning wakes up Abbie).

We haven't done much so far. Abbie has spent a lot of time reading and doing crafts (she never gets tired of fuze beads). She is making coasters for all her school friends and a few neighbors. Yesterday, she hand-delivered the ones she made for the two neighbors.

Today, Abbie picked up some twigs in the yard and then helped me put some "grass patch" down. We also went to church so I could train with the church secretary. She is having knee replacement surgery so I am going to fill in for her for 6 weeks. And I'll get a paycheck! All of our little home improvement projects are starting to add up so we could use an extra paycheck. We've hired a handyman, and he starts next Friday.

Tomorrow, we head to Asheville for a few days. This trip worked out really well because we are having our hardwood floors refinished, and we're not allowed to walk on the floors for 3 days. I hope the floors turn out great, and our whole house is not one big dust bucket when we get back.

Looking forward to spending a few days at the Grove Park. We'll probably go to the buffet on Thursday night (Abbie's looking forward to that). We may go to Biltmore House on Friday, and of course, we have to eat at Salsa's while we're there. I may do a little shoe shopping at Topps too. Other than that, we have no real plans. We're just going to wing it. I hope the weather holds out.

Up Late

I stayed up past 1 am last night so I could finish the book, "The Help." I thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. It made me think about some things.
Why is it that it's so easy now to look back on events that happened 20- 30-50- 100+ years ago and judge them as wrong? But if you lived back during those times, you yourself, couldn't see that it was wrong (you, in general)?
For example, how could anyone think it was okay to pay a woman less than a man for the exact same job?
It's so easy to say, "of course that isn't fair - what were they thinking?!"
I'm sure some people did notice and didn't like it, but I'm sure there were lots of people that didn't question it.
Are we just that much more enlightened now that we wouldn't ever make those mistakes? But that can't be right b/c we're still screwing up in certain areas (we, in general).
It makes me wonder what things I believe now (right or wrong) that I will completely change my mind about in, say, 20 years.
There was a little boy that lived in the outskirts of my neighborhood when I was growing up. He was biracial, and back then, that was odd - people talked. I heard adults around me "tsk" and refer to him as a half breed. My mom was really nice to him and also pitied him because she knew he'd have a rough time of it. And he did.
But now, I'd never use the word half breed, much less use that word around Abbie.
See, times change.
Certain things that I believed in college are not in my belief system anymore - is it time, maturity, life experiences, becoming a parent that brings on these changes? Probably all of the above.
The book made me think about some things, and I love thinking about things!

How to....

get rid of yard waste if you live in the country.

Around here, if you live in the country, the city will pick up your trash, but you're not supposed to put yard waste in your container, and you can't put garbage bags outside the container either - they won't pick it up.

Paul and I burn ours or take it to the dump (the dump that takes yard waste has really inconvenient hours) or bag it and put it in our container anyway(shhh!).

Today, I discovered a new option.

Take your leaves or grass clippings and load them onto a flat bed trailer. Don't put it in yard waste bags - why spend the money on those bags? Don't cover it with a tarp - that defeats the purpose. Hook up the trailer to your truck. You have a truck if you live in the country.

Now - start driving. Drive slow so that it appears that you are trying not to lose anything out of your trailer. As you drive, all the stuff will blow out of the trailer, and you'll be sharing a little of your yard waste with everyone. That's how I saw it done today. I hope I didn't miss a step.

Darn it, we don't have a trailer.

By the way, I got over 3/4 of the yard work done today. We have our yard waste bagged and intend to take it to the dump where they will burn it.

Outdoor Work

Today was warm enough (t-shirt and shorts) to work outside in the flower beds. There may have been one other day (a short one) in the past 30 days that was nice, but I didn't take advantage of it.
Today, I raked leaves out of flower beds and picked up sticks and swept the sidewalks. I raked the side crevices of the sidewalks and then had to sweep again. I trimmed back 12 patches of monkey grass. I picked up most of the clippings and twigs and leaves that I accumulated, but there are still a few piles left in the yard.
I started at one side of the house (the side with the garage doors) and I did most of the fenced area of the backyard, and I did a little less than half of the front yard.
My point in all this is that I thought I'd get it all done today. But I didn't.
Although it would have gone quicker with a helper (especially an adult one), I still thought I could do it all myself. Abbie was at an all day play date so I had no distractions, no one to make lunch for. I had all the equipment I needed with me so there were not a bunch of trips to the garage - back and forth.
So I'm wondering - do I have too many flower beds? or am I too slow? or something? Technically, I prefer to trim back the monkey grass in the fall, but I have procrastinated the last two years. I guess that was my downfall.
However, picking up twigs could be a full time job around here.

Homework Hassles

We've started a new homework routine b/c what we were doing was not working. I read a book about "Taking the Hassle out of Homework" or something like that. Anyway, I think it was harder on me to make the change than it was on Abbie.

She now has her own desk in her room, and she does all her homework in there. The other day, I discovered that she had made a sign for her door - two sided. I was impressed that she had really taken in all the info I had given her about our new routine. Notice she even included the ABC's of our new procedure:

A = all by myself (meaning mom does not ask about homework, there are no distractions such as cats being in the room, etc)

B = back off (meaning mom does not hover while she does her homework nor does mom or dad check it unless she asks us to)

C = call it quits at a reasonable time (meaning she has to have it done (if she chooses to do it) by 7:30 pm, no exceptions

Well, the first two weeks were excruciating b/c I wasn't supposed to even ask if she had homework or say, "shouldn't you be doing your homework?" I need to get BACK OFF tatooed on my arm.

But I did devise a plan that worked. When we get home from school, I say, "I'm going to start dinner, what are you going to do?" And she usually says homework all on her own. But if she doesn't then I don't sweat it anymore. It's her choice.

The other night, she got the bright idea that we should all sit in the living room with the fire going and read. We all thought that was a great idea, but she hadn't finished her homework. I told her that she could sit with us and read and that she didn't have to do her homework - it was her choice. She chose to finish her homework!

I have also told her that if she gets her homework done on Monday nights and Wednesday nights (instead of stretching it with some to do every night) then she have more play time with the cats and she and I are going to start volunteering at the animal shelter on Thursday. She is stoked! We filled out our volunteer paperwork yesterday. But we only volunteer is her homework is done - it's her choice.

I think this is going to work out.

Freedom

I finally feel like I have a fire lit under me, and I am really getting the house in order to sell. I deep cleaned the master bedroom yesterday and today. Today's job was to finish wiping all the closets doors, walls, baseboards, etc with the magic eraser. Unfortunately, I think our bedroom is going to have to be painted. And I cleaned the light fixture and ceiling fan.

The next big job was to go through both closets and get rid of all the clothes that we don't wear anymore and send them to Goodwill.

It was very freeing to finally be able to get rid of some clothes that I've been hanging onto for a long time. I donate clothes every year, but there are some items that I always can't bear to part with, and they remain in the closet unworn.

Now the guest room closet has a huge empty spot - the giveaway pile is gigantic (in my opinion). I actually wish I could bring myself to comb through it all one more time and get rid of more.

We've also cleaned out numerous boxes in the garage. We've created a pile of trash, a pile for Goodwill, and a pile of books for Mr. K's.

It is very freeing to finally, finally whittle down all this stuff!

Too Much BSG?

BSG = Battlestar Galactica

Could I be too "into" BSG? Is that possible?

The other night, as we were driving home and as I was looking up at the night sky (which I do regularly), I noticed an odd light in the clouds. This phenomenon is not unusual - I see strange, unexplainable lights all the time - they aren't stars or planets or cell phone towers. Let's say the strange lights are space stations or satelites - yeah, let's say that!

One time, Paul and I had a bet going. He was seeing the same strange light that I was, and he said it was a cell phone tower light. So we drove towards it and tried to locate the cell phone tower - they dot the countryside. But the closer we/he thought we were getting to it, the more obvious it became that the light was higher than he originally thought, and we realized that it wasn't a cell phone tower - I didn't think it was.

Anyway, the other night, I saw a strange light. It was there and then it wasn't. It was like it would peep out of the clouds and then hide again. I knew right away that it wasn't a star b/c it was odd shaped. So I kept staring, but then we got on the on ramp for the interstate, and I worried that I had lost my place in the sky. I'm sure I was staring a hole in the windshield. But I saw it again - peeping in and out - the shape of it intriging me more and more. During the last peep, I could have sworn that it was a cylon raider! Seriously! In the nanosecond that I was preparing to say, "PAUL, LOOK AT THAT!" the peepshow ended (the clouds finally moved on) and there was a perfect "Cheshire Cat smile" of a moon. It was so pretty and cool. So cool!

There are only 3 episodes left of BSG, and I am so excited!