Migrating Elephants

Peachy Artichoke

2012-02-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

I've had a good day so far. I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to going to the gym. The endorphins were AMAZING today, because last Saturday I went to a Zumba class with my friend Lindsey from Anatomy and Physiology. She's like an exercise guru so I asked her how to increase/improve my stamina. She told me, "If you feel your body can go farther, then go farther! Push yourself!" and I did it tonight! I realized that when I'm on the elliptical, I don't really push myself at all and am barely sweating when I get off. So I upped the resistence, increased my pace and pushed pushed PUSHED. I was sweating and breathing hard the whole time and felt SO good! It was hard for awhile but after about 7 minutes it just got easier like I stepped into a rhythm. And then I lifted weights for awhile, which is my favorite! ;)

I had some canned peaches and am currently steaming/boiling two artichokes. I have lots of homework but I had a great day at Chemistry! I understood everything and then went to a tutor afterwards and solidified it. At the tutor, I met a new guy named James from my Chemistry class, invited him to come to the Pre-P.A. Society meeting.

Oh, I am an officer in the Pre-Physician's Assistant society. My FHE brother Garrett is the president... I think I already said that.

I actually was able to get up early this morning and now I just need to finish my Anat and Phys homework, my information for my "Teaching Toddlers Sign Language" presentation, cook a cake for Rebecca Deloatch's Birthday tomorrow, do my chemistry homework, start on my "study guides" for my Anat and Phys test this Friday. Well, I need to finish my chemistry reading. Right now I'm sitting on the couch with Shea (on her computer), Morgan is on the love seat (on her computer), Heather is sitting on the love seat's arm and Myra is on the floor talking about her sore boob that her coach accidentally hit during basketball practice. Life is always exciting in Apartment 201!!!!

Procrastination and a little glee

2012-01-30T19:23:00.000-08:00

Magtatagalog ako dito para walang makakaintindi, haha, pero hindi talaga kailangan pero... kanina nabalitaan ako ni Sister Villapando na namiss daw ako ni Ninong Witt!!! Yay! Hindi ako pasaway, pero, masaya lang ako dyan. Wala akong ginawa noong nasa Philippines ako, pero masaya lang, type ko talaga siya. Malaki!

I am procrastinating doing my studying and homework a bit and it feels good. Well, only half good. I blame it on the cookie dough brownies I made. I PURPOSELY brushed my teeth before FHE, but then I ate a sliver... a little nibble, and then an entire piece and a bite of another. DAGGONIT! Next time, I will simply not TOUCH the stuff (I served it today) and I should be okay. One of our FHE brothers, Garrett, is tall as a church steeple and he has a scar on the back of his head that looks like the Michael Jordan basketball symbol. It's cool, Myra and I sat together on the couch and he sat against the couch in between Myra and I, and we talked about how we wanted to touch the thing... it looks so cool. Our FHE sisters are so nice and cool, so are our FHE brothers.

So... I will go do homework now... maybe. :) Haha Joke only!

Crispy Bread

2012-01-29T18:46:00.000-08:00

I just overcooked my homemade bread to the point that I had to chisel it out of the pan. :( But other than that, it turned out great!

This past week has been really deliciously good, in flavor, temperature, happiness, friends and family. Some highlights are:

-Got an A on my chemistry test (well, I didn't get my grade yet, but I felt awesome about it and I'm dead positive I have an A on it)
-Shin splints slightly healed enough that I was able to DANCE!!!
-Finally "got" our hard clogging move at the first part of our dance
-Learned a brazilian stick dance in World Dance class
-Talked to many attractive men
-Made new friends or new acquaintances
-Finished FINISHED my chemistry homework!!!!
-Watched Prince of Persia last night and loved it
-My sister Sabina got a dog named Neville!!!
-I saw "Celtic Nights" Friday night after Acing my chemistry test

Best Friend Weekend

2012-01-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

I just got back from going to Taleea's house this weekend! I was supposed to get lots of homework done before going, but I ended up doing homework on the way and I did the MINIMAL AMOUNT possible while I was there. I rode down by getting a ride through the ride board at school, and ended up riding with this guy named Alex (from Mexico), Melissa (from Chile) and Julia (from U.S.A.). I took dramamine and read my Anat & Phys book the entire way down. We stayed up until like Midnight Friday night and I got some stuff submitted for schoolwork.

Saturday, Taleea got up and went to the store and got us donuts and bananas for Sunday morning breakfast and she made us pancakes, eggs and hashbrowns! Oh, Taleea and I slept in their bed and Nathan, her husband, had his 17 year old brother Kaleb over too the whole time, so they slept on the floor. Their apartment is tiny but SO cute! They surprised me with us going ice skating, and it didn't hurt my shin splints (Which is good) but it did make my right arch ache and my ankles a little sore. I kept falling, but Taleea and Nathan and Kaleb just looked SO comfortable on the ice! I got better though. Then it started raining, and then snowing HUGE snow flakes! We bought two pizzas at Papa Murphy's and cooked them at their house, pepperoni and chicken artichoke! MASARAP! The boys went to go see a movie and then Taleea and I walked to their library and checked out all three Anne of Green Gables movies to watch. We ended up only watching one because it was three hours long! The boys came back in the middle of that and Taleea made a birthday cake for me (Jan 12) and Nathan's brother (Jan 16), yellow cake with chocolate frosting and reese pieces on top spelling "Happy B-day!" That was our dinner b/c the pizza was so filling. Then I worked on my chemistry lab and we watched Deja Vu that was REALLY good!

This morning we got up, showered, ate our donuts and bananas and went to church. Afterwards, I washed dishes while Taleea cooked "Baked Ziti" some salad and texas toast from Walmart that was SO delicious! The house smelled heavenly, and I ate more cake. Then we played this fun card game called "Guillotine" and my ride texted me and said he was on his way, so I left!

I have redone my entire homework schedule because I am WAY behind and need to spend more time doing homework and schoolwork. Especially if I want to get an A in this class! I probably wasted a little TOO much time here at our apartment today (and ate way too much cake! my roommate made a devil's food cake with TONS of icing which is always a bad thing for me whose weakness is icing!) but oh well! Tomorrow is a new day and RIGHT NOW is a new minute!

Sore Shin Splints

2012-01-18T22:01:00.000-08:00

Try saying that ten times fast!

I got some serious shin splints today from A) Clogging class for an hour, and then... B) World Dance class for an hour - Tai Chi, Bulgarian and Irish, and then... C) Country Dancing and lots of triple step and only on the balls of my feet. My legs are dying, but my shins are both wrapped and covered in icy-hot to reduce the pain.

Also the top of my left foot feets bruised... I probably need to get some sort of special socks or something for that.

But I danced with this asian guy that I met named Jeffrey. I met him last Friday night walking home from Latin Dancing, but he didn't remember me although he seemed like he remembered my face... vaguely. He asked me to dance and it was a waltz-ish country song, so we waltzed and WOW He sure can DANCE! It's a good thing I was consciously thinking about my following and good frame because I think I did about a 75% job on following and keeping up. He had me do all KINDS of stuff, it was absolutely amazing! But he's asian! They are just so talented at almost everything, or from what I've seen anyways.... I went with my friend Shawn who is somewhat learning to dance or at least improve his country dance skills. I'm afraid I messed him up though because I have discovered...

Country dancing is not my thing. I can hardly do the basic step, and ballroom, swing, and latin are SO much more fun! Time to go to bed, it's 11pm and an hour past my bedtime.

College ulit

2012-01-02T22:01:00.000-08:00

I just arrived at my old apartment that I used to live in over 2 years ago here at college. Some others warned me that I had no idea who my roommates would be; I was running a risk just going and not knowing who my roommates are, etc. But I was determined to make the best of it and expect wonderful, sweet, kind and friendly roommates. So far so good! They are super nice and funny! Shay is hilarious and Myra is a vet major and her family has a ranch of 3,000 acres!!! The three of us really bonded this evening; they're both really laid back and we all three have the same interest -- Books! And the same kinds of books too. How fun! My room roommate, it's rather ironic, has red hair! Just like my beautiful Taleea! She's funny and loves to talk, but I find her amusing and entertaining. She's got so much energy!

Bonnie and I flew on the airplane together to Salt Lake, and then Taleea and her husband Nathan met me at the airport. First time I'd seen Taleea in over 2 years, I was SO happy! I didn't think she'd ever let me go out of that vice-grip hug! Haha, and being Taleea and having all the cute ideas, they'd fixed pb &j sandwiches for our lunch all complete with chips, moon pie, reese cups and candy canes! And then we hung out until the big shuttle bus came, and even after checking in with the driver we just stood outside and chatted. Nathan is a saint and so wonderful for Taleea, they look so cute and happy! I told Taleea that she looks like a married woman and she thought that was funny. She tickles me to death.

I met a couple girls on the bus, and after arriving curbside on campus, I started on the LONG journey to my apartment complex. It technically isn't that long, quite quick when I'm not carrying a heavy backpack, big full purse, two coats, a plastic bag with a pot in it and two very heavy suitcases! My right arm HURT from pulling my swiss suitcase. No doubt it'll be sore as anything tomorrow. I'm so happy to be at college again!

Fancy Please

2010-01-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

I sorta kinda wanna fancier blog like Stephen's but I don't have the gumption to change this. So guess what? I'm going on the...

Philippines Angeles Mission, speaking Tagalog, report to the MTC March 31st, 2010

YAY! Now I am just stressed about my shots which Vern at work said she had me taken care of (meaning I could go next week and get 'em done on the day that I'm supposed to but I had been working...) but I don't know how or what she did and I need to talk to her to know. GAH!

No Paraguay

2009-08-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

So it all started with me taking Farrell to the Livestock Center on Wednesday and Friday nights and then on Tuesday and Thursday nights so she could take care of these chickens that were part of a project out there. Well, I had barrel racing for four weeks on Wed/Fri and then Team Sorting for two weeks on Tues/Thurs so it wasn't a big deal. Being the nosy chicken-lovin' fool I was, I went out to see these chickens and she told me they were trying to develop a mobile bottomless chicken coop to build for people in Paraguay. She showed me the ones they had made up... *shudder* They were pretty huge, heavy, had too much wood, hardware sticking all in the sides of it, they were made out of about ten billion little different scraps from metal rods to woodchips! So I told her I had a different, easier, lighter and more chicken, cost and space efficient plan.

Just so happened my "Cow Class" teacher was in charge of this project, Brother Orchard, (technically my Animal Handling and Behavior class teacher) so I showed him the ideas. Well, first I met with one of the two engineers who was in charge of building and developing these coops, and he was he**bent and determined to not use my idea and he wasn't real good at pretending to honestly humor me by looking at the ideas. So I then showed Brother Orchard who began praising me up and down, saying I was an answer to prayers, I was gonna save lives with this thing, and "If you and me have to go build this thing ourselves, we're gonna do it!" (that's what he said after I told him the engineer's lack of enthusiasm). I went to a meeting with him, the two engineers, Brother and Sister Shaw and some other guy and Farrell and showed them the idea. Farrell always liked it, the one engineer was still against it, the Shaws seemed happy, the other engineer was genuinely interested, Orchard was ecstatic and the other dude was talking of other things but seemed to really like it.

They adopted it and I was adopted into the project. Brother Orchard said he'd get them to get me involved, but they didn't. I ended up going out and looking at it by myself (well, before cow labs different days) and they had made it with wood that was so light it was felt in between what we use and balsa wood! And they left out several important supports and they didn't staple down the wire! They did the whole sandwich thing between wood pieces with screws, and it looked poor! *sigh* Engineers. It also ended up blowing over, and I tried to contact the one engineer and get together with him about it but he never contacted me back and when I tried to express my concerns to Brother Orchard he just smiled and nodded and steered our conversation to the Paraguay trip.

I was invited to go, and Brother Orchard always was calling and checking up on me to see how the process of everything was going and whenever he saw me he always asked, "So are you like, really excited?!" I never could tell him a definite yes, because it never really did hit me. But anyways, so I went to a couple more meetings about it, got shots, a passport, a plane ticket and sent in for my visa the very last week of school cause I was either so busy before or lazy/forgetful on days where I could've done it. And it didn't come in time.

So, with my passport and visa lost in the mail somewhere (I finally called the consulate in Washington D.C. and they said they'd mail it that afternoon, but the return envelope with my name on it that I put in there had a delivery confirmation number that's supposed to get scanned into the usps system when its mailed wasn't even in the system yet, so who knows where it is!) and my ticket non-refundable, reuseable, rechargeable.... no Paraguay.

But no fretting! I don't mind! Seriously, I was stressed out about the trip. Well, not real stressed, just kinda nervous about such a new thing. Luckily, I hadn't packed or anything or gotten stuff purchased for it (except for a very expensive plane ticket...). I fasted and prayed earlier this week about the whole visa thing, hoping for it to come/asking for peace of mind for either scenario: going or not. And when it didn't come, Brother Orchard called me up (He told me to call him anytime I needed anything - not to hesitate! so I had called him to pray for me about the visa thing earlier) and told me he felt good about it, that Satan was not interfering it just wasn't right at this time for me to go. Really, Brother Orchard is so spiritual and it made me feel alot better talking to him about it. In fact, our first few class periods all we talked about were scriptures, the spirit, the Lord and such that I didn't think we'd EVER talk about cows! I thought it was a spiritual enrichment hybrid class that fooled with cows on the side!

Anyhow, no harm done! Paraguay may not get me this time, but ya never know what'll happen in the future. And now, I've got some shots and my passport under my belt in case a mission comes!

Guilt Blogging

2009-03-03T09:03:00.001-08:00

I must only blog in here when I feel guilty, because I feel guilty right now! Yesterday I was down with a sore throat. In the morning as I rose at 5:50am, I felt like I was gonna puke and considered not going to school but... I really wanted to go to my horse class, and I couldn't justify going if I skipped all my other classes. So I went to school and then horse class, then came home and went to bed for a good 4-5 hours. Woke up after FHE and ate way too much food (we'd had a typical-college-kid-meal dinner for FHE), then began working on some homework.

Yeah, pretty much finished my World Foundations homework, then got distracted by videos of horses until a little past midnight all the while contemplating skipping my American Foundations class in the morning.

My alarm went off at 6am and I was pretty much making myself sleep at that point, I was fairly wide awake but I stubbornly decided not to go to class. Even though I probably could've gotten up just fine, showered and skipped my dance class to read my 9-page science thing and take the quiz online just in time for my Science class. I woke again at 7am and probably could've still gone to class, but I didn't. *sigh*

So, I stayed home, got up around 8:30, read my science thing and took the quiz (that took me about an hour) ate a banana and vanilla yogurt with homemade chocolate chip cookie dough chunks in it and am now blogging to postpone my much needed shower.

I really just want a break! GAH! But I'm not entitled to one. 7:45am classes MWF and 8am TTh is killing me, really. It almost would've been nice to be barfing all day so I could justify skipping ALL my classes... but wait, that was 'almost'... can't I just be lazy for one day and watch a movie or play animal crossing or something?!

No lazy days at college.

All-Nighters are Overrated

2009-02-18T03:40:00.000-08:00

Is it really smart to do what I'm doing?

I've known about this research paper for the entire semester, but I just NOW did it. The night before its due, no wait... the DAY its due! For my 7:45am Doctrine and Covenants class, I've been working on the research paper for it since 12am.

Okay, so not the entire time, but for three hours at least. And I -still- have to read over it, fix the documentation and figure out the MLA format on the works cited for the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. Oh. Wait! I just looked at the spine of my triple combination and looks like they're just "Book of Mormon" and "Doctrine and Covenants" no 'the' in front.

Wow, that clears up alot of questions. But not about the two articles by Marion G. Romney...

Oh and btw, just to let ya know... it's 4:45am, my class is in 3 hours and looks like I'm pulling an all-nighter. Might just have to skip Communications and Math so I can regain some Z's before Horse Class and Adopt-a-Grandparent.

Christmas Lists

2008-11-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

So I can't really put down what I'm doing for everyone else, but I can remind myself of the things I wanted to ask for Christmas. I keep forgetting what they are, so I need to keep track because they're all practical things that I just need.

- Under armor or long johns
- Ear-cover headband thing
- Simple mp3 player with earbud headphones that have clips to go behind your ears and an arm band for exercising
- Better Homes and Garden Cookbook
- A stuffed animal whether it be a dog or a horse, just something big enough I can hug and sleep with
- Gift card to Wal*mart
- Gift card to Broulim's

For OTHERS:

Laura, Belle, Lily and Jennifer - Homemade Snowglobes with Baby Food Jars
Hunter, Nathan, Jeremy and Noah - ...?
Grandmama and Grandaddy - Nativity Scene
Sabina and David - Check.
Sarah and Jason - Check.
Mom and Dad - half-Check.
Becca and Allen - Not checked yet.
Stephen - Have to decide...
Bonnie - N & H checked
Brittney - Horse figurine
Brandy & Kristen - Snowglobes and Ornaments
Taleea - Apron and Ornament
Katie 204 - Ornament

Ready for a Break

2008-11-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

Mary needs a break, not a school break, but a social break. I've gotten worn out by several people whom I see everyday and I just don't care about hanging out with anyone right now. The few that are exceptions are my roommate, my roommate(s) and a couple friends from our floor. Other than that, I'm wore to pieces and anxious to go home and get rejuvenated!

Life has been good. I was asked to the Fall Formal where me and Mike dressed in 50's (the theme was Dancing Through the Decades) and literally DANCED the night AWAY! We're both in Social Dance 180 and it was a live jazz band, so we Foxtrotted, Cha-cha'd, Waltz'd and did TONS of swing! There was lots of Swing, we did single and triple step and that was probably what we were best at. He was an awesome dancer and leader, so it worked out really well and it was super fun. It was different dancing with the same person the whole night, but he was good at dancing so it was fun!

Then I asked a guy to the Preferance (themed "Baby It's Cold Outside") and we had alot of fun. Me, Taleea and Katie all fixed a 6 course meal for our dates which we all ate together in our living room decorated to the dance's theme (all complete with winter coats on all the chairs, a fake fireplace on the t.v. and fake snow and christmas lights), and then had a BLAST at the dance itself! During fast songs, we'd all 6 of us get in a circle and just dance however we felt like, and then partner dances we'd partner off. My date didn't know how to do anything like swing, cha-cha, etc. but he had good rhythm and so we'd mostly just improv it, make it up and had alot of fun. I actually got to put spirit and dramatizing into my dancing and it was so fun!

Me and Katie dressed up (me as a boarding school girl, her as a nurse) and went to the Halloween Carnival for Halloween, it was fairly small but tons of fun. Cami and her boyfriend Justin were there dressed up as Hillbillies together working the pumpkin seed spitting contest booth, and i paid 50 cents to have her taken to "jail" (a big fake styrofoam iron-bar'd square) where she had to sit on a huge ice block (nothing covering it) for 60 seconds or pay $1 to "bail" herself out. She didn't have money and afterwards had a big wet spot... hahaha, but she had fun and I know it. When we left the place, we saw five guys dressed like the NEWSIES so i got a picture with them. They also had a carriage with two clydesdale mares sitting outside, because one of the IBC business major businesses is Teton Trails Wagon Rides, where you pay $6 to ride in a wagon or carriage for an hour around campus and stuff. I of course made sure I petted those mares before the night was through!

Sunday evening I'm planning a big Thanksgiving-ish meal with 18 people that are gonna come by, where we're gonna read our thankful notes (I made us a turkey to put thankful notes in, thank ya Mom and traditions!) and just spend good time together. It'll be our last thing together as an apartment/family before the end of the semester, so its necessary.

But I am sure ready to go home! I think about Virginia, my Family and Justin the horse EVERYDAY. There has not been a day where yall haven't been in my thoughts, and the last three nights I've dreamed about going home and seeing Justin and family and Virginia. I love yall!

Overwhelmed to the Core

2008-11-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

Life is overwhelming. I want to be able to pull out my hand writing journal and write about the last couple of weeks, but it's all overwhelming. There's too much to say, too much I'd have to catch up on. I want to be able to sit down and do a bunch of homework tomorrow, but I can't. I have to work tomorrow, which is odd (since I usually don't work Tuesdays), and it makes me sad because I won't be able to go to devotional.

I was chastized by a friend just today for something that hits close to my heart. A way that I act and a way I talk about things or just am. I don't really feel like listing specifics, but it was a slap in the face. All through class I couldn't get it out of my head, and it's still not out. I don't want to be angry at him, because I know he's right but at the same time the guilt I feel and the sadness... ugh.

Why can't I simply lay down and look at pictures of my beautiful horse and my family and Virginia and forget about going to work tomorrow? Forget about facing the world and the problems Mary has. I feel like I've been trying, but then I realize I haven't been trying hard enough. Plus today, I realized that I truly DO have a food addiction and I need to begin working on it. I went to Food Addicts Anonymous and ordered some pamphlets about it so I'm hoping I can get started.

I miss Virginia, I miss my family... Taleea's Dad is reading aloud (on speaker phone here in our room) a letter from Taleea's sister. She's having a hard time being away from her family, how the heck am *I* suppose to live for a year and a half without my family?! I'm really having a hard time right now and I've only been gone for a little over two months! Plus I don't know if I can ever live without my horse again. It is 10 times harder than I thought it would be. Being without horses really sucks, and my horse especially.

Plus, I need my family. I want to be able to talk to them about my social and friend troubles. I want to sit around our kitchen table after dinner and have end-of-the-world discussions. I want to sit on the couch in the trailer with the lights off while Sarah sits in the recliner and talk about problems and people. I want to ride double with Sabina and talk horses because she's the only one who understands. I want to connect to a Network and play Team Fortress with Stephen and David even when I'm not that good. I want to see Laura and hug her and watch movies with her and be extremely irritated by the way she keeps fast-forwarding and rewinding. I want to ride in the car with Dad and listen to him tell me that the gospel is true and that he knows that this truly is the path to eternal life... and then I want to listen to him sing Bluegrass songs and the hymn "How Firm a Foundation" with his country twang. I want to sit and talk to Mom, because she always listens and always helps me to see my faults and resolve to become a better person. And I want animals! Life really truly sucks without them. I perk up now when I even SEE a picture of ANY animal, not just horses! I miss them all... Dixie, Lady, Princess, Ashes, MALIK! Justin! Chickens! I miss family hugs... I miss family prayer... I miss the green of Virginia's lush scene. I have to admit that if I didn't have the gospel, my life would suck out here; I wouldn't be able to do it. I know the Lord hears and answers my prayers and comforts my heart and strengthens my resolve to do better and to forget about Virginia and my Family for a little while so I can keep pressing on here. He is there and he guides me, I know it. If I didn't have that support and comfort, I would be nothing and I'd be home already.

Ugh, now I need to go do New Testament homework.

Made Up with Make Up

2008-10-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

So Mary was never much of a make-up person, because I've always told everyone I dislike it and all but... I do like it. I've been wearing it every Sunday while here at BYU-Idaho (the way Sarah showed me how to apply it) and I've been enjoying it. Well... Taleea's Aunt came up here from Ogden this evening to do a Mary Kay party, mostly just using us as guinea pigs cause she's just started, and we had SO much fun!

She bought a big pizza and a whole bunch of breadsticks from Papa Murphy's, so she cooked those and had cookies and M&M's and cider and three kinds of WONDERFUL Hot Chocolate. So we introduced ourselves (there was 11 girls at first, but only five did the facials and makeup everyone else left then), ate, then did satin hands and then those who wanted to did facials, satin lips and makeup. We filled out cards with our information and face shape and hair color and stuff, then she drew one to recieve some winterberry body spray which Amanda won. Then later, she had us write down as many names and numbers as we could think of that would be interested in learning about this stuff, all to win the Vanilla body spray, and I won. I'm glad I did, the body spray smells SO divine!!! Our friend Amanda was there too, she's enrolled in one of the local beauty schools Paul Mitchell, so she's learned all about hair, makeup, face shapes, etcetera. She put all of my makeup on me except for the foundation, and did a FABULOUS job! I liked it WAY too much.

I contemplated purchasing 3 eyeshadows, especially because the lady was gonna give me a 50% discount, but I didn't. Then later, she said she'd give me this mint lotion (HEAVENLY! we all tried it!) for $5 when it was normally $10 so I was like "Five bucks I can do!" then I realized she would give me the foundation for half off, when it was normally $28 with the brush, so she gave it to me for $16.18 instead. I gave in. It was too good of a deal, and the foundation made my face look airbrushed and flawless. It was amazing! So... Mary for the first time actually spent MONEY money on makeup. I just about croaked at the prices, and I'll probably just get cheaper eyeshadow from wal*mart, but I wanted to help her out and she gave me a 50% discount so that really couldn't be beat!

Climbing "R" Mountain

2008-10-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was supposed to go home with Katie (she lives 3 doors down from us in apt 204) for conference, but Taleea was staying here all by herself so I decided to stay here instead and keep her company. Turns out, Taleea was very glad I stayed, despite her telling me to not stay for her but to go with Katie. So anyways, after making that decision, we ended up sitting on the couch while Cami was preparing to leave (everyone else had already left for their conference weekend trips) and played "MASH-OUT" together. It was really fun! Well, finally Cami left and we were still sitting there when Matthew dropped in. He is Cami's boyfriend's cousin, one of the many "Strassers" that are up here and everywhere else in the United States. He invited us to go hike "R" mountain, which is really the Menan Butte. I did it before for that date I went on for Taleea with her sister Arianna and our old Counselor in the bishopric's brother in laws. So, we decided to go. It was windy and stormy and rainy when we left but once we were up there it was only a little cloudy and windy.

So Matthew, Ephraim (Matthew's brother), Shawn (Justin, Cami's boyfriend's brother), Taleea, some girl named Emily and I all went. Well, we arrived and what do we find but a bounding around blue merle Australian cattle dog! (well, something like that, she looked similar to an australian cattle dog) She was SO sweet, just bounding around to each of us and rubbing on us and wanting attention. In fact, she went with us on our entire hike, and Matthew called her "Shian" because he said if he had a dog that would hike with him like her, he'd name her Shian.

Well, the last time I had gone, we went on the actual path which consisted of a sandy deer-like trail that a few time went over flat rock and made for a very slippery way to go. After all, sand on top of slick rock is not a good combination period. But, since we were with Strassers (who not only bugged us all about the strength of our shoes, if we had snake bite kits or not, and all brought along knives, rope and repelling equiptment!) they of course decided to go in the opposite direction through a way that we had to climb rocks and ascend several rocky staircases basically. It was a little intimidating, especially when there was a part that Ephraim jumped up and shoved his feet against the sides of these rocks and then straddle walked himself onto the ledge that was above our head. Several times there were places where I wasn't sure if I could do it or I'd fall, but I didn't want to seem weak and once I did it, I felt better and it was actually really fun and challenging! At one point, we had to run up a slick rock face to get up on the ledge, but Ephraim and Shawn went up first because when I started to run up it, I hit a spot where I could ascend anymore so I hollered "OKAY! I CAN'T go up anymore!" and I threw my hands down on the face while my body began to slip, but Shawn and Ephraim grabbed my hands and heaved me up. After that, I did everything else myself, mostly because there wasn't anything more, and I refused help or occasional man hands that flew out to grab my arm, support my back, etc. I didn't wanna feel weak, and I really just wanted to do it myself.

So, we had an awesome time and that good ole dog followed us the whole way! Once we got up on top and experienced the beautiful view, the boys found a place where they were gonna do some repellin', but it was getting dark so after they had already put on their homemade harnesses and realized they didn't have enough rope (or something like that) they just packed it up and we descended in mostly darkness. It was really nice though, at the end by the dusty parking lot (thats at a slope covered in sand and rock that you slide on real easy) they've got a log fence that we hefted ourselves on (me, Taleea and Matthew anyways) and looked at the stars for at least 35 minutes. It was SO pretty, and you could see lights from Rexburg, Rigby, Idaho Falls, etc. it was amazing! Ephraim and Emily were laying in the dirt where Shawn joined them. It was really nice. So then, we eventually got back in the car, went to Little Caesars and got two pizzas then went to their apartment. We didn't really stay long, I ate 2 pieces of pizza and Taleea ate 1, but we had really been planning to get Dominoes with our starving student card, so we left.

Me'n Taleea ended up speed walking to Dominoe's and the Backyard Grill where we got a junior custard with cookie dough that we shared, and then we got a large cheese pizza. We ate the custard while waiting for our pizza, then when we got home watched While You Were Sleeping while eating pizza and popcorn. It was SO fun!

So anyways, it was a fun Friday evening activity. I regretted the whole time we hadn't brought a camera, but I'll just have to remember it next time I suppose!

Terrible Thanksgiving

2008-09-29T09:09:00.001-07:00

So... I'm really sad. And since no one reads this blog, I can just rant! I miss home, my family and my horse. For some stupid reason I thought it would be a good idea to come back here and stay off-track, WAS I STUPID?! I love it, don't get me wrong, but I'm missing everything I do at home right now. There is SO much going on in Virginia right now!!!

- Leaves changing colors
- Decorating the house for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas
- Going to Fall Renaissance Faires
- STATE FAIR!
- Chilly Fall Air
- Watching Justin's coat get thicker each week
- Leaves...Leaves... and MORE Leaves! All Over the place, all over the ground!
- Family time with Thanksgiving and Christmas

I miss it...ALOT, and I'm not sure why I'm here at BYU-Idaho right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying my time here, but my time at home just seems so much more appealing. I'm not dating anyone here, I'm not involved in anything really with school other than some classes, and I'm not involved with horses at ALL. Mom, Sabina, Sarah, Laura, Grandmama and Sarah's boys are all going to the State Fair today... I've been wanting to go ever since we moved to Rocky Mount 9 years ago! It was our tradition and now they're picking it back up where we left it!!!

And now, Mom is taking away my only source of immeadiate family by shipping Becca and her family back to VIRGINIA for Thanksgiving! I didn't think it'd bother me, but now... *sigh*

Day Date for Distraction

2008-09-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was very homesick this morning (read post below), called Mom, cried a little, but she of course helped me to feel so much better. I love my mom. Anyways, I decided I needed something to distract me because all of my friends that are up here right now are occupied elsewhere today, so... I made the trip to Idaho Falls (that I'd been planning). Got on Google around 11am, got directions to Target and headed out.

Wow. The directions were crap, dumped me off on an exit 7 miles before Idaho Falls, I went off it and on some other roads for an HOUR, ended up retracing my steps, getting back on 20, then going off a different exit which took me right next to the temple and some dam of sorts (oh, maybe the Teton Dam? haha), I stopped at a Wal-mart (everywhere I'd been looked like a trashier part of town, so when I saw the temple and then wal-mart I was relieved), went inside, it was SUPER busy but also a SUPER big walmart, got a sandwich, asked for directions to Target. So, I arrived at Target TWO HOURS after I left to go there, when it normally should've taken me 40 minutes max?

I browsed Target for close to an hour, maybe over. All I purchased were pants for work and a super cute shirt because I felt like the prices of the clothes were too expensive. Oh, I also got double stick foam things and push pins to mount my cork squares on my wall. I browsed college items for awhile (they have all of these 'college 08!' items), but resisted the bed risers until I know if I need special ones for wheeled beds. Then I went in a different clothing store, tried on some clothes, ditched 'em and went to Michael's. At Michael's I got the stuff for... well, it's a surprise. Then I went to Pet Co, looked over hamsters, birds, fish, etc. I really want a hamster, and since I have no animals here it wouldn't be neglected! Problem is, while its not in our contract, I don't know if it'd be okay to have and our Landlady is super strict so I better not chance it. We're gonna get fish though, maybe one... maybe two... I dunno. I looked over beta tanks and smaller aquariums for awhile, and of course went and stared at this adorable Teddy Bear male hamster. I wanted him.

I then went to the mall. Went through JC Penny and literally went in the changing rooms 4 times! I had a buttload of clothes each time too! But... none of the sweaters looked good on me, it was really disappointing. But, I did discover that I'm not a size 12 in women's or a size 13 in juniors -- I'm a size 10 in women's and a size 11 in junior's!!! No wonder all my pants have to have belts with them! They had corduroy's on sale for $20 bucks a pair, really cute corduroys and I'd been wanting a pair, but... I didn't get 'em. Went into Old Navy, tried on some shirts and discovered (and remembered!) that I HATE the way Old Navy's clothes fit, they just get longer and not much wider and just suck to your sides. I discovered that I really do gain weight on the sides ('love handles') and even though I've dropped 2 1/2 pant sizes, no shirts that grip you at ALL look good on me because of my nasty fat on the sides. A big disappointment, but I was happy about the pant size.

Also dropped in Barnes and Noble, found the 4th and 5th books of the Bloody Jack series, then went and tried to find the only Manga I've ever read because it's so funny, but they didn't have it. So... I left. Went by Arby's on the way back and got a Martha's Vineyard Salad, omitted the sliced almonds, choked down 2 of the 3 tomatoes, and only used a little less than half of my lite ranch packet. Drank all my water.

I was gonna retrace my steps to get back on 20, well... I retraced them at least 3 times, and FINALLY got onto highway 20 25 mins later! Rode it all the way to Rexburg, then I decided that I would treat myself to some ice cream that I would savour. I went to Coldstone Creamery for the first time in my whole life, sampled this new frozen yogurt (it's plain frozen yogurt, literally! 25 calories) and some other flavors, but ended up getting the smallest size of Cake Batter ice cream because I wanted to splurge. I was tempted to get mix-ins, but I resisted! Took it and went to Porter Park, walked around in the FREEZING cold (well, freezing for eating ice cream and it only being September 1st), allowed my fingers to turn red and got back in my car.

I ended the day by going to the temple's parking lot. Basically I looked at the view from up there, gawked and gazed at the temple, took some pictures and headed back to the Kay's house. I arrived at 7:30pm. It was an 8 hour trip!

It poured rain here in Rexburg yesterday, but today it didn't rain here at all yet it poured rain in Idaho Falls. Oh, and it's 46 degrees outside. :) I love it.

Fall Favorites

2008-09-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what idleness does to your brain and your mind. All my friends are occupied today, and I don't start work till Wednesday. I am really having a hard time...

It's getting chillier here which makes me SO excited for Fall, decorating for Halloween, going to Becca's for Thanksgiving, and eventually decorating for/having Christmas! But, it also reminds me of decorating for Halloween with Sabina, making Christmas decorations, driving on Five Mile Mountain Road with the GORGEOUS fall colors surrounding you, going to the apple orchard place and picking out pumpkins and apples by the dozens. Most of all, the outdoors with the animals and their fuzzy coats, watching their breath steam into the cold air as they bleat while I feed them. Watching Justin's coat gradually thicken, riding him in the cold air all bundled up in coat, scarf, gloves, watching his breath steam into the air as he turns his bridled head to look at a deer that runs past. There's such a peaceful quiet serenity about riding in the Fall, hearing the bridle clink around as Justin moves his head in time with his foot falls. It's so nice when your fingers are chilly from being ungloved as you're trying to do something with your horse, so you seek shelter under their mane where it's REALLY warm.

I miss that. Alot. Hopefully once school starts I'll get distracted and it won't bother me so much, but... Fall is my absolute favorite season, and there's so much that makes it that way. I think its gonna be harder being away from home this time... aLOT harder.

Taco Time Employee!

2008-08-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

Yup. I got a job! And I know it was because of the Lord, because I'd been praying and praying and hoping that I'd get a job I could walk to, and DREADING a job that I had to drive to... and I got one right across the street and down a building! YAY! It's fast food, but hey, someone's gotta do it and it'll give me responsibility and something to do. The man who hired me was awful kind about it; I could see he was really trying to justify hiring me, and finally he just did.

I hope he's blessed immensely for it, although I think he'd think a plate of homemade cookies from me would be kinda weird... oh well, the thought counts right?

I was handed an application by the cashier kids (well, not kids but college students) but I asked to see the manager anyways (thank you Sarah!). He talked to me and told me to come back at 2:30. Awesome, I felt a little more confident because he told me to come back. I did, and -not really meaning to- RIGHT as the clock struck 2:30. Well, those same 'kids' were there and were like, "Oh, came to drop off your application?" I didn't give it to them. I told them that the manager told me to come ask for him, so was he here? They said he was out running errands, I could wait if I wanted to? I'll wait. I told them, sat down and waited for 35 minutes and he arrived. He sat down in front of me, went to grab a pen (I didn't realize it was going to be an interview) and basically interviewed me... then hired me! It was so kind of him, he told me "I probably won't be able to give you many hours at first, but I don't want to turn you back 'on the streets' so-to-speak, many jobs out there?" I told him I'd tried 15 places so far, and he hired me. Good GOOD man!

I start next Wednesday at 3:30pm. I also told him -to the question 'how many hours would you like to work?'- to give me as many hours as he could. Hopefully it'll all work out. I am grateful. SO grateful!

Job Huntin'

2008-08-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm in Rexburg! Duh. I've been here since Sunday and I'm staying with these nice people that are friends of the Williamson's that used to be in our stake. They're really nice people, got a nice (big) house, a beautiful yard (that they tend just perfectly), got three horses, and all their kids are grown up and gone so they didn't mind me staying here. :) Ugh, but I've been job hunting...

I applied at Melaleuca, Dollar Tree, some Copy & Print place, Broulim's, Subway next door to my apartment, and the Rexburg Opinion Center. Of those, Dollar Tree and Broulim's were hiring; Melaleuca hires alot of students but I don't know how long it'll take them to review my application; the Rexburg Opinion Center I KNOW I have a job there, you just call 24-48 hrs after submitting your application and set up your group interview/orientation. The only problem is, I can only work night shifts (3:30pm-7:30pm) at the "ROC" and you have to work a minimum of 2 days (Mon-Thurs) and a minimum of 4 weekend days a month (Fri & Sat). I can only work that shift Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays because I have evening classes M-W. And, I'd really prefer a job elsewhere where I could work during the day 5-6 days a week.

I think I might just call them up and tell them it won't work out this time around. But at the same time, I -need- a job... how long should I wait? I applied at all of those places either yesterday or the day before...

On the Road Again!

2008-08-24T07:58:00.001-07:00

Except this time, we're driving ALL the way out to BYU-Idaho, not just from Alma's house to Rexburg.

Nothing exciting has happened really... just the usual, go through horse-filled Kentucky, stop in Nauvoo Illinois to see the temple and some buildings (about 3 hours we spent there), nab lots of postcards on the way and send 'em, mosey through Corn-covered Iowa, TONS of sunflower filled fields in VERY windy Nebraska, get some more postcards, then enter Wyoming and enjoy its beauty and spendor (seeing as how its one of my favorite states) then spend all day and well into the evening and darkness trying to get OUT of never-ending Wyoming, and then stopping a little ways short of Logan, Utah for the night at a Crystal Inn.

I ate way too much for breakfast this morning at the continental breakfast... In fact, I'm stuffed to uncomfortable-ness... >.<

Nauvoo was nice, there was a little shop there (actually, there were several, and all in old-fashioned and mostly original brick buildings with old signs - very cool!) that we stopped in, I got some postcards and they had Old Tyme-y Portraits... *dies* I was JUST talking to Brandy about how fun it would be to go to a place that did these and have 'em done! Too bad she wasn't with me, we would've wasted NO time in paying for them, dressing up and posing dramatically!

Lots of horses. All over. Lots of cowboys at one of the rest stops in Nebraska too... ;D Hopefully I can find some in ole Rexburg, daggonnit! Dad's been driving the whole way, but I've only had a couple urges to drive so I'm good. He can be rather exasperating though, as he's asked me at least 20 times (that is no exaggeration, I've kept a vague count in my head) "You doin' alright?" - to which I reply, with some exasperation in my tone - "Doin' just fine!!!" "FINE!!!!" ugh. But he means well, and he's been awful kind to ask me at every truck stop almost if I "found something ya can't live without?" hahaha, I love that line of his, I'll have to remember to use it one day. And of course, I don't exaggerate with the southern-twangy-ness of the way I'm writing these phrases, yall know his accent. I have to say its somewhat refreshing too, I won't be around any southerners for a good long while. *sigh*

Gotta Love Technology!

2008-07-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, so here I am sitting in an airport in Cincinnatti, Ohio on my laptop without it plugged in, enjoying the internet with their free Wi-Fi. I'm even connected to David's automatic-answer-and-start-video webcam and am watching the inside of his house, haha! I just think its cool as can be, and it gives me something to do for the next 25ish minutes that I have to wait to board the airplane.

Super cool, that's what!

FHE

2008-07-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

Last night's FHE was really good. Well, we decided it wouldn't be FHE... see, we have a 'Brother' apartment and a 'Sister' apartment. Well, our sister apartment NEVER comes to FHE, it's always us and our brothers (and they are all always really busy so its nice they always make time for FHE), so on Sunday we took a 'Family' picture and last night we went to Anthony's house (he's our oldest 'brother'). He has this next door neighbor who turned 94, so he suggested to us that we go see him and sing him Happy Birthday. It was such a good experience! Anthony's house is out in the country and it was beautiful!!! We went to his house, his mom gave those who hadn't eaten some spaghetti and then we all ate these delicious cookies she made.

There were cows and farms (Anthony's folks have a farm) and horses all over, and they had a tire swing! I got on it and Anthony gave me an underdog and since he's 6'4" he shoved me up into the trees! It was on a willow tree, and so so so beautiful! After we were done at Anthony's house, us girls scrambled in the back of his pickup and we drove to the 94 year old's house. That guy looks great for 94!!! He was up and moving, came right to the door in his plaid shirt, jeans, old battered up cowboy boots and belt (I think its so cute/sweet when old guys wear their cowboy boots! Anthony's dad was too). He seemed awful touched that we came and sang to him, and he gave us one of the cakes he got for his birthday because he got two.

Then on the ride home, Anthony took us the scenic route and it was beautiful and breathtaking. Definently showed the reason why Idaho's my second favorite state, I want to buy me a ranch out here sometime its so pretty! (Even if you have to irrigate all over the place)

Teton River Dam... at 11:30pm!!!

2008-07-13T09:22:00.001-07:00

So, yesterday I saw Jon Schmidt -- AMAZING! And afterwards I went to Cami's boyfriend's apartment and watched Newsies with Justin and Cami and Justin's roommates. We had to leave RIGHT before the very TIP of the end because curfew was upon us, but I LOVED it, that movie is so amazing and fun and it just gives me chills!

Anyways, Friday night (curfew is 1am on Fridays) I was wondering what to do until Justin and Cami invited me to go to the Teton River Dam even though it was already like 10:30 at night. It was the two of them and then Justin's friend and his ex-girlfriend Brittney who I talked to almost the whole ride, she was really nice!

To sum it up, we drove into the middle of nowhere, I discovered that Justin is a crazier driver than David (and while I felt safe-ish, I still feel the safest when David is driving, even if he is peeling out around corners on dirt roads), then we parked on the side of a cornfield in the middle of nowhere, hiked through it for like 10 minutes, then proceeded to descend a rocky slope that was VERY steep (and if it had been daylight, I probably would've considered it impossible and not gone down), and while everyone else would confidently walk on steep flat sheets of rock, I kept getting on my butt and sliding - it was SO much easier! Finally, when we got to the bottom, we walked out to the edge of the river bank and I could SEE in the dark the beautiful grand-canyon-like thingy that had the river flowing through the bottom. I SO wished I could've seen it in the daylight, but the stars were beautiful. We walked way far down the river bank until we found a bunch of jetting out rocks that we decided to climb over to get to the dam opening. I thought I would slip and fall, but I didn't.

Then we got to the opening, slipped through an opening in these iron bars, then slid through a small opening in this cement wall (they had apparently cemented it off, but people busted a hole through) then we got in there and ran through the tunnel, it was SO fun! You had to either straddle run or run on one side then run on the other, then back and forth so you didn't lose your balance. It was so fun just running through there! Plus, everything echoed like a second later so it was loud but cool sounding. If you said something, you could wait a couple seconds then it would say it back to you. Pretty cool! Then we reached the control room, slid underneath this big thing that was being held up by a iron grate (if it fell, it could've sliced us in half, kinda fun/freaky) only, oh we THEN had to climb up a ladder and then up a tunnel thing with a rope -- Justin and Cami had to pull me up because I'm so weak-muscled. Really, I felt stupidly dependent the whole time because I"m so weak and clumsy and unbalanced. But, we went into the control room and saw the neverending ladder (its like 12 flights of ladder steps Ephraim told me later, somewhere around 300+ steps). Then we came back.

I had alot of fun, even if I was clumsy as heck and weak besides, everyone was patient and the guys were nice. We got home just barely under curfew, and then me and all of our roommates peeked out the window at Cami and Justin who stood outside embracing and talking for 20 minutes before he shoved a kiss on her face (literally, I watched the whole thing!) which was THEIR first kiss and HIS first kiss and HER first kiss in 5 years, so it was something we'd all been waiting/expecting for. Plus, Taleea had a HOTT date Friday night as well, he was VERY good looking and she had an awesome time with him - we're hoping he'll ask her out again, he's just perfect for her - tall, kind, sweet, caring, and plays the guitar besides!

4th of July!

2008-07-08T08:07:00.001-07:00

Okay, I really don't feel like posting in this blog, but I kinda sorta oughta, ya know? Anyways, I got a bus ticket July 1st to go to Becca's on July 3rd at TWO IN THE MORNING on the Salt Lake Express. I didn't know how to get the dang thing, but luckily my roommate's boyfriend's cousin pulled it up for me. Oh. Speaking of which, last Tuesday night we had our "bake off" it turned out just to be a pie fest. I made a blackberry pie, Ephraim and Shelly made lemon meringue, Justin made an apple pie, and Cami made this delicious cracker candy. It was all very good. I made mine ahead of time because I thought it'd take longer than it did, and when I took it over, they had all just started, but I was able to get some math homework done so that's good. We had a good time, I learned how to play "Poo Head" a card game, and we enjoyed eating all the pies with ice cream. Mmmmmmm mmmm good! I had 4 pieces of pie leftover afterwards and on my way home gave away 2 of them at apartment 204 and then had 2 leftover for Katey and Taleea.

Anyways, so before I could leave for Becca's, I had to turn in my take home math test that was due Thursday (the 3rd) at 2 PM and I was leaving 12 hours before at 2 AM, so I finished it up by about 10:30pm and I had 30 minutes to get to the Romney and turn it in. Well, I RUSH up there and then once I'm in the Romney I ran through the dark halls (lights were being turned off all over the place, it was odd being in a college building at night, I've never done that before), luckily, I ran into a security guard and he had to actually unlock a door that led to a hall of offices where my math teacher's office was so I could drop it in her slot. Thank goodness for him! If he hadn't been there, I wouldn't've gotten to turn it in on time! But anyways, I got it turned in, then ended up walking with Taleea and Katey to the park, slid in some mud and got blasted by a sprinkler, came home and changed and then packed and stayed up till 1:40 when I left to go catch my bus that made one stop on the way to Becca's and that I attempted to sleep rather uncomfortably on the whole night.

So Becca picked me up at 8:15am Thursday (July 3rd) morning. I had eaten somewhat of a breakfast with snacks in the car, but I ate some bacon at her house once we got there. After awhile, we left and took Belle, Lily and Noah to play putt-putt while Allen went to a comic book store. Had fun, but I got bored fast putt putt gets old, especially when poor Lily kept getting distracted by other things than hitting the ball. We went to Carl's Jr afterwards, climbed up the play thing with the girls and slid down these slides in there that were really fun! I think we went to Wal*mart at some point too... Friday, Allen kept Noah and they went and saw the Hulk while me, Becca and the girls went to a picnic thing with her sewing/quilting/knitting friends and their families. I ate WAY too much stuff, all kinds of crap, but enjoyed myself. Came home, finally went to the stadium to watch fireworks, paid $4 in all and it was AMAZING! The fireworks were set off on the ball field and some would come RIGHT OVER us and looked like they were gonna fall on us, it was the BEST firework display I've ever witnessed.

Saturday we got up, ate breakfast, went outside with the girls and Noah and let them play in this wading pool that Becca and Allen got on Thursday when we dropped by ToysRus. We put their plastic play slide's end into the pool then put the hose on it, but the girls wouldn't get on or slide unless we held their hands or held them while they went down it. Don't think they liked it too much, because neither of them wanted to do it again. :D Me and Becca tie-dyed, then we ended up going to Craigo's for lunch (Mom and Dad's treat) which was wonderful, then went to Wal*mart for about an hour, then went to Sam's Club at some point. Came home, not sure what we did... late that night I know, me and Becca went to Wal*mart and then RUSHED to Winco so I could get some Beef Jerky in bulk (haha) and WHAT a place! It was so cool! Bulk of everything! So, I'm planning a huge shopping trip there when I come back in the fall to stock up on food. Finished right about at 12am with the shopping.

Sunday morning was interesting, hahahahaha, we walked to church for their first time, got a little sidetracked but got there almost on time. Church was nice, everyone was nice and I love their building, its like this old institute building Becca said, and it was cute, reminded me of the AME church our branch stayed at for awhile. Then, the walk home took about 1 hour 20 minutes because we didn't go back the same way, tried some shortcuts, got sidetracked, and had to stop at a motel for Belle to go potty. Anyways, I had a great time on the walk because I needed the exercise and could only think of the calories I was burning. We were all tired and sweaty afterwards, I napped a little and then got up to help Becca with dinner. We made biscuits, beef chunks in gravy, mashed potatoes and peas. Allen made salads for me and him. Once I was done, I rushed and got all my stuff (and a heck of alot more!) packed up and Becca took me to the bus. I hugged her sadly and left.

My bus dropped me off where I was supposed to catch another, but it wasn't there and he told me it could be anywhere from 10:45 to 11:00PM before the next one came (apparently, it was 10:00 and we had missed the 9:45 one), so I was a little bummed. But, Heavenly Father is merciful and 10 minutes later (after my bus left me) the next bus arrived! They were running 20 minutes late!!! So, I got on and actually got home 30 minutes earlier than I was supposed to -- before curfew! All of my roommates were up except Vanessa and I was SO happy to see them and be home! I loved being at Becca's, but I was anxious to get back on schedule with exercising, school, eating, etc. They all loved the tie dye I did for them too, which was nice.

Our OWN Ball!

2008-06-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

So, last night there was this "Enchanted Garden Ball" that Taleea and I REALLY wanted to go to, but... no one asked us! So, Taleea brilliantly thought up this: we do our hair, makeup, etc. but dress DOWN; go to Taco Time like that, then go play soccer, come home and eat strawberries with chocolate and sherbet with Sprite while watching Jurassic Park. We ended up not playing soccer, and only watching a little bit of Jurassic Park before we got bored with it. But anyways! It was fun! My first time wearing make-up while I'm here, and I'm wearing it this morning... I think I'm gonna start wearing it every Sunday or something.

Anyways, so we went to Taco Time, then came back and ate it, then ate some strawberries with chocolate. We walked down our porch thing and met some girls from apartment 203, they were so nice and one is a Clogger! And she JUST started clogging while she was here, went through Beginner-Advanced classes and is now a clogger in the Collegiate dancers team! That gives me HOPE! I'd LOVE to get on that dance team! We eventually started Jurassic Park and Mike dropped by and watched a little with us, but we mostly talked. Then he left and we finished eating our sherbet with Sprite. I ended up turning off Jurassic Park and then going to the lounge where they were having a celebration for Mandy from apartment 206 because it was her birthday. Met some new people, hung out for awhile until I realized if I stayed any longer, I would eat myself to 200 pounds! Once we came back, I'm not sure what we did but I eventually got bored again so I left to walk a lap around our apartment complex. I ended up coming up the second floor on the other side and meeting the people who at Mandy's party and taking up the rest of the food and stuff. We all ended up talking and hanging out, I met a guy who's from and hour or so south of me in Virginia! And he said he'd be my running buddy, so that's cool!

Anyways, we all ended up taking blankets to Porter Park and stargazing for a while, it was fun! I almost didn't go because I was like "Well, what if someone fun comes by our apartment?" well, that was silly, because I need to socialize! So I went with them and had a great time! We got back just about 10 minutes before curfew too!

Sociality

2008-06-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

There is SO much to do at college it is SO fun! I went to Swing Dancing this week AGAIN, but not Latin/Ballroom (I went to that last week). People are popping by all the time and since our door is almost always left open (because its hot inside right now - not extremely but just uncomfortably warm at times) since we don't think we have air conditioning, people just come in whenever! Last night one of our home teachers, Bryan dropped by and then this guy named Ron (I've respelled his name for him: Rahnn, good huh? xD) and we already had my friend Katie from a couple doors down and Amanda (who was Taleea's and Katey's roommate last fall) was over, so we all stood outside and talked and laughed for a good 40 minutes. And tonight, good ole Taleea planned an "International Dinner and Zorro" is what we've all been calling it; we're gonna eat international foods and watch Zorro. We've invited alot of people, so hopefully they'll all show up!

Ya know, it's a good thing I brought all my movies, because this is the second time we've had an activity to watch a movie and the only reason we're watching it is because I own it! I just think its funny, so its a good thing I'm such a movie hog.

Oh, and I won't be able to do any of the trail rides they do each Saturday because the "tickets" are all sold out. >:( Oh well, I guess others need to ride horses more than I do, no matter how much I feel I need to... Anyways, I need to go post on the bruingtonbiggestloser.blogspot.com blog and still check my math homework answers. Tootle-loo!

Quick note!

2008-06-12T22:26:00.001-07:00

Gotta make this quick because I've still got to do my ab workout, shower, write/sign Kristen's b-day card, make Daddy a Father's Day card, brush my teeth, say my prayers and go to bed!

I'm having TONS of fun here at college! Yes, homework stinks, botching my eating plan stinks, and other things stink but there's still good stuff. I went to the Swing Dancing thing last night and was there from beginning to end - I had a BLAST! I had SO much more fun this time than last, learned a few Charleston moves, went with my math buddy Kathryn and met her very fun friend Alyssa. If the three of us weren't asked to dance, we'd just do the Charleston and some weird move that was a variation of the Charleston I think... dunno! I also tapped and clogged around during some of the songs, and I just had fun! Maybe next time I'll lay off a little on the clogging/tapping so people don't get freaked out by me, but I was just being myself!

Tonight we went to the Latin and Ballroom dancing, but there weren't many people. We went to Ballroom first and they'd already started teaching the Samba and it looked hard/intimidating. So we meandered over to Latin (Latin and Ballroom were in separate Ballrooms) where they were Salsa'ing - yay! I know how to salsa! - so a girl who said she's normally an instructor but was playing a guy's part to partner with some of the girls, asked if one of us wanted to dance with her. So I did, learned some moves and then this guy named Phil came in and we partnered, I taught him the salsa basic move and some other ones we had done and then he took it away and led me perfectly! He caught on really fast, then we danced a couple dances, and he taught me the Tango and some really cool spin that had me spinning like 5 or 6 different times. I actually FLEW onto the floor at one point, he felt terrible I could tell, but I just laughed it off - it was fun!

Anyways, the dancing is really fun and I'm going to a workshop this Saturday from 10-12... not sure what kind of dancing it is, but hopefully it'll be ballroom/partnering.

On and Off...

2008-06-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

..the wagon of excitement. Some things are fun, some things are disappointing, some things are awkward, some things are hard, some things are confusing, some things are exciting, and some things are just plain boring. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying college alot, but I still haven't adjusted fully yet. I know I know! I've only been here a week! But, the days don't go by very fast so its frustrating when my acquaintence collection is dinky enough to barely extend past the apartment door.

Last night me, Megan and her boyfriend Pablo went to the Swing Instruction and then Dance. The instruction part was... awkward to say the least. Of course Megan and Pablo were dancing and learning, but the only dancing I did during it was when one of the instructors met the three of us on the side and did the basic Lindy Hop move twice. Then I just sat and watched the rest of the time, because there was obviously men in short supply and too many girls. Ick. But when the dance begun, I had 3 different guys ask me to dance so that was nice. Especially because in our home stake, NONE of the guys asked you to dance. I was surprised but thankfully so. I felt bad for all three of them though, because the first was sort of flailing me around while staring intently at me, and he looked like he was combining the paso doble and the lindy hop but making it look more like a bad paso doble. The second one was a small guy who really liked to dance around and spice up the Lindy Hop, so in turn was very loose and not necessarily very good at leading (which sucked for me because my clogs were slipping on the floor the whole time and since I don't really know how to move in any of the moves except for like 5 of them, and even then only with a good strong leading partner) and would like spin me out and then jump around on his own for a few seconds. He was a good dancer though. Then the last one was tall and real cute and nice, and obviously knew alot about what he was doing but probably needed to work on his leading. I felt bad for him and kept apologizing because he'd try to lead me into a turn or something weird that I'd never done before and I'd be all over the place. He was nice and tolerated it though.

Then the three of us (Megan, Pablo and I) left at about 8:30 (the dance itself was from 8-10) to get ready for hip-hop, but then when we got home realized that it wasn't from 9-10 but from 8-9. So, next week we're gonna go to modern and hip hop, from 6-9. I felt bad I didn't go with her this week to them, but I DID want to try out the swing dance thing. I'll probably try it again and get there EARLIER so I'm paired up with someone at the beginning, or maybe make better friends with our FHE brothers and try to get one of them to come with me so there's another guy in the partner rotation. They need guys... BAD.

Oh, and did I mention I need to get some shoes that stay on your feet?! >.< no more clogs for dancing for mary...

BYU-I'd

2008-06-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm liking it here quite a bit. Church on Sunday was cool, we meet for Relief Society, then Sunday School and THEN Sacrament Meeting. We're one of the few wards (there's 89, we're the 20th) that gets to meet for Sacrament Meeting, and all the rest of our classes are in classrooms. Our ward consists of the entire Brooklyn Apartments building and some other boy apartments. There's 3 Relief Societies (dunno how many Priesthoods), 3 Sunday Schools (you can attend whichever one you want), then a Temple Prep and Family History Class (both done during Sunday School/Gospel Doctrine). It's huge! Oh, and our Bishop is Bishop Bishop. Get it? The last name's Bishop. Anyways...

Me and Cami went and visited the guy she's dating (though they're not 'official' yet) named Justin. He's so super nice! We hung out at his apartment with him and two of his roommates, then he invited us to eat this delicious (but fattening I'm sure) dish of scallops potatoes and meat and also green beans, canned peaches, and homemade grape juice. All the canned stuff was home canned, and the guy has a wheat mill too! He apparently only eats homemade bread, so he's got his own 5 gallon buckets of sugar, wheat, etc. and his own wheat mill! No wonder he shares my horse's lovely name. :)

Sunday evening I can't remember what we did. Stayed up late that's for sure. Yesterday morning though at 6:30am me, Katey and Vanessa went to the gym and worked out on the ellipticals. I'd never been on one before and it is a SERIOUS Leg workout! I really liked getting my card swiped and using their gym clothes, they were real comfortable. The rest of Monday I occupied myself by going to some I-team stuff where we got the BYU-Idaho welcome from President Clark and his wife, watched some videos of the campus and info about it. Then we went and played games in our groups which were fun (one of them consisted of pulling apart a frozen t-shirt and putting it on someone - harder than it sounds, and lining up shoulder to shoulder, tying all of our legs to our neighbors and manuvering across carpet pieces placed on the ground) and then ate lunch which was a 'barbecue' but consisted of only burgers. Ick and fattening. I wish they woulda just called it was it was, a COOKOUT, because Barbecue means barbecue... at least to ME it does!

Me, Taleea and Katey went shopping when my i-Team stuff was done. We walked all the way to Broulim's (which is thankfully VERY close to Kroger, which is nice since there AIN'T none here!), I got my groceries and on the way back as we were about to collapse (it was a good 10-15min. walk) one of our FHE brothers, Stace, pulled up in his car and took us home.

Then we had FHE with our FHE brothers and sisters (FHE consists of two girl apartments and one guy apartment), we had planned beforehand for all of us at our apartment and our brothers (only one of our brothers did it, and two others joined in at the end) to eat with our hands and NOT tell our FHE sisters. None of them said anything and it was hilariously fun! They had planned the FHE and had planned for us to have a dinner and for US to bring the main dish... a little odd, but whatever, Taleea made lasagna. It was fun, then Stace gave a spiritual thought and we discussed FHE activities. We might go to a Circus next week, and we're planning on doing a FHE Trail ride, because they have it available for $60 for your whole FHE group. So hopefully that'll happen, I know I'll have fun! Oh, and ALL of our FHE Brothers are really cute and very nice.

Taleea made cookies later last night, I ate way too many and we took some to our 'brothers'. I was very bored last night actually, until Katey and Taleea and I put on Pocahontas and were chatting. We leave the door open all the time when we're in the living room, so some random girl ran in the room and said "I LOVE Pocahontas!" and started singing with us. Hee hee, it was actually quite funny and also fun. The social stuff is so fun here! I finally got to bed around 12:15-12:30...

Woke up this morning permanently at 8:00. There was some Morningside Devotional and breakfast as part of the 'i-Team' stuff, but we were supposed to meet at 6:30 and I was way too tired. I woke up at 6:30, then at 7:22 and then at 8. I finally made myself get up, fixed myself some breakfast and went up to the gardens for the i-Team's service project. We cut fabric for bags, so we cut the bag part and the straps and pinned them together so someone can sew them later I guess. Not sure what it was for. Then, I went with one of the i-Team leaders, two guys and two other girls and we went to the boys' dorms' lounge. Sat and watched one of the girls and one of the guys play ping pong for about an hour, and then some lady came down and said that girls aren't allowed to visit until noon. Which is true and I knew that but... I forgot, haha. So then we went and looked around the Benson building which is the Horticulture/Agriculture building, there's all these greenhouses and one of them is set up like a rainforest with a waterfall and stuff and it was so pretty inside! Then we went and looked in this wild animal museum room with ALL of these animals mounted in there and that was pretty cool.

So afterwards and later, I met Sara Anderson for devotional and went to devotional with her, then went and saw her on campus dorm, then came back here. I cleaned the kitchen, started a load of laundry and now am writing on here. I'm gonna go to this I-Night Extravaganza tonight with some girls I met, so hopefully that'll be fun.

Apartmented at last!

2008-05-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

So, this morning me'n Daddy went to the apartment building and signed all the forms I needed to. Then, I went up and met my roommates, and they were all so nice! Taleea basically tackled me as soon as I entered, it was so nice to be so well recepted! Then me and Dad went grocery shopping, and when we came back, I stayed and put stuff away and basically did all my unpacking and organizing while Dad went and did a session at the temple. Oh, I forgot that we went and got my i-card, my books and a pair of byu-idaho sweatpants from the bookstore before we went to the grocery store. Anyways! My i-team leaders came by (i-team leaders are part of each group of new students for the get connected activities for the first 2 days to get to know others and get used to campus) and invited me to the 3:30-4:30 Get Connected preview. I thought I probably should go, but... Taleea said she didn't go, and the people who I signed up for it with said nothing really happened till Monday, so I'll just attend that stuff on Monday.

Taleea finally got back, we hung out here for a bit with some of the other girls, then walked down to the local Park with Vanessa to visit Katie and just see it. There's a carousel there and a little water park area thing, it's really cute. Apparently though, it's a big couple hangout, one of the quite a few it seems. Afterwards, we went and walked all around campus, Taleea showed me around and helped me locate some buildings that I've got classes in. It's not a super big campus, but it still is big... 460 acres, I think they said. After that, we hung out at the apartment for a little bit then me, Katy, Taleea, Vanessa and Nathan (one of our FHE brothers) went and saw Prince Caspian (I saw it for the second time; the first time was with Bryan, Brandy and Bonnie). I actually got bored with the movie this time and while we were watching it, I was thinking about college, getting paranoid, getting homesick and getting kinda nervous/scared. But, once it was over, we went to Dominoes and ordered a couple pizzas, then ate them in the Lounge. I didn't stay long in the lounge though, because Dad got me and we went to Wal*mart and got a bunch of stuff I realized I needed AFTER I moved my stuff in. Plus, I got three pairs of shoes, because all I had with me were my brand new Brookes for running, my adidas, my flip flops and a pair of slippery black sunday shoes.

Anyways, I really like it, my roommates are all so nice. There's Vanessa, Katy, Cami, Taleea and Megan. Sometime I'll have the motivation to post pictures!

Purchases and Cousins

2008-05-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

We left the Allred's yesterday in their small truck at about 10:30 and went to Orem. We were gonna go straight to Tina's, but Dad decided that we'd go find me a camera first. Well... we went to a Target, a Wal*mart, and a Best Buy in Orem and didn't find it. Target had the camera model, but it wasn't in stock. Wal*mart didn't have it in stock. Best Buy had one below the one I wanted and above the one I wanted. So then we backtracked to American Fork. Well, we went into the Best Buy there and I decided to get the one a smidgen below the one I originally wanted, which I ended up liking better anyways because its prettier and smaller. And we got a fast read SD card for it. Anyways, I had been meaning to get fitted for new running shoes at Fleet Feet in Roanoke before I left, but never got the chance. So I checked for them in Utah before we had flown and there was ONE in American Fork (but I wasn't sure if that's where it read it was). We asked everywhere we went to get a camera if anyone had heard about Fleet Feet, "Nope. Never heard of it." Well, I was a little bummed, but when we stepped out of Best Buy I looked to my right and THERE IT WAS! So I got fitted and purchased some new running shoes. YAY!

We ate lunch at Subway then went to Tina's house. I sat with Tina and Dad for a bit, April came by and hugged and fussed over me and we chatted for a bit until she left for school. It always takes awhile to warm up to your cousins, but eventually (after spending time with Aaron and Jared, the youngest as they played on Lego.com) I went into the boys' room and sat on the bed and talked to Jacob, Matt, Zack and Josh. The four of them, me and Jared eventually walked down to Hogi Yogi's I think it's called, where they proceeded to offer to buy me something and they themselves purchased shakes and cookie/ice cream sandwiches (which looked divine). I refused, which it helped to resist seeing April and her mom and how skinny they were. I'm gonna be skinny too! The walk down there was about 20 minutes but not very exerting... well, not exerting at all, it was all flat at a meandering pace and then slightly downhill. Tina picked us up.

I went to Julie's to say Hi, but the reception was not as enthusiastic as Tina's. Mark said hello from his office and then Lauren and Ashley were preoccupied with their friend but I sat and talked a little bit anyways until Julie came home. They were all pretty busy since they were getting ready to go to a piano recital, but Zack was probably the sweetest and most accomodating (he was the one who kept offering to buy me something at Hogi Yogi's and I thought it was sweet until I realized he had his Mom's credit card... hahaha). Oh, *adds note to put 'small homemade peanut butter cookie' on her eating list from yesterday* Then I walked back to Tina's when they were about to leave, had some Taco Soup and me and Dad got in the car and followed Tina's family to a local park where the BYU Management Society or something like that was having a free barbecue and silent auction raise tuition money for people on scholarships. It was just a bunch of families there, but not really that big of a group. We got some food (I just got side items since I'd already eaten taco soup) and then left. Tina and April made sure I made promises to come visit, and they're gonna check to see if anyone is coming down from Rexburg to there on the weekend of the 14th so I can be at Dan's farewell (he's going to Hong Kong!)

Then we rode back to Alma's and got there about 8:30 and it was still light! I love their house, it's so bright and cheery, they've got two birds (George and Figaro, George is mean.) that Nathan their son introduced us to, he lives in the house beside them with his wife they're both planning to be doctors and he just finished medical school. I went to bed around 11:30 I suppose... talked to Sabina for a bit, got my scriptures read, my teeth brushed and then kept busy until I stopped myself by reading the 3rd Vampirates book. I'll post pictures in just a minute.

Posting yesterday's journal entry

2008-05-30T08:06:00.001-07:00

it's long... I'm just posting it because I want it posted, you don't have to read it.

The flying was not very interesting. Luckily, we got through all the airport security checks just fine (haha, ALL of them, there was only one!) and they had SOOOO many people there and nothing we had bothered them. Thank goodness! Then, we got a bagel with cream cheese, and each a bottle of water from a bagel shop in there, and I had a few healthy snacks packed, but I botched my eating plan later (read about it on the bruingtonbiggestloser.blogspot.com). First class was cool, all the seats had a packaged small blanket, a small pillow and a bottle of water sitting on them. Then, they went around offering their ‘Beverage Service’ which I refused until later, when I got a club soda. I wasn’t sure what to order, but people were getting stuff from Tomato Juice to Diet Sprite to Coffee to Club Soda. So, when I heard Club Soda I asked for the same thing, and it was delicious! I also had the breakfast they offered, which was free… and wonderful. The lady next to me was an older lady named Dixie and she was real sweet. Her and I talked off and on, but mostly we just read. Taking off was AWESOME and I LOVED IT! I was so frustrated that it took us so long to meander down the runway to get to the spot where we got to go FAST, but we finally did and it was thrilling! Landing was also fun, but not as fun. Flying itself was just boring unless we had turbulence (which we did, twice) because it actually FELT like something.
I mostly read the whole time, looked out the window when there was a break in the fluffy white, got on my computer at one point and started typing up a horse training sheet for Sabina, for a few minutes watched 27 Dresses on the headphones I was offered. (Me: *watches the lady offer the headphones, on a PLATTER, then walk away* “Hey wait! Umm… do I have to pay for those?” Lady: “Pardon?” Me: “Do I have to pay money to use those?” Lady: *overly kind smile* “Just in coach! Not up front!” Me: “I’ll take a pair then”) But I didn’t use them for very long, because I couldn’t really see the movie screen for the glare, the sound was crackly, and I had to hold them against my ears to hear, and it wasn’t very interesting. By the time the flight was over, I was anxious to get off. Oh, and I don’t think the lady next to me was mormon, though she was very nice, but she did seem family-oriented, her husband was back in coach but he came up a few times and they just seemed to really love eachother (he seemed real sweet), AND she said she was going to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s practice session.
Alma picked us up from the airport (luggage claim went just fine), oh and it was SO CUTE! At the end of the elevator there was a bunch of families with “WELCOME BACK ELDER [insert last name here]” that was so cute. There was also quite a few people that were holding up little signs for people too. I thought that was funny, but efficient I suppose. We then went to a Chinese buffet place and ate, then for about 4 hours walked around Temple Square, in the church office building, I went in the Tabernacle, went to a 20 minute organ concert thing (low key, they do it everyday, and I fell asleep I was so tired) in the conference center, etc. I’d been to all those places except IN the tabernacle before, so that was cool, but the rest was pretty much old news. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but I was so dang tired I was having trouble staying energetically happy. Alma and Dad found two sister missionaries from Italy though and the four of them had a bunch of fun chatting in Italian. All the missionaries on temple square and all the other buildings around are all sisters and they have their name tag and a flag of the country they’re from hanging beneath it. It was really cool, they were all really nice (of course), it was a nice change to see dedicated spiritually excited missionaries… :-D
Finally, Alma had to go to his temple session (he conducts temple sessions in the Salt Lake Temple all the time, and all day Saturdays) so we took his car back to their house and while Dad slept on the couch I read and talked to Sabina for a little while. Then, when Robin got home (Alma’s wife and one of the nicest, accommodating people you’ll ever meet!) a little while later, we all chatted for a bit until my stomach really started growling and we all went to a burger joint and I ate unhealthily. The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful… well, we did go wait for Alma by parking and walking through this small park thing where the city creek ran through and they had a cute little pond with random islands growing trees in part of the creek’s path (with one lone duck swimming in it!). I talked to Jon for a bit as well, updated him on the fact that I’m not in Idaho yet. I wish I was though! Then, we got Alma, all came back to the house, and later the missionaries arrived. Apparently, the missionaries around here are staying at member’s houses now and so the Allred’s have a set. They’re both VERY cute, one’s from Canada and the other’s from Arizona.

BYU-I Trip Phase 1 - Comfort Suites

2008-05-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

So, me'n Dad left around 3:00, when we meant to leave around 2:00... oh well! I attempted to sleep for at least 1.75 hours of the 3.00 hour trip, but it passed pretty uneventfully. Then, we arrived at Comfort Suites, the place where we're staying, and WOW! Man it is NIIIIIIIIICE!!! It's got a pool and a jacuzzi outside (thank heaven Monday was Memorial Day!), 5 floors (each one has a presidential suite and two executive suites), an exercise room, breakfast (that we WON'T get to have, since we're heading out before 6am) from 6-9:30am, a beautiful fountain out front, and if it ain't in the ritzy-ist part of town! I love it. For those who don't know, I LOVE staying at hotels - especially nice ones - and I'm so excited that it has a pool! I've been wanting to swim in a hotel's pool since last year when we went on the family reunion and stayed in 5+ different hotels. But we ALWAYS got in too late and out too early, so I'm glad that we got here at 6:00!

After we got here and checked in, went up and dumped our load of luggage, we scouted out food. Luckily, Dad didn't want a restaurant setting, so we went to Arby's! Why was I so enthusiastic about eating at a typical fast-food restaurant while on VACATION?! Calories. That's it. I was really dreading going to a restaurant and facing temptation and not knowing the calories (because I had no idea where we were going and couldn't look up their nutrition facts on line first!) but luckily, gratefully, thankfully, Dad wanted to go to something quick so we went to Arby's. I got a Martha's Vineyard Salad that I had looked up nutrition info about a week or so ago for mine and Olyvia's Arby's trip with like 272 calories and only used a little less than half of the 100 calorie pack of ranch dressing. Then I drank water. (I did eat 5 lemonsnaps before we left, but that was only 120 calories so I probably consumed a 450 calorie dinner... not too bad.)

I was considering using the exercise room, but I couldn't find it on the map and I don't feel like asking. But I still might... depends on how quickly my food settles. Anyways, I'm gonna go dress for the pool!

Justin's Birthday!

2008-05-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Justin's birthday, his 6th Birthday! Wow! Six years on this earth, it's hard to believe! And I met him just when he was TWO weeks old! So, I've really known him from his birth... what a cutie.

I celebrated it with him by making Horsey Cupcakes (which I altered and then almost completely re-did the 'icing' recipe, I felt like a chef!) with molasses frosting, which it made about 12 so I shared one between all the goats; Me, Mom and Dad tried one (they had carrots, flour, bran, sugar, water, molasses, nothing unedible); and all six horses at Ann's got one (Justin got two!). Mom told me to sing him Happy Birthday, but I just told him...alot. :) It was so fun celebrating his birthday like that, I felt like a little kid! I let him loose in the barn/ring/"stable yard" area to nibble on the grass for a while, and I fed him there too instead of in his pen. He was a good boy, I brushed him and untangled his mane and took some pictures... it was fun. :-P

Then today I tied him to the intertube on the tree in Ann's backyard for patience, and he did pretty good. I was brushing and saddling Rayme while he was tied over there, so when I was done prepping her for riding, I went over to him, brushed him for a little bit, he stood still the whole time (didn't spend too much time on it) and so I went ahead and let him loose in the stable yard area to graze while I rode Rayme in the round pen. She did pretty good, and since Ann said I could borrow one of her horses for the beach ride (awesome!) I'm probably gonna take Rayme. I like her because she's not as small as Roxie (who's like 13-14 hands pony size) and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get Cowgirl as trained as she really ought to be by the beach ride.

I ended up trying on another one of Ann's saddles on Justin, tied the stirrups together so they wouldn't flap around, then hitched two lunge lines through the stirrups and on either side of his halter and long lined him for a bit. He did really well, especially with turns, but the problem is there is no flat, clear area big enough to work in (except maybe the front yard, but I can't ride/work him there!) and I was in his hilly pen.

I feeeeeeel good!

2008-05-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, so guess what? TALEEA's my ROOMMATE!!!!! *SQUEALS* She's my friend from our stake - who is also out at BYU-Idaho - and she's my roommate! Okay, so it's not just chancey lovely coincidence, I actually found out what Apartments she was in, signed a lease and requested with fingers crossed to room in at LEAST the same apartment with her (each apartment has 3 bedrooms) and by golly she sent me and email and we're in the same ROOM! YAY! And we might have the same soccer class, so that'll be SO nice having someone I know to help get me adapted to life on campus.

Anyways, I feel good! Y'know why? Everyday this week (tomorrow and Saturday included ;D) I've eaten good (only a few messups but not majorly), worked out, and gotten schoolwork done. I accomplished my goal and am now done with Government, now I just have 16 days (minus two sundays, so really 14 days) to finish my Chemistry! ... :( Hopefully that'll be alright.

So here's some pics of comparison (the above quite a few months ago playing rockband, the most recent full-body-without-renaissance-clothing-pic I had), and a pic of me eating a healthy snack I made (does my face look thinner or is just my imagination?)

I'm such an idiot...

2008-05-14T18:10:00.001-07:00

So my day was going wonderfully until... I had the nerve to break my laptop's keyboard and scratch the screen!!!

My laptop was open on my desk, and I was holding a big journal and a few elementary school year books that I was attempting to sorta toss onto the highest shelf... then then came crashing down onto my laptop...

As you can see, the whole top right corner of my laptop is bent in, the \ button is broke off, the backspace button is scratched and hard to push down, and there's a scratch on the screen (that you can't see, oh and btw I took the picture w/my webcam due to lack of digital camera by using my JC Penny handheld mirror, nifty eh?) Anyways, another one of my stupid rash decisions has caused something to be broken or someone to get hurt, or in this case, hurt emotionally. I'm such a idiot I can't believe it so now I get to use my broken keyboard. Mom said we could (or more like she snappily/exasperatingly suggested) give it to Laura and get a new one, but I don't want them to do that. The buttons still work... somewhat.

Needing Update

2008-05-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'm so bad for not writing on this in ages! I need to get into a habit of it, so that when all my school-related woes come I can blog about them whilst I sit pitifully, homesick and sad in Idaho all by my lonesome.

Update on Justin's eye: It just recently got worse after getting better. We moved him to Ann's, and after fasting and alot of prayer, I'm now able to put meds in his eye. (and he stands still while I do it! - by prying his eye open and wiping it in with my finger) I did his eye 3x daily for a bit, then twice a day, now it got worse so we're back to 3 x daily and putting Atropine in it 2 x daily to dilate his pupil to increase blood flow or something like that. *crosses fingers* Let's hope it'll be significantly better before I leave for college...

On a bit of a lighter, yet somehow not-so-light-er note, I've just been working on my packing list for school. WOW! There is SO much stuff I have to think about, and I'm only gonna be there for 6 weeks! There's clothes, medicines, toiletries, stuff for the apartment itself, food (I'm making a grocery list so I'll have it, and I'm gonna make some meal plans), but half the stuff food-wise and kitchen-wise I have to wait till I get there because I don't know if my roommates will have certain kitchen stuff, or if they'll share food, or what! It's kinda confusing/frustrating/exASPERATING the fact that I'm moving in halfway through the semester, so EVERYONE'll be established except me. And I can't just barge in and say "Hey, all the pots/pans are mine because I like to eat healthy and therefore some of the time fix my own food- yes I can cook!" or "Yep, all that food's mine, you can have some if you'd like, just let me know or ask" because I have no idea if the refridgerator is gonna already be full of everyone else's food or if the cabinets are gonna be bulging with everyone else's crap, etc.

*sigh* I hope I'm going about this the right way for now, what doyall think?

...

2008-04-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

...so Justin has had this ulcer on his cornea (ulcer is just like a scratch/scrape) and I THOUGHT that Shadow Ridge was treating it, but I guess not! It's gotten worse and worse, and now it's bluish and cloudy. So, Dad called his vet friend and apparently bluish and cloudy means he's already blind in the eye (or going blind, I don't think he's all the way blind). He suggested using Acromycin Crumbles, which I canNOT find anything about online, I hope they have them at Jack Garst... and then giving him a shot of Demosedan in the vein before I do stuff with his eye. I'm hoping my vet will be able to mail some shots to me, because there is NO way that I want another visit, I'm really hoping to switch to a different vet. They are just too expensive.

Anyways, I feel like it's all my fault, just letting Shadow Ridge treat him (when they obviously WEREN'T doing it, which I should've figured because every time I'd email her and ask her, she would never really SAY that they were putting the meds in his eye) and not attempting to treat him myself. I feel terrible that I haven't done it and now I'm bummed and sad and depressed and Mom isn't helping and it's just... >_>

Activity!

2008-04-17T15:35:00.001-07:00

You gotta check out me and Sarah's 21-day plan! It's simply awesome! And it's awesome the fact we're both doing so well these days! Check it out here: http://bruingtonbiggestloser.blogspot.com and leave us comments of encouragement!

Anyways, this week I have been ACTIVE and BUSY and DRIVING aLOT. I'm house/horse/dog/cat/ferret/bunny/chicken sitting for my friend Brittney's family, and what a job! I go to bed by 11 or usually a little before, wake up around 6:30-7:00am-ish, get horses out of barn (if they're in it, which they have been the past 3 nights) and grain them, feed all dogs, check water/feed for chickens, get eggs, check on cats' and ferrets' water/feed, feed myself, take my meds and leave for work. Go to work, finish, go to MY house where I: grain/hay/water goats and move/untangle Billybob. About then it's usually 1 or 2, so I feed myself, then I either hang out or go get something done at Wal*mart or whatever, exercise around 4-5ish and after that I come back to the house or before I exercise and do it here. Then, night feeding includes dogs, cleaning up litter of cats/ferrets, feeding/watering cats/ferrets, feeding/watering rabbit, graining/bringing in/haying horses, checking water/feed of chickens. Not to mention letting the cats go outside somewhere in the day, and regulating the field turnout of Samson the big Great Dane. Then I have to feed myself dinner somewhere in there, and do my bed prep and most of the time I haven't even had time to read/watch a movie/think by the time I crash in bed.

I HAVE been out and about alot this week though as well, so that's also taken up alot of time. My only problem is, I haven't gone to see Justin... I guess I don't feel like confronting Michelle since the whole 'strangles' issue, so it's keeping me from my horse. Oh well! We're moving him to Mom's quilting friend Ann's house, so he'll be good there until Mom and Dad find a house with land to purchase. Oh yeah, they want to purchase a house with land for David, Sabina and Justin. ^^ I'm glad they think about Justin, especially because they could say that I need to sell him and not worry about land. Though, I think they secretly want land for themselves. Let's hope they don't obsess over it and claim it once David and Sabina move in, for David and Sabina's sakes. ;)

I could STRANGLE Strangles...

2008-04-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

So Justin had this equine virus/disease thing called Strangles two years ago. When I brought him to his current boarding barn, it had been almost a year since the quarantine was over (not the disease itself, PAST the disease - the end of the 6 month quarantine!) and since I wasn't asked about diseases or whatever, I didn't think to tell her because I figured it wasn't an issue anymore. I was told after 6 months that we could move them and take them places. Plus, several horses had been in and out of there since the Strangles, one to a hunter/jumper trainer in North Carolina, so I figured it was safe and why bring it up?

Anyways, I talked to the vet who came to the barn I work at two days ago, and I told her that when the vet came to where I keep my horse, that he gave all the horses Strangles vaccine - Justin included. She said that he probably should not have the vaccine because he's already had Strangles before. So, I emailed the barn manager/owner where Justin is, and told her to please not have the second part of the vaccine given, seeing as how he's already had Strangles. Well, apparently this was a terrible thing, despite it being two years since he's had it (AND he's already been at this barn for a year) and he's putting the other horses at risk since we don't know if he's a carrier. Luckily, the vet had apparently hurt his arm an HOUR before he came to the barn to vaccinate and couldn't give the Strangles vaccine because it's intranasal (a TERRIBLE vaccine, I never have given it to Justin, but apparently it's required where he is now) so the barn manager emailed me all the specifics of how it could affect the other horses and how we should do a titre test to determine his antibody levels and then a guttural pouch swab test to see if he's a carrier or not. Combined cost: $360 give or take. >.<

Daddy is not happy. He's never happy when we have to spend money on Justin... thankfully though, Mother is more forgiving! I do thank the Lord when I realize how close Justin came to having it, because whether he's a carrier or not (I really don't think he is) the vaccine wouldn't be good for him.

Why do I not think he's a carrier? Apparently, if they're a carrier they have bacteria in their guttural pouch, and during stress/stressful situations they "shed" the bacteria and therefore infecting other horses. Well, it has been TWO years, and Justin's had his fair share of stressful situations. At my previous barn, during the summer I had to pull him out of sight from the herd to ride and he'd prance, snort, whinny and scream for them the entire time -- Stress! We moved him to the barn he's at now with lots of kicks, and then put in a stall for half a day from then on where he had to adjust, kick, etc. I took him to Brittney's house at night one time, and he was pawing and kicking during that ride. Then, he was shipped to South Carolina for the Beach Ride for a SEVEN HOUR trip! Every time we stopped he'd paw and sometimes kick, so that was obviously stressful! And once when I was attempting to give him bute, he reared and was freaking out: aka- STRESS; he also did that a few times when I've tried to do stuff to his eye. So, lots of stressful situations and NO horses have been infected.

*sigh* But I do understand her concern, and she says I don't need to leave/take him somewhere else if we can do these tests (and of course, only if they turn out negative). The problem is, if he IS a carrier, he's one for life. Yay. Wow it sucks! Luckily, Justin's a pretty no-stress horse on a regular basis, seeing as how he's not wound up and sensitive, but he can stress (as I previously wrote). I really don't think he IS a carrier, so I'm allowing myself that thought to make me think positively. Hopefully I can just let him run with Ruby this Summer and then bring him to Mom's quilting friend Anne's house with her horses, she's ten minutes closer than the 25 minute drive to where he's at now though.

Okay, so I just - for the last 30 minutes - have been reading articles about Strangles. Guess I'll go ahead and post this now.

Revelry and Stuff

2008-04-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

The Renaissance Faire was super fun! The boys were ridiculously adorable and seemed to really enjoy themselves. Me, Sarah, Hunter and Nathan (Jeremy stayed at home with Jason) left Saturday morning at 7am and after making a stop by Wal*mart and Hardees, got there at 11am. We stayed until 5:30 and got home around 9pm. It was a blast, and I got stuff for my gypsy costume for the Virginia Renaissance Faire! Which we will be attending Saturday of opening weekend, May 16-17th. Anyone who wants to come is welcome, we'll be saving lots of moolah by staying at Sarah's house.

Today at work was... taxing. I ended up stripping the whole barn of all its shavings (which is something I've yet to do) and laying down all new shavings. We really need to get another load of shavings - the current shavings are wet, musty and just nasty - so the horses can have a good, clean area. Apparently, one of my "jobs" is to clean in front of the barn and in the ring (a good 1/3-1/2 of the field) of poop, which I was only told a week ago. Figures. The missionaries did it last week, which was wonderful again, but they'll be at work tomorrow so I'm going to have them help me clean it this week too. Luckily, it only has to be done once a week. I was so pooped today after work, all the bending and scooping really took a toll on me and sored up my hands. I was glad my list of "To Work With" horses was only two, and they're both easy ones that only need 15-minute sessions.

Jon, Shaunna and Brandy came over tonight to help plan some Young Single Adult activities. The only problem is, everyone wants to cater to everyone's needs/available nights/etc, but I don't think they realize is that we can't. We can't discuss every service project we want with everyone, that's not the way things go. WE (meaning the leaders, so I suppose me and Jon) pick something and tell everyone. I wanted Shaunna and Brandy help Jon boy and me think of ideas, but I didn't mean to have everyone's opinion on things. We only scheduled one thing, which is the "Conversation Jar" and snacks for this coming Sunday. Haha, it was Brandy's idea, and trust her to think of an excuse to use the conversation jar. :-P Elder Jolley used to really like the conversation jar. He was such a cutie, ;D

Anyways, Sarah go check the Bruington's Biggest Loser blog, I posted.

Exhaustion and Regret

2008-04-01T10:46:00.001-07:00

So my old riding instructor Aspen emailed me yesterday offering me an almost two-year-old filly for free. Her name is Mystic, and she ties, leads, loads on any type of trailer, has been worked with NH on the ground and can walk on a tarp and be covered with it, walk on a bridge, have a bucket of rocks shaked around her, etc. She sent me some pictures, and she just looks absolutely adorable! Isn't she? xD I was really kinda anxious, prayed about it, talked to Sabina about it, and really THOUGHT about it. But of course without a thought of "Maybe it could work" Mom shot me down, which was totally and utterly disappointing and I cried. I know everyone else must think it ridiculous, but she'd be ready to saddle train when I get back from college, and then me and Sabina would BOTH have a horse to ride on the beach ride. Ugh, I thought I had gotten over it, but now that I'm writing/thinking about it I haven't. I was just really looking forward to training a young horse again, ESPECIALLY because I now know what to do! >_>... oh well, me and Sabina will just have to be content sharing Justin at the beach.

I am exhausted, but I can't allow myself to be. I have an exam to study for that I've only studied three times for, and I've still got 8 chapters to study! Plus, I need to do chemistry which I haven't done in awhile. So, once I'm done with this I'm going to go make myself study and do Chemistry, and then I'm going to go ride my horse because he needs it and I need it. I'm just so sick of being dirty and I have to get home and feed the goats when I'm done at work, so I usually just go straight home.

I trimmed Piper's, Malik's and Boots's hooves today. Piper's got jacked feet because we haven't trimmed them in ages, so I had to do some corrective trimming to be redone at the beginning of May. (Mom said that her friend does her goats quarterly, but since we've neglected them, Boots, Piper and Malik - though him not so much - need to be trimmed monthly until their hooves are growing normally) That really pooped me out, especially being bent over little Malik and Boots and previously carrying 3 full hay bags, a bucket and another flake of hay around to feed them all. Oh well, I'm glad I got them all fed, trimmed and watered. Not sure if I'm gonna do Bill's hooves yet... they probably need it since they're immersed in wet mud right now... the perfect scenario for growage...

so EXCITED

2008-03-28T09:33:00.001-07:00

I can NOT wait until next weekend to go to the Renaissance Faire, yaaaaaayyyy!!!! Luckily, I told myself I could not conceiveably afford to purchase a Nikon d40 before our trip (short of getting it from a camera store on a payment plan), so I'll content myself with shooting pictures with Sarah's camera until I can get my own at a later date. It is really frustrating living life without a camera though... heck! I've been without one for the past few months! >.<

a "Knight" from last year's North Carolina Renaissance Faire

I've got $225 to go on my Nikon d40 savings. I decided to buy the kit of it on Amazon which comes with the camera and factory lens, a 4GB card, card reader, carrying case, and I'm not sure what else, but not much more if so. I'll probably use this next paycheck (if I get it in time!) - the entire thing - for gas and the Renaissance Faire, but I might go ahead and take some money out of my savings for it. I need to let Sarah know ahead of time to A) not let me buy ANY crowns; B) not allow me to purchase a musical instrument... that is $30 or above! (just to be safe ;D) Somehow my head just gets all jumbled when I step into the ??00's and go to a Ren Faire. I've made some poor purchases.

Needing Improvement... again!

2008-03-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

We all need to improve, and here is my list of things I want/NEED to accomplish/do before I leave for college: (in somewhat order of importance!)

- Do Government 1 final exam
- Do Chemistry and Government EVERYDAY
- Finish Chemistry and Government 2
- Finish Personal Progress
- Ride bareback (or just ride!) 3x a week
- Do Ab workout everyday
- Do Cardio for 30 mins everyday
- Work with Malik for 15 mins everyday*
(teach to stand still when tied, then to lead, then lots of transitions/halts on lead, then ground driving, then desensitize to harness, then - if time - desensitize to cart)
- Begin writing a fantasy novel in "Post" form**
- Finish reading all the Narnia and the Green Gables books on my 2008 reading list

So that's my list so far. I'll refer to it often so I remember. I've always got something I need to work on and it's so hard!

*I am going to teach him to pull a cart, but I'll probably have to start him in a pygmy harness until he's two and will fit a normal goat harness. He won't be pulling anyone in a cart until he's older, mind you.
**I figured that if I treated writing a novel like roleplaying, like made my characters beforehand and just "posted" scenes, then I would actually get it done. I'll probably either do a novel from two different perspectives so I alternate posts, or I'll just post the same person over and over.

Ponee loooooove

2008-03-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

I <3 ponies! Even though Justin's a horse, he's definently my 'painted ponee'

The missionaries came to work today to clean the barn, and found only three piles of poop in it. Just my luck! Tomorrow, there will probably be 25x piles of poop and the whole thing'll have to be stripped and I'll be by myself! >.<>

Brittney was with me for the past 24+ hours. We went to Wal*mart today so she could buy some dress we saw there yesterday, but they only had it a size smaller than her. I spent at least 20 minutes deciding on three pairs of shoes, put two in the cart, and ended up removing them and two other items at checkout (Sarah, I'm just like YOU!). But I do feel good about removing them. I actually got Mousse today too, along with some hairspray because I want to try the 'scrunch' hairdo that I see so many girls do. Plus, I got two adorable little dresses for church and for fun!

The missionaries have alot of fun at the barn, especially Elder Garner. He's obsessed with Diesel, the 17 hand warmblood that belongs to the director of the operation. Apparently he got permission to ride him for his birthday, so one of these days he's gonna ride him. But he enjoys playing with the horses alot and surprisingly has a natural ability with them and how to deal with them like: when to give in, when to not, etc. I was shockingly surprised as he told me how Jake did with him today, because he decided he needed to shove Jake around (so he went to the field, got him, tied and groomed him, then walked/trotted him around the ring, and he did really well). *rolls eyes* Elder Cloyd got Majec (who he calls his girlfriend) and tied/groomed her before I took her to work with her, and then he helped me with some hippotherapy toy desensitizing. They're both pretty dang obnoxious, but I've learned to deal with it (i.e. assigning each of them to a different horse so they don't strangle eachother and I don't strangle them xD).

This is me with our new baby goat Chamomile aka- Millie.

And I love Braveheart and Warrior. I've determined the two of them are my favorite, the two little little ponies.

The good Lord giveth and the good Lord taketh away...

2008-03-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

Or in this case, the vet took away on God's orders. "Iris" had to be put down on March 10th due to old age and being terribly anaemic. We've had her for 8 years, and she was probably around 8-9 years old. Turns out we haven't been diligent about worming, and -combined with old age- it just made her weaker and weaker. I felt so stupid crying in front of the vet, but he was so nice and I've determined I'm going to switch to him for Justin and his stuff. Roanoke Valley Equine is just way too expensive. Here's the story:

She was anaemic, meaning that she was full of worms and such. So the vet did a PCV on her and Billybob, not sure what it meant but their numbers were bad. He also checked the poop and it was full of worms and coccidia. When he came, he told me that we needed to move them to a different area and clean, lime and let air out the area they're in currently. Apparently we've been breeding worms and all sorts of icky things. So that's what happened to Iris. Now we've got to give everybody Dectomax for three days, and put CORID in their water for the next 10 to get rid of the coccidia in their system.

Ya know what made me cry? Other than Iris and her having to be put down, of course. While I was waiting for the vet to go get the shot to put her to sleep, Malik, Piper and Boots came in one by one and sniffed Iris (Malik also sniffed and nibbled on me) like they were saying goodbye. And what made me really tear up was Boots... she's one of Iris's babies from last year and when she came in she bleated, and Iris (who was up to this point dull and listless) perked up majorly and bleated back. Then once it was done, Piper (who normally doesn't like any of the other goats) came in where Iris was laying and was nudging her like she was wondering what had happened. :(

But, the good Lord also giveth! Chamomile aka "Millie" was born today! Born out of Boots and looks just like her. I was working on the small enclosure that we used to keep goats in, and for some reason I went into the goat's pen and SURPRISE! baby!!! At first, Boots was bleating motherly-like and licking the baby, but she seemed to walk away whenever Millie tried to nurse. So, after skipping institute and running to the store for bottles and dinner, I came back and milked a bottle full. When I went to try to feed Millie, her little belly felt full, so I felt the OTHER teat of Boots's and it was a little less empty than it had been. So I suppose she must be consuming something! Anyways, she's adorable but tomorrow I have to call the vet to ask some questions and the missionaries are coming over to help me finish the alternate goat fence and hopefully I can get them started on Corid!

My Latest Husband Checklist

2008-02-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I have to admit, I've been watching lots of romance movies (most of which end up with hearwarming weddings and kids). Don't worry though, it hasn't gotten me desperate OR depressed because I'm "alone" *sticks out tongue at word 'alone'* which I think is silly, I want to remain single for awhile yet and just have some fun!

What it HAS done, is made me think alot about my future husband and what qualities I want him to have:

-Return missionary, OR at least a faithful Latter-day Saint with a strong testimony of the gospel, Jesus Christ, etc. who will go to church for himself and not for anyone else
-Has to be a cowboy or definently horse-oriented/horseback riding/ or willing and anxious to learn about horses and to ride
-Either a clean southern man with a southern accent, OR a native american, OR irish, OR italian (and I mean those with their accompanying accents)
-Preferably a good singer
...but at least has to know how to dance, or is willing and anxious to learn
-Tall, much taller than me seeing as how I want tall sons
-Brown hair or darker (as this is sort of a superficial request, as is the 'tall', it is flexible and depends on the person) seeing as how I dream of having the first black/dark brown haired baby/toddler/kid in our family (can't ya just see a cute little girl with dark brown hair pulled into braids?)

And last of all:

I need my first kiss to be under mistletoe, all complete with sparkling Christmas lights. I've decided that it's the ONLY way I will accept my first kiss, and it helps me resolve to not just let ANY guy kiss me. Though I'm doing a good job at keeping my kiss-free lips so far. (hahahahaha, no kidding)

And he has to propose good. For heaven's sakes he's got to be creative, I mean, it's gotta be something I'll remember forever.

*sighs dreamily* Okay! I'm out of my romantic mood now, this post was more of a distraction from something else anyways. I just thought I better blog this junk to show future generations.

Wonderment

2008-02-28T20:51:00.001-08:00

I've always wondered if I will be the type of person to ignore my friends if I ever get a boyfriend. It's a curiousity since I've never had the experience. But it's been on my mind alot lately, 'specially if there's some lone nerd that has no friends at BYU Idaho that I end up taking pity on, befriending and then of course having to fall in love with them because they're so cute and no one else is available. I just read a book though called "As Always, Dave" and I've thoroughly decided that I simply canNOT marry a man from Utah or Idaho, or that fits the criteria and mindset of a typical mormon guy. And I mean the not-so-delightful typical mormon guy, the kind that is SO mormon and not so much like a NORMAL person.

So this means I'll have to find an out-of-state nerd, even if he's from Oregon :-P

blank

2008-02-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

A fresh newly bound spiral notebook that is full of blank pages is so satisfying to open. You can take your brand new pen and just write. Most of the time though, the pages end up covered with you and all your friends' full names written in print, cursive and in that little curly text you learned writing love letters to a crush in 6th grade.

And no, I do not speak from experience. My admirations have always leaned towards the more fuzzier species of males.

hrm

2008-02-28T20:26:00.000-08:00

One can only mourn the loss of privacy as they choose to relay their innermost thoughts, doubts, self and other criticisms, fears and distresses on a public blog. An actual paper journal requires too much hand strength, I'm afraid, to tempt me to write in it every time I need to spill words. So I will have to satisfy myself with being consciously vague as I sit here with a thesaurus and depict what is happening within my brain.

Everyone - I personally believe - is entitled to their own self pity party every-once-in-a-while. Not a public pity party where they invite the sorrows and condolences of the outside world to rain down on their expressed distresses, but a personal and self pity party. This would be one where you feel sorry for yourself, allow sodium based liquid to drizzle quietly, and where you treat yourself to one or many indulgences that would normally make you feel guilty as soon as thought entertains them. By this I mean: eating excessive amounts of food (mostly the yummy stuff we shouldn't touch like sugars and partially hydrogenated oils); having a spur-of-the-moment movie marathon; staying up all night reading; allowing yourself to stay online all night; playing hours of playstation until your eyes burn and your head throbs with one of those dreaded "behind the eyes" headaches, or the like! Except for buying yourself stuff, that is one thing for which you should always feel guilty. You can always eat better, get up and exercise, and even start going to bed earlier. But you can't replace money - so I've unfortunately learned. >.<
Anyways, so it's been ages since I've sponsored one of these affairs, and so I do tonight. Although, due to newly brushed teeth, I shall keep to reading a book all night instead of inhaling exorbant amounts of food.

Why the need for it? The idle monotony of today has created boredom; vain anticipation caused me to unwillingly neglect my equine; my parents decided to ruin the plans that I had planned by saying they were going out, then they didn't, but my engagements were fruitless and in vain; the sluggish speed at which our internet moves has made cause for irritation and utterhelplessness, so I ended up ending something I was just beginning to enjoy and -THUS- adding another reason on my list of 'Subtle Divisons' from my elder siblings and in-laws. So, now I am completely disappointed in ten more ways than one and I must retire to my bed where I can pity myself all night long and awake in the morning at ANY time I choose since I have no work.

Ya know, for Thursday night being my new "Friday" night (seeing as how I work Saturday mornings but not Friday mornings) it pretty much SUCKED today.

I want it really bad!

2008-02-26T05:16:00.001-08:00

I'm waiting for my packet of info about my Major from BYU Idaho, my registration packet for the home Showing stuff from Aspen, "Celtic Feet" from a seller on Amazon, "Jean Butler's Master Class" from a DIFFERENT seller on Amazon, and there was something else but I can't remember. :( Hopefully it all comes soon, I'm daggone anxious!!!

Speakin' of which... I need to go order some equine supplies. And I KNOW that Jeffers Equine is reliable and quick!

More To-Do Lists

2008-02-25T12:52:00.000-08:00

I am forever making more and more To-Do lists, but they help me immensely. So far I've done everything but 4 things on my To-Do list, and sadly will only finish 3 of them. One is to work on Laura's Sunday book for an hour and a half, but it's already 4:00 and I've still got to finish scrubbing/cleaning my shower, exercise and get Mom to order my final exam for Government.

Anyways, I've attempted to step back up into motivated-successful-active days again! I did so well the two weeks before last, but last week I just slugged off! For one, I was utterly sore from work, so I only exercised twice, and Sarah and them came Tuesday so I stayed up till midnight and then Saturday night I stayed up till like 5:00am!!! >.< Last night I went to bed at 10:45. I'm working on going to bed earlier and earlier so I can wake up at 7:00 without problems! I would've exercised this morning when my alarm went off at 7am, but I turned it off then closed my eyes and when I opened them, by golly it was 7:50!!!! I really do NOT remember falling asleep or keeping them closed for longer than 5 minutes! Usually, when I do something like that I realize "Hey Mary, you cheat you really did fall asleep or kept your eyes closed for 45 minutes" but this time I didn't even realize it! I don't remember falling asleep or dreamin' or anything! Which is crazy, because if I do that I usually have a short dream.

Anyways, sorry there's no pictures, I guess I'll find one to add later so that Sarah can read my blog. >_>

Dance.

2008-02-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

I told Jennifer (my dance teacher) today that I wouldn't be able to do recital. GEEZ! I'd been SO afraid to tell her because I thought she'd get mad. Well, she was a little like "Gosh, well I'm not sure what I'm gonna do/I can't change the choreography!" talking about the clogging dance, and I felt terrible. Then she turned kinda saddish (although it was like sad fake crying with a pouty lip thing) and she made me feel so bad I wanted to cry! I'm not that sad about not doing the recital or finishing the dance year, I'm excited to go to college!!! But I do regret it a little. I really was excited for the recital, determined to have a good tight 5th position and kick my butt EVERY time I did a single back or triple in Irish. And then Jennifer was like "Don't let yourself feel bad, after all it's church and you need to put what you believe in first. I understand, it's God and you need to do what you put first." Wow. I guess she thinks I'm going to church school to learn about church or become a Preachess!!!! Hahahahahaha! My explanation was a bit dramatized though, just so she'd take pity on me, and I ain't ashamed to admit it. I am EXCITED to go to BYU Idaho and I don't want anyone to bring me down!

Kristen did say she'd take my place in recital so Jennifer doesn't have to change it. YES! I love Kristen, she's the BEST! Only problem is Jennifer wants me to make sure that it won't conflict with her job at the YMCA and that she'll be able to come to a couple of classes. Luckily, Jennifer says she has another alternative if Kristen isn't able to do it after all. *PHEW* Thank goodness! Bless Kristen's heart. She's the bomb.

Due to sore muscles, tiredness, lack of motivation, dry skin, coldness, etc. I am EXCITED that I don't have to work tomorrow morning! YAY! And it's only nearing the end of my first week there! hahahahahaha

Kah-day-oh and Werk

2008-02-19T05:31:00.000-08:00

I just did 5 minute warm-up, 20 minutes cardio, and a 5 minute cool-down. All to this "Dance" music CD I got from Wal*mart ages ago! It's got good beats on every song, which makes it nice to exercise to or clog to. Somehow, I kept it up despite my gasping breaths as I jogged around the house. xP

Now I have to go put on britches and head to work. There's horses to feed and policies to go over (staff meeting too-dey) Luckily though, Michelle Holling-Brooks (my boss's boss, and therefore my boss as well) said that since I was only going to be gone to school for six weeks, that she'd try to find someone to replace me JUST during that period. How nice of her! That's exactly what I was HOPING she'd say!

So now I work at the Roanoke Valley Therapeutic Riding's Barn Monday-Thursday mornings and Saturday mornings as a "barn employee"; I grain five horses, hay them all, clean the barn and fill their water trough. AND I'm going to BYU Idaho May 31st for check-in in my dorm and classes start June 4th- YIKES! Scary stuff!

Pictures!

2008-02-15T06:53:00.001-08:00

Since Sarah just told me (as her whole fam, Maggie Moo included, dropped by on their way to Tennessee) that a blog without pictures is a blog that doesn't get read. Well, since I haven't taken any pictures recently (except for some of Justin on Laura's cam that I have yet to upload) I'll show yall what I did with Mom's new laptop the other day.

So, her computer has this webcam built in, that's really cool! You have the mirror affect (which I used to make myself a twin, or make my face funny); flames (I am on fire); snow falling; different city scenes; a tour through space; one was 'Flying Hero' but none of the pics turned out real well; and a sheep head and others. It was really fun to play with.

As you can see, there are aLOT that I took and I just couldn't pick a favorite!

aaaanxiousness!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

Wow. Boy, do I wanna go to BYU Idaho right now! I'm so excited that I was finally accepted but now, waiting for my TRACK ASSIGNMENT to be decided and sent in the mail is killin' me! I have no closure! No date of anticipation! Nothing! Are they trying to drive me mad with anxiousness? Or anxiety...? Not sure of the word I'm looking for. But, I've spent the last couple hours straight looking at housing stuff, meal plans, maps of campus, off-campus housing, classes, minors, majors, all their activities, pictures of activites, anything related to EQUINES that I can find. It's driving me insane! I want to go NOW, yet at the same time I really wish someone was coming with me. I've no doubt I'll be kinda nervous, but I will do it, it'd just be nice if more people were at BYU Idaho. It seems like everyone goes to BYU, and only a few go to BYU I.

Couple new things: Justin's left eye is weeping, third eyelids on both eyes have been about 1/2 cm over his eye for the past month or so, and right eye has been red for the past month or so. Now I'm treating them both with a tea made from the herb Eyebright *crosses fingers* hope it works! Went to see him for the 3rd time this week today, did his eyes and worked with him on the ground. Done Parelli with him Monday, Tuesday and now Thursday and he's significantly improved (he's been obnoxious and bratty these days...). Hoorah! I'll give his eyes a week (I'm going to personally go to the barn to treat them twice a day) and then I'm calling the vet if the eyebright isn't helping.

I start training for the barn job -tentatively- Saturday at 9am. The barn manager is supposed to call me if she can't find someone to watch her kids, which we'll switch it to Monday if she is unsuccessful. Chemistry is going fine, although I've only worked on it once this week... >.< My room is clean after three-four weeks of it weighing on my mind - yay! I exercised everyday last week, and everyday - so far - this week, except for this morning because I was super-lazy and in my defense, I get a KILLER workout at Irish and today is just a cardio day, not a strength training/cardio day. I still need to improve my eating habits, I've been at 173.4 pounds for a looooong time and I want to see the 60's again! Mom ordered me two denim skirts, a black undershirt, a button up shirt and another shirt from Old Navy YAY! Me'n Kristen went shopping last week as well and I got stuff from Old Navy, St. Patrick's day earrings'n'such from Claire's, and finally some black shoes for church from Payless.

Ugh. I just had another wave of anxiousness to go to BYU Idaho. >_>

sigh

2008-02-06T08:29:00.001-08:00

I didn't go visit Justin yesterday. v_v I feel like a bad horse owner! And it was such a lovely day too! Well, I'll just have to make up for it by visiting him today, and let's hope that it won't rain before me and him go on a ride and that the ground won't be too muddy.

Wow, today's wind feels utterly refreshing. It's overcast (my favorite!), cool (meaning 60's... disappointing for February, but not disappointing as weather), and the breeze is light, cold and fresh. I really like it, makes me all pensive and emotional. Makes me feel like "riding to high peak of yonder mount and feeling the wind caress my face as I gaze upon the valley stretched before me." Aha! Sounds nice, don't it? :-D I'm on my way to being a Novelist! ;) I love to write dramatic but vivid little thingys like that. Now, if I can just expand to writing a whole book...

My Chemistry is done for today! My exercising was done this morning! And I found, while most workout videos bore me because you're constantly doing something (whether cardio, weights, etc.) for 30 minutes straight, that Prevention's 3-2-1 Workout really isn't boring for me at all! I get bored so easily when I exercise: treadmill, 35+ minute workout videos, "irishing" downstairs. So it's nice that this workout doesn't bore me, and it's fun! It's 3 minutes of cardio, 2 minutes of strength training, and 1 minute of core body/ab movements. That small routine is put in six different segments where you work different parts of your body in the strength training part. I just wish it had a 'thighs' section, and I wish the "glutes" workout worked them a little bit more... but oh well! That's another one of my problems, I do a workout video and wish it had different workouts to work different things.

Oh! I just forgot! I have a book I want to finish devouring!

Exercise! Motivation! Yoy! ^^

2008-02-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

I am motivated, and I know it's only because the Lord is helping me. Even in the past when I've exercised for 10 weeks straight (and then quit xP) I still wasn't motivated for other things. But this time I am! I pray each night for me - and the family - to have motivation to do the things we need to do that day, and by golly if Heavenly Father hadn't blessed us with motivation! Yesterday I got everything on my To-Do List done. Wow. Even at the height of motivation, I have never gotten everything on it completed, but I did yesterday. (okay, excluding a minor optional thingy) And today, I've done so well that I've already gotten my Chemistry and Exercising done for today. I started all of this yesterday, by the way... so I've got awhile to go before its all set in stone as a habit, but it WILL happen. Now I just need to convince myself to go clean my room, eh?

Next line of business (as I finish my courses before May 30th, finish Personal Progress, and wait to be accepted at BYU Idaho) is finish training Justin: completing his neck reining training, pick up his hind feet without kicking (tied, crosstied and untied), standing still while saddling, and lowering his head for the bridle. I've also ordered a Trick Training book for Justin that seems to follow the rules of Natural Horsemanship, because he's so curious, loves to play with things and I think he'd do well to put some of his playfulness to good use by learning tricks! Now, I just need to keep myself from getting too anxious/excited and only teaching him tricks; he really shouldn't have 'trick training' more than 10-15 minutes a day at max.

Other line/s of business is that I'm going to make my own workout video. No, don't laugh! I want and need to practice Clogging and Irish, but it's a pain to follow a workout I've written down. If I'm watching something, it'll be easier. I already know how I can do it, the problem is trying to find an area big enough and free of obstruction enough to film it. I'm going to use Mom's camera, record each segment (warmup, routine 1, routine 2, etc, and cooldown/stretch) separately, then take them into Windows Movie Maker and put the music that I clogged to and put it all together. Because, if you record someone clogging with music, the music won't be loud enough if you're watching it to clog to yourself. I'm also going to put the next steps across the screen instead of saying it. I'm really excited to do it! I'm going to make an Irish one too, or I might just add an irish segment. Clogging around is fine to warm up for Irish, although there are calf, shin and ankle warmups you need to include. I'm hopefully gonna start writing down the outline, minutes, songs, moves and routines that'll be on it today. AFTER I accomplish the stuff on my To-Do List! :-D

Okay, so the LAST line of business is writing a novel. I know I said I would write one that pertained to real life, but... I think I'm going to write a fantasy novel. ^_^ I can't get different fantasy stories out of my head, so I think that's where I'm going to go. My ideas now seem to surround a story with the point of view being an animal. I don't know if it'll be like an Animal's world or the real world with people and the animal just happens to be in it and telling it from its perspective. Probably an Animal's world, I like that idea. I've written stories (that's how I describe roleplaying) from horses', wolves', and even cougars' perspectives and I like how expressive animals are. It's fun to describe all the different body parts and how they move in relation to their emotions and expressions.

xDDD

2008-01-31T10:04:00.001-08:00

Yay! Everything for my application to BYU-Idaho is IN! Now... I just have to wait. >.<

aaaand finish Chemistry and Government by May 30th. Sarah, we need to get our trip to the NC Ren Faire planned - SOON!

"I Can Accomplish The Things Which I've Been Given"

2008-01-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

...hopefully! I feel so stressed because I've got SO much to do!

Finish Personal Progress (consisting of 3 value experiences and one project), go visit an inactive member I've never met (Today!), call/contact all the young adults I'm in charge of (including inactives... >.<), get some activities planned for February/March and call everyone to let them know, make up a sort of Resume/Work and Horse Experience thingy for the job I'm applying for, get interviewed for the job I'm applying for and look better and more qualified than the rest (!!!!!!!), CLEAN MY ROOM!!!!, finish my first semester of Government (I'm on the last lesson), get my second semester of Government and finish IT and start and finish Chemistry by May 30th.

But luckily, everything is in for my college application to BYU Idaho, so now I just have to take a tater and wait on that! YAY! :) Right now I'm working on writing down all my stuff about my projects for Young Women's, because I lost my original personal progress book AND scriptures so now I have to rewrite the stuff for my projects. Luckily, I had talked to Suzy before I lost it and she had recorded down everything I'd done. *phew*

Everyone (who reads this, haha) will be happy to know that I am going to jog every other morning on our treadmill. I just started this morning, did 20 minutes and then cooled down for 5. My shins don't hurt me because Irish has strengthened them, but my stamina and leg strength needs to be built. I haven't been "irishing" to gain stamina, so I figured I'd run and watch a movie while I do so. And I NEED to gain stamina for clogging but ESPECIALLY for my Irish piece for recital. If anyone wants to feel how much stamina it takes and how much it takes OUT of you, just let me know, I'll show you the basic move and you can do that for 30 seconds and see how you feel. It's one of THE most taxing things in the world, I'm sure of it. I can run longer and faster than I can irish. And that's saying ALOT because I am NOT in shape!

I'm not even running to lose weight, I'm just running to build my stamina! I seriously had this vision of me the other day, walking all over BYU Idaho campus and feeling stupid because I was out of breath just walking to class! But it won't be like that, because I'm going to be in better shape.

Mistress La Novella

2008-01-20T18:52:00.001-08:00

Okay, so really I just was acting silly and did my subject. I am in the mood to write a book! Yes, a book! I tried once with a clean western romance, ick. Terrible! Tried another time with talking unicorns. Bad bad bad. Tried another time with a medieval princess.... twice. Yikes! But then, I realized that I was going about it all wrong. As Mister Bear (though, I'm sure the good german lad wrote his name differently) told Jo in 'Little Women', "Write from your heart" or maybe it was "Write what you know" or "Write from your life" WHATEVER IT WAS, that's what I need to do. I will write a modern day book about what I know. I will not base my characters on any friends or family, nor will I base it on my life experiences. But I will write it from what I know, and I know the years of 1990's and 2000's so that's what I shall write! It shall be a wholesome, wonderful book that probably won't be done until 2050, but one day I shall publish a book. :)

As a side note, the only book I've finished this year is Beka Cooper - Terrier by Tamora Pierce. I loved it! But, we started a Book Club in Relief Society (which I found out that *I'm* in charge of... yay. >_>) and right now we're supposed to be reading Pride and Prejudice. So, I have to find my copy or buy another of that, read it, and in the meantime I've got to finish "I Am The Great Horse" (which I'm reading for the SECOND time! >.<) and I purchased three books from Barnes and Noble with my gift card the other day (Beka Cooper was one, yay just two more to go!) and I KNOW when I start one of those, that I won't be able to stop. Beka Cooper kept me from eating all of my breakfast, visiting my horse, and doing ANYTHING useful. It's terrible. I sin constantly as I ignore my much much much more important responsibilities.

Brandy and Kristen want to get an apartment btw... told 'em I can't because of health insurance, our policy won't allow it unless I'm a full time student, and it's too late to get into VA Western. Plus, I don't want VA Western. I did get my interview from the Stake Prez today for BYU-Idaho so Mom'll get my transcript written tomorrow and I'll finish my application. I shall be SO excited to be FINISHED with the dang thing! Hopefully now I'll get in and leave in August! I am SO anxious to go to college and LIVE my life! INDEPENDENTLY! Even if I DO end up getting married before I'm 20! (although... if I leave in August, that'll be a frightfully quick engagement and marriage, hopefully I shant follow that route)

quick side note: anyone know how you're supposed to present movie titles and book titles? I forgot. Is it underlines or ""'s for books? and what for movies? Please comment. I'll comment on yours!

Resolutions!

2008-01-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

So, after visiting this place in over two months, I went straight to Sarah's page and got motivated to write again! After all, it's 2008 and a time for new traditions, resolutions and habits!

RESOLUTIONS:

-Write Eric and Jason once a month
-No second helpings of food
-Go visit my horse at least two times a week
-Ride my horse at least ONCE a week (yes! I have to force myself to do this!)
-Blog or Journal write once-a-week (idea stolen from Sarah, xP)
-Start/Keep a booklist of books I want to read, and books I've read for the entire 2008 year
-Practice IRISH for 45 minutes 3 times a week

RANDOM 2008 GOALS:

-Apply for BYU Idaho before February 1st
-Finish my Personal Progress within the next week. (O_O)

So, as you see, I have LOTS to do!

Silly and not so silly Sickness

2007-10-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

I just got over being sick from Sunday to Monday. Barf! But not literally, I had a sore throat and runny nose and the whole bit. Now I get to hawk up yellowish mucus because I have a sinus infection, YAY! :D Actually, I AM grateful I got sick, because now I won't be sick on the Beach Ride. I was so afraid that I might, since I had a sore throat on my first trek, and now I have reason to relax and rejoice!

Last night I got up out of bed and met Brittney, Cathy and Darren at my barn to get Justin. So we loaded him up (No problem!), secured him and took him to their house. He was a little antsy while they were moving, because her trailer's significantly bigger (it's a draft horse trailer we both assume) and he was trying to turn around. We put him in Twister's stall and put Twister in Cruise's old stall, and they got along great!

Sad news: Sunday, my friend Brittney's 25+ year old gelding "Cruise" got colic, twisted his intestines and had to be euthanized. It was really sad, but better to be there and say goodbye than to wake up one morning and find him dead. She got to say goodbye this way. Twister (her other horse) was pretty devastated. The next morning when she let her out, she ran around whinnying for Cruise (she was really herdbound to Cruise) and couldn't find him, but then she found the spot where he was buried and just stayed there pawing and sniffing the ground. :( She was SO happy to see Justin, and just stood there with her nose touching his withers. Awww!

It's a good thing we brought Justin over Monday instead of Wednesday (because we're leaving for the beach on Thursday) so Twister could get distracted with another horse and not pine away for Cruise before the beach ride.

rrrrrrrrANDom

2007-10-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

So the Ren Faire was fun!!! All the pictures are on my facebook, and http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t259/MarysCwby/ <--here. Captions will provide you with enough information to satisfy what all happened. It was good, except we got yelled at (by the unnamed senior and co-senior "adults" of the group) several times, and were bossed around with unfeeling meanness without giving us a nice "first chance" to obey. *sigh* Oh well, I still had a good time! Me, Sara and Bryan W., Brandy, Sabina, Kate and her mom Lisa all went. My one regret is that I didn't go see my cousins :( But it was fun, I bought a drum! And a belt and a mugstrap and an awesome hat! (which Dad is wearing in one of the pictures, and Laura is posing in one with my drum)

Dance class today was fun, we learned a couple clogging moves from "All That!" cloggers that do precision and were on America's Got Talent! Pretty cool move, it's hard though and they don't have names for their moves OR timing for them. So.... while they're a little unorganized in that department, they're still great! And we finished learning the "Ain't No Other Man" dance for competition. FINALLY! I just need to practice!

Oh, our current Elders are real fun and Elder Orth told me (after I told him I'd talk to Sabina and David about the missionary discussions) said that he could hook me up with another Elder that rides horses, does hawking or hawkery or whatever you're supposed to call it, also sings and plays guitar. WOW! :D Hahaha, so now that I have my husband already picked out... >.<

I'm gonna be super busy this week! I just got back from the Ren Faire, but me and Jon are going to buy stuff for our Halloween Activity for ALL single adults and high school seniors that's THIS Friday night. THEN I have ACT's (for the 2nd time) on Saturday, and then afterwards Danielle talked to me about going to this Sleepy Hollow thing at the Explore Park (which is closing down because its funding was cut off!), then next Wednesday night OR Thursday morning me and Justin are leaving for the Beach Ride! Which we won't be back until Sunday! GAH! >.< Life is SO busy, and I need to squeeze practicing my clogging in everyday this week, and there's still allergy shots that need to be done, etcetera!

Good ole Justin!

2007-10-09T16:47:00.001-07:00

Me and Sabina went to the Timed Event Finals at the barn on Saturday, and took some adorably cute pictures with Justin. Watching all the stuff really motivated us both: Sabina to lope/canter more and learn to sit it, and Me to work harder at training Justin and work on barrels and poles with him. It was really fun, and a really good lookin' guy won the Team Roping belt buckle. Oh yeah, it also motivated me to earn a belt buckle one day! I really want one!

Then we rode yesterday morning and he did GREAT! We did the barrels, Sabina loped alot and he stayed at the rail and didn't drift. I personally think the hackamore we used made all the difference, plus I think Sabina's gotten more confident and balanced all around. :D I contacted Aspen about taking lessons from her (trailering Justin down there), perhaps every other week. It'll be nice for me and Sabina, and we can each do 30 minutes -which if we warm up before our lesson starts- we can do alot within those 30 minutes. I'm really excited to start! Aspen is such a great teacher and knows so much! Plus, she's never had a steady enough lesson program for me to really progress to riding the experienced horses (right now, she only teaches students with their own horses), she keeps stopping and picking back up. So hopefully I can just get going with Justin and when she starts back up again I can take regular lessons with hers.

Justin's saddle doesn't fit...still!!! It's not touching his back in the rear of the saddle at all, which means it's too large up front and is falling too far down on his withers. Sooooooo, I ordered a cutback/built-up pad which has extra padding built up at the withers for prominent withered horses. Well, his aren't REAL prominent, but maybe it can just help it fit better. Hopefully! *crosses fingers*

despising procrastination

2007-10-04T12:52:00.001-07:00

I should be doing schoolwork. Oh well! Just got back from the Freelands' this morning, they borrowed our horse trailer yesterday and I went with them to pick up a 16 month old colt from Floyd. It was really fun, we went all the way out there and met the long haired guy that trained him and some other horses. He had this gorgeous Tennessee Walker gelding that was a dark blue roan and had just turned 3 that he had trained. That horse was VERY well trained and doing so well! He was a very likeable guy, and the Freelands' might have him train Booberry, their 2 year old colt. Anyways, after dropping him off Heidi let me back up the trailer twice (because I told her that Dad wouldn't give me horse trailer driving lessons) and I did pretty good, then I drove it all the way to 40. xD We got there alot slower than usual, to say the least.

We dropped off the trailer and then I went back with them. Went to Wal*mart on the way home and then gathered up Jake, Kendall, Abby, Sam and Shelby and took them to Martinsville to go roller skating with their friends. So after that me, Hyla and Heidi watched this Gypsy Vanner breeding farm DVD and the Family Cancer Camp DVD which was really nice - they had a good time. I'm actually thinking of volunteering at the cancer camp. Heidi made some AWESOME shrimp stuff that was composed of shrimp, that round fish stuff that tastes so good (looks like a banana, I can't think of the name!), with zucchini, shell pasta, carrots, etc. it was DELICIOUS!!! We also had hot crispy french bread with it, which tasted wonderful dipped in a hunk of softened butter or in the sauce of the stuff itself. I really honestly wish I could repeat that meal!

I slept with Hyla and Shelby, and they made me dance irish a BUNCH before we all got in bed. I really honestly need to dance irish more because I don't have much stamina for it or ANYTHING. But last night I slept sooooo good, dunno why! Shelby's bed must've been really comfortable, and I also had a huge floor fan blowing on me... man, it was so comfortable. I haven't slept that well or been that comfortable in weeks!

Anticipation of the College Life

2007-09-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

*sigh* I want to go to BYU Idaho sooooo bad and SOON! I almost want to go in January with Brandy, but I guess it'd be better to go in the Summer or next Fall. But all I have to do is retake my ACT's and if I get a 28, then I can go ahead and apply! Otherwise, since I'm homeschooled, I have to get a GED if my ACT score is lower than 28. My previous score was a 25, so I just need to prepare a little better for it and go in there and do a good job. I'm gonna start filling out my application now, so I have everything ready to go once my ACT scores are in. Not sure if I'll retake it or just go get a GED if I'm lower than 28... guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Hopefully I'll get into the Summer/Fall 2008 track or the Fall 08/Winter 09 track. It'd be nice not to have to wait until Winter 2009 to go. Anyways, Jon's gonna go take his ACT's too, so hopefully we can do it at the same time so we can have a person that we know there with us.

"Ugly Blue Buggy"'s diesel leak finally got bigger and was gushing out last Monday when I was heading to dance class, so Dad and some guys that stopped to help secured the leak with a piece of cardboard and tie wraps! How Bruington typical! ;) Then, the missionaries, Dad and I pulled it with a chain back to the house. He just now has it working again, so hopefully it's fixed and I can drive it again. Though it has been nice not having to drive myself places :-P We might actually get JER fixed though, which would be WONDERFUL because I miss him!

Camping Trip

2007-09-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

Me, Sabina, David and Laura all went camping Wednesday night and it was so much fun! Me and Sabina started the day by going to the barn and working with Justin on the ground. He's lost alot of weight and my saddle doesn't fit him anymore, grrrr... so anyways, then we went to Wal*mart and bought a bunch of Halloween decorations because they were so cute and SO cheap! We came back to my house and spent the day decorating for Halloween. I know it's early, but we're gonna wait till October to do the yard, so it also gives us time to prepare! ;)

After we finished decorating we went downstairs and we clogged for probably an hour or more. Sabina's doing awesome and we even did a little combination I put together. It was so fun! Then David showed up and got upset at us for not 'preparing' for our campout. I was a little perturbed, we still had plenty of daylight left AND maybe we wanted to do other stuff! So, I enlisted Sabina's help and got everything together and ready to go within about 30 minutes. We put it in "Ole Farmer" (the old blue truck) and just parked it down in the woods in the camping area so we could pull stuff off the bed as we needed. Turns out, we forgot a couple of items but only made three trips back up to the house. (once to get necessary stuff, the next to take Laura to the bathroom before we went to bed, and I went by myself to go tie Billybob back up! Piper and Buttercup were in heat) David built a fire and we cooked hotdogs and heated up spaghettios for dinner, topped off with some old marshmellows for dessert that really didn't turn out good. They wouldn't get gooey! You'd cook 'em for an hour, but you'd go to eat them and they were melted but still... hard. I'm not sure how to explain it, but they weren't very good. But David and Sabi couldn't get comfortable, Laura seemed to keep tossing and turning and I know that *I* couldn't sleep. I totally considered going to my bed! How terribly un-camping-like-spirit was that? Finally, I got up from my tossing anna enjoyed cooking them and feeding them to Laura! >.< onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_2860zRKjYqE/RvQSljsVs3I/AAAAAAAAABs/cgKyxLw13nc/s1600-h/DSCF7719.JPG">Some highlights:
*Me and Sabina went to the bathroom in the woods before we went to bed, after giving her a crash course on how to do it correctly.
*Sabina leaping onto David in the middle of the night because she thought she felt a spider.
*Dixie taking away David's hotdog stick with the hotdog still on it while he was trying to find a bun. (even though we'd already fed her one!)
*Feeding Laura marshmellows.
*Finding a fuzzy caterpillar on my sweatshirt. >_>
*Dixie hopping into the tent while we were trying to roll up our sleeping bags and rolling around all over looking for some love.

Apple Festival!!!

2007-09-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

The Apple Festival went GREAT! I kinda wish Mom'd taken pictures of us clogging, but instead she took a video of the WHOLE thing (which is posted below) so I guess that's fine. At least I can look back and see how I did! There's two master groups, ages 13 & under and 14& up and I expected the younger ones to be pretty dang good, plus I thought that they buck instead of normal singles (buck is a different version of a regular clogging step- faster and harder) because us older girls do bucks instead, but they were just doing normal clogging. They did pretty good for learning it in two or three weeks, but I don't think any of them smiled because they were so focused on their feet. Bless their hearts! But I can't say ANYTHING because us older girls' lines were jacked and our circle is severely jacked. Plus, I got messed up three times, haha! *sigh* Oh well, it was fun anyways! :-P Mom, Laura, and Sabina were there with me and Kristen showed up to watch too.

Beach Ride!!!

2007-09-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

I just officially decided that "Yes, I AM going on the Beach Ride!" It's actually a Horseback Ride-a-thon on Myrtle Beach to benefit the American Heart Association. I just finished emailing my aunts and uncles, but for Sarah, Becca and Stephen, here's the url: CLICK
(if you're reading this) I asked everyone for about $5 or $10, which I figured wasn't a whole lot to ask. You don't have to donate, but it'd be appreciated since I haven't reached the minimum yet. :D

I'm super excited though, because I've always wanted to ride on the beach and now I can! My only problem is, I wish I had a professional photographer (or Sarah!) to take awesome pictures of this moment. *smiles dreamily* Hopefully Justin'll be the cool, calmly curious horse that he is most of the time when we're there so we can enjoy it fully. Dad and I are gonna take Justin and Twister (Brittney's horse) in the horse trailer and I assume he's going to stay with us the whole time. Which'll be fine, because I know he loves taking pictures!

Anyhoo, I need to go get ready for dance. Btw, here's a nice video of Brittney loping Justin. I have pictures of her and Sabina riding Justin at Shadow Ridge, but none of me on him! Gosh it sucks being the person always behind the camera! :-P

subjects of thought mass

2007-09-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just finished doing an hour of schoolwork in my Chemistry book, and it was actually kinda fun! But that was only because it's in the chapter BEFORE you start doing Chemistry where it teaches you how to convert measurements, etc. Since I already know that stuff, it was an absolute breeze, but I'm sure once I actually start doing Chemistry I'll probably pass out from the effort.

Justin's doing great! Me and Him rode with Michelle, Jim (the lady who owns/takes care of the barn and her husband) and Julia (a girl from germany who came to work at the barn for the summer) and their three horses to Ferrystone and rode for 3 hours on the trail. Justin was very good, stood still while I brushed and tacked up and behaved perfectly on the trail. He even did at least 4 small creek crossings, which were all the FIRST time he's done a creek crossing. The first two he jumped, but the others he HAD to go through so he did - and FAST! But overall it was great, and he loaded up fine both ways. Now, we're going to focus on neck reining until we get it down, because I'm SICK of having to ride with two hands, so Saturday evening I went and just worked on turning to the left with the rein on the right side of his neck. We've never done so many circles and ovals in our life.

I'm missing my cousins from the family reunion. :( It was so super fun being there, but now I miss them. Or perhaps I miss having NO responsibility whatsoever and just being able to goof off completely. *shrug* I am looking forward to the Maryland Rennaissance Faire, which me, Kate, Brandy, Sara, Bryan and Sabina (maybe) are going to. I can't wait!!!

Guineas, Dancing, and Kristen oh my!

2007-09-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

I need to blog more often. Dancing has been going great! In Clogging Class last week we started choreographing a simple routine to a bluegrass song to perform at the Apple Festival. And while the routine MAY be simple to learn, it won't be easy to do because the song is extremely fast and we have to do lots of bucks and triple bucks. Poopy. Other than that, my second class of Irish went well and Hip Hop is going swell. I just got some shorts I ordered especially for dance in the mail, can't wait to wear 'em! ;) No Clogging today though, classes are cancelled since its a holiday.

Last week I almost ran over two baby guineas that were in the gravel road right in front of our driveway. The poor thing just fell (course they're tiny, so there wasn't much height to fall from) and I snatched it up and found another one in the bushes nearby. I put them in one of our many chicken house/tractor/things with a light. Couple days later, the Momma Guinea with 8 more running behind her is just galavanting through the rain and they're getting soaked! By chance, she went on the OTHER side of the propane tank and I snatched 2 before she ran back and came at me! I put those with the others I had saved the other day, and then me and Brandy found 3 more stranded in their momma's wake, soaked to the bone. We spent a little more than 30 minutes blow drying them to warm them up. Eventually, they were all fine and I put them all together. Next day, Mom sees the other 3 that the guinea had with her still alive and decides to see if the ones I rescued would go back with their mom (so SHE doesn't have to deal with them, when I ALREADY told her I'd feed 'em, it's not hard!) and they did. Next morning, there's 9 instead of 10, later that day 4 instead of 9. Thanks Mom, REAL genius of ya. Maybe NEXT time she'll let me keep them SAFE! >_>

Anyways, me'n Brandy went and saw Kristen on Friday! I was supposed to go help Brandy at work so she could leave early, but I ended up accompanying Danielle to the store to go shopping for jeans (which was very enjoyable/fun) and then we took so long afterwards getting food and picking up Stephen's food from the deli that I only helped Brandy for about 1/2 hour before she was done at her USUAL time to get off work. So it really wasn't like I made a difference, but at LEAST we got to leave finally (thanks to Danielle offering to stamp the envelopes for us). Kristen showed us her dorm when we got there, and we went & ate at a place similar to Friendly's then got ice cream at Target. When we got back, we all ended up watching (Kristen and Brandy eventually falling asleep) Dicky Roberts. Next morning we ate at Cracker Barrel, got souveniers at the college's bookstore and then left taking Kristen with us. Her dad said he'd take her back the next day (Sunday). It was a fun trip!

Irish...Dancing...sigh

2007-08-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

I'm taking Irish Step/Tap now!!! :D I've ALWAYS wanted to take it since I started doing Hip Hop at the Y, but it always said on the signup sheet that you needed either two years of tap and ballet. And this year she put THREE years of tap. Well, I went to her and asked her if I could take Irish privately, and she said I could just try the class! So, with only one opening left, I signed up and it was AWESOME! Three of the girls that took Beginner Clogging with me last year were there, one of whom is Meaghan (I think that's how she spells it) and we get along really well, so it was nice to have some friendly faces. There were alot of cloggers though, so I suppose clogging was good enough to have. I think it's basically learning the shuffle on the ball of your toe (which takes a while to learn and do it well and fast) and building strength in your legs. EVERY move in irish is done in a "Tight 5th", stomach sucked in, butt sucked in, legs straight and feet in 5th position. Also, every move is done on the balls of your feet, so you have to build some strong calf muscles too.

But it was soooo much fun! Even though this was the 4th class, I picked up right on stuff and we learned "Irishes" "Single...Buffs?" and two other things I can't remember the name of. In fact, I'm not sure the single buffs were called that, they were just single somethings. But we did them all together and it looked so good!!! Since we've all done tap or clogging everyone picked up on it fast and we were all in sync and it was so cool!!!! I've been wanting to do it ever since I first saw "Riverdance" hahaha, I guess that sounds so silly but I have! Plus, I think we might be doing Reel Around the Sun for our recital piece, which is my FAVORITE Riverdance Dance. But I'm not entirely sure, I could be totally wrong.

Anyways, now I have Clogging on Mondays, Hip Hop on Tuesdays and Irish Tap on Thursdays. My legs are becoming stronger already I can tell, but I told myself no irish today because the muscles/tendons running down each side of my shin bone hurt and it's from doing Irish on the balls of my feet and bucks in clogging. So no bucks or Irish today, which is really hard to keep myself from doing!! It's so fun!!

btw, horse trailer

2007-08-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

Oh and by the by: we got the horse trailer we were looking at. :) Took Justin to Bonnie's in July and had an awesome time trail riding ALL OVER the place!

Master Clogging, yay!

2007-08-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

I love clogging. <333 It's only been a year since I started, and I'm already in the master class. I'm not trying to brag though, I think clogging is probably the easiest shoe-with-tap form of dance. It's like a more energetic form of flat footing. Plus, I practiced my butt off and took private classes during the summer to prepare for it. And I made it!

Today was my second time at Master Class, and I LOVED IT! We worked on new steps, quizzed with steps, and practiced moving in groups. For instance, we all lined up (there were 7 of us) shoulder-to-shoulder and then doing 12 single bucks turned clockwise in a line. It was HARD but super fun! Imagine holding a stick in the middle and turning it completely around. Yep, it looked cool and I know it'll look cooler once we master it.

Oh and I discovered my first class that I 'm now in the competition because the dance we have requires pairs and a girl dropped out so now there's an odd number and I had to step in. Ha! For some reason I was thinking it'd be funny if she asked me to be on the competition team, and she has! Luckily, I'm getting alot better at our dance and it's really awesome choreography and fun to do. I really only originally tried out for masters, but the girls who were trying for competition (they were already in masters) did the same audition I did. I can't wait till we do some performances though, I hope the master clogging performs at the apple festival again this year! :D

Happy July!

2007-07-03T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well, the trek was F.U.N.!!! It was one of the BEST experiences of my life and I thoroughly enjoyed it - I didn't want to leave! :) I can state assuredly that it was my favorite and best Youth Conference EVER.

We're still trying to get a horse trailer. :-/ Dad offered 2,000 for the Marr's, the guy said he wanted to talk to the other people interested, and then he left a message for Dad the other day saying that they fell through, he was gonna get it inspected and he was going out of town. But apparently his wife told Cathy that they were accepting our offer! O_O... so I told Dad to call and he got ALL upset at me and was like "I don't want to spend TWO THOUSAND dollars for the trailer!" but I just ignored him and he called. They didn't answer of course, but he did leave a message. I hope if this is meant to go through that it'll just GO THROUGH! Oh goodness, it's so obnoxious waiting for everything to just happen. I've been waiting for a horse trailer since the end of February.

Tonight me, Laura, Stephen, Danielle, Keith and some woman, and maybe Carrie and Brandy are going to the Fair! I'm excited! Lately though, I've been super excited-and-anxious to go to a Rennaissance Faire again... I want to go to the Maryland Ren Faire, and I'm going to make an elf-ish-type dress to match the green and silver circlet I got at the NC Ren Faire so I can go as a mythical creature instead of a peasant wench. I regret buying the circlet though, I just don't necessarily like how it looks... oh well!

Horsey Stuff

2007-06-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

Me and Laura just returned from a trip to Tanglewood. We went to AC Moore where I got two horsey iron-on transfers, Laura got a kitty iron-on, I got three t-shirts and she got one t-shirt. I've been trying to get new t-shirts, because all the ones I own are black, hunter green or navy blue. I need to get AWAY from darks! Three of my favorite t-shirts are black, but they're not REALLY my favorite because they're black, GAH! >.< So the new t-shirts are purple, light blue and medium blue. Laura picked a putrid neon orange.

We also bought three Gamecube games with Laura's moolah, then took Hardees and Wendys to Stephen and Danielle's to eat lunch. Danielle's babysitting this little guy named Evan now, he's a cutie! I felt bad for leaving so soon, but we did go and play with Jennifer yesterday for a while.

I really wanted to go see Justin today, but after the horrendously vicious storm last night... the ring and EVERYTHING'll be soupy. Last night we had a good workout though, but he wouldn't lope without bucking and I'm not sure why. We worked around a single barrel, and continued with the speed barrel/potato race/flag race pattern. It's a very simple pattern: you run straight down the end of the ring, turn around the single barrel and run back. That alone is the speed barrel event; you drop three potatoes in three different buckets on your way down in the potato race; and the flag race you're holding a flag as you run down, then switch it with the one that's in a bucket on the barrel and run back. My plan is to get Justin really used to the pattern so when we actually run it in a show, I can focus more on switching the flags or dropping the potatoes and less on what he's doing because he'll know where to go.

And I discovered something wonderful! Justin turns without the reins! (well, unless he's being rebellious) I've worked on turning him with my legs, direct rein and neck rein ever since I started him under saddle and it's paid off! I dropped the reins, turned him in a full circle both directions and took him to the fence. It was such a wonderful thing, I've been so blessed! He's been doing so well lately, we're riding in western and the sweat marks after riding have been even (the means the saddle fits) and it's just going so well. Plus, his new home is great. I will post about that later.

Dancin' Darlin'

2007-05-24T07:26:00.000-07:00

Wow, the dance recital is SATURDAY!! *freaks out* But I am really excited, I've enjoyed dancing so much and wish I'd started 15 years ago! Next year I'm going to take Clogging, Tap/Ballet, and Hip hop. I feel weird about starting Tap and Ballet at 18 years old, but Kristen told me not to worry about it. So I'm gonna do it! Even if my classmates are 4 year olds!

Bonnie is coming up tomorrow evening, then me, her and Jessica Olsen (she's staying here till Sunday/Monday while her dad is out of town) and maybe Stephen and Danielle are gonna see Pirates of the Carribean #3, woohoo! Then Saturday comes... the DANCE RECITAL! Luckily, my dance is next-to-the-last of the first part of the recital. That can be good or bad, but I'm calling it good.

I love to dance. <3 Hopefully I'll get accepted on the '08 Summer/Fall track or '08-'09 Fall Winter track at BYU-I so I can complete my second year of dance. Anyways, right now I've got to go figure out how/when I'm gonna get my allergy shots and go see a stable at 1:00.

Updation

2007-05-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

School is over. YES! I got an A in Biology, B in English, and S (=satisfactory) in Geometry. Whoop dee doo, I'm just glad it's over. Though I do thank the Lord for those wonderful grades, there were so many tests where things just "came" to me that I'm sure I couldn't've remembered if I hadn't prayed previously.

Jer got hit. April 26th, 2007. It was the next-to-the-worst-day-of-my-life. I was turning left through a four lane divided highway. The lane closest to me was stopped and the Lady had just waved Sabina over and was still stopped for me. So, I looked in the lane beside her (between the cars and stuff, it wasn't completely invisible), and I didn't see anyone. I pulled up to the Median and then the car just hit me while I was looking to the right at the other oncoming lane that I was trying to turn into. The people looked so MAD at me, the guy was yelling and hollering - though I couldn't hear him - and I was so scared. I sobbed the whole time, every time I told someone new about it I sobbed. I got a ticket for "Failure to Yield Right-a-way" and the people in the other car went to the emergency room to get checked out. x_x I never NEVER want to drive again, but I am... the "Ugly Blue Buggy" I call it. It's a diesel isuzu i-mark, WHO has EVER heard of an I-MARK?! It's a 1981, an antique!

Justin's neck reined! He knows and obeys it for the most part, it's just when we're passing by the open gate in the ring that he likes to not listen. I'm still working with him to perfect it so that I can turn a barrel with just the neck rein, but he's got all the basics and knows what it means now. WOOOOOOOOOT! Buuuuut, mine and Justin's relationship has gone kaput. For one, I've never really taught him to stand still, so whenever I tie him up he's CONSTANTLY moving and it's obnoxious. Plus, he's gotten hard to bridle, and he detests the saddle. The vet came and we finally found a saddle that fits, so I ordered it and they gave me a square skirt instead of a round skirt... >_>. But, I was impatient, went and put it on him and decided to keep it. (Oh, and he dumped it on the ground because he was moving around so much!) So I am really going to have to start at the beginning again. It's all my fault! I've been so quick to anger lately and smacked him on the nose and chest too often; been jerky with the lead rope too often; now he's gotten a little bit headshy, and its all my fault. I feel terrible. So I'm going to work slowly and surely w/Parelli games/Clinton Anderson groundwork, and then work on standing still and ground tying.

I will NOT ride Justin until he stands still GROUND TIED for 10 minutes and while Me or Sabina brushes him all over and saddles him up.

I lost my camera la digital. But oh well, the thing sucked anyways. I joined a photography group on yahoo and the moderator made a site with all sorts of info and lessons on aperture, shutter speed, etc. and I've learned loads! So I started shooting Mom's Minolta that she gave me, and I've done 6 rolls of film already! I'm picking them all up from being developed tomorrow. I also bought a book on photography from Amazon today, including "Body For Life" because this is my 9th week of exercising!!! WOOOT! Anyways, I'm done typing.

Sufferance for 1.5 weeks

2007-04-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

School will be officially over for me May 2nd. w000000t!!! I am super excited! Not like I'll have all my stuff to go to college, or even be a high school graduate... but this semester at Va Western will be over and I'm never going back. :) We're going to get independent Government, Chemistry and Spanish courses for me to do and apply for College next year. I was actually considering going to Virginia Western in the Fall just to take Photography and Sign Language, but... I might just work on Sign Language at home with all of the sign language videos we have, and do Photography on my own.

I am looking forward to May 2nd. It's only less than two weeks away! But I've got SO much to do until then.

Tonight: Finish editing English Paper and read everything for English from Wednesday
Tomorrow: Study the "Sewage Treatment" section of Lab (the one I was NOT present for, only from someone else's notes); retype/edit again my english paper, write my works cited, get everything printed out, highlighted, cross referenced, etc; take english paper to school; finish reading everything for English; go to Bonnie's house and borrow her two saddles; get allergy shots
Saturday: Be at barn at 9:30; 10:00 vet arrives and we start throwing saddles on Justin to see which one fits, do NOT forget to ask for a sedative; Go to Girls Camp meeting at noon (goes for two hours); get home and study for Lab test (probably won't happen); take shower, clean room, etc.
Sunday: Official rest day. Write Eric.
Monday: Study for Lab test; read everything for english and write journal entry for Poetry section; Get allergy shots
Tuesday: Geometry Notebook test; LAB TEST; more Lecture on Bio; Study for Bio Mini Quiz
Wednesday: Study for Bio Mini Quiz; be at barn @ 12:30 for farrier at 1:00; dance at 5:15; YW's at 7:00
Thursday: Biology Mini Quiz; go to Geometry, study for Geometry final; Write English Paper #4 in LTC
Friday (4/27): Get English stuff finished up, review poetry words and learn; Study for Bio final
Saturday (4/29): Study for Bio Final; Study for English Final; Do worksheet for Geo final
Monday (4/30): Get allergy shots; Study for Bio Final, English Final, etc.
Tuesday (5/1): BIO FINAL; GEOMETRY FINAL; and take English Final at LTC (optional
Wednesday (5/2): Take English Final in LTC NO LATER than this date!!!!!!

hmmm.... now that I wrote this big 'ole thing, I need to review it and keep up with it!

Ren Faire = Fun. ; Dance Costume = Ugly.

2007-04-11T18:24:00.001-07:00

The Ren Faire was fun. It was a BLAST! Bryan, Sara, Kate, Brandy and I all went down Friday night in Jer, spent the night at a Days Inn, then came home Saturday after the faire. We went to the Tartan Moonlight Madness on Friday night at the Faire as well as Saturday. It was all fun, but it was VERY frustrating and SCARY at times when EVERYONE was yelling at me to go a different direction, and we almost got killed several times because my stress went into my driving. GAH! But we managed to get to a CiCi's five minutes before it closed on Friday night, got free drinks and leftover pizza while we waited for them to cook us two pizzas. I'll write a novel when I feel like it.
Anyways, at dance tonight we got our costumes.... D-:< I am going to have to post a picture, because I feel like in words I simply canNOT do them justice. The top is okay, but the bottoms are HIDEOUS! And I'm so nervous about the Recital already, and now I have an ugly costume to worry about!!! *SOBS* Luckily, Brandy, Kristen and I went and saw "Are We Done Yet?" after dance tonight, so that made it slightly better. But we had milkshakes...and now I feel guilty...I finished the Book of Mormon!... but I can't celebrate because I have to study for Biology. It'd be so nice to have no responsibility whatsoever. *sigh* School will be over three weeks!!!

extra post.

2007-04-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

[delete]

Humorous Wisdom!

2007-04-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Let me leave you with a little bit of humorous wisdom from Anne of Avonlea.

"That night John Henry Carter and Davy between them contrived to execute the two white roosters, and Anne dressed them, the usually distasteful task quite glorified in her eyes by the destination of the plump birds.
"I don't like picking fowls," she told Marilla, "but isn't it fortunate we don't have to put our souls into what our hands may be doing? I've been picking chickens with my hands but in imagination I've been roaming the Milky Way."**
"I thought you'd scattered more feathers over the floor than usual," remarked Marilla."
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery, Page 138.
**Laugh here

A Day of Unfortunate Events

2007-04-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Okay so my english teacher had us reading a novel that was terrible and full of profanity, s*x*al content, etcetera. So I basically told her it bothered, offended and made me feel uncomfortable when I read it. "Too late to do another novel" she said, and then she told me to skip to the last section. Then I did and it was clean. GLAD THAT'S OVER WITH! Tuff luck for me, I still have to write a paper on the thing w/two outside resources. x_x

Anyways! So the only happy thing in my life is ANNE OF GREEN GABLES SERIES!!! I listened to the first one (Anne of Green Gables) on CD years ago when me, Mom and Laura drove to Texas in the van, so I started reading Anne of Avonlea last night. (While I was post-nasal-dripping due to Sunday night being spent at Danielle and Stephen's house, I felt terrible... but thanks to prayers, garlic and anti-histamines, I was better today! and no sore throat...>.<) I read it for probably about 3-4 hours today, after skipping Geometry, going to Biology lecture and skipping Biology Lab. Unfortunately, we had a test today in Geometry... I hope Mister Custer'll let me make it up, but he's a jolly ole chap so I'm sure he won't mind. I tore myself away long enough to go with Brandy to her friend's band playing at the Farmer's Market, and then a band called "The ???" played. It was fun! I saw a guy that used to flirt with me and -in my eyes- led me on at work, WHO I avoided extensively, and a girl named Katie that I met when her mom bought one of our goats and who I hung out with a little... yeah, I avoided her too- I wouldn't've known what to say!

Then Brandy's car died in McDonald's drive-thru, we went to the church and the oil light came on, so we checked it and filled it with a 1/2 full bottle from MY car, then went to wal*mart, talked in the parking lot for 15 minutes, then went in and got oil, two super cheap flashlights (for our cars, neither of us had one!), then went back to the church (in JER, btw, faithful ole oldsmobile), put THAT quart of oil in (I accidentally got a wee bit upset/spat at her when she spilt alot, but I repented and felt bad immeadiately- Brandy's too darlin'), then checked it and it hit the first of the two holes on the dipstick. WAHLAH! *high-fives with Brandy* We're oil savvy! Hahaha, too bad I still don't actually know how to CHANGE oil. So there's my adventures for today.

Back to Buksbari!

2007-03-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

So my riding instructor cancelled lessons until the week of March 26th. I'm back now! I volunteer on Thursdays and have my lesson on Thursdays, so I was there today from 3:45 to 7:20. Jennifer rides on Thursdays too! I got to see her, and we've started doing Natural Horsemanship too. She only taught the friendly and porcupine games, pushing passenger and one rein stops today... but she said she's gonna gradually teach the games until we have them all down. I'm hoping she'll try to move along fast, because I know all 7 games! *sobs with desperation* But she did help me to realize that Cowgirl was dashing to the side of the poles when I was going over at a trot, BECAUSE I MYSELF was tense!

I can think "Naturally" (aka- w/Natural Horsemanship), and if you give me a situation- I can bail you out with NH....I just have troubles remembering and keeping all the "Natural Ways of Thinking" in my head when riding!

BTW, I have no saddle at the moment that fits my horse, so I get to focus solely on Parelli NH groundwork YAY! He needs it too, the little pookey. The pic is of us JUST the other day, w/Sabina!

Zaide and Malik

2007-03-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

I seriously cannot remember WHEN but here's the SHORT version of Zaide and Malik's story:

Buttercup gave birth to two baby boy goats, but didn't know exactly what to do with them. She licked them a little bit, and stayed with them, but really didn't know what to do beyond that. Well, they were both still in the sac, and Zaide wasn't really doing well. Malik was on his feet like a normal kid, but they were both very weak - too weak to nurse even. Zaide would lay there with his head bent back (just like our other goat kid Ginger before we had to put her down), looking dead other than him breathing. Mom said we might oughta just leave them, but I couldn't! It made me cry they were just so small and pitiful. So I milked Buttercup and fed them. Zaide wouldn't suck the bottle, he was probably close to death; Malik sucked greedily. Well, the SECOND time I fed them, Zaide finally was sucking the bottle!

To sum it up, they're both alive and healthy. Another baby, Sugar, (whose mother neglected her and her brother, so they were adopted by Piper who had one boy) was starving to death literally. Those two male kids were sucking Piper dry so there wasn't anything for Sugar. So now we put Buttercup up three times a day in the milking stand so Sugar can nurse. Zaide also nurses on her (then I feed him because he doesn't get enough), but Malik is totally dependent on a bottle (and us!). They follow me around EVERYWHERE, especially Malik. He's discovered how to get out of the gate and will follow me into the house! They're so darlin'!
(top one is Malik, second one is Zaide--they were about to follow me out the gate!)

Hiking! (and a wee bit of randomness)

2007-03-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

First, let me explain the randomness: I'm in my mom's office and her analog clock just went buzerk. It started spinning around REALLY REALLY fast, changing the time. OH! It just hit me- it sets itself. *dies* Well, let's just say that analog clocks resetting themselves is a LITTLE scary when you first witness it. *shivers* I really had NO idea what was going on.

Okay so "Hiking!" well, for Youth Conference this year we're having a trek. I'm not sure how many miles it is, but we're pushing actual handcarts filled with our stuff and food for probably about...25 miles is my guess. Anyways, I need to get in shape! I'm sick and tired of walking up the hill at Virginia Western and being so out of breath that I'm embarassed. (and yes, this year I've been diligently parking ACROSS the street instead of anderson's parking lot) Not only that, but- I enjoy hiking! I enjoy walking outSIDE! It all started with:

I went to Mary J's and she takes walks on her VERY convenient and secluded walking path (consisting of: her extremely long driveway, her neighbor's extremely long driveway, and the two ginormous fields of her neighbor's). Then, I come home and Bonnie's at my house the next day. Well, we all know Bonnie's lovely-super-skinny and ultra-high-metabolized, plus she loves working, walking, and basically anything physically challenging. So her and I took an HOUR long walk on Sunday and - while it was thoroughly exhausting - it made me excited and I enjoyed it! Since then, I've been doing exercise videos Monday, Wednesday and Fridays along with pilates ab moves M,W,F, eating LESS (yes Sarah! I'm doing so good!) and healthier, and being more active overall.

SO, Bonnie's been dying to go hiking this summer, and I said I'd like to go. In July we're planning on a three day-two night 27-30 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail. Do not gawk, gasp, etc. THEIR Girls Camp's 4th Year hike is 27 miles two nights, three days. The 3rd year hike is the one *I* went on and it was one night 12 miles or something. But anyhoo, I need to get in shape for that too!

I'm gonna start hiking every Friday or Saturday at Waid, the Parkway, or the Cascades, etc. This Friday I invited everyone at seminary (4 consented to go) to come to Waid and go hiking. I'm so excited! I'm anxious to get started too! This is my third week of exercising, and I made a deal w/mom that once I've exercised for three weeks I can get new shoes. I probably should get some sort of hiking shoe, but I want some walking shoes too.

I'll be sure to take pictures and post them!

Friendship? I don't think--

2007-03-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

Gollee, I do get tired of being a friend sometimes! This is what *I* imagine a friend is supposed to do:

1. Be there for your friend
2. Understand when something's wrong and what it is with your friend
3. Help your friend to become a better person
4. Pick them up when they're down (make them happy)
5. BE their friend, CONTACT them, CALL them up, INITIATE a hangout time
6. And when they trust you enough to tell you a secret about an interest, or something personal, be nice and don't crack jokes or let your disgusted feelings with their choice show
7. MOST OF ALL--Believe them when they say that you'll "Have a good time" or that "Yes girl, you are pretty" or that "I'm not sure if you'd be happy with them"
8. And when they tell you to try and be optimistic, then BY golly DON'T JOKE and actually BE optimistic- that MIGHT actually BE what they meant!!!

***inserts exasperated sigh here*** Oh well, at least I have my family. They're the only ones that I can STAND for longer than a couple of minutes! Soon, I'm going to construct the "Bruingtonappolis" and no one is allowed unless they're Bruington or married-into-Bruington blood. Then I shall be content. >.<

The Beginning...

2007-03-16T07:58:00.000-07:00

...of a new blog. Xanga was wonderful, great, not to mention FUN while everyone was there. We commented, read, enjoyed, laughed and blogged together. Then MySpace took over! No more blogging, just stupid bulletins stuffed with nonsense posted everyday. BARF! I blogged a little there, but the clutter of everything else was too distracting. Going back to my xanga, I posed a few but it wasn't the same without everyone else's xanga comments. *sigh*

So then Sarah started blogging here and I like it! Now I am here, and this is where I'll stay.

hahahaha, I'm such a dork. xP