A Burning Question

I have a question for you ladies out there. And I suppose guys too, I don't want to discriminate, but probably (hopefully?) mostly ladies.

I have recently decided that I need to explore the realm of mascara a bit. I have no clue what brought it on as I've been a Maybelline Full N' Soft girl for years and I'm certainly not dissatisfied with it.

I think I just feel the need to make sure that there isn't anything better out there.

In doing some research on the subject I noticed something. Have you really looked at the price of makeup lately? $7-$12 for mascara at the drugstore? Wow. I would really like to know what exactly costs that much. I suppose someone needs to pay Drew Barrymore and Queen Latifah.

Anyways, where was I...oh yes, so once I got over the prices, I started looking around at the different mascaras. Full n' Soft, Long n' Lush, Volume Express, Volume Shocking, Voluminous, Lashblast, Lash Discovery, Great Lash, Define-A-Lash, Lash Out...wow. Where to even start?!

There are the different brush styles...maybe I'd go that direction. This is the Full N' Soft brush that I've been using.

It's great. I've always thought it was the way to go. I have no idea why though. So I picked a different type of brush. Something more like this...

Wow! HUGE difference! I think the mascara was Volume Express (also by Maybelline). My lashes are longer and thicker, for sure. Only problem is, unless I carefully brush and separate them, they look a little like this...

Yikes! I only wear a smudged/smokey look charcoal eye liner with Very Black mascara, no eye shadow, so if I have tarantula eyelashes, it stands out a bit.

So I like the longer and thicker eye lashes part, but not having to be so careful and take the time to brush it. I have to have waterproof mascara.

So my burning question to all of you is...what mascara do you use? Do you have a tried and true? Something you hated? Suggestions on brushes to look for? Any tips or tricks? Anything at all?

Sunday Stills Challenge - Moods and Emotions

Well howdy strangers! Long time no see! I have a confession to make...I haven't even picked up my camera in months. Months! I'm not sure exactly why, but I didn't even realize how long it had been since I really took some pictures until I picked up my camera Friday night with this SSC in mind. It felt weird in my hand and that made me very sad.

But I'm back! And hoping it's a regularly back thang, not hit and miss. I really want to challenge myself to take better pictures and learn more about my camera this year.

On to the Sunday Stills Challenge this week, which is Moods and Emotions. "This challenge is for you to get a shot that enables a response in the person who views your pic not one that is your personal emotion. For example if I see a pic of a tranqual stream or a sunrise I feel mellow, If I see a pic of a doggie smiles or a horse doing his rolling in dirt thing It makes me smile, you get the idea."

This is definitely a challenge, but I know my pets always evoke some sort of emotion in me (good and bad, lol) and May Belle (aka: Chunk, Fatty, Tubby, Chubs...she's a little....um...rotund) was a happy and willing subject for me. Each of these pictures makes me feel a little different, what do they do for you?

Chunk stretching out of her little ball to glare at me and the camera.

Chunk on her back. You might think she's all sprawled out sleeping, but no...the dog is on the ground just out of the frame and she's teasing her.

Bath time!

*YAWN*

And here we have poor, pathetic Cheyanne cuddling with her substitute kitty, the hedgehog, because the kitties are playing outside and she is stuck in the house. If that doesn't make you stick out your lower lip and feel bad for her, I don't know what will. :-)

That's all for this week! Hope to see you all again next week!

In Other News...

Well, now that I've gotten those posts out of the way, on to 2010! This year is going to kick some serious booty, I just know it! 2009...well, it just kinda sucked, to be quite honest. Maybe it's just because it went out on such a sour note, I'm not really sure. It wasn't the greatest year, so I'm glad to be done with it and getting a fresh start in a new year. Decade even!

We started off the year riding our ponies. Doesn't get any better then that, does it? I was careful and used my "best judgement", but I rode. I got off regularly to check and make sure her guts weren't falling out (the exercise wasn't bothering her incision), since she had just gotten her stitches out and all, but it did just fine. We loped and she was enjoying herself, so I decided she would probably be just fine for the show over the weekend.

My goal for the first show of the year had been to finally, finally get our flying lead changes in our pattern. I was a little skeptical though. We hadn't had any lessons since the last show because of her lameness and surgery. The day before the show was the first real ride I had been able to have on her since the previous show more then a month ago. Yikes. While warming up I asked for lead changes and she did them with just a swish of the tail. I couldn't believe it. The pattern had changed for this show, the first time in years at the series, so I was ready to have some problems with Midori thinking she knew the pattern. And I did. She just knew that after 2 large fast and one small slow circle to the right, we were supposed to change leads and do those circles to the left. Unfortunately in pattern number 4 you stop and do 4 spins to the right after the circles. She was not about to stop. We had already changed leads (simple, as we had always done before) and were heading into the next circle, battling it out before she finally stopped. Damn. There went our score. Oh well. I finished the pattern nailing both of our flying lead changes. WOHOO!!! She was all sorts of confused when we walked out of there. That was certainly not the pattern she was trying to do! I was thrilled just for the fact that we got our flying lead changes. As you may remember, they've been a pretty major battle for us the whole time we've been together. We had a little "school the naughty pony" time, but for the most part I was pretty darn satisfied with the class, even though we didn't get a score.

The boyfriend won his beginner reining class, had a fabulous run, and then two handed his bratty pony in our rookie reining class, getting him a no score as well. It was still a good day. I was just so happy to be back on my horse!

Our lessons are going well. What few I've had. I did take a couple lessons on Sugar while Midori was out of commission. That was fun and a great learning experience. She is in a bridle so I had to ride one handed, which is always a challenge for me. It was good though, helped me relax a bit. We have been talking about getting a new horse for me because we're totally diggin' the reining thing and would like to get into it a little more. Midori isn't much of a reiner, so if I want to really get into reining, I'll need a different horse. Midori will still be my dink around with everything else horse, I still plan to do some cutting and rail shows, I'd like to do sorting again, stuff like that. Don't have a whole lot of cash floating around to put into a horse right now though, so that may have to wait a while.

We've got some ambitious plans for 2010. I'm hoping this will really be the year that we get our barn situated. And our arena. I won't hold my breath though. Of course there are the requisite pay off debt, save-save-save, get on the blasted tread mill and get in better shape, get organized, etc. resolutions that are always around. And plenty of house and yard projects that we'd like to tackle as well.

So here's to 2010! I hope you kick 2009's ass!

Midori...

Don't worry, Midori is still alive and kickin'. We had a rough couple of weeks with her too though. The same vet appointment that sealed Mister's fate also brought some news I wasn't expecting for Midori. She had just recently come up lame, which is not like her at all. She also had a small bump on her belly that had just recently gotten bigger. The vet wasn't particularly worried about the bump, but offered to remove it with a simple surgery and send it in for testing, so that's what we did. We did a lameness exam and concluded it was either an abscess or bruising. I left with antibiotics because of the surgery and instructions to soak and pack her foot, in case it was an abscess. Goodie, my favorite.

She trotted out sound after just a day, so that made me happy. Must have been bruising. The vet appointment was Thursday afternoon. The vet said she would probably have results back on the bump on Monday. Saturday afternoon I received a rather panicked sounding voice mail from the vet asking me to call her back as soon as I could. I honestly don't remember much of that conversation, other then the lump was a fibrosarcoma which is a malignant tumor. After some good ol' internet research, I was pretty much freaking out thinking my horse was dying. Everything that I read said that it is a very aggressive tumor that is difficult to get rid of unless caught early and removed entirely. It spreads quickly and there is really not much to be done about it. Great. Fan-flipping-tastic.

So two weeks, Christmas, a bunch of swelling, a second round of antibiotics and a whole lot of freaking out later, we went back to the vet on New Year's Eve to get her stitches out and have "the talk" in person. I was afraid to hope for good news and trying not to think of the possible bad news. I was pretty darn nervous.

Luckily, the news was all good. Great even. The lump was dermal so it shouldn't have spread internally. The margins on the removal were good, so it was all removed and the vet was confident that we caught it early. Of course I will still need to keep an eye out, there is always a chance that it may come back, but for now, that was the best news I could have asked for.

Better yet, she said I could ride her "immediately". I just needed to use my "best judgement" on how hard I ride. Well, I'm pretty sure her "immediately" and my "immediately" were a little different. She probably had a different idea for "best judgement" as well. Oops.

As soon as Midori was awake enough after being sedated, I loaded her up and headed straight to the arena. She was still a little drunk, so we just walked with a little bit of jogging. She had been pretty wound up before the vet, so it was probably a good thing she was still a little doped up, no funny business. Even though we took it easy and she was still a little drunk, it was one of the best rides I've had on her. I was so stinking happy that she seems to be okay!

Mister

I'm not sure that I can do Mister justice with a bunch of words. I just feel like I need to do this as part of saying good bye to him.

We made the decision to have Mister put down the week before Christmas. He'd been having issues with chronic abscesses and was not a happy camper. After a visit to the vet and xrays, it was clear that he would never be 100% sound again. In addition, his outlook was "very grim" as far as even being comfortable and pain free. As much as it was hard to hear the vet tell me that, it was the concrete answers we needed to make our decision. He was only 5 years old, which meant he had a lot of years ahead of him to be in pain. Euthanasia seemed like the kindest thing to do for him.

So good bye Buddy. Rest in peace.