A Confession

Ok, I have a few confessions.

First, in case you've missed it...I'm rather obsessed with Twilight. Reading those books has been a life altering experience, as much as I tried to fight it, and I don't regret it one bit.

Second, I am beyond excited about the New Moon movie. I have tickets to the midnight showing tonight with a bunch of girlfriends and I cannot wait! I also now have tickets to go see it AGAIN tomorrow, during school hours, in hopes of actually getting to really watch the movie without all the screaming tweens, packed theater and general excitement and distractions from the movie that I expect at the midnight showing.

Third, and this is the big one...I'm a New Moon movie virgin. I have somehow managed to avoid all of the movie trailers that are out there. I have seen plenty of pictures and other good stuff from the movies, but I figure that's only 2nd or 3rd base. I have avoided most things that could be a spoiler for me. I ordered the soundtrack when it came out, but have only listened to the first couple songs on it because I decided I didn't even want to have that experience going into the movie.

Let me tell you, it was no small feat to avoid all that stuff either! There are spoilers, trailers and pictures every where! I've heard it said that if you piece together all of the trailers and pictures out there you could probably watch the whole dang movie. I have clicked away from temptations online, avoided searching them out and closed my eyes and hummed through ones that were unavoidable. It was really hard to continue to get my Twilight fix without accidentally seeing something I didn't want to. And I thank all the blogs and sites that had warnings when posts contained spoilers! That helped a lot.

As I've heard so many other Twihards express, I never expected to get this caught up in a book or a movie. I've never done the midnight show thing before. I've never bought shirts, sweatshirts, movie guides, magnets, puzzles, candies, stuck small pins in conspicuous places to "out" myself to others like me and spent countless hours browsing through merch to see if there is anything else I have to have. I've never "squee'd" and "eeeeee'd" and bounced around so much over a book or movie in my life. It's ridiculous. I feel like I'm 12 again and I alternate between laughing at myself and hanging my head in shame over it. I try to keep myself under control, but it doesn't always work. And the excitement building up to New Moon coming out has pretty much taken over my life lately. My friend, the one I blame for all of this, I'll call her The Enabler, has only encouraged my Twitardedness. Whenever I see her I pretty much involuntarily start bouncing up and down. I can't help it. If there are a lot of non-twihard people around I can atleast usually keep my SQUEEEEEEE down to a 6 inch voice. I've still gotten plenty of looks.

So here's to hoping this movie totally rocks! I'm pretty confident that even if it is bad I'll still love it just because it's Twilight related. I've heard very good things about it though and it looks like it's going to be amazing from the little that I have seen. I do have moments of panic that saving myself like I have will have the opposite effect that I was hoping and I will have put the movie on a pedastal (get it? 40 Year Old Virgin reference. Any one?), but I don't think that will be the case.

What are your feelings on the New Moon movie or the whole Twilight deal? Are you head over heels for it? Think it's the stupidest thing ever? Do you have a plan for seeing the movie? I want to know!

Lookie What I Got...

So I mentioned here that I ended up 2nd place in the cutting series that we did over the summer. We had our awards banquet this past weekend and I got a buckle for my second place finish in the Green/Green class.

Reserve Champion buckle...not too shabby!



It's a pretty buckle and bigger then my other buckle, though not quite as flashy. It's a little more simple and classic.

Do you know how excited I am that I even have buckles to compare right now? Oh my goodness, coolest thing ever! I'm pretty darn excited about it!

I also got 5th place out of quite a few teams in the team cutting they did for fun at the last show so I received one of these...

These hoof picks are so fun! I just love them.

It was a very fun banquet and great end to the year. The boyfriend has decided to concentrate on reining for now and doesn't plan to do cutting next year, but I would like to do another season of it. The shows are a lot of fun, every one is super duper nice and it's just a really good time.

Boot Camp, Shows and Mister

Midori and I have been working hard continuing with boot camp. Since the last post I have tried a few new things, one of them being switching bits to what I affectionately call my Miracle Bit. It's a gag bit and it's fabulous! Midori is almost soft in it! I'm not playing tug-o-war with her any more! She is way better and any time she thinks about hanging on the bit I can just bump her right off of it, though it does bother me wondering what made her so hard in the first place. I've always thought I had pretty soft/light hands. Regardless, it makes the lead changes so much easier! And of course as soon as we got her head under control other issues that were hindering our progress popped right out, which made it easier to understand why we were having so much trouble. Amazing how that works! Now that I know about those issues, we have been working on them and things are really coming along. Our lead changes still aren't pretty but atleast left to right they are consistant. Right to left, they are still a challenge, but she'll atleast DO them and even in a mostly collected manner (for us anyways).


So our lead changes are getting better. Still have a loooooong ways to go, but we are getting them. YAY! Our spins are looking more like very slow motion spins instead of watching and going, WTF are you trying to do?!? lol Our stops come and go, but I'm not sure that she'll ever slide. Our rating and circles are decent, we don't work on those much. She's spent the last 5 years rating and running in circles in drill, so that's not a concern for us at this point.

It's very exciting to feel that progress is being made! Unfortunately due to illnesses and scheduling conflicts we have ended up with a couple week break in lessons and riding for the most part. The ponies have all been a bit under the weather for the last week or so, recovering from a day or two of major runs, and with 2-3 shows coming up this month, I wanted to make sure they got a break and were 100% all better before we worked them too hard. Midori especially dropped a bunch of weight in a matter of days, but never got dehydrated or ran a fever and didn't look anything more then unhappy about her circumstances. I got them on Fasttrack and electrolytes to help their guts and make sure they didn't get dehydrated, but other then that I couldn't find much else that I could do for them. Sugar and Mister seem to have gotten over it just fine, but Midori is still not 100%. She was the only one that was ridden hard as she was getting sick and I wonder how much that has to do with it. I'm hoping she gets back to 100% this week! We've got our next show this coming weekend and I need to get a couple rides on her before then! We should still be able to take it pretty easy though, it's just one reining pattern and I don't think a lack of warm up time will be what hurts us. lol

There are two of the winter series shows this month and then we skip December. There is also another show at the arena that has a schooling reining pattern that we are thinking about going to. Practice is always good! They also have a trail class, which I really like so I might have to do that one too. Also happening this coming weekend is the awards/year end banquet for our cutting club. I'm looking forward to finding out if I get a buckle for my second place finish in that series!

In other news, I've gotten a few rides on Mister. We started with a new shoer who is aggressively correcting his club foot. The previous shoer was simply maintaining it and Mister had been pretty much chronically lame with abscess after abscess for most of the past 6-8 months. He's been mostly sound with this new shoer. Very exciting! From so much time off and so many issues though his shoulder was extremely atrophied so we spent a lot of time ponying him around or hand walking and light lunging to build his muscle back up. Other then some soreness, he's been just fine and in the last month or so I decided he looked ready to carry my butt around a bit. I've gotten 3 rides on him, even getting up to loping both directions. He is still, of course, very green, but seems much more confident packing a person around then he did last time I was riding him. He has been such a good boy! Last time I was on him the arena was pretty busy so I didn't want to push him with loping. He took everything going on around him in stride and stayed focused on what I was asking him to do, but instead of loping I decided to work on moving off my legs: sidepassing and pivoting on his haunches and forehand. He's very sticky with moving his shoulders or hips, though he seems to understand moving off my legs while I'm riding. He'll try to shape away from my leg or move over the direction I ask while he's going forward. It was a completely new concept for him when standing still, but after he got those wheels turning, he seemed to pick it up pretty quickly, I was pleased. I'm hoping to get some more time on him soon, but he was sick too and does still have some issues with lameness, so I don't want to push him too hard.

We had a wonderful day outside yesterday enjoying the sunshine and possibly the last of the nice weather. I only had one long sleeve thermal shirt on with my puffy vest! The ponies enjoyed some attention and a little TLC. I'm sure they appreciated having clean butts and tails, even though the water was cold. :) We got another paddock up for the boyfriends sister's horse that we are boarding and that freed up the arena-to-be area and got us motivated to have more sand brought in so we can atleast get the round pen up with some good footing. It would be really nice to have that available for turn out this winter and so that we have some where to atleast get the ponies some exercise on nice days, even if it's not great for getting any real work done with them.

Lots of work to be done, as always. And of course not enough hours in the day, but we'll get there! Atleast there is progress being made on many different fronts!

Hope you all are enjoying fall!

Sunday Stills Challenge - Halloween

This weeks SSC was anything having to do with Halloween so I've decided to showcase my mad pumpkin carvin' skillz. And the fact that I'm a 28 year old Twitard. Ya...



So I had some girlfriends over for the Great Pumpkin Carving Adventure 2009 a couple weeks ago and this is what we came up with.

All very cute and all totally different. Love it! Can you guess which one is mine?

Yep, I'm the twitard, complete with vampire fangy smile and all. In my defense, there was alcohol involved, but probably not enough to make this acceptable. I also may have been breaking in my Edward/Jacob tshirt that night, but there are no pictures to prove it.

So here I go, outing myself to the world with my Twitard pumpkin sitting on my porch. Only you can't see my porch from the road, so no one knows. Except you. And all the good people that read Twitarded, because I apparently made JJ and STY's day when I sent it to them so they posted it there as well. Eeks!

All righty then. I think that's enough embarrassing myself for one evening. Hope you all had a happy Halloween! And we're into the teens for the countdown to New Moon! YEEHAW!

Sunday Stills Challenge - Landscapes and Fall Foliage

I love fall! I love watching trees turn and seeing all the colors. It's my favorite time of year. Other then the frosty mornings. I'm really not ready for frost and cold again. It seems like we were just here.

Regardless, the colors are beautiful. Unfortunately, the weather and my schedule did not cooperate this week at all. It has been cloudy and gray all week so that combined with the 20 seconds of daylight I have when I get home from work, getting pics for this challenge just wasn't looking promising. Then yesterday I got lucky! It was still cloudy and foggy most of the morning, but when I came home from running some errands I noticed the mountain was peeking out just enough and the sun was shining on this lone little maple tree at the bottom of our property. Of course the tree is somewhat past it's color turning glory, but I think it's still pretty.

Happy fall!

Kitten Update!

I realized I haven't done an update on the kittens in quite a while so here's what they've been up to. They are getting big! Well, bigger. I think they will stay pretty small cats though. They are growing up quickly. I got over my over-protective tendencies and have been kicking them outside all day. I think they like it, they aren't terribly anxious to get back in when I get home.

They are really good tree climbers. Too good, actually. They love it and they won't stop. The turkeys.

This was Chunks first tree climbing experience. We left for a bit one day and when we got home she was up the tree meowing pathetically.

See her peeking out? She was quite a ways up the tree. In the picture below you can see her little face about a quarter of the way down the pic next to the wire. She was probably 30-40 feet up.



I made the boyfriend climb up the tree and get her down before it got dark. The next day she climbed it again. I told her she had to figure it out this time, she only got one get out of jail free pass. She was down just after dark. Smart kitty!

Legs on the other hand...apparently not so smart. She was climbing trees the whole time I was out holding horses for the shoer a couple weeks ago. She would meow like she was stuck for a while, but always figured out a way to get down. Then she got stuck. We figured she could find a way to get down on her own, but she never did. She spent the night in the tree. Poor thing. Must have been a miserable night. I woke up in the middle of the night to check if she had gotten herself down and was ready to come in, but she was still stuck. It was just as well though because there was a rather large sounding pack of coyotes very close so atleast she was safe in the tree. She was down when I got home from work the next day though so I didn't worry about it too much.

I went out of town this last weekend and she got herself good and stuck while I was gone. She did it sometime while the boyfriend was out running errands Saturday afternoon. She still had not come down by the time I got home from work on Monday. The tree she was up was not one we could climb easily so after some figurin' I decided I could pull my truck under it to stand on and snag her out of the branches. She was one traumatized little kitty after 48 hours in a tree. She hasn't been climbing trees much since and I hope she learned her lesson!

When we are home and Chey is outside they are her entertainment. She likes to stalk them.

She is one smart little puppy dog too, cracks me up. She hides behind the truck tires and peeks around them to watch the kittens come out of hiding and then pounces.



The kittens are much braver when we are outside to yell at Cheyanne. They are such trouble makers! So funny to watch though!

This is a close up of Chunk aka: May Belle. Overall she has darker coloring and her tabby stripes are really coming out. She's very pretty! She has a very white belly and paws and light yellow-green eyes.

Legs aka: June Bug, has much lighter coloring, more orange and light colors. Her eyes are a really dark gold color.



They are both just adorable and super friendly. They love to curl up on the couch with us when we are watching tv.

The poor things are cutting teeth right now though. I was holding Legs and petting her and noticed something on her chest. It was a tooth! So I had to inspect and see where it came from. It was Chunks tooth! Not sure how it ended up on Legs' chest! In my teeth inspecting though I found this...

Poor Chunk has two canine teeth on her top right side. Her gums are all red and sore looking. And neither of them are loose. Legs has a really loose tooth on her bottom left, but I couldn't get it out. Poor kittens. I'm sure they aren't enjoying that experience too much. And it's about time to be getting them spayed too. They may not like me for a while.

G.A.G.

Well here we are, October 13th already. Again, time is just flying lately. I swear I just posted about entering the G.A.G. and now it's time for the drawing. Where does time go?!?

Before I get into the winners of the G.A.G. I told y'all I'd fess up to what I believe is the quirkiest of all of my quirky habits. It's nothing spectacular, but it is definately weird. Please don't think less of me.

Here goes...

I have issues with washing socks. I don't mind doing laundry all that much, my issues are with socks in particular. I will stick my hand in dirty socks to turn them right-side-out no problem. Well, most of the time no problem. Sometimes during the summer I have a problem with the boyfriends socks after a particularly hot day, but that's another story.

Now, here is the weird part. If I miss a sock and it comes out of the dryer inside-out, I have to turn it right-side-out and then wash it again. No clue why, but I feel like I stretched it out or dirtied it in some weird way if I turn it right-side-out after it's washed.

Yes, I do have issues and I do realize exactly how ridiculous this sounds.

Here is where it gets even weirder (if that's even possible) and where the boyfriend looks at me like I've totally lost it...if I find one of the boyfriends socks in the clean clothes that is inside-out, I will go hand it to the boyfriend and make him turn it right-side-out and then I will go along my merry way putting it away. That is okay. It's not dirty because it was his sock and he turned it right-side-out. If he's not around and I have to turn his sock right-side-out, back in the wash it goes. My socks don't usually get turned inside-out, but if they do, I will usually wash them again.

*blushes*

Ok, now that you all think I'm a total weirdo, let's give away some prizes!

Thanks to those of you that commented and fessed up to some of your quirks! It's nice to know that every one has them, even if they aren't as crazy weird as mine. ;) jrosey, I twirl my hair too, constantly! Paint Girl - totally there with you on the TP. Lisa I have to seperate the colors when I eat Skittles, or I chose carefully which ones I do combine. And Pony Girl, I unfortunately do not have moments of panic like that and have left the stove on more then once. Oops!

Now, since I only got 5 comments/entries (a very sad day for me!) I have decided that instead of having 2 drawings and leaving 3 of you out, all 5 of you get something! WOHOO!!!

Here are your choices:

1. I will preorder a copy of the Pioneer Woman Cookbook from Amazon for you. It is scheduled to be released October 27th. I really can't wait to get my paws on this cookbook and preordered mine as soon as it was available! I have made many, many, many of the recipes on her website and they are always delicious and HUGE hits at parties or with friends!

2. The Mystery Gift Package, which will be some combination of my fave wine, coffee, chocolates or candy with something horsey, Twilighty, doggy or kitty thrown in. You'll have to let me know your preferences or tell me to take a stab at it and surprise you.

Send me an email (furryfourleggedkids@gmail.com) and let me know what's floatin' your boat! And thanks so much for participating and reading my blog!!!