tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62154389111831076142024-03-12T18:17:38.473-06:00The good thingsMy family, my friendsStacy Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13737391259567676675noreply@blogger.comBlogger388125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-66345213400052964402016-10-25T07:56:00.000-06:002016-10-25T07:58:54.037-06:00Down UnderWe have been threatening to go to Australia with Hubby for several years now.<br />
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This summer it finally worked out.</div>
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We left August 3rd, flew to Sydney, then over to Auckland, drove to Wellington, then flew back and up to Cairns Australia, then back to Sydney.</div>
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I just finished making a book about it on Shutterfly, they were having a sale so I rapidly wrapped up the book I had started several weeks ago. Of course after I finished I realized there were other pictures I should have included from my phone, or from Red, who is a pretty good photographer, but I didn't. And now it's ordered. I guess nothing is perfect.</div>
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But it is finished.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Instead of taking the tram back up, our family opted to climb up the stairs, which was something like 920 steps. We were glad we did, as the views were amazing.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What you might not be able to see is the little white specs in the back ground are cockatoos flying across the gorge. It was amazing!</td></tr>
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This is all from just the first tour we went on, around Sydney. I can see I am going to have to be even more selective<br />
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We flew to New Zealand, and saw Hobbiton, which was one of the highlights of the trip!<br />
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We went to Rotorua, and walked along the suspended pathways of a redwood forest<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixc1p_vGXZBXf-0bp3Mx6z_roKQE5A6qe13eTRd01LLJjags8NKGL8-5v-HAzN2k-brqmKaWPWwj4bJatl3zPVj8kqnFx_FDqfWs6p25nO2nmlpM4lW34ypcbLJ4PiLeC6n4oCNh1qbYg/s1600/DSCN2171.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixc1p_vGXZBXf-0bp3Mx6z_roKQE5A6qe13eTRd01LLJjags8NKGL8-5v-HAzN2k-brqmKaWPWwj4bJatl3zPVj8kqnFx_FDqfWs6p25nO2nmlpM4lW34ypcbLJ4PiLeC6n4oCNh1qbYg/s640/DSCN2171.JPG" width="640" /></a> We saw the hotspots - a lot like Yellowstone<br />
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Near the hot pots there were some soaking pools that we relaxed in<br />
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Hmmmm... I need to be even more selective... That was only a couple of days into the trip.<br />
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Have to add more later.<br />
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-72218890271193754232016-09-16T12:57:00.001-06:002016-09-16T13:05:39.227-06:00SympathyBoth of my girls go to the Middle School. It's a public school about 15 minutes away from our house, for 8th and 9th graders.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
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On Sunday, Blondie told me there was a lot of noise on social media about a boy she knows kind of distantly, she's had a few classes with him. She said it looked like he had died. I said it's probably a rumor, 13 year old boys don't just die. She was upset and said the last interaction she'd had with him had been her telling him his joke was inappropriate, but he'd taken her comment well and he and everyone else he'd told the joke to had laughed and kind of agreed that it was a bad joke. I said he didn't sound like someone sad and depressed and committing suicide.</div>
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On Monday I got a text from the secretary of the Parent Teacher Student Organization, a friend of mine who has a son in 9th grade, she got me going to the monthly PTSO meetings. She said the meeting that morning was postponed until next week. I wondered but just thanked her.</div>
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Then an hour later I got another text from her saying she found out why it was postponed, did I know this family (with the same last name as the boy in Blondie's class)? She confirmed he had been found dead. I told her what I knew from the day before from Blondie.</div>
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When the girls came home that evening, they said the teachers in their first class had read something announcing that the boy had been found dead in his bed by his parents on Sunday morning. The boy had "dated" one of Blondie's good friends over the summer, but she had broken up with him before school started because he had grown "distant." </div>
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On Tuesday as I was walking the dog I got an automated voicemail and texts saying there was "an additional 13 year old student" found dead. I was walking past a neighbor's house who has a daughter in 9th grade - Red's age. She was standing in her doorway listening to her voicemail when I walked by. Or course she called out and asked if I knew what was going on. Her daughter hadn't told her about the boy found on Sunday, since there was no official announcement, she had no idea and I didn't know anything about an "additional death" all I knew was the the boy they had found on Sunday. We wondered if it was the one from Sunday was the "additional" death? Was there one previous we hadn't known about? </div>
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I went home and found a police report had been released saying that there is a new heroin drug out on the market and how dangerous it is. They weren't saying the boy had consumed the drug. Then I got a phone call from my friend in the PTSO asking if I knew anything else, since I had a child in that grade. I didn't know any more than she did, but promised to keep her informed. She and I both wondered what this additional thing was about, there hadn't been an official notice about it. She said her son had said when they read the thing in the first period class they had asked the kids not to talk about it, to not spread rumors. So it would seem a lot of the kids hadn't even told their parents, making it even more confusing for them to receive the notifications we were getting.</div>
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About half an hour later there was another message from the district saying that the 2nd child in two days had been found dead. It was an "additional" child. My PTSO friend texted me back the name of the 2nd child, another 13 year old boy.</div>
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An hour after that I got a phone call from Blondie, she was sobbing and asked if I could come pick her up. It was about 11:30. I asked if she was okay and she said yes. I hopped in the car. It was chaos at the school, kids crying, they were just releasing for lunch, parents and students milling about in front of the office. An adult asked me if I was there to pick up my child and did I know where she was, no, she took me to the library. Everywhere I went there were informal "checkpoints' where people asked me who I was. Blondie was in the library and she was crying. I checked her out with the library monitor, signed her out at the school attendance desk, then explained who I was to the monitor standing at the school door who also warned me to make sure Blondie would be monitored.</div>
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Blondie said it was a mess at the school. They had told the kids who had started congregating at the counselor's office to go to the library because it was getting crowded in the counselor's office. Then they confirmed that someone else had been found dead but didn't say who because the families had requested some privacy. It doesn't take a pack of 8th graders very long, by a process of elimination, to figure out who is missing. The 2nd boy was the 1st boy's best friend. Blondie had freaked out when her friend who had dated the 1st boy wasn't around, but she had shown up at the library, I assume she'd been in the bathroom or the counselor's office. They had taken the kids in groups to tell them who the 2nd kid was, and Blondie said you could hear kids screaming - I heard that from another mother too - and crying when they found out. They were all spreading all kinds of rumors, that the 2nd boy had died at school, that it was suicide, that it was an accidental overdose with the drug everyone was talking about. I had thought it would be good to make Blondie stay in school and tough it out, but after being there and hearing her talk about how everyone was whipping each other into a frenzy, I figured maybe it was good to bring her home. When Red got home that afternoon, she confirmed that classes had been very quiet, all the teachers gave modified lessons or nothing at all, just reading or doing something else.</div>
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On Wednesday we did not receive any messages from the district - which I should clarify I was getting all of these messages in English and in Spanish, once for each child in school. My friend with three kids in the school system got six messages every time the district made one of their announcements. Then she and I got a text from another mother in the neighborhood, she'd heard on the news that a 9th grade girl from the middle school had made an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide that day. No more has been said about that one.</div>
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No one died or tried to on Thursday. So far no one has died today. </div>
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I realize I am talking about this in an abstract way, sort of impersonal. It was pretty hard to hear all this and while I don't know the boys or their families, it tore me up when I was hearing about it. I drove the carpool on Tuesday night to pick up Red and another girl from an art class, and while I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for them, there was a pretty good storm raging on, lightning and thunder like we don't usually get around here. I got a text from my neighbor, the one who had been on the phone listening to the message when I walked by, saying that she was pretty sure the rain and storm was for these boys, but they're together now... I busted up crying, which was frustrating because I was picking these girls up in a few moments and didn't want to be caught crying, and it was also frustrating because I couldn't find any kleenex in the car, and because it is embarrassing that I reacted that way even though I don't really believe that heaven cries when someone dies. But it was a sweet sentiment and it kind of hit me.</div>
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My friend who I walk dogs with has a daughter in Blondie's class who likes to know what is going on, who was also very good friends with the girlfriend of the 1st boy, and knows other kids in that group better than Blondie does. She said that another boy who has also been known to partake of illegal substances has had his room searched a couple times. He told the police the name of the 10th grade dealer that they suspect the boys would have gotten the drugs from. He suspected they had some of the drug in question, though none was found anywhere. The police told him that it was currently suspected as suicides. </div>
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I am so glad that my kids are NOT involved in at risk behaviors. That they talk to me. That they seem to be happy and stable. I cannot even imagine what it must be like for these families who are dealing with this. The whole community is holding its breath hoping that it ends here.</div>
stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-1656327425962234472016-07-20T18:23:00.001-06:002016-07-21T12:18:26.700-06:00KittensI have resisted getting a cat for years. Hubby had cats growing up, and has brought up getting one occasionally but I did not because my mother is allergic to them. My Grandma had cats and we would often sneak one home in an old ice cream container after a visit to Grandma's, but since my mother was allergic the cat would live outside until we forgot to feed it and then it would disappear.<br />
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On the excuse that my mother visited every couple of weeks during the summer, and that I just don't want to deal with another species, I have not wanted a cat. </div>
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There are times I have started to think about another dog. But since Kelso is so non-dominant, I am afraid another dog, especially a small one, would be likely to try and dominate him and then he would become unhappy. A large dog is, well, a whole other large dog. And as I'd love another collie and think a matched set would be great, there is no guarantee it would be cuddly and particularly playful, which is what the girls want in a dog. Kelso is the perfect dog for me, but he isn't cuddly, doesn't particularly want to be petted aside from wanting his butt scratched, and the girls would love a cuddly dog.</div>
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The real break down of my non-cat defenses came when Red started asking for a cat. She has a friend with cats and has visited her house and listens to her friend talk about them. So Red started on me.</div>
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I told her the big obstacle would be getting one that would tolerate the dog. Kelso goes to the barn and is used to cats, but I don't want to have to deal with a battle so we would need a cat that would put up with him. I figured a kitten would be more likely to do that.</div>
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Long story short we took Kelso to the rescue shelter and through a long process of watching kitten after kitten freak out when they saw him, we finally found two that didn't have a literal hissy fit when they were brought into the room with him. A black male and a cream colored female. While we were at the shelter the cream one sat calmly in Blondie's lap and the black one played on the floor under Kelso's legs with Red. It seemed obvious to me that if I'm getting a cat for the girls, I need to get both of these two. And I also let the shelter people convince me that two kittens is better than one.</div>
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It has worked out great. Neither cat cares about the dog - they have started playing with his nose when he comes over to sniff at them. The cats play a lot with each other. I find them hilarious, unless it's in the middle of the night. Hubby and Red and I have taken to shutting our doors at night. It disrupts the airflow through the hot house, but it does mean we won't get woken up in the middle of the night by a curious kitten. Blondie is more interested in having cats on her bed than in getting a good night's sleep, so she leaves her door open.</div>
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We named the creamy one Pangur Ban - after the cat in the <a href="http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/PangurBan.html" target="_blank">9th century Irish poem.</a> I had first heard about it in the movie The Secret of Kells, where they have a <a href="http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/PangurBan.html" target="_blank">fabulous song about Pangur Ban,</a> who is the abbot's white cat. Blondie was somewhat resistant to name the cat this, because I guess when we saw the movie a couple of years back I had said something about that being a fabulous name for a cat, and she wanted to have more input into the cat's name than me predestining it back then. But we all started calling her Pangur, even Blondie, and it kind of stuck.</div>
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The black cat the girls named Neko because that is "Cat" in Japanese and the girls watch so much anime it seemed natural.</div>
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Neither name is very common, Pangur especially takes some explanation and repetition. Blondie said she told someone we didn't want to just name the cats something completely ordinary. There is a family nearby with two dogs named by the kids - Snuggles and Fluffy or something like that, and we have always wanted to make sure our pets are not named something so pedestrian. I can't remember who it was, Hubby or Blondie, but one of them said something along the lines of "We're not just going to name the cat Friggin Mittens!" </div>
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Mittens, no. But Friggin Mittens, YES!!! If we hadn't already settled on Pangur, her name would have been Friggin Mittens.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCDlarJvxECIgdBrxlqHQ-BYS2nV48zyT_SXWspu1Gx06VpF3ka0FDnyDjWJE5JA6Ujqq4d0m9fJmgHzM79Mu14rPX4qC5Nrn5P1gUTyxUfKDz8m4OdVm_coVtWGYz8HfwcZRQZ6P0nM/s1600/IMG_0591-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCDlarJvxECIgdBrxlqHQ-BYS2nV48zyT_SXWspu1Gx06VpF3ka0FDnyDjWJE5JA6Ujqq4d0m9fJmgHzM79Mu14rPX4qC5Nrn5P1gUTyxUfKDz8m4OdVm_coVtWGYz8HfwcZRQZ6P0nM/s640/IMG_0591-2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtdKNys5ddDLncaHlcxtvX0BYXl9iVheh3N7P3j_MW6pgjgRRwWff5o3IZdZMw5XDY9V_XSMgm9whOaw-gmsVcSLRZ84OhUmMNwmX6_TM-SbxWOr1k2qHOKVse_bKpeOI8cjg3Vfd61M/s1600/IMG_0620.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtdKNys5ddDLncaHlcxtvX0BYXl9iVheh3N7P3j_MW6pgjgRRwWff5o3IZdZMw5XDY9V_XSMgm9whOaw-gmsVcSLRZ84OhUmMNwmX6_TM-SbxWOr1k2qHOKVse_bKpeOI8cjg3Vfd61M/s640/IMG_0620.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNuRVhH9CIOcyUHYVtxg11gofvePeoo78-T9R44qYYT8P9d4Eu6GUoyH6lkxziQ-fvul4tjRfqqKai4U0GCvhe22-nw5WCwO7-5oJiM0eae1SguKqgnOKBPW4JsfekV5z7SrJmKlOe1Y/s1600/IMG_0704-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNuRVhH9CIOcyUHYVtxg11gofvePeoo78-T9R44qYYT8P9d4Eu6GUoyH6lkxziQ-fvul4tjRfqqKai4U0GCvhe22-nw5WCwO7-5oJiM0eae1SguKqgnOKBPW4JsfekV5z7SrJmKlOe1Y/s640/IMG_0704-2.JPG" width="640" /></a>I have gotten so used to their littleness that I am not sure I'll know what to do with them when they're big. I guess we'll find out.</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-62170376937061832082016-07-04T23:28:00.003-06:002016-07-04T23:38:27.561-06:00Dog Proof Cat FeederWe just added two kittens to our family. I have resisted cats for a while, as I am a dog person really, but I have to admit it has been a fairly easy and amusing adjustment. <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
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Except for one thing.</div>
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The dog loves the kitty food. </div>
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He is a good dog, but training him to stay out of the cat food seemed like a pretty hard thing when buying a dog proof cat feeder seemed like an easy thing.</div>
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Except they cannot be bought. </div>
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I found one I liked on the internet, but alas and alack it isn't available anywhere I looked.</div>
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Here is the one I wanted.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVUPJunxQoC5HG03b0ywBemgkFI19g8PHAgfIgEYlkN5brZbgrB4QMt8fE3I8LLGMQa4lBPKe1UXMi6pYPnuWnrbEUCBfzHi8WYGhLFFI5fptRgq5Xm9WR3_V3OS4FCNxZhGznHDbGW-w/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-07-04+at+11.00.45+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVUPJunxQoC5HG03b0ywBemgkFI19g8PHAgfIgEYlkN5brZbgrB4QMt8fE3I8LLGMQa4lBPKe1UXMi6pYPnuWnrbEUCBfzHi8WYGhLFFI5fptRgq5Xm9WR3_V3OS4FCNxZhGznHDbGW-w/s640/Screen+Shot+2016-07-04+at+11.00.45+PM.png" width="291" /></a></div>
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I found it listed multiple times on pinterest, and the blog where this picture came from described it as prohibitively expensive, so they made their own.</div>
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I am not particularly handy and was kind of stuck.</div>
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Until I found this at IKEA</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf_0872Z5ndVWRDP-Pre9mvbRQdWdnrgZqXQqz8ItAC_KZxVNpmYMdttEaqGnJnf7p-PEJVGA8cDnYH_7C1MzJhi0KEK77bD4BhZTbLjTZkBiZ1EgUSp6sVbUf-E3_ZC7wXsV9JdJ_aI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-07-04+at+11.07.15+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf_0872Z5ndVWRDP-Pre9mvbRQdWdnrgZqXQqz8ItAC_KZxVNpmYMdttEaqGnJnf7p-PEJVGA8cDnYH_7C1MzJhi0KEK77bD4BhZTbLjTZkBiZ1EgUSp6sVbUf-E3_ZC7wXsV9JdJ_aI/s640/Screen+Shot+2016-07-04+at+11.07.15+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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I bought two. I figured it's a little small and I'd need a double wide.</div>
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Here's how I assembled it:</div>
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I attached two back pieces together using some 2 inch brackets from Home Depot. The brackets fit just fine in the holes provided for regular assembly. For steadiness I drilled some holes and added some dowels in between the two pieces, but you can't see that.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ2F6vWrcVDBg6mmsljXjwz44dQu11i5CEkmNypLX3BgaaMtizYP8lbCd41b0zTxwgnMduTqzyoWfHzDfmqW2QM7Wj0eFiHxkauwQX0hJZ_gHFSvGYuoqD2FLWJm6ihyphenhyphenb_iDP6eUzTiEg/s1600/IMG_0599.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ2F6vWrcVDBg6mmsljXjwz44dQu11i5CEkmNypLX3BgaaMtizYP8lbCd41b0zTxwgnMduTqzyoWfHzDfmqW2QM7Wj0eFiHxkauwQX0hJZ_gHFSvGYuoqD2FLWJm6ihyphenhyphenb_iDP6eUzTiEg/s640/IMG_0599.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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Then I assembled it according to the instructions, leaving out the middle piece and just making a rectangle instead of a square.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwRJV9LNnHr8SzWT4sjBaoZpdCzeUxQmfHpOgHH6BwByyLo7_wtdC-2XrPYuM_HZtJeBi-G1N8BlDgyBrCu3PKuv6o_Z7KFCJW-B-5yClhhL9srRyeem3COU04EqCqiHuvoVw-0IKxphE/s1600/IMG_0600.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwRJV9LNnHr8SzWT4sjBaoZpdCzeUxQmfHpOgHH6BwByyLo7_wtdC-2XrPYuM_HZtJeBi-G1N8BlDgyBrCu3PKuv6o_Z7KFCJW-B-5yClhhL9srRyeem3COU04EqCqiHuvoVw-0IKxphE/s640/IMG_0600.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
There is a floor piece that just rests on the bottom - I cut off part of it with a hand saw so the kitties could climb up in the bottom. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwJ9CA8ws5UVQXxd9BWTP-aWTlAY9GEVoHJia_k7Jr0LBt5YGhd2znMTehP9LJq6m5YjKHoPIzNcQd8Civ2oBfOGhyITCOpMMLZ1X-PKEtIMxh8B9CMS1KlfulPJGXY4GPMxFXj7wfwfA/s1600/IMG_0607.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwJ9CA8ws5UVQXxd9BWTP-aWTlAY9GEVoHJia_k7Jr0LBt5YGhd2znMTehP9LJq6m5YjKHoPIzNcQd8Civ2oBfOGhyITCOpMMLZ1X-PKEtIMxh8B9CMS1KlfulPJGXY4GPMxFXj7wfwfA/s640/IMG_0607.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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I cut some IKEA placemats to cover the bottom, so the kitties wouldn't have to jump across the gap, and drips and spills wouldn't fall through. I cut them with scissors, and went back and forth trimming just a little bit here and there, so it would be a pretty tight fit. It ended up stabilizing the floor pieces, which just rest in there on a lip against the side. I thought I'd have to nail or glue the floor down, but the placemats are holding it in place just fine.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKYUOI0Z9QjPWFHBQkLr9WgoWMrR7QZhZHABGsXP7zSzHByEoE8YFr2UiAUFTTYDNoz2nrQeE8iIOJ8imTk-MSrTiLearMbnv70V2PJ7BSAbMDU9oj45k6M8z61KPy8PTuiAZRJgMU1U/s1600/IMG_0608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKYUOI0Z9QjPWFHBQkLr9WgoWMrR7QZhZHABGsXP7zSzHByEoE8YFr2UiAUFTTYDNoz2nrQeE8iIOJ8imTk-MSrTiLearMbnv70V2PJ7BSAbMDU9oj45k6M8z61KPy8PTuiAZRJgMU1U/s640/IMG_0608.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The kitties can come up through the bottom and the dog can't get in. I am so proud of myself I could bust!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GCBqpsL-zjcW5A-48uxwbPMkfHPlw4DNWQbyk4MBA_AOqX0NJ92vIq2zocTxGMY5ARQwaTI-9AhWqZ6KFm9SAEqNTFe09F-2CcXeQIPYKQWwJJ3vZn4x-VoF2mV0m3TH7_MgtFF9aZ4/s1600/IMG_0606.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GCBqpsL-zjcW5A-48uxwbPMkfHPlw4DNWQbyk4MBA_AOqX0NJ92vIq2zocTxGMY5ARQwaTI-9AhWqZ6KFm9SAEqNTFe09F-2CcXeQIPYKQWwJJ3vZn4x-VoF2mV0m3TH7_MgtFF9aZ4/s640/IMG_0606.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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I don't know what the fancy one on Orvis would have cost since it is now unavailable, but this cost me $80 for the two IKEA storage stools, $3.00 for the IKEA placemats, and about $5.00 for the brackets and dowels at Home Depot. Roughly $88.00 total. </div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-85371192889115938232016-05-25T21:58:00.000-06:002016-08-25T18:03:00.139-06:00Almost a Year gone byMy sister asked me if I'd stopped blogging.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
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Not intentionally.</div>
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A couple years ago I told a friend to check out my blog to see what we're up to, and he said he didn't have time to read blogs, he kept up with people on Facebook. I still think Facebook is ... not for me, but I have resigned myself to getting an account. And now I post entries on Facebook more often than I blog. Which is sad. Facebook is this quick stupid dump, (for which I prefer Instagram, having joined both) and blogging is thoughtful and informative and ... and time consuming.</div>
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But here we are.</div>
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It's been a wonderful year. The girls get out of school in just over a week. This has been a hard year. Red was just telling me her grade in English has plummeted. A couple of late assignments, a couple of assignments she didn't realize were supposed to be turned in, and BAM she has a nasty grade. She is worried they'll hold her back. She read me her previous grades - the first three quarters her grade is in the 95% or above. Honey, you just get through the year.</div>
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She has had some struggles personally, she lost a good girlfriend, and it was unresolved, and she just wanted some closure. It never really came. School-wise, except for this one English grade, she's been bringing in her regular high performance.</div>
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Her art has been wonderful. She's done a couple of pieces that just tickle me pink. Bianca arranged for her to meet with an artist friend of hers, and we drove to her studio and Red got to talk to her for almost two hours... it was wonderful!!! This friend of Bianca's is a fabulous artist, but more than that she's a lovely person and an excellent teacher. She is said some very inspiring and supportive things to Red, who came away just floating. There have been a couple of experiences at the Young Artist Academy that lifted her up in similar ways.</div>
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Blondie has had a really good winter with the horse. They won the Beginner Novice Junior Champion of the year for the local region, which is a pretty big deal. They are doing great and having a grand time together. She is competing at the Chicken this weekend, she had to miss a registered horse trial at the beginning of the month because Bones had an injury, but they're back and should do well. </div>
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She has also had some friend struggles, her best friend from last year seemed to out grow her, and decided to befriend the popular group. This absolutely broke Blondie's heart, but she came out of it with some other friends, who seem a little more stable. Both girls are a little wounded and gun shy, though.</div>
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We had a wonderful spring break, took a cruise to the Carribbean, and had a ball.</div>
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That's about it. Everything good. I should really blog about little day to day experiences, because the girls are growing up so fast and I want to record it all. But... I barely have time to get on Facebook.<br />
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A few highlights: October we took a trip to Chicago. The Art Institute was, of course, one of my favorites. We also were able to meet up with a friend of Red's who moved from Park City a year ago, and her mother.<br />
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<span style="color: black;">Halloween costumes. Red was an Apocalypse survivor. Blondie was Link from Legend of Zelda. Kelso was Lassie. We went to Downtown Park City for the first Halloween ever. Hubby was a western Dude, and I was... a pirate or something. And of course the dog was the big hit of the day.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span>
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Blondie and Bones have been doing great<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpRqVdIBf1Xl3fYzHiUbV8-xu81Qoq6S4Zyp68fp2NtCCKlimehDq6YTGhCPtMQputowumLNQiV_DKW2Y8C9rYlisIF9EzzLNpkn1nlh99n2YHZYTKVGHV6fRygZoEeIMyZD2XiVKe_6Y/s1600/IMG_8245.JPG" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
Hubby got eye surgery to correct his misdirected eye. It has since wandered back a little, but is a vast improvement over what it was.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpRqVdIBf1Xl3fYzHiUbV8-xu81Qoq6S4Zyp68fp2NtCCKlimehDq6YTGhCPtMQputowumLNQiV_DKW2Y8C9rYlisIF9EzzLNpkn1nlh99n2YHZYTKVGHV6fRygZoEeIMyZD2XiVKe_6Y/s1600/IMG_8245.JPG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ12MGvnWmiYxih91tokEu45Vp5WRiFlXrDHpcRzMHXeLxe58ic-nleDqDbQptWPe7hKPk6y2IvVzsGkYpVRgRg6xQIP7x-BAcaMQZQbValzZl5K2Jpe5pmC9iMRUhkFAqX7QHUBA-Oz4/s1600/IMG_8792.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ12MGvnWmiYxih91tokEu45Vp5WRiFlXrDHpcRzMHXeLxe58ic-nleDqDbQptWPe7hKPk6y2IvVzsGkYpVRgRg6xQIP7x-BAcaMQZQbValzZl5K2Jpe5pmC9iMRUhkFAqX7QHUBA-Oz4/s400/IMG_8792.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
We had a marvelous Christmas, as per usual<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6oNn8qLe4601wuUfUJH7gEkls7r23YQefG11RKbWZTaqOQUwB1j8rHr6iX7doBbtO-De5w5tfZ_eRYKiwsAGjtC187jhsbZg1VAass2nov9VXBk5riyGv3k9Kx_DpJzUnr8EHBoOy-GA/s1600/IMG_8838.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6oNn8qLe4601wuUfUJH7gEkls7r23YQefG11RKbWZTaqOQUwB1j8rHr6iX7doBbtO-De5w5tfZ_eRYKiwsAGjtC187jhsbZg1VAass2nov9VXBk5riyGv3k9Kx_DpJzUnr8EHBoOy-GA/s400/IMG_8838.JPG" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiASPyFP9UfRuA9tNMj8dMr9m_IHFfDiPPShuoTymyOJFHD5qW7W1V-thf81XD717PPy_CQugBxonL6vEj0l4PshO5UJa5WRLY469_vvelWahWLyWpLlovbT8O0E5OTjK3VhweySkuTaNI/s1600/IMG_8830.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiASPyFP9UfRuA9tNMj8dMr9m_IHFfDiPPShuoTymyOJFHD5qW7W1V-thf81XD717PPy_CQugBxonL6vEj0l4PshO5UJa5WRLY469_vvelWahWLyWpLlovbT8O0E5OTjK3VhweySkuTaNI/s320/IMG_8830.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghSKQy9FMamTO6v6S5CRmFcmE3po9JPxevCwae2e-qR4rCELniEkw-DCrYEAC7QU8pgWQVf4Lnh2I92r_l2KUtMolz9g3rhENBTHrjx7NkVOlpfmll18GYek3KBn5oofWchbOnli3XJD4/s1600/IMG_8846.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghSKQy9FMamTO6v6S5CRmFcmE3po9JPxevCwae2e-qR4rCELniEkw-DCrYEAC7QU8pgWQVf4Lnh2I92r_l2KUtMolz9g3rhENBTHrjx7NkVOlpfmll18GYek3KBn5oofWchbOnli3XJD4/s320/IMG_8846.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6oNn8qLe4601wuUfUJH7gEkls7r23YQefG11RKbWZTaqOQUwB1j8rHr6iX7doBbtO-De5w5tfZ_eRYKiwsAGjtC187jhsbZg1VAass2nov9VXBk5riyGv3k9Kx_DpJzUnr8EHBoOy-GA/s1600/IMG_8838.JPG" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
<span style="color: black;">After years of saying we </span>would and not, we finally painted Blondie's room<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6oNn8qLe4601wuUfUJH7gEkls7r23YQefG11RKbWZTaqOQUwB1j8rHr6iX7doBbtO-De5w5tfZ_eRYKiwsAGjtC187jhsbZg1VAass2nov9VXBk5riyGv3k9Kx_DpJzUnr8EHBoOy-GA/s1600/IMG_8838.JPG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeRffS4dMB2qXgQqHw_y9KOgt3l4fpFHDXrI7uNCP8GIsxdP02jDT70OLlJQj3Hhy7yNQ9gUZ5bRV-BR4vzRYTdD7tTMml3srBpNaRtu-SyesN9-S5YP9j1R5AoXXzhGU_RFv4YXADmw/s1600/IMG_8965.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeRffS4dMB2qXgQqHw_y9KOgt3l4fpFHDXrI7uNCP8GIsxdP02jDT70OLlJQj3Hhy7yNQ9gUZ5bRV-BR4vzRYTdD7tTMml3srBpNaRtu-SyesN9-S5YP9j1R5AoXXzhGU_RFv4YXADmw/s400/IMG_8965.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
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Oh Oh! It looks like that's all the pictures I had on the computer. Time to get the girls to bed. I'll have to fiddle with this another day. That only got us through January or so. Sigh. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><br /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmV634I-MWbu9Jze2Kny6peSUSEZxqMqfTMAV0Zwv59gAicEBZ8H6MyvSnfKHdopeKnV0UQAm15X_uL0allF9madabZBHU5ly-T33kOSngqkMyEbiJHKQoumQW2mVkJP6ec0uOjqiAOU/s1600/DSCN1234+cropped.jpeg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKr9Vl8a7y0ML2UH7ue4k2dCXbqMhyphenhyphenUt1H-Cabh9DQCVQa0awYrmXz7ghc-Js03dooRouqBUd31bYneyPO7Tm5SkgjzBnifLnEotWeliaPc7fX7JG9YHV26mMHWGF9p7n0n1QJ_qoows/s1600/IMG_8541.PNG" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpRqVdIBf1Xl3fYzHiUbV8-xu81Qoq6S4Zyp68fp2NtCCKlimehDq6YTGhCPtMQputowumLNQiV_DKW2Y8C9rYlisIF9EzzLNpkn1nlh99n2YHZYTKVGHV6fRygZoEeIMyZD2XiVKe_6Y/s1600/IMG_8245.JPG" imageanchor="1"><br /></a></div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-83554283675012048042015-08-30T16:33:00.002-06:002015-08-30T16:33:40.343-06:00Summer wrap upWe had a busy summer. <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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We haven't gone to Vegas for the Better Software Conference for a couple of years, but we went this year the week after school let out. Instead of limiting ourselves to one big show, we did two big ones and a little one. We saw The Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, the Blue Man show, and an animal show. The last one was a little disappointing, maybe our kids are too old.</div>
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The end of June was our third annual trip to Oregon. The first year was so magical, the 2nd year was a little frustrating, partly because nothing could match the magic of the first year, but this year was solidly lovely. Some of us made it all the way to the top of the mountain we hiked, the little girls actually got Red to boogie board with them, we just had a great time.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNEnhyphenhyphen-THnTCfPrYibNWsukL5fu0xInZWvMKoLjSKy3c5EnHL_XKpzT-ZeKmpqym4nbKqkCr_3bkvKHbl6HIPTaIqKMeY_ZH4tZt218hRlHef7sh7SIx6YN_KodjujpzAEnq9IXrdzsOI/s1600/DSCN0810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNEnhyphenhyphen-THnTCfPrYibNWsukL5fu0xInZWvMKoLjSKy3c5EnHL_XKpzT-ZeKmpqym4nbKqkCr_3bkvKHbl6HIPTaIqKMeY_ZH4tZt218hRlHef7sh7SIx6YN_KodjujpzAEnq9IXrdzsOI/s640/DSCN0810.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Right after we got back from Oregon I drove Blondie to Wyoming for her first real Horse Trial. She bobbled her dressage and was 8th of 8 girls in her division, which was very disappointing for her. They did Cross Country the 2nd day and she jumped the wrong jump - she jumped the higher one next to the one she should have jumped, and was given a "Technical Elimination." However there was some miscommunication with the judges and they didn't stop her like they should have, and she was able to continue on and finish the course. It was complete serendipity in our favor. Because it was a "technical" elimination she was able to petition to ride in the final round on the last day, so she got to ride the show jumping round, which was fun. She learned a lot. Blondie was of course hugely disappointed to be eliminated, but she took some comfort in the fact that five of the twelve riders in the group we came with from Park City were also eliminated, and only 2 of the 8 girls in her division ended up finishing, all the rest were eliminated. It was a tough course, but she did well and had a great time all in all.<br />
This is the first time she's had to compete in full on eventing clothes with the jacket and light pants and tall boots.<br />
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While Blondie and I were in Wyoming, Hubby flew to Dallas with Red to pick up his new car. He has been wanting to move up from the Passat for a long time, and has been looking for easily a year to find what car he wanted. He finally settled on a particular BMW and found one that matched and had to go pick it up. I have kind of put up with this because 1) we are calling this his mid-life crisis 2) he did earn it, sort of, by publishing his book. However I have been kind of mocking him, maybe quietly, I hope gently, because the car he settled on is a 2 door convertible. I have pointed out that we live in PARK CITY next to a SKI RESORT and he has TWO CHILDREN. He was undaunted. I voted we keep the Passat and he could just drive that to and from the airport, and garage the BMW. HIs reply was most weeks he'd only drive it to and from the airport. He does make a good point.</div>
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And then I drove the car. It is so much fun to drive, I had to shut up about it and while he's been in Australia this week I have been driving the BMW on all my errands except to the barn. I will not drive that to the barn.</div>
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We were going to go to Australia and New Zealand with Hubby but when we came back from the horse trials we talked and since my passport had expired, the girls' expire in September, and we hadn't bought tickets, and the whole trip would be wedged between a church girls camp and going back to school and we'd only have about seven days non-travel time to do this, it was just getting less and less appealing. So we decided not to go.</div>
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I had three big projects to work on this summer.</div>
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1) Paint Blondie's room. The sample color patch has been on her wall for over a year. But I told her I'm not just going to clean up her room, clean out her room, and paint it, without some help from her. It's a decent but not monumental mess in there. She hasn't seemed to want it bad enough to clean her room. So it didn't get done this summer.</div>
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2) Clean out the garage. We bought a work table for one wall to hold tools and stuff and put peg board on the wall, but the organization and clean up part was started but not really finished.</div>
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3) Finish up landscaping the front yard and plant the grass. This involved relocating some plants that I had planted too close to the existing grass line, and moving the grass line back much further back toward the house, and removing a whole bunch of Bishop's Weed and planting the grass in the space to fill it in. I ACTUALLY DID THIS!!! The grass is planted and little tufts are starting to come up. </div>
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School started last week. Red is on the early bus, and leaves the house at 6:40 am. Blondie is on the late bus, and leaves the house at 8:26 am. I have found that there area several hours in the morning that I didn't even know existed. I am certainly not naturally an outrageously driven or productive person, and I do not feel compelled to pack something into every minute of the day, but I have found this time in the morning to be a great time to get some things done so I have less guilt when I get less done in the rest of the day as I often do.</div>
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Red is quite happy with her classes, she got most of the electives she requested and has been enjoying school well enough. She'd rather stay home, of course, but she is resigned to it, she has some friends, and she is okay. Blondie was devastated that she does not have any of the friends she made last year in any of her classes this year. There are people she knows, but her little circle of friends are not in her classes. She is much less concerned with the actual classes themselves, for her it's mostly about her friends. Since she's been going for a couple days now I have discovered she does have friends in some of the classes, she tells me stories about this person or that person in her class who she knows, and I think she'll be fine. </div>
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The Fall Pumpkin horse show is this weekend. I should in fact be packing the car instead of blogging. I guess I better go do that.<br />
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-59816816032706351922015-08-14T17:17:00.000-06:002015-08-14T17:29:11.206-06:00ImmunizationBefore students in Utah can attend 7th grade, they must prove that they have received a barrage of immunizations. Or vaccinations. Or both, I don't know the difference. <br />
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Last year I took Red to the clinic and got her shots, but then when I went to register her for 7th grade they informed me her records showed she did not have the necessary vaccinations. I was very mad, I'd gone to the trouble to get her to the doctor over the summer, and granted I forgot the list to wave in the doctor's face, but good grief it's a state requirement, shouldn't they know? I had to make an appointment with the clinic nurse for their next appointment, which was the next day, then rush her back to school afterward so she could register and get her laptop and her schedule.</div>
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I decided I am not going through this hassle with Blondie.</div>
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I made Blondie's appointment right after school got out in June. She was very upset about getting the shots, but there's not a lot we can do about it. They forgot to give me her proof of vaccination printout, so I had to go back and get one, but I was prepared.</div>
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I went to register Blondie today armed with our proof of residence and proof of vaccinations. Imagine my alarm when the school nurse looked at my vaccination certificate and told me "You don't have one of the vaccinations. I can't register her." "You are KIDDING MEEEE!!!! BAAAHHHHH!!!"</div>
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I had an appointment with the optometrist myself shortly to get some new contacts so before I raced off to that I called the clinic where I had taken Blondie in June to see if she really had gotten the shot and it just hadn't made it to this print-out somehow, or if she really needed to get another shot. The secretary said she couldn't find the info and the nurse would have to call me back. I raced to my eye appointment, where I got some bad news - an irregularity that I have on one eye I now have on BOTH EYES. Which means it is getting worse. Anyway. Not a huge deal now but something to watch, the doctor told me to go see a cornea specialist, and I was sorely disappointed in my body's lack of ability to perform like a super hero. It has pulled through for me before, being very healthy and stuff, but today, well, today it failed. I picked out new glasses but my heart wasn't really in it, I ordered "Daily contacts" because they are less likely to cause stress on my eyes, and came home somewhat defeated.</div>
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The nurse didn't call me back, so I called and made an appointment for Blondie to get the shot, 45 minutes from then.</div>
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We drove to the appointment and were a few minutes late because I made several copies of the paper the school nurse gave me indicating which vaccinations an incoming 7th grade student needs. When we checked in I gave them to the front desk lady and suggested she post them around because this was my 2nd time having to come back and get a vaccination that had been missed in the 1st appointment. Blondie could not believe I had actually given the copies to her. We were sitting in the waiting room, and finally a nice lady comes out and calls Blondie's name, and comes over to tell us they are out of that vaccination. I remember thinking "I should close my jaw. I am sitting here with my mouth open, which is probably rude."</div>
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So I closed my mouth.</div>
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She told me they would probably have more on Monday.</div>
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I could feel tears pricking my eyes...</div>
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The nurse told me I could go to the public health clinic.</div>
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I flipped out. I was so mad and didn't want to be caught crying. I don't know why but I smacked my forehead dramatically three times with my phone.</div>
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I think I said okay, but I stormed out of there with Blondie following behind.</div>
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I was crying before I got to the car. I still am not sure why. I guess sometimes you have to act like a spoiled two year old.</div>
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I sat in the car trying to get a hold of myself, Blondie was scared and asking what was going on, why was I so upset. I don't know. I told her about my eye, and then she got upset and asked if I was going to go blind, no, well, I don't think so, probably not, they can operate for this but they don't like to operate on your cornea unless they absolutely have to. I googled the public health clinic and considered calling to make sure they had the vaccination but decided my voice would crack, so I drove Blondie over there to give myself time to calm down. Blondie was pretty stunned. I apologized for embarrassing her in the clinic, and told her I think I flipped out because I was afraid I might cry, and she told me crying might have been less embarrassing than smacking myself in the forehead with the phone. "Then everyone in the waiting room watching might have thought she told you you have some horrible disease or something. Hitting yourself with the phone just makes you look like a crazy person."</div>
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I calmed down on the drive and we made it to the public health clinic where I was informed that they did have the right vaccine but they don't take my insurance. It would cost me $115 but I could probably be reimbursed by my insurance if I submitted the paper work. Fine. Get this over with. I should add that no less than three times while we were there I had someone ask to make sure we didn't need the OTHER big vaccine for incoming 7th graders. No, thanks, our clinic already gave us that one but they're NOT AS SMART AS YOU GUYS and they totally bungled the OTHER vaccine, which is why we're here.</div>
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The nurse called Blondie back so we went to the exam room, where the nice lady proceeded to ramble on at length, telling us all the possible side effects, then explaining how exceedingly rare it is that anything should happen, but she is required to tell us anyway, then apologizing for rambling on. She was really quite lovely and nice.</div>
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When the shot was all over she told Blondie that despite being 12 and no longer a child, she could still choose from the tacky gift bag for "being brave."</div>
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She pulled out several bulging kitchen trash bags and said Blondie could choose from some school supplies, from some of those tiny foamy critters that expand when you get them wet, or a little stuffed animal. She opened the bags and right on top of the stuffed animal bag was Chubby, a little stuffed dragon that Blondie had given up in a room purge at least three years ago.<br />
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It had originally been Red's, as she is the big dragon fan, but Blondie had taken it when Red purged at one point. It has lived in Blondie's room for a while, but it was purged quite a while ago. </div>
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We could hardly believe it. Blondie figured it had come to her again, it was fate, so she chose Chubby as her prize. I told her she can't ever give him up now.</div>
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We'll have to try again to register Blondie on Monday. I can't think of any more problems we may encounter but maybe I'll tuck Chubby in my purse for good luck just in case.</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-13826495075948812092015-08-07T14:29:00.000-06:002015-08-07T14:32:53.703-06:00A Sad DayThe girls went to Girl's Camp last Monday, just got home today.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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I had thought that maybe Hubby and I could have a romantic get-away, but he scheduled work a long time ago, so he was out of town. Also got back today.</div>
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I decided to go visit my parents, 80 miles north, since I am the only one who really wants to do this anyway. I had a nice time, a couple of my mom's brothers and their wives were also visiting, I got to see my sister, shop with my mom, it was a nice relaxing time as it usually is. Without the hassle of entertaining Hubby and the kids.</div>
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I took the dog and the remaining guinea pig with me, rather than board them or get someone to come watch them.</div>
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Wednesday my mom and I went to Sam's Club. Before we left I put the guinea pig on the grass so he could graze. I put the top of his cage out so he couldn't run away, and put his igloo and water there too.</div>
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When we came back I went to check on him and he had flipped his igloo upside down, and was lying limp on the ground gasping. I picked him up and raced him downstairs where it was cool, wondering if he had over heated. He did not seem to be improving. I called my sister and asked her where a good vet is, and raced over there.</div>
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He had already died before I got there. They said without an autopsy, they couldn't really determine the cause of death. They'd have to ship his body out for the autopsy, and they'd send me back the report and the cremated remains.</div>
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That just seemed gruesome. They gave me a nice little cardboard casket, put a hand towel in the bottom, and laid the guinea pig on it. She closed his eyes for me.</div>
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I came home that night and decided to put him in the fridge. Freezing him would have meant I had to cram his body into a zip lock bag, and make freezer space. I had room in the downstairs fridge to put him in his little casket box.</div>
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I picked the girls up today and Blondie, whose pig this was, chattered all the way home, full of experiences to share from camp. As it was Red's 2nd year, and she didn't have some of the dramatic experiences as her sister, she was quieter. Hubby's plane had landed and he had arrived home while I was picking up the girls but he had to get on the phone, so we told them we had some bad news as we were getting out of the car, so it ended up that we told them that the pig had died as we were all standing in the garage in front of the car. Of course Blondie was devastated, Red was sad too, as her pig had died this spring.</div>
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Blondie went downstairs and sat on the storage room floor with the box on her lap, petting the pig and crying for about half an hour. We will have the funeral later, when Hubby gets off the phone. I started digging a grave in the back yard, next to Red's pig's grave.</div>
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The problem with having these animals we love is that they don't live forever.</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-4836664486803939272015-06-07T18:00:00.000-06:002015-06-07T18:00:43.375-06:00The ChickenThere are two big schooling shows for eventers each year - eventing being what Blondie does where she rides dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country jumping. Anyway there are many smaller shows but the big ones seem to be the Spring Chicken and the Fall Pumpkin, both held at the Golden Spike fairgrounds.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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Last Fall she went to the Pumpkin and took 2nd place in the Junior Grasshopper division, which is the entry level division</div>
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The Chicken was yesterday, and she decided to level up and compete at the Beginner Novice level, which is 2'7" or lower.</div>
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She was pretty nervous, and expected to not ribbon as she was competing against up to 19 year olds. The Junior Beginner Novice had the most participants in it, with 22 kids. I think I might have mentioned in a previous post, the scoring ends up being a lot about the dressage. If you can nail the dressage, and make it through the jumping rounds, you do okay. Bones and Blondie are really good jumpers, I think she rides him well, and I think he is really good about jumping most anything she can get him to. I think they are a little more wobbly at the dressage, but he steps out really pretty and holds his head nice, and they generally look good. </div>
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I have a hard time with this in my head, because a lot of the time I give the horse a lot of credit. I think he is an excellent horse and we kind of lucked into finding him. He has a lot of experience and he knows his job and seems to be kind of paternal about it, and I think he takes care of Blondie. However, I think she does ride very well, and certainly does everything she can, and seems to listen to her instructors, who I do think are wonderful.</div>
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Of course it's not about who wins or doesn't, it's about how well you do against yourself. However it's always nice to bring home a ribbon. My parents came down to watch, I kind of emphasized that this is probably the closest show she'll do, and since it's a mini event they can see everything in one day, so they made the trip. Because they were there, instead of mostly following Blondie and Bones around and running support for them, I kind of sat with my folks and narrated what was going on for them, and let Blondie kind of take care of things herself. Hubby spent more time shadowing Blondie. Because of this I got to watch more of the other girls in her division do their dressage, and I thought it unlikely Blondie could win against some of the better ones of them. But she's had a couple of dressage lessons where the teacher has been working on the finer points of what they do, and I have to assume that these little details that I can't even see must be what make the difference between a good rider and a great rider, because after the dressage round Blondie was in 2nd.</div>
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They kept their 2nd place through the day - The only thing that would make them go up would be if the girl in 1st messed up, and of course they could have dropped if they messed up on the jumping rounds. But they didn't. She came out in 2nd place and was tickled pink.</div>
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It was a great day and she had so much fun - the cross country ride was one of the best rides she's had in her life.</div>
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This is from schooling on the course before the event - something you only get to do if it's a "schooling show."<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is her dressage. It's hard to get good pictures, as they're just kind of walking walking and trotting around. </div>
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This is from her stadium jumping.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I spent half an hour trying to figure out how to make the video of the cross country smaller so I could upload it. Apparently I am not technically savvy enough and I have run out of time for the day. Someday if I can figure it out, I'll load it.</div>
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Yay Blondie and Bones!!!</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-91153342527639037562015-03-13T16:49:00.000-06:002015-03-14T12:53:26.680-06:00The Perils of Snowboarding<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hubby broke hisself snowboarding on Sunday. He caught some air and fell onto his right shoulder, then went tumbling down the mountain. Somehow in the attempt to stop himself he whacked his right ankle. There was no one around. He boarded to the bottom of the run, where he finally got the attention of the ski patrol. The clinic on the mountain was really crowded, so he asked them to give him a ride to his car - despite my protests that I would drive up to get him - and drove himself home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From there, I drove him to the insta care clinic, where x-rays showed the ankle was cracked and he had a separated collarbone. You can see in the picture how the shoulder on the left (his right) has a hiccup in it, you can see the bump of the collar bone sticking up. The one on the right connects smoothly to the top of his shoulder.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had been texting the girls at home to reassure them and told Red there was now going to be a bump on Daddy's shoulder. She was very upset to hear this and so I sent her the above picture. The conversation went like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was sitting in the clinic howling that she was totally okay with the bump, yeah, whatever, but OHMIGOSH DAD IS NAKED!!! She told me later that she was worried he'd lost his pants. Why she decided the above picture of his shoulders would indicate he was naked I do not know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Hubby ordered a boot off of Amazon, it came Tuesday and was much more convenient than having to wrap the ace bandages around the splint he received from the clinic. Also, the clinic put him on crutches and told him to put zero weight on that ankle. The crutches didn't work at all, since using them to keep the weight off his ankle was pushing up on his separated shoulder. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Hubby went to the doctor today, we held out for an appointment with the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Sports Medicine guy instead of just a family practice guy. The ankle </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">and shoulder should both heal 100%. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The worry was that he was causing further damage to his ankle by </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">hobbling on it. He has pretty much just been hopping around, or walking on the heel of the boot. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The doctor said hobbling on it will make it more sore, but it won't </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">damage anything as long as he uses the boot and doesn't do anything </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">stupid like snowboarding, gymnastics, or kick boxing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Hubby had to cancel his travel this week, and missed the first couple days of a whoop-de-do conference. He leaves </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">tomorrow for the rest of the conference and refuses to use a scooter because he </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">thinks only crazy Walmart shoppers use them, so he's going to be </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">hobbling around a huge conference center.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In other news, Blondie and Bones participated in a Schooling Jumper show on Saturday. Since we/they are Eventers, not strictly Jumpers, this wasn't completely their thing, but it is like one of the three events that Eventers do, the stadium jumping part. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since it was a schooling show, it ran behind, and there was a lot of sitting around.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even when you line up to go, you're waiting and waiting, and there's a lot of standing around. This is Blondie on the right, and her friend on the left. They're making a heart with their hands.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jumpers are all about speed, though, and since Blondie and her friends were competing with women and horses who are all about the jumping; who are racing around pell-mell and cutting all the corners, they were all kind of out of their league. However, some of them ribboned, Blondie and the other girl we came with both ribboned at the lowest level they competed at - cross poles, which was a pleasant surprise. Neither ribboned at the next level, and then because Bones has been a little stiff looking, the trainer suggested he and Blondie were done. I went up in the stands to watch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is Blondie and Bones, in the middle of the picture, getting ready to go in for one of her rounds. Her friend is behind her, framed in that gate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And Blondie and Bones on the Cross Poles</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other little girl did one more level, but on that one it was getting even crazier and crazier with everyone jumping high and then zipping around to the next jump like their tails are on fire. But she did very well and didn't knock anything over. If it would have been an eventing round, instead of a jumping round, both girls would have received zero penalties. Everyone had a fun day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because Bones has been a little off, I went out on Tuesday to meet with the horse Chiropractor while Blondie was in school. He adjusted Bones and suggested she skip her lesson the next day and not ride him for a couple days. Since we usually go out on Thursdays, I went out with Blondie yesterday <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2015/02/zen-at-barn.html" target="_blank">to work on his scratches,</a> and found a new big patch that he won't even let me touch. I think that might be why he's been "off." Blondie used her Zen thing to calm him while I worked on two of his feet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What makes this a neat picture is how picky he is about having his head even touched. He won't tolerate his ears being touched, he doesn't put his nose down to be petted. So to have him put his head down into her chest, and let me rip the scabs off his feet is pretty amazing.</span></div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-73217222071926081922015-03-03T23:55:00.003-07:002015-03-03T23:55:30.322-07:00Good BreakOur school district gives the kids a whole week off at President's Day. We have spent most of those weeks visiting my parents, at a condo they rent in Oceanside, CA. Hubby always wants to go to Disneyland for at least a couple of days. We spend the rest of the time on the beach, or loafing around the condo and the area with my folks. Blondie has become a fan of the thick milkshakes at Ruby's Diner at the end of the Oceanside Pier.<div>
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Blondie spent two days on the boogie board. It was much warmer than usual, I actually went out with her and didn't even have a wet suit. After her time in Oregon, Blondie has become a boogie board master. She even got Red out for an afternoon and the two of them really had fun.</div>
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This year our Disneyland trip seemed especially magical. We spent two days at Disney and passed the night in Anaheim. The crowds were the lowest I've seen in years. I assume it was due to the measles outbreak. I am opposed to other's misfortune resulting in our benefit, but there isn't too much I can do about it but benefit from it. So we did. The girls are old enough that we don't even go into Storybook land or Toon Town, we mostly bounce between the rides they like. Thunder Mountain was open this year, which is a treat, because it often has been under renovation when we've gone in the past. And Red rode every ride we pushed her to go on. Always before she has dragged her feet for Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, and Tower of Terror. Actually we didn't get on the Tower this year, just timed it badly. But we went on everything else, though the California Screamer is her favorite. As we were walking around on the 2nd evening, the girls and Hubby were ahead of me and I saw this:</div>
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I know it's blurry and not the best shot but I think it is the first time I have seen my two girls just walking around being buddies like this. They are not very physically expressive toward one another. When one is feeling companionable toward the other, the other for one reason always seems prickly. To have them both feeling companionable at the same time is pretty unusual.</div>
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Hubby said his goal was to get bored, and he didn't really make it. </div>
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It was a really lovely vacation, it is just hard to balance wanting to stay longer, and wanting to come home.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Stacy Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13737391259567676675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-86690498791450138012015-02-07T18:33:00.003-07:002015-02-23T08:39:31.608-07:00Zen at The BarnI have learned a lot about horses since we bought this one, Bones.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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He is a truly lovely horse. But he is an older horse. And there were some inherent problems with him going from being a yard ornament to being ridden six days a week by two different riders, one of whom was riding him pretty hard. We bought him in July, and by October this regimen had taken a its toll on his spine and he was limping. So the first person we called was the horse chiropractor. About this time the woman who half leases Bones ramped up her search for a horse of her own, and stopped riding bones altogether. She just looked farther and farther away for a horse. <br />
This is the horse chiropractor giving him some acupuncture.</div>
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The Chiropractor adjusted him, at the tune of a couple hundred dollars, then of course no one could ride him hard for a couple of weeks. He was on "rehabilitation" which means pretty much half an hour of walking, no real trotting or cantering, and certainly no jumping. Then the Chiropractor came back to look at him and said that the adjustment problem was fixed, but now he was more lame than ever with another problem. The vet was at the barn that day and she looked at him and said it was probably the scratches.</div>
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Backtrack a month or so. The woman who half leased him from us told me he had scratches on his feet. I thought so what, he got scratched somehow, it will heal. Whatever.</div>
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Oh how wrong I was.</div>
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Apparently SCRATCHES is the layman's term for TERMINAL ATHLETE'S FOOT of the horse. Sort of. It was awful! $735.00 awful. </div>
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It is this nasty condition that manifests itself as these scabs on the horses's skin just above the hoof. Only happens on white feet, by the way, which is why some people will not buy a horse with white feet. The way to treat it is to rip the scabs off, and apply medicine of one sort or another.</div>
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Bones's scratches got pretty bad. His feet were all swollen and as he healed from the back problems his scratches got worse and they caused him to start hobbling again. I think Blondie was afraid she was hurting him when she would pick the scabs off, which she was, so she would pick very daintily at them. She gets off a little chunk the size of her pinky fingernail and that was about all the pain she wanted to put him through. So we called the vet to help. I went out to the barn and watched the vet attack them, and she drugged him up, then shaved off all the hair on his foot and the proceeded to shave off the scabs. It was horrifying. It bled. Then she put him in isolation in a stall, so he was out of the wet pasture. Being in a stall cost me $5 a day for shavings, and $10 a day to have someone else muck it out if we couldn't get out to the barn that day. And of course Blondie wasn't riding him. He HATED the stall. He started weaving again, and was pretty unhappy. After nearly two weeks in the stall he was able to go out into the cross country field, which isn't as wet and muddy as the pastures, but still isolated. He was still unhappy. He was there for a couple more weeks, and then they decided it was dry enough and he was unhappy enough that he could go back into the pasture with the other geldings. </div>
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This is what swollen feet look like after the scratches have been shaved off.</div>
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He's rocking his flash dance leg warmers.<br />
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Two weeks rehabilitation turned into four and six… She would be off him completely, or on for rehabilitation rides, but then his head would bob and she was off again and we'd call the vet. She was basically off him for while he was being treated for one thing or another from the end of October until the middle of December. Then he got well enough to actually have a lesson. The scratches were doing better, until just before Christmas when she had a practice ride and his head was bobbing on the trot again, meaning he's lame again. So she was off of him and we talked to the vet. The next time the vet decided his front feet were still not trimmed right, he was still out on his heels when he needed to be on his toes. So Blondie was not riding him while we wait for the ferrier to fix his feet, and for him to recover from being off on that. </div>
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I took this picture when he was so frisky and excited to be out of the stall and back being ridden that he couldn't contain himself.</div>
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So finally by January he was back, and she had another lesson. The scratches were still there but getting slowly better. But now every time she rides him she is in fear of that head bob. Each time she rides, as we are graining him, I attack the scratches. He hates it. He pulls his foot out of the way, again and again. I move to the other foot. He has sometimes kicked at me with the opposite hind foot when I'm working on the back one. We all hate it.</div>
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In the mean time, with no one able to ride much, the woman who half leased him from us stopped leasing him from us. She was looking hard for a horse and stopped coming out to the barn. </div>
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I had worried that for a long time Bones liked her better than he liked Blondie. She jumped him higher, she treated him more, she just loved the heck out of him. But around the middle of December she found her own horse. He was new and greener and needed a lot of work. So the woman who had leased from us was coming back to the barn but she totally focused on her own horse. There was one day toward the beginning of January when I came out to watch the vet work on Bones and this new horse was in the stall next to Bones's. I was chatting with the woman who had been leasing from us while the vet ground down her horse's teeth, and she told me she had gone into Bones's stall to say hello. She said he took one look at her and turned his butt toward her, and then walked to the other side of the stall and put his head in the corner. He was shunning her. She said it was so obvious, such a different reaction than the one she used to get from him, it was very obvious he was mad at her. Of course, she said, that is the way it has to be, she is very happy with her new horse, and Bones needs to be in love with Blondie. I thought he would still love the woman who had leased him, who loved him so much, but he had moved on when she did.</div>
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So Bones is back, Blondie has had a couple of lessons on him and they are jumping and everything again. We are still dealing with the scratches, but it's much better, much smaller patches and I've figured out a routine. I took this Tuesday, before my phone told me the memory was full and shut down. She jumped higher by the end of the night, but it's on my other camera.<br />
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Thursday we were at the barn and I decided to the scratches treatment a little different. Instead of waiting until he was cooled off and attacking the scratches while he ate his grain, I told Blondie let's do the scratches while he's cooling off. You can treat him just a little, can't you? She said she'd keep him occupied. I don't know if she was worried he was too hot to treat him or what, but she said she'd stay by his head while I worked on his feet. It is impossible to work on his feet without something to distract him.</div>
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I was picking at the scratches and noticed he was tolerating it. He stopped lifting his foot out of the way, stopped trying to get away from me. I commented on it, and told her to keep doing what she was doing. Finally I asked Blondie what was going on and she said "Shhhhh!!" She said she kind of put her forehead on his and just rubbed on his face and looked him in the eye… he would half close his eyes and she would just talk softly to him. She said when I talked his eyes would pop open and she'd have to calm him down again.</div>
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She is very tickled that he trusts her and she has been developing her horse whisperer skills. With him at least.</div>
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Stacy Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13737391259567676675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-21207383057982877672015-01-14T17:16:00.000-07:002015-01-14T17:16:04.118-07:00My Most Favorite PaintingNow that I say that… there are other paintings my girls have done that I really really like. But today I'm going to say my most favorite is the one we commissioned a friend of mine to do. I saw one she painted for someone else, and just loved it. So I contacted her about doing one for us, and she did! She is just so cute about it, she came over and we measured the space above the fireplace to figure out how big it should be. She painted it pretty quickly, a mutual friend told me she fusses over them and works on them for a long time, but I think she did this in a couple of months. I really love it, I love that it's impressionistic, and colorful, and that it's aspens that we see up here a lot.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Her name is Shelly Peters and her youngest son is Blondie's age.</div>
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She makes it very personal, and hides your initials in the painting. Mine I can pick out easily, everyone else's I have to hunt for. </div>
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She asked the girls to come paint on it. They put a lot of the red in it. She told me after that they are just the cutest, sweetest, loveliest girls ever… very complimentary of each other and just so darling. :-)</div>
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Shelly told me she touched it up after the girls finished, she said there was A Lot of red in it and she had to take some out. </div>
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She said she didn't want it to be obviously sunrise or sunset, and so it's either. Which I like…</div>
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I am very tickled with it!</div>
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Stacy Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13737391259567676675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-85727923912299241872015-01-03T22:52:00.001-07:002015-01-04T00:09:53.992-07:00Holiday BreakIt's been a great Christmas and the whole holiday has been wonderful!<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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First - I ordered Hubby's Christmas cards early.</div>
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Then I was on top of his chocolate - what he sends out to clients. Yay! I feel like that got me started out right and I didn't spend the rest of the holiday trying to catch up. Instead of laboriously writing our regular Christmas card, which combines a short humorous paragraph about each of us with a photo and a drawing done by one of the girls, all carefully squished into the required space and painstakingly printed by me, I slapped a couple photos into a Costco template, wrote a little sentence blurb about each of us, entered my credit card number and sat back to wait for someone else to do the work. It wasn't nearly as charming and personal as our usual card, but it was SO MUCH LESS WORK!</div>
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We got a live tree this year for the first time in about ten years. I decided with the high ceiling of our house our fake tree (which is about 7 feet tall and I really like okay under other circumstances) just looks squatty and inadequate, so while Hubby was in Australia I took Blondie tree shopping and we picked out a lovely 11 footer in Salt Lake. The trees in the Park City lots were approximately three times as expensive. Getting it home up the canyon was an adventure, but Blondie and I prevailed and we got it up that night. It took three trips to Home Depot to get lights, with the brand new strings burning out, and me changing my mind about the size of bulbs we should have, but eventually we got it all up and it was just what I wanted and it is the prettiest tree we've ever had.</div>
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Our Christmas was the usual exercise in excess. The girls have moved from toys to … I still haven't totally figured that out yet. Blondie is easier because she likes clothes, but needs a ton of horse stuff. So it's not hard to get stuff for her. Red is harder. She doesn't really like clothes, though she's getting more flexible about what she'll wear. I don't hardly remember what she ended up with, she was happy, it was roughly the same amount and exactly the same number as Blondie's (I work pretty hard at that) and her favorite gift was the XBox from Santa anyway.</div>
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About that… Hubby told me I need to have The Santa Discussion with the girls. My family have always been Believers. Long before we came into the picture my mother made it eminently clear to my father that Santa would fill her stocking every year or else! So I am in the Believer Camp… But it was getting to be problematic that the girls would be shopping with me and I needed to pick something up, and I needed to not have to be so absolutely careful about what ended up in their stockings. Also Red is 13 and she is very earnest and I don't want her to be mocked by her friends. So when I was tucking Red into bed I started up the conversation and asked her what she says when her friends talk about Santa. She told me they don't. I told her a good thing to say if it comes up is that in our house Santa comes if you believe, and she's not an idiot. Just like that, I made her practice. She seemed to remain pretty earnest. So I took it a step further and I told her a round about way that Santa has helpers. Moms and Dads fill in because, you know, that's a lot of houses. She nodded and accepted this readily. But I kept getting the impression that she wasn't buying it, or rather she's not letting go. She's farther into the believer camp than I sort of intended to leave her. I avoided coming right out and getting up in her face with the harsh reality, and she avoided letting go of the magic. So I let it stay there.</div>
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Then just before Christmas I was shopping with Blondie and we walked by a table that had candy at a very low price… and I was thinking, Dang, now I have to come back to this store when she's not with me and get some of that candy. We went deeper in the store and I saw something else I wanted to put in Hubby's stocking and I picked it up and I was looking at it, and I was looking at her… and I said "Honey, so Santa has helpers..." And she said "Mom, I know you help out Santa. You've told me that like eight times." So I said "Go get that big bag of M&Ms off the table by the door. And a hand full of those candy bars." She doesn't seem nearly as entrenched as Red.</div>
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Hubby did some of the basic stocking shopping this year, which explains the appearance of of the Cheese Elf. The Cheese Elf, who left everyone a wheel of Laughing Cow or some other dairy like non-refridgerated cheese spread product, seemed to confuse the girls. They handed over their cheese wheels with looks of "I don't know what this is doing in my stocking," and "I think this was given to me by mistake." He traveled with is friend, the Sausage Elf, who left some jerky and a vinegary little sausage in our stockings. The girls were not impressed but never questioned the source of these bizarre new stocking items. They just passed them into the family pile.</div>
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We had a very relaxed and magical Christmas. It turned out mostly by accident that Hubby and I each had the same number of gifts as the girls. We open in a regulated order one at a time, and usually the girls have more than the adults and we skip a few rounds at the end, but this year we all somehow had the same. <br />
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We have been relaxing and playing over the break. Lots of just pajama days and playing on the XBox. Hubby's been doing quite a bit of snowboarding, just going up for a couple of runs most days.</div>
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This year we decided to put both of the girls on skis. Two years ago when <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2013/02/another-broken-arm.html" target="_blank">Red broke her wrist snowboarding</a> she decided to abandon snowboarding and went to skis last year. Blondie stuck it out on the snowboard another year, some of it was solidarity to her father but in general she was afraid of it and she and I spent a lot of time last year on the bunny hill just going slow and getting her comfortable. Which also worked with Red as she was basically teaching herself how to ski while I was busy helping Blondie. I thought they both had improved a lot, especially under the circumstances of being taught by me, <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/03/now-shes-broken-both-arms.html" target="_blank">then Blondie broke her arm in March</a>, right at the end of the season. So this year we put them both on skis, and decided to put them in a lesson over the break. So on New Year's day we all went skiing (Hubby snowboarded) and put the girls in full day lessons.</div>
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We got to the mountain about the time we should have, but I didn't realize I had to check them in at the ticket window. I'd bought everything on line, I thought I could just march them up to the ski school. Blondie was very nervous. Very very nervous to the point of making herself sick. Red seemed pretty calm, she had enjoyed skiing the year before and was mostly worried she'd be older than everyone else. But once I got them signed in, most of the other classes had left. We told the people there that despite Red having a year of skiing over Blondie, the two of them wanted to be placed in the same class. We left, hoping the two of them would be attached to a smaller class of older kids and not a big class of kindergarteners. As we were leaving we saw the two of them were just standing there alone, and then a woman came over and we watched for a little bit as she helped them struggle to put their skis on. We figured there's nothing more we could do, so we went off to have as much fun as we could. </div>
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Around lunchtime we got a text from Blondie that said; "Having a ton of fun! can't wait to tell u all about it :) " Whew!!! It was much easier to enjoy ourselves after that. We had three hours left to ski before we picked them up at 3:00. Hubby and I like similar runs, though he likes powder and I don't, so we do pretty well together. We had quite a bit of fun, though I wiped out bad once and I think cracked my left thumb. It will now match my right thumb, which I broke a chip off of skiing in high school and it doesn't bend all the way anymore.</div>
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When we went to pick the girls up, it turned out they had had a private lesson, just the two of them with the teacher. The teacher immediately started telling us how precious and what treasures the girls are. She told us what a joy they are to teach, how they listen, and respond, and are way ahead of a lot of kids that just start. It made me wonder what sort of little hellions she usually has to put up with. She said a lot of new students have a hard time grasping the fact that the skis slide on the snow. We suggested that their history of snowboarding might have helped with that, she added that they also have great balance and body sense which might be attributed to the horse back riding. I didn't feel it necessary to interrupt her gushing about how marvelous our kids are to point out only one has spent much time doing that. She said because it was just the two of them and because the girls listen and respond so well, they were able to advance through two full lessons, and the girls are now level three skiers. They are working on "linking turns" and can go on gentle green runs.</div>
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Blondie said skiing is sooo much better than snowboarding. She had more fun before lunch, afterward they started going faster and she got scared and started falling down more. But all in all had a really fun day. Red was very positive about it but doesn't bubble the way Blondie does. She had fun, and was all smiles, and that's about all I got out of her.</div>
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I have been taking Christmas down for the past couple of days, today we took the tree out to the front yard to await its ride to the drop off point, and moved all the furniture back into place. Only one more day of Christmas break, and the girls are just sick that school will start again. Hubby leaves tomorrow for … somewhere. He was going to take January off but has just been so busy, he'll only end up with about a week off. The book is selling great, at one point this week it was in the top 6000 Amazon selling lists. Which is marvelous.</div>
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Monday is back to normal, the next real break is the winter break in February. It's hard to see the holidays end, but it helps that we had such a lovely holiday to look back on.</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-64525458290826745202014-09-26T08:45:00.000-06:002014-09-26T08:48:42.772-06:00Just an "E"I expect most people who read this blog are people I know. But in the interest of internet privacy I am going to be cryptic anyway.<br />
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Blondie's real name is spelled with just an E at the end. Let's pretend for a moment her real hame is Blondie but we spell it B-L-O-N-D-E but pronounce it like 'Blond-EE." When she was born there was some discussion about how to spell it because while the way we ended up spelling it is the correct way for the word, it is popular to spell it with an EY at the end. Hubby insisted the E is the correct way to spell it, and he is right, and we shouldn't cutsie it up and misspell it. And he is/was right so that's what we did.</div>
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This morning she told me there was a little girl in her class who spells her own name with a pronounced E at the end. We'll call her Trixe pronounced Tricks-EE. She informs Blondie that her name BLONDE should be pronounced BLOND. To really be "Blond-ee" she needs a Y at the end like other Blondeys she's seen. Blondie says "So then your name is really Tricks, right?". Trixe starts to argue. Blondie says, "Do you know what Greek Mythology is?" </div>
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"No."</div>
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"Do you know who Hercules is?"</div>
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"Yes."</div>
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"Hercules came from Greece. My name is a Greek word which means "Life." And that is how it is spelled in Greek. If you change the Greek word it won't mean "Life" anymore, it will just be a plain old word."</div>
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Trixe was impressed, and informed Blondie that she likes her name spelled with just the E.</div>
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Score one for the Blondes of the world!!!</div>
stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-1767689465463125422014-09-10T14:09:00.001-06:002014-09-14T22:37:06.193-06:00A Horse, of CourseRight after school started there was a horse show for Blondie and Bones.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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She was competing in the "Intro" level, which means the jumps were about 2 feet high, in the "Junior" division which meant 19 year olds and younger.</div>
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It involved missing a day of school to go down and practice doing the cross country phase, since there isn't a cross country field at the barn they ride at. She and I camped at the fairgrounds with the rest of the people from the barn.<br />
She got to take care of the horse all day and wake up and do it again the next morning. She was in heaven. The little girls all took their horses for a walk before they tucked them into bed that night.<br />
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The next day both of them - she and the horse - did very well. I had worried about her Dressage, but to her credit she really had been practicing with him. And the dressage field was out in the open - nothing to shy at. So they did great.</div>
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She nailed the stadium jumping - and had a great time on the cross country.<br />
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They came in 2nd place in a field of about 20 kids.<br />
She was so happy she nearly burst.<br />
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It was a good day for all of us.<br />
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-55326013064332266432014-09-10T14:07:00.000-06:002014-09-10T14:07:51.309-06:00Summer Wrap UpSummer has come and gone!<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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The girls are back in school and I am looking around and taking a deep breath and it is so nice to feel like my life is not as hectic as it has been the past couple of years. Don't get me wrong, the house is still and probably always will be something of a disaster, but I, Personally, am in a happy place.</div>
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Probably the biggest highlight of the summer - <a href="http://www.gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/09/oregon-again.html" target="_blank"> our trip to Oregon</a>.</div>
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This is the 2nd annual trip to this house. It is an amazing place and when confronted with not getting the house when we wanted next year, we chose to come a different week rather than find a new house to come to.<br />
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We were watching summer slip away from us so we planned a quick trip down to Zion's Park. This is the first trip we have taken the girls down there since Red was a baby. We stayed at the Hampton Inn, which was nice, and hiked around. The first day we sort of accidentally missed the turn off to the shuttle parking lot and ended up driving out the other side of the canyon without actually going up into it, so since that took up most of the day, we went back and swam in the very nice hotel pool until dinner. The next day, though, we caught the shuttle and did a bunch of hikes and had a very nice day.<br />
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Red and Blondie are in the same school now, catching the same bus and on the same schedule. They were both put into groups of students without many of their good friends this year. That is kind of normal for Blondie, but for Red she's always had at least one really good friend in most of her classes. This year all of her good friends are in another group, she's mostly alone in this one. Same with Blondie, who was bothered by this more than Red. They are having good days and bad, but for the most part things are going well.<br />
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The week after school started was Blondie's biggest horse show to date. It was a schooling show, still, but required her to miss a day of school and she and I camped over at the county fairgrounds where it was held. But I haven't uploaded pictures from that yet… it will be for next time.<br />
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-63183477559297429492014-09-10T13:55:00.001-06:002014-09-12T11:56:36.647-06:00Oregon Again!!!We stopped at a recreation of Stonehenge on the Columbia River on the way over.<br />
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The Stonehenge looks out over the Columbia river<br />
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My brother's girls - they were an hour or two behind us on the drive.<br />
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Hubby and I and our girls made it to the house first, and picked up the key from the rental agency and then headed to the house. Just walking in the door of that lovely home and looking out to see the ocean from the back windows made me happy. It is a lovely place.<br />
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Grandma, Papa, and 3 nieces<br />
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We went for a hike but it was so foggy we couldn't see the view<br />
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My cute niece on the swingin' tree<br />
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My brother-in-law (on the right in the red shirt) is famous for his huge hamburgers.<br />
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Blondie and my youngest niece spent two solid days boogie boarding</div>
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We celebrated Blondie's birthday while we were there.<br />
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We went to the maritime museum in Astoria.</div>
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We relaxed, we slept, we read, we ate, we walked on the beach, we collected sand dollars, we ate and slept and relaxed some more.</div>
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My brother created a treasure hunt this year, on three planks of wood, one containing a map and two scribed with a very clever poem. He wanted to do the "Take ten steps to the west" sort of map which follows the pirate stereotype but totally stumped the girls. Which way is west, anyway? We say "The sun sets in the west." They look at us blankly. It took quite a lot of help to get them to figure out where the treasure was buried, with the older girls looking on saying "There should be a time limit! If they can't get it in 10 minutes it's our turn!" I am curious if the older girls could have figured it out.<br />
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Last year most of us went deep sea fishing. My mom and dad and sister opted out. Hubby and my sister's husband were horribly sea sick, and my brother's wife and two of his daughters were moderately sea sick. We brought back so much fish we ended up feeding it to the seagulls because it was going bad and stinking up the house fridge. Even though he spent a lot of the time leaning over the rail, Hubby said it was something he really enjoyed doing and looked forward to doing this year.<br />
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This year the only ones willing to go fishing were the four of us, my brother, and his youngest daughter. I bought some different nausea medication for Hubby, and he was not sick at all! That was probably my favorite part of the fishing trip. My niece and I caught a bunch of fish, this year Blondie didn't get nearly as many fish as she thought she should. She was standing right in between me and my niece, but just didn't get the bites. Red was on the other side of my niece, she caught quite a lot. Mostly we were catching black sea bass, but my brother and I both caught a ling cod, a big ugly fish that fought a lot harder than the bass. All in all we had a really nice trip, and a great fried fish dinner that evening. This year we were smarter, too, and we packed all the fish we didn't eat in ice and drove it home. We probably got 12 fish dinners out of it, and that was just 1/3rd of what was left.<br />
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Red would catch 'em, but she wouldn't touch 'em. The captain came out to help her reel that one in.<br />
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My brother, on the right, pulled in a crab trap.<br />
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When Blondie FINALLY caught her first fish of the day, the woman deckhand helping told her she had to kiss it to make sure she'd catch more. She did catch more eventually, though she did not kiss that first fish.<br />
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Thank you Grandma and Papa for a most wonderful trip!!</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-88338015162381384302014-07-15T17:44:00.001-06:002014-07-15T17:44:09.217-06:006thSo the woman who 1/2 leases the horse we now own took him to an event in Wyoming last weekend, and the two of them took 6th place! She is a really nice lady and she just couldn't stop saying nice things about Bones. She said he didn't refuse anything, and obviously performed really well. It was her first real competition. She did the Intro level, someone told me that means she won't be nationally ranked, but she was still thrilled. She sent me this picture.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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Awww they are so cute!!!!</div>
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She is leasing Bones until her own horse comes in, sometime in August. But she loves him very much. I hope she likes her new horse a lot, but Bones will be a tough act to follow!</div>
stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-49641772461405818552014-07-15T17:29:00.000-06:002014-07-15T17:29:12.910-06:00I Can Prove Global Warming is REALWhen we lived in the valley I developed a system of air flow management in order to maintain a comfortable temperature inside our house. When it got to be 80 degrees in the house I would turn on the swamp cooler above the kitchen table which would send gale force cooling winds through the house. 80 degrees was my breaking point, anything above 80 was too darned hot and I simply couldn't stand it. We lived in an old house that did not have central air on the main floor. It did have it upstairs, thank all things holy, because the upstairs had been remodeled in an era of sanity. The swamp cooler wasn't perfect but it did move the air around, and it raised the humidity in the horribly dry air and it made me feel better. It also cleaned all the girl's artwork off the fridge and anything not nailed down was blown all over, but you get used to that. If I turned the swamp cooler on just after dinner and ran it all night, it would drop the temperature in the house enough so that it wouldn't reach 80 degrees until I was making dinner the next day. Sure, I closed up the house and drew the blinds like a hermit when I got up, and we all put on sweatshirts to to eat breakfast in, but it made the house tolerable.<div>
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Then we moved up to the mountains. It's supposed to be much cooler up here, so 35 years ago when this house was built it didn't get central air. And the homeowners association thinks we're way too classy to allow for window air conditioners. So when it hits 83 degrees or warmer in the house by 4:00 or 5:00, I start to melt. I am not actively sweating, but I become a heat slug. I can't think, I can't function, I don't clean, cook, or much of anything. All I can do is sit and feel lethargic and be miserable.</div>
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It is even warmer upstairs where the bedrooms are. "Intolerable" on the main floor is usually my clue to start airflow management procedures, which involve going upstairs, where temperatures are reaching 87 or so, and turning on the mobile swamp cooler we bought last year - it does help. It is in the master bedroom. I need one for Red's bedroom too. I open the windows at the back of the house, load up the swamp cooler with water, and crank it to high. By the time we go upstairs to bed, the temperatures can drop down into the low to mid 70s. 75 is uncomfortable to try and get to sleep, but as the night goes on it will drop a few degrees cooler.</div>
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After I turn on the fans and the swamp cooler, I go down and hide in the basement, where the temperature is in the high 60s or low 70s already. There isn't much to do down there but sleep or watch TV or read. </div>
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I should be packing or cleaning, but I just can't seem to find the motivation for any of that. I just want to melt. It's an amazing effort just to type this. It's time to start heat management but I do not look forward to that climb up the stairs into worse heat than I'm sitting in now.</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-45049297056158450522014-07-10T12:58:00.002-06:002014-07-10T12:58:21.794-06:00New PsuedonymsI have been trying to call my girls Thing 1 and Thing 2 and in many ways it works, as I think of them that way and we got matching Dr. Seuss shirts! That they long ago grew out of.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
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But I reread my old entries and it is Just Confusing. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are so similar that it is easy to mix them up and I find it confusing, even when I know who I'm talking about.</div>
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From Now On I am going to call them by their hair color, as it has been a distinguishing feature for both of them. Thing 1 shall henceforth be called Red and Thing 2 will answer to Blondie. It also eliminates the need for explanation as to who is whom in pictures.</div>
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Consider yourself informed. And because I like pictures in blogs, here is the most recent one I have of the two of them together, taken at the Arts Festival in April or May. Red - the artist formally known as Thing 1- was selling her polymer clay baubles at a booth. Blondie was helping and selling her Grandmother's American Girl Doll poncho and hat sets.</div>
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Aren't they just the cutest?</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-79126782448917764142014-07-09T22:04:00.003-06:002014-07-10T12:41:15.106-06:00And The Living is EasyRoad construction in front of our house. We have been living on a dirt road for two weeks as they ripped up the pavement in preparation for the new pavement. Which hasn't arrived yet, and might not for a while. First they tore up the curb in front of our house and we were stranded with one car in the garage and one car parking on the street for two days. Luckily we were able to hobble around in the one car and Hubby didn't have any big trips.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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We are Horse Owners. Or will be in a matter of hours. The original understanding was we would lease this horse, <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/05/mothers-day.html" target="_blank">Bones,</a> for a year and at some as of yet unspecified point during that year we would approach the owner about purchasing the horse. However, Thing 2's riding instructor, who is the go-between in this situation, and the one who talked the original owner into taking Bones out of early retirement and putting him into a lease situation told me we ought to just bite the bullet and offer to buy him. I was inclined to agree, despite all my fears of horse ownership and horse health problems. I have been watching all the other barn moms struggling to find a horse for their daughters for the past four months or so. Thing 2 was happily riding and then <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-clump-of-three.html" target="_blank">sadly losing Doc</a>, and then shuffled around for a bit until Bones was pulled into the barn. In talking to the owner I can see what a trick our instructor pulled off because they really had no intention of selling him. They were happy just keeping him as a "pasture pal" but she became convinced that as an athlete he wasn't really happy just hanging out in her field. And he's a perfect horse for Thing 2. Though his price wasn't as low as we'd hoped, Hubby pointed out how much time and effort would we would have to put into a horse search hoping to find something that has Bone's qualities for 2/3 the price. So we bought a horse today. I wanted to hold off giving her the saddle I bought on eBay until her birthday, but with all the summer camps and clinics going on and it is becoming a pain for me to jockey for tack for her, so I gave it to her last week. The rest of it will wait until her birthday, but the saddle she got already.</div>
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I am not doing too well on the summer balance of keeping them occupied and letting them goof off. There has been more goofing off, especially on Thing 1's part, than I'm happy with. This mostly comes up when there's something she needs to do, for either me or her art class, and I have to remind her repeatedly to put down the stupid iPad or computer and get back to it. The trauma in her life was she got her braces put on, finally, a couple of weeks ago. She has a pretty good overbite, and to keep her top teeth from banging into and knocking off the braces buttons on her bottom teeth, they attached two big plastic things to the back of her front teeth to keep her from closing her mouth. She felt quite violated orally. They told me to take her out and feed her a big lunch before the pain set in, but between the pain and the frustration of her teeth not meeting, she didn't eat much lunch and continued to basically starve herself for a little over a week. I tried to ply her with smoothies, milkshakes, anything I could think of but she found something wrong with everything, yes, even milkshakes, and she lived on a very sparse diet of scrambled eggs and milk and … well I'm not sure what else she ate. She lost weight, but finally started perking up and said the pain was lessening, and now she's pretty much back to eating whatever she wants. Her teeth still don't touch much but she can at least chew enough to live. The funny thing was when Hubby returned from a trip and went straight to pick her up from her class the day after she got her braces and texted me in obvious alarm that her back molars didn't even meet!! Did the orthodontist know? Can we make an appointment for tomorrow to alert them to this unacceptable situation? Calm down, honey, I'm sure when they glued the big plastic things to the back of her front teeth they were aware that it would screw up her bite for a while.</div>
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We took the girls fishing a week ago Sunday. What started out as a leisurely drive for a hike turned into a fishing trip when I googled the lake we were going to hike around and read to Hubby that there was good fishing there. He pulled over in the next town and bought a couple of pole and bait kits and licenses for him and Thing 1, and we proceeded to the lake to go fishing instead of hiking. We expected to not catch anything and so were quite surprised when Hubby caught a nice sized trout. Thing 2 and I took the dog back to the car to get the foam cooler we bought just incase, and by the time we walked back Thing 1 had caught a fish too! She caught two more and she and Hubby both caught little ones that they turned loose. The whole fishing thing was fine, but I found that I am lousy at deboning them. It took me almost two hours to debone them when we got home. So we froze the fillets and got take-out for dinner.<br />
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We had fish for dinner on Monday, a week later.</div>
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Thing 1 went to a church girl's camp yesterday, and though the camp goes through Friday morning, I'll be going up tomorrow to pick her up so she can go to her art class. We all miss her a lot. She's pretty quiet, but she's a pretty big part of what goes on around here. </div>
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We're counting down to Oregon, 1 week before we leave. That will probably be one of the big highlights of the summer. The problem is nothing will be able to live up to last year, which was just magical in every way. But we'll give it a try.</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-31014007471987776532014-05-27T11:19:00.001-06:002014-05-27T11:28:32.364-06:00SwimminglyI walk dogs with another woman from the neighborhood. Of course while we walk we talk. She claims talking to me is the best therapy money can't buy. As we walk she (mostly) complains about everything in her life.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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I come home from these walks and I am SO HAPPY! I am outrageously happy that I am NOT married to her husband, I DO NOT have to put up with her kids, and my dog DOES NOT poop all over my house! It fills me with such joy to be reminded that my husband, while not perfect, is pretty darn close. My funny, talented, highly intelligent, WELL BEHAVED kids only require minimum effort on my behalf to maintain. Other than that annoying habit they have of getting hungry EVERY DAY. My dog's only real demand is the he be walked once a day and fed and watered occasionally. </div>
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I have created an immensely delightful life for myself!</div>
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I am just afraid that all this joy is going to attract the attention of the negative forces in the universe, and suddenly horrible things will start happening. I can't help it, it's the result of years of religious training.</div>
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Thing 1 got into the very prestigious kids program at a local art gallery. It required that she submit two essays, a sample of her work, a letter of recommendation, and she and I had to fill out some forms. All of that had to be reviewed by a panel of judges, and the 18 winners were selected. Many of them are repeats who have been in the program before - you have to apply every year. That means there were only a few open slots this year. Thing 1 is the youngest kid in the program this year - the only 7th grader. There is one 8th grader, a 9th grader, and then most of the kids are juniors and seniors in high school. We went to the first meeting and I came away somewhat daunted by what she needed to do - she came away buoyant and excited to get started. We are very happy she got in! </div>
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Thing 2 is back in the saddle after complete <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-clump-of-three.html" target="_blank">healing of her broken arm and the death of her horse.</a> and she has a new horse. By the way we don't actually OWN these horses. We lease them. We are set to buy the new one, eventually. His name is Bones, and he's a 16 year old thoroughbred who has a lot of experience in eventing and jumping. He is currently owned by another client of the riding instructor, someone wealthy enough to have him stands out in the pasture behind their house all the time and they're not riding him. She's talking them into selling him. We get first dibs. Thing 2 is absolutely in love with him. We will be required to buy him someday, but I'm pushing that off for a while and leasing him. I got the complete lowdown on him from another couple at the barn who considered buying him, but decided not to based on his age (they wanted a younger horse), and the fact that he won't "tie" to a pole. He has to be held by a person or tied up in a cross tie, with the poles next to him, not right in front of him. The report by EVERYONE who rides him is he is </div>
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2) Flashy. Flashy was explained to me as he holds himself very pretty, steps out pretty, has a sort of dramatic way of moving. In a barn full of horses, many of which are retired trail or cow horses, a horse that walks and moves gracefully like that sort of gets everyones attention. Everyone who sees her on him comments to me that "They look awfully good together!"</div>
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I don't have pictures of Thing 1's art class, but I have pictures of the horse. </div>
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This blue jump rattled him once, but he just hesitated and went on over it, and was the highest jump she was doing that day, so I had to get it from a couple of different angles. It looks like the same instant but it's not.</div>
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There was another high school girl watching Thing 2 take her lesson, waiting for the jumping course so she could practice. She's at the barn a lot, a really nice girl who has been riding for a while. She was complimenting Thing 2 and saying he was doing so good for her, and he's not an easy horse to ride. I said really? She sure makes it look easy! The older girls said she had seen the teacher and the other woman who is currently half leasing Bones ride him over the jumps and that he didn't perform as well as he did when Thing 2 was riding him. She said she thinks he is responding to Thing 2's confident gentleness, and that Thing 2 is an amazing rider. Why thank you!!!!</div>
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School is almost out and I am looking forward to spending more time with my amazing little family!!!!</div>
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Yippeeeee!</div>
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stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-13141886051924918762014-05-12T16:05:00.001-06:002014-05-14T13:35:16.297-06:00Mother's Day<div>
Yesterday was Mother's Day.</div>
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Hubby usually goes overboard and makes it as wonderful a day as he can… but he's in Australia. Events conspired against us.</div>
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The plan was for me and the girls to go to church at 9:00 until 10:00, then head north to my sister's for mother's day with my mom. My sister cooked dinner. I made a cake for dessert. </div>
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I had presents for my sister, who doesn't have kids of her own, and presents for my mom. I had the cake which turned out pretty good. I had a third of it instead of having any dinner, so I know. I had chocolate and caramel dipped pretzels, and several dozen chocolate dipped strawberries that Thing 1 had made the day before as part of a fundraiser for girl's camp. </div>
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Thing 2 woke up sick. It was hard to tell if it was just whiny sick, or really sick. I let the girls stay home from church, but I went. I was feeling a little sad watching everyone else's kids get up and sing for the mothers. When I got home we talked and Thing 2 was still feeling kind of crappy but I convinced her that sleeping in the car is as easy as sleeping on the couch. I let it percolate for a while because there was no rush getting out of the house, by the time we got to my folk's house, they'd be at church. It started to seem to me like she was getting worse. But by then I had convinced the girls we should go, and Thing 2 started crying that she had ruined Mother's Day, and we should just go no matter how sick she felt. But then her temperature popped up to 102, and she finally fell asleep. It was obvious she was too sick to go, and I was glad we hadn't taken her earlier. </div>
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Mother's day was kind of a bust. Australia is an inconvenient time difference, Hubby's getting up when the girls are at school, we're going to bed at the middle of his day, and he's asleep when we're getting up. We won't have many chances to talk for the next two weeks.</div>
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I think I'll do a do-over with my mom this weekend, and drive up to see her and my dad on Sunday.</div>
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Meanwhile, at the barn, Thing 2's riding instructor has come up with a horse for her to ride. His name is Bones, and he seems about perfect for her. He's taller than any other horse she's ridden at 16 hands, is a thoroughbred, and he's already done a lot of dressage and jumping. He's kind of middle aged, at 16 years old, and is reasonably priced. I'd love to buy him but the upkeep for horses is what puts you in the poor house. Somewhere along the road someone taught him to smile.<br />
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Thing 2 loves him already. We're going to try and lease him until our ship comes in, unless someone else buys him first.</div>
stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215438911183107614.post-78986891274788839272014-05-12T15:45:00.003-06:002014-05-12T15:45:32.040-06:00The Clump of ThreeSo <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/03/anniversary-gifts-his-and-hers-hot.html" target="_blank">the hot water heater busted.</a>.<br />
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Then <a href="http://gotchernose.blogspot.com/2014/03/now-shes-broken-both-arms.html" target="_blank">Thing 2 broke her arm.</a><br />
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I ran into a friend the beginning of the next week and she said, "That's two!" I hadn't even thought of that. I conjured up some third disaster, which I can't even remember now because it was so small, and assured myself that would be it.<br />
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But it wasn't.<br />
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I made an appointment for Thing 2 to go to the Fracture Clinic at Primary Children's Hospital. I didn't know at the time they're only open on Wednesdays. They got us in at 2:00. An hour before I went to go pick her up for her appointment, Thing 2's horseback riding instructor texted me that Doc, the horse she's been riding for the past year, died.<br />
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We had gotten wind he was sick, there is another girl who rides him and her mother had texted me on Sunday to say Sorry about Thing 2's arm, and that Doc was feeling poorly and was in a stall in the barn, not out in the corral like usual.<br />
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I had decided not to say anything to Thing 2 until that evening, when I picked her up at school she said another friend of hers who goes to the same barn had been out there the night before and reported Doc wasn't doing well. She teared up and asked me if we could go visit him after her arm appointment.<br />
I couldn't lie to her and say "Oh yes, honey, we can go out there right after your appointment! I'm sure he'll be happy to see you!"<br />
So I told her. It was already too late, he'd died that morning.<br />
Of course she was devastated, and my delivery was terrible... the school parking lot is not the place to deliver that kind of news. We would barely make the appointment anyway, and she started sobbing and saying she couldn't go to the doctor now... I agreed but I was kind of stuck. She cried all the way down the canyon but pulled herself together for the doctor. I don't know why they figured she was kind of weepy and tender, one woman asked if it hurt a lot and she agreed.<br />
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The doctor at Primary's, but the way, was baffled by the weird splint the ski resort had put on her, his first act was to take it off. He confessed that he didn't understand why they'd bother splinting her arm, but even more curious was why they'd splint her arm two inches below the break. Maybe if they had ran the splint up over her shoulder or something? But below the break? No sense whatsoever. He also told her 4-6 weeks of being careful, but from that day, not from the day of the break, so he basically moved her dates back a week. Talk about adding insult to injury. Our next appointment would have been 4 weeks later but that fell right in the middle of our spring break and I already knew we'd be leaving town. They never move appointments up, always back, so her follow up appointment will be the week after we get back. <br />
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I took Thing 2 out to the barn last week, she had ridden a new horse just before Doc died and she wanted to just go to the barn. While I was there I ran into the groom girl, who said he had gotten out when someone was feeding them, and come to the arena and found her and just stood in front of her. She said she almost didn't recognize him, he looked so awful. They called the vet and did an ultrasound on him and found a tumor on his kidney. He died three days later. He was 20. Too young, and very sad.<br />
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Thing 2 took two for the team on the series of unfortunate events for the family.<br />
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</span>stacy pattonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306951745519108296noreply@blogger.com0