Blitz Here

Hay y'all. Get it?  I said "Hay" and I'm a horse?  Ha!  Did ya get it? Ah, nevermind. 

I wanted to tell you about my trail ride earlier this week.  Mama rode me, of course, and Scotlyn rode Moonshine and we also took the Drurys.  Have you met the Drurys yet?  No big loss.  They're way weird.  They like beagles.  Those are those funny looking dogs, even weirder than Buddy, that chase rabbits.  Rabbits! Can you imagine? 

Anyway, the mama Drury, Pam, rode Diva, and she wasn't none too happy about it. "Why do I always get the old ladies?"  she wanted to know.  She was stomping her feet and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  It was a sight to behold.  I was just standing there, secure in my own world that no one would dare ride me.  A couple weeks ago, the teen Drury girl, Maranda, tried but I sure showed her. I ran her through the cars, then jumped through a mimosa tree.  She got right off mighty quick and I don't think she'll be crossing my personal boundaries again.  I'm a Mama's Boy, make no mistake.

Today, the teen Drury had to ride double on Moonshine, who was as usual in a good mood.  "Isn't this going to be fun?!  We're all going to have a great ride!"

"You're stupid!" snapped Diva.  "It's already 95 degrees out here and still rising.  We're going to get heat stroke and die."

"You don't think I'll sweat and mess up my pretty white coat, do you?"  asked Moonshine.

Diva just laid her ears back in disgust while I flopped mine to the side and dozed, trying to look as much like a half-dead mule as possible. I heard the mama Drury comment that I didn't look nearly as hyper as I had last time she saw me.  My evil plan to lull everyone into a false sense of security is working.

Jane is being ridden by the younger Drury child, Emily.  She's none too happy either.  She's claiming the Equines with Disabilities Act.  "I just lost an eye.  How am I supposed to go on a trail ride?  What if a branch hits me on my blind side?  Or worse, what if one hits my good eye?  I could go completely blind.  This just will not do. I should go home and rest."

I haven't had much to say all morning.  As the only male on this all girl ride, including both riders and horses, I'm feeling rather put out and am reacting in the way all men react when they don't get their way. I'm pouting.

We load up and head out. I must admit, it's a rather pleasant morning.  It's early enough in the day that the bugs haven't woken up yet for their morning bloodfast and the breeze is blowing.  The birds are singing and the sky is blue. I'm practically waxing poetic here, but I do wish my mama would shut up.  All she does is yack yack yack. She and Ms. Pam are comparing childbirth stories. Um, hello....gross!  Can't we just listen to the birds singing?!

Jane broke the diatribe, thank goodness, by deciding that a newly plowed field looked like a great place for a nap, and laid down, Emily and all.  That got the women to quit talking about childbirth for a few minutes while they yelled at Jane to get her stupid carcass off the ground and start walking again.  Jane heaved herself up and shook the dust off, looking mighty pleased with herself.

"What was that all about?" I couldn't help but ask.

She smirked.  "I got them to shut up, didn't I?" 

Maybe she's not so bad after all.

But it didn't last.  Now they started talking about nursing their babies and what size bras they where.  Hae they no pride?!  I'm so glad I'm a man, even if I did have the snip snip surgery done before I was fully a man. Sheesh.

After an hour, Mama looked at her watch and yelped.  "Goodness, we better head back!  I've gotta pick the littles up from music camp soon."  She dug her new handheld gps out of the saddlebags and tried to figure out how to get back to the trailer, but it said to turn around and go back. So she called it stupid and said she knew a better way. We kept going. And getting further from the trailer.

Finally, we got on a road that would take us back to the trailer (it was kind of like taking the short cut through Canada to get to Florida, if you know what I mean), and we were running way late, so we decided a little run might be in order.  I took off like a two dollar pistol and we left the others in the distance.  Mama must be getting immune because I didn't hear her pray or cry or anything, not even once.  She didn't even scream, "I'm too young to die!" or "I'm too old to ride like this".  I was so proud of her.

After I got tuckered out a bit we stopped and waited on the others and Mama went to get the gps out to see how far we'd run.  Well, guess what?  She'd lost the gps because she hadn't zipped the saddle bags. She said we had to go back to get it.  I said "nuh uh" and shook my head.  She said "uh huh" and nudged me ahead with her spurs.  Spurs! What an insult.  I hate that she's gotten wise to my ways.  She made me go all the way back to where we started to get that stupide gps, all because she paid 149 measly dollars for it.  But at least she let me run again.  And we STILL beat all those other slow pokes.

I guess trail rides are pretty fun after all.  I just wish my mama would quit telling her childbirth stories.  It's just icky.

Shark or Dolphin?

Did I forget to mention that Peter and the kids saw dorsal fins while at Grand Isle last week?  I did, didn't I?  They had gone out a ways, while I meditated on my next chapter on my Great American Novel (read:  dozed on the beach) when they saw two dorsal fins. 

"Look, Daddy!  Dolphins!"  Squeals a kid.  Who cares which kid? I wasn't there. Peter looks.  He's pretty sure they're dolphins.  Wouldn't it be cool to swim with dolphins, and for free?  Awesomeness.

Then again.

A dorsal fin is a dorsal fin. Was he sure they were dolphins?  What if he reached out to pet the nice cuddly dophins and drew back a bloody stump?  Instead of swimming with the dophins he could be swimming with the fishies.  Maybe it would be a good idea to head back to shore.

Like now.  He gathered his brood of chicks and calmly convinced them to head for shallow water before Jaws wanted dinner. 

They told me this story later, and I proudly proclaimed all my factual knowledge that dolphins have a slightly curved fin, thanks to my Apologia Exploring Creation, Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day homeschool book learning.  Peter asked if I was positive, and after some deep thought, I decided I wasn't so sure I'd bet the morgue on it, so he looked it up, and as usual, I was right. Go brain.

So folks, now you have it.  Dolphins have a slightly curved fin, and as a bonus they are more likely to travel in groups, where sharks don't like to compete for their tourists.

My children

Do you ever just look at your kids and think WOW?  How did that come from ME?  What did I do to deserve them?  I'm sure my mother thinks the same things about me, but maybe not with the same intonation. I look at my kids sometimes, and the love nearly bursts from me.  And other times, well, let me be clear. I'm writing this blog just moments after begging my youngest two children to please be quiet and stop talking for just five minutes pretty pretty please.  My ears hurt and brain is so tired.

I'm not a nurturing my mother.  My darling daughter Scotlyn doesn't like to wear shoes.  Saves me a lot of money, so I don't mind.  But she comes in the house with a splinter in her foot, whining like a titty baby.  My response?  "Well, if you had the sense God gave a goose, you wouldn't be wandering around barefoot. Go get your own splinter out."  Once, I let my son Chad ride on the bumper of the van down the driveway. He fell off and broke his leg.  I didn't know it was broke and thought he was whining, so I told him to put it up for a "bit" while I took a nap (I worked nights at the time).  Six hours later, I took him to the ER. Yup, broke. I felt bad.

I'm not a patient mother.  I tell my kids to do something, but golly they better do it.  And they better not sass me, lest they want to wear their teeth around their neck.  I just don't like sassing. I even get on strangers' kids about sassing their mamas.  Where is respect these days?  If you don't respect your mama, who are you gonna respect? Well, anyone, what was I saying?  Patience?  I ain't got it.

I'm not a huggy, kissy, cookie baking mother.  I don't sew my kids matching clothes - although I went through that phase.  The girls had matching dresses...although come to think of it, there may have only been one girl at the time. And the boys had vests.  This memory came to mind because I recently saw the material used as curtains at Cafe' Bouche when I went to lunch with a friend. How I love yellow and blue together. Lovely combination, that. I don't bake bread from scratch, or garden (tried last year. The weeds did great!), or really anything at all worthwhile.  I hardly even do laundry. Or dishes.

Know what I do do?  (My kids think that's hysterical when I say that.  "You 'do do'?  Muuhahahahah!" They really need to get out more.)  I love my kids.  Love 'em with everything in me. I'm so proud of 'em I could bust. I look at them sometimes and tears fill my eyes with gratitude to God for how much he's blessed me with them.  My oldest two - growing up to be so kind and caring and giving.  They aren't selfish and "rebellious" teens.  They aren't perfect - how boring would that be?! - but they're REAL.  My younger two.  Silly. Growing up too fast. Changing every day. 

To time passing by:  Stop it already!  You're going by too fast!  I need my babies a while longer.  Pretty soon they'll be gone, and what will I be?  A crazy horse lady? Certainly not a crazy cat lady. I don't like 'em. 

To my babies:  Go on.  Keep growing up.  I'm enjoying every moment of watching it. 

Graduation Day

As Graduation day dawned this morning, I woke up with a sense of, if not peace, then at least not utter panic.  I did not wake up by shooting straight up in bed reaching for my little brown bag to hyperventilate into as I have every other day this week.  I didn't reach for my valium lollipops or a large bottle of vodka (joking, really...heh).  Instead, I woke up with a sense of alertness and even....could it be?...happy anticipation.

I think I know what's caused this change of heart.  First, the van is loaded with all various and assorted graduation items:  his exactly four foot long table, white sheet to cover it, maroon sheet for a colorful drape, items of interest for display (including $200 scrapbook - please notice each and every page, would you?) and his guitar case full of music junk.

But really I think what made the difference is that while my house husband was dutifully ironing said sheets, the graduation gown, and ceremony clothes late last night (he irons because he has long ago given up on me learning how to do it) I had an epiphany.  What does every graduation need?  No, really, what does EVERY graduation need? 

A gown is nice. It's being ironed.  Check.  Cap?  It's under the visor on Chad's feep.  Check.  Tassel... Hanging from the rearview mirror. Check.  Anything else?  Anything?  I ponder this through a few crime scenes on The Mentalist.

AHA!  A diploma!  That's what every graduation needs!

OH MY GRAVY!  Where's the diploma!  Did I get one? I forget to get a diploma!  I'm going to real quick write him up writ of something on a piece of tissue paper (unused thankyouverymuch) and roll it up real purty, tie it with a ribbon, and hand it to him in the ceremony. No one will notice, right?

Now wait a minute.  I'm the one in charge of ordering the diplomas.  I got them with the caps and gowns.  Everyone else got one, so it stands to reason I did too.  Where did I put that sucker.  I'm still watching The Mentalist, where Lisbon has now woken up with a bomb strapped to her chest. I see her day is going about like mine.

Where are my best "put it where you won't forget it" places?  Filing cabinet? No, I was just searching for our income taxes and it's not there. Bookshelf 1? No. 2? Nope. 3 through 6? Not a chance.  Freezer?  Breakfast bar?  Hope chest?  I give up. I'll never find it.  Some diploma stealing fairy snuck in here and took off with my baby's diploma.  The nerve.

Wait a minute. The Homeschool Paper/Misc Crap Chest!  Maybe that's it?  First drawer I opened, and there, shining like a beacon of light, lay that gorgeous diploma, complete with it's cover and gold foil seal.  It's now filled out and signed by the teacher (me) and the principal (Peter) and my life is complete. 

I figure we have a cap, gown, tassel, and diploma. Everything else is just gravy.  Let the graduation begin.

Horse snobs

Not much annoys me more than horse snobs.  I met one today, and she ran pretty true to form.  I was at the pet store getting my kids some new hermies (that's hermit crabs for you not in-the-know people).  We're down to three hermies and with a 20 gallon tank, that is just not enough to keep us entertained.  They were out of normal sized hermies and only had some African kind of herms.  They were like regular hermit crabs, but pumped up on steroids or something. Let me just say I'll be handling them with gloves for a while.  Yowsers.  I've been wanting a bearded dragon for a while too, even trying to con the soon-to-be birthday boy into wanting one for his birthday (nope, the traitor wants a DS) so the pet store employee and I got to talking about animals of different kinds, and as I usually do, I turned the subject from whatever was at hand (bearded dragons in this case) around to horses. 

I told her in my fake modest voice that I didn't know much about reptiles because my forte' was horses.

"I have horses too," she responds.

I perk up.  "Really?"  I ask. "How many?"  Not that I didn't believe her or anything. And not that I would challenge her, but you know, this is an important question.  "I have five."  I don't really.  There are five in the family, sure, but my girls claim theirs and I'm left with the plain red ones, Blitz and Diva. 

"Well, I have three."  She sounds sort of challenging there.   Hmmm...  I eyeball her a minute, wondering if she's telling me an untruth.  Nope, she pulls out her iphone (newer than my Blackberry, darnitall) and starts to show pics.  She has pictures of miniatures on there and proceeds to tell me that minis are small horses.  No kidding, really?  I never would have guessed, even if I hadn't already known.  I'm starting to not like her so much. 

When I could get a word in there edgewise, and after I'd ordered Scotlyn to go to the car to get her phone (with pictures of Moonshine (and after I'd made a snarky comment about not having time to take pictures of my horses on my phone because I was busy doing important things like educating my children including my son that got into college a year early on an honors scholarship)) I started bragging on how Scotlyn used her birthday money to save a colt from slaughter and was nursing him back from the brink of death.  I wasn't lying exactly, just...embellishing a touch.  She cut me off!  Cut. Me. Off!

"Did you give him Strongid yet?"

"Yeeessss,"  I answered in my annoyed voice when someone has crossed my personal boundaries by insulting my intelligence.  "He's finishing up his fifth day of Power today." 

"What's 'Power'?"  HA!   Hahahahahaha!!!  She doesn't even know what Strongid Power is, and she's trying to tell me what to do to save my deathly ill, nearly slaughtered colt?  She don't know nothing! NOTHING! Then she says, "Now you need to Ivermectrin Gold."  Really?  Is that a fact?  Why? So we can rip his innards clean out of him?  So his innards can be his outtards?  You're some kind of Einstein, ain'tcha huh? 

So now I use my you're-an-idiot-that's-too-stupid-to-convert-oxygen-to-carbon-dioxide voice on her.  "You can't use two different wormers that close together.  Especially when I used a five day wormer on him." 

"Well, I know that.  You have to wait a month or it could kill him."  She looks at me like I shouldn't be allowed to raise baby snails and maybe she should take the hermit crabs back.  By now Peter has taken hold of my arm and is not so gently leading me toward the door. 

There may have been some other comments like:

• Oh, you keep your horses in your backyard?  I keep mine in a reputable stable.  I pay $300 a month per horse so I have a well-maintained arena available to work my reining and/or pleasure and/or barrel horse in at all times. I don't want them just sitting around doing nothing.
• And maybe I had to return with something like:  Well, I like to be with my horses for companionship and not just for what they can do for me.
• I have a horse worth $10,000.  All of mine are registered Quarter Horses.  What do you have?
• Mine are priceless.  I don't believe in putting pricetags on my family.  (said with a big smile and lots of teeth.)
• I show my horses and they win at everything.
• I only ride my horses on trail rides.  (no more big smile)
• I know a big trail ride coming up tomorrow you could go on. 
• Actually, we've found we enjoy going as a family instead of in large groups.
• Oh, your horses don't behave well, huh? 

And that was said as Peter forcibly propelled me out of the store.

Mama Musings

This next two weeks (twelve days, actually!) is going to be some of the most important and exciting days of my children's lives, other than their births of course.  We are on a countdown of epic proportions and each day holds something important.

• Tomorrow:  open house for local seniors at the public school.  Since many of these kids are a big part of my family's life, we'll be there with bells on.  Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.
• Wednesday:  Awana awards ceremony!  'Nuff said.  And Ainsley has her last dance class before recital.
• Thursday:  Franklinton High School Graduation!  Not sure I'm going to it, since Scotlyn will be at dance, but I've known these kids since 7th grade.  No way are they ready for the real world. Nuh uh. And Peter comes home that day.
• Friday:  I haven't got anything on the calendar yet, but I'm sure that'll change. Probably do something with the old man.
• Saturday:  Dress rehearsal for the church play in the morning and a graduation party in the afternoon. 
• Sunday:  Church, church play at 5, mission trip meeting after play
• Monday:  Grad practice for Chad - last practice before big day *hyperventilating*
• Tuesday and Wednesday: get ready for graduation and arriving family (refill anxiety meds)
• Thursday:  family arriving
• Friday:  OH MY GOODNESS IT'S TODAY MY BABY'S GRADUATING HOW DID THIS HAPPEN WASN'T HE JUST A BABY YESTERDAY IVE CHANGED MY MIND HE CAN GRADUATE NEXT YEAR

Mysteries of Life

For Mother's Day this year I would like answers to some of the greater mysteries of life.

For example, I would like to know why, after searching for months for all but two of my bras, I finally caved and went on a shopping spree for new ones - to the tune of $68 EACH!!! - only to have the missing culprits magically reappear in my drawer the next day.  Now I'm overloaded in bras.  My girls are happy, but neither my checking account nor my husband is.

And why oh why does my daughter feel the need to take her board games with her into the bathtub.  Yes, you read that right.  I'm still fishing dice out of the drain.  And the the hat and moneybags from Monopoly.  When's the last time you got an overwhelming urge to take over Boardwalk while sudsing up by yourself - I hope she was by herself! - in the tub? 

And if the toddler years are proof that God has a sense of humor (of this I am convinced), then what are the teen years?  Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit come to mind.  "You can do anything you want but text while you drive."  "Okay, I'll text on my way." "NO, wait until you get there."  "Ok, I'll text when I'm almost there."

Happy Mother's Day everyone.