Happy October!

Lolz the random blue at the top of my blog still cracks me up.

I've got supper in the oven, and I'm looking for a way to waste time. I have several responsibilities I should be taking care of at the moment, but I simply don't feel like it.

Last Friday I went to Jenna's farm to work, and since she's still laid up I knew I wouldn't be having a lesson. So I asked her if I could work with Oliver, a new horse she acquired a month or two ago. Ollie is only halter broke, and has bad manners. He is extremely skittish and freaks out at just about everything. In fact, if you are a high-energy person, he will not let you near him. Thankfully, he likes me.
Anyways, after finished mucking stalls and sweeping out the barn, I longed Elsie and then went to fetch Jenna, who wanted to watch me work with Ollie and give me pointers.
I caught Ollie from the field and brought him to the grooming/tacking up place. He doesn't like to be groomed (!) so I had to be really careful and only groom a little at a time. I went down his neck and side, and then Jenna told me to go down his front legs too.
I started to, and felt Ollie's fear, but before I could do anything, I was cow-kicked in the back of my thigh. Twice. Ow.
Jenna yelled "Get out of the way get out of the way get out of the wayyyy!" bahahaha. So I did (fast), and waited for him to settle down while rubbing my sore thigh and almost fainting (my head is weird and thinks that it better shut down whenever I suffer any kind of mild trauma).
After he was a bit more calm I approached him again and stroked him for a while. Needless to say, I didn't finish grooming.
I brought him into the arena and began to free longe him. He worked off quite a bit of steam while we were doing this, and became much more relaxed after cantering for quite a while. My objective was to keep his feet moving and keep him going in the direction I wanted him to. If he turned around, I moved in his way and he was forced to turn back around. It was scary at times, but I only lost once. (He's a huge horse, btw, about 17hh.)
When he had calmed down quite a bit, I joined up with him. Joining up is a magical process where the horse begins to respect the person as it's leader, and wishes to join the herd. When the horse shows signs of respect and submission (lowering it's head, pointing it's ears to the inside, licking it's lips, etc.), the human stops making it run and turns his back on it. The horse then comes to the center of the arena, which is the human's circle and the horse can only come in if it is invited.
We did all this, and after he came into my circle, he followed me around everywhere, without being physically attached to me.
This doesn't mean that he will always do whatever I tell him to, but he does have more respect for me, and we have the beginning of a bond. I'm scared that I'm going to get very attached to Oliver...
Jenna plans to turn him into a hunter/jumper. I hope to work with him quite a bit, and maybe sometime in the future, if she keeps him long enough, he could be mine. But then I'm just dreaming now.

Even though he's skittish and flighty, I've never liked a horse as much as I like him. I think we've got something, and I don't want to let it pass me by.

Why do we insist on crediting the perfect timing of delightful things in our lives to something - anything - other than the Creator of time?

Things I Have Found Out

When I leave a message on your phone, calling me back would be polite - true

Barbecue sauce is amazing - true

Revving your engine while passing me will make me think you're hot/cool/awesome/wicked - false. please don't do this, it is exceedingly annoying and only makes people think you are a fool. a nice wave would be just fine.

Wearing an apron is like being a walking napkin - true, and very handy

"Fail-proof" recipes are always fail-proof - false

Wearing my cowboy hat while doing algebra makes everything better - true

Life is easy - false

Horses are cheaper than therapy - false

I can now run for 2 miles and call it an "easy" run - true

Bright colors make me happy - true

Running is addicting - strange, but true.

HTML is fun and easy - false, I messed up my blog and don't know how to change it back.

Once I am sleep-deprived, catching up on sleep isn't difficult - false

People on Facebook entertain me with their whining about the new layout - true

I have taken on way too much school this year - true

Ok, this was fun but I'm gonna go write in my journal and get ready for bed now :)

Alrighty Then

Soo, my blog is continuing to be weird. I just worked for a couple hours on changing the font, and yeah. This is what happened. Everything is like grayed out or something, and what's with the random blue at the top of the page?
My links turned blue too. Strange.
I really have no idea how to make it go back to regular, so it will just have to stay like this until I can figure it out. Which might be never.
Needless to say, my font change didn't work. Bummer. It was gonna be really cool, too. Ah well.

I ran the Ingawanis 5k on Saturday, and it was a real challenge. It was a trail run, so lots of big, loose rocks and quite a few inclines too. Some were really steep. There were also some logs across the path, which I leaped gracefully across (haha). I had to walk quite a few times, which was disappointing to me, but I got over it.
My time was 34:13 I think. I placed 3rd in my age division :) :) :)

It was a good run.

I made this recipe for supper tonight, and it was pretty good. I meant to take pictures of it to post, but I completely forgot. Whoops. 

I was gonna clean my hamster's cage tonight [it's badly in need of a clean :( ], but then I wasted all my time on changing my stupid blog around. And I have nothing good to show for it. Ah, what an exciting life I lead ;)

*wishes on 11:11*

Goodnight, all! 

Random Things

This will basically be an update post, and an excuse to not do school :)

If you remember, I wrote about training for a 5k a while ago. Well, I completed the training schedule (sorta), and ran the 5k. Before I did the actual race, I was convinced that I would never run another one, because I hated running so much. It's tons of work, and it's boring.
But then I actually ran it, and it was very much fun, even though I had to walk quite a bit of it. My time was 35.00, and I got 1st place, but only because no one else ran in my age division, hahaha.
I was undecided as to whether I would continue running or not, so my plan was to take a rest week and then keep doing practice runs until I could run the entire 3.1 miles, then go from there.
Then Mom told me about a 5k near Hampton at a place called Beed's Lake. I immediately wanted to run it. So I started a new training plan, one that lasted 5 weeks and would help me to run the entire thing. The thing was, I had to start training right away in order to finish it by the time the 5k rolled around. So I didn't get a rest week in, but it worked out ok.
I ran the Beed's Lake 5k, and it was really fun. I walked for about 10 seconds for the water stop (I tried to run through it, but believe me, it's extremely hard to run and drink water out of a styrofoam cup at the same time!), and then at about 2 1/2 miles I just got so tired that I had to walk for about 2 minutes, then run the rest of the way. My time was 32.47, and I got 3rd place in my age division.

And now, I'm running another 5k this weekend. I've basically been running for 30 minutes 3 days a week. I'm pretty confident that I'll do well at this one, and hopefully be able to run the entire thing.
I'm excited :D

Let's see what else....
Oh yeah!
I did another horse show on August 21st. It was a blast :) I rode Pork Chop.

I placed 4th out of 4 in English walk/trot, 1st out of 2 in English Pleasure, and 3rd out of 3 in Jumping Figure Eight. 

I went jumping at Jenna's on a horse that actually jumps, rather than stumbles, and it was really fun. I had a great time.

I started school the day after Labor Day, and if I said it's been keeping me busy that would be an understatement. On top of school I have embroidery, 4-H, and normal house chores like making supper. Then this past weekend I did a yard sale out front of my parent's store in Hampton. It was a ton of work, and I had to sit with it Friday 10-5 and Saturday 9-5. Needless to say, I was extremely bored. On Friday I only had my textbooks to keep me company, and on Saturday I stole Liz's iPod, but the internet only worked half the time. 

Then on Sunday morning, we found out that our local grocery store got burnt down :( :( :( :(

It's the only grocery store in my town, and it's really weird to think that I won't be going back there to buy things anymore. I've been going there ever since I was tiny. *Sigh*

But the good news is, the owner decided to rebuild! :) It won't be the same but at least there will be another store. 

I also restarted piano lessons, and I've barely had time to practice for that. Life. It's just too busy. And I don't have half the responsibilities that some people do. 

This has been good. I have missed this. I love blogging :)
I must go start supper now, I will be back. Let us not part for so long next time!
Til' then,
Emily

WOOHOO!

It works! YESS!! My blog is back in business! YAYYYYY! I've missed blogging so much. The poor people over on Buzz probably hate me. I've been plaguing them with tons of posts.
I don't have time to write a real post right now, but I will soon, I promise :)
I posted this video on my Facebook and Buzz yesterday, and I wanted to post it here too.

Never forget <3