We're currently under destruction

To say that the natives are getting restless would be a definite understatement. More like the proverbial angry mob. For whatever reason, our spring break is much later than usual this year and everyone is sick. Sick of school, sick of schoolwork, and sick of each other. Tempers are in short supply, and sixth grade girl drama is at all time ridiculous high. I feel as though I have spent the week in the trenches for a Hollywood tabloid more than an elementary school. The phrase, "So and so is ruining my life!" coupled with shouting matches, shrieking hysteria and boatloads of tears have cropped up almost as many times as the political phone calls this week. I'm telling you; it's enough to send a grown woman into hiding under the first available desk. Between the two I'm just about ready for the loony bin. Even the normally level-headed kids have gone 'round the bend. Help!

Perhaps this is apropos, as it puts me in an appreciative frame of mind for jury duty next week. Criminals? Bring 'em. I'm ready to hang out in a saner, more peaceful environment. *sigh*

Not long ago, I stumbled across an interesting post (on a blog I can't remember the name or location of) about a handy little site called Clipix. Filed the information away to scope it out later, then forgot all about it. Big surprise there. Well. Finally remembered it, managed to check it out, and I love it! Although I did the Pinterest thing, I didn't really care about another community deal and sharing stuff with the world so much as keeping track of it for me and that's the whole point of Clipix. Too bad I didn't clip that blog - then I'd know just where to find it. I've been using it mostly to collect horse articles, free crochet patterns and craft links. You can choose the display photo for your board from whatever pictures are on the site page, which lets me use a shot of the finished project and makes patterns a million times easier to sort through. Yay.
At the moment, I'm all over headbands. I wound up altering one of the headband patterns I liked and then splicing my favorite flower from the 101 crocheted embellishments book. What do you think? Cute? It has a tie, so it's nice and adjustable. Here's a link to the  pattern I used; it's from the Crochet and Crafts blog (don't forget I changed it slightly though!) I'm working on a different headband for infants; I'll let you know how that one turns out. I'm still looking for just the right flower pattern. Picky. Picky.
P.S. No stuffed animals were harmed in the shooting of this photo (Thanks for modeling it there, Nala ;o)

I also signed up for Shutterfly this week - the offer of 50 free prints was irresistible. Of course now I'm uploading like crazy and agonizing over which digital prints to order - I only have 30 days. So many choices, so little time....eek.
DD finished a little storage unit for one of the teachers at school this week and brought it. It was to replace a rickety old metal cart full of brightly colored drawers that was ready to collapse at any given moment. Since there was nothing wrong with the drawers, the teacher asked DD if she could make her something that would hold them, and this is what she made. Did a good job, didn't she? Not the best photo though; I think the camera lens on my cell phone could use a good cleaning. Meh.
On the day she delivered it, she got stopped on the way home by the local police. She had left a few minutes before me, and although I saw the flashing lights I didn't see who it was that Johnny Law stopped until I had already gone by (there was a big truck in the other lane blocking my view). Awful feeling to see DD's snappy little red pickup pulled over in the rearview; gave me heart palpitations, let me tell you. With nightmare visions of a $500 speeding ticket (and other such awful thoughts), I went back to make sure everything was okay.

Being careful to stop where I was easily seen on the opposite side of the median, I asked the policeman if he needed me to interpret anything. Now color me paranoid, but many misunderstandings have happened between deaf drivers and police; most do not end well (like the teenage boy who got shot because he went to get a notepad out of the glove compartment and could not hear the cop yelling at him to freeze). Now DD has great speech, but you just never know. Anyway, are you ready for this one? Must've been some bored cop. She was pulled over for driving too slowly. Yep. He wrote her a warning for doing 50 in the left lane of a 65 mph zone. The fact that there was a yellow intersection sign nearby with 45mph on it didn't seem to be an issue for him. Go figure. No ticket though, whew!!

Last but not least, was the almost jail break bright and early this morning. Thankfully, I was still outside waiting for the boys to finish eating and playing with the camera. I heard the pop and clank of chain and the subsequent squeal of the girls' gate swinging wide. Right on the heels of that were two very loud simultaneous whinnies emitted by Rina and Bella. I turned around to see both girls eyeballing Taya like an adult would an incorrigible child. Sometimes it doesn't take any thinking at all to translate horse speak: "MOM, Taya opened the gate!" in stereo. So funny; of course that's only because they didn't actually venture out. Yet again, I say "Whew!"

Little Miss Tootie Patootie looked completely crestfallen when I closed the gate back and wrapped the chain around the post so wouldn't be able to open it again. Just look at that pitiful expression (the heifer).

Oh my, I think I've talked too much this time. If you actually read this entire post, thank you (and have an appreciative hug). I'm so glad you stayed with me to the end. Éirinn go brách to those with Irish in their blood; have a blessed week everyone! :o)

I'll just bet you thought that was a typo, didn't you? Ha; 'fraid not. DH's hours have gone back up at work, so while I'm waiting for him to find the time to finish our visitor area (I am SO not a builder or plumber). I decided to address my office/craft room's current decor of Early American Hoarder to something a little more efficient by replacing the floor and moving some things around. I managed to talk DH into ponying up enough money to replace the floor and buy some track shelving for the closet so my computer was unplugged for several days as a result (hence my absence and the tardiness of this post). I found a long piece of painted plywood for $3 at the Habitat Store that was nice and thick and perfect to host my printers. Some cheap 2x4's (DD hit 'em with the router for me) and a leftover laminate shelf netted me a nice long printer table (below left) with lots of storage space underneath for less than $10. Boo-Yeah! To little Miss T.L. - you see where the cute ceramic snail you gave me is, don't you? Right there next to my calendar :o)

Although I'm making progress, I'm currently alternating between snarling at those idiotic tiles and kicking myself for not having started this about a month ago (back to work next week - ack!) The idea that started out as Jen's little office makeover fantasy has morphed into a death by vinyl flooring tragedy (yeesh - what the heck was I thinking?!?). I have made a spectacular mess; one so colossal I'm betting even #1 son, slob extraordinaire, would be duly impressed. I did find the top of my desk, which I haven't seen for a couple of years. You know how you have those "catch all" drawers in the kitchen? Well, my office was the catch all for an alarming amount of stuff. File piles, craft piles, scrapbook piles, medical paper piles, piles, piles, piles...miles of piles *sigh*. One of my piles - a ginormous towering one - avalanched the other day (which is what set off this re-organizational bender), and I found myself just sort of sitting there looking at it with absolutely NO intention of picking it all up. I'm now praying I can finish before school starts next week.

Last week things got a little heated around here (literally). Temperatures shot back up into the triple digits, with heat indices (isn't that a weird plural?) creeping up as high as 110 - blech. The horses are, of course, sweating like crazy (ha, me too!) I do love to see Rina's coat in the summer sun though - it shimmers and shines and the tip of her mane turns a fiery red, which is supercool. As much as I don't want to go back to school/work this year (and how awful is that? ;o) I am ready for fall temps. It occurred to me the other day that this is the first summer since 2005 that I have not had either surgical procedures or really big medical issues. Can you believe that? Woot! I'm tickled BC survivor pink to be even semi-productive. How about you? Are you ready for fall? I walked outside to feed the other morning and got a good look at the sweltering sky and thought I was someplace else on a desert safari; look how unbelievably hazy it was (this is straight out of the camera, too. Wow.)

Since we are headed back to school all over the country, maybe we can have a little giveaway to brighten things up a bit. A lovely little hodgepodge of goodies just in time for fall. Let's see what we can find around here...Aha!

How about this cute little tote that was donated to us by a teacher friend, an awesome horsey book cover, a horse story, and a totally cute little "School Buds" photo frame from the Second Chance Thrift Shop. I might even find another little item or two to tuck inside. I'm going to try really hard to visit the Second Chance periodically and see what kind of trouble things I can find over there to use for giveaways. I love doing them - it's like Christmas *grin*. All of the shop's proceeds go to the local animal shelter and their items are very inexpensive, so I figure that's just about perfect all the way around. 
To enter, you can add our new fund raising widget to your sidebar, web page, or forehead (kidding). It comes in many different formats (just replace the old one if you added it the last time - it's expired), you can follow us here and like us on Facebook, or you can tweet this (or another) post. Leave a comment letting me know what you did and I'll put your name in the hat. If you do more than one of these, I'll enter you more than once. Donations will count for two entries each. Sound okay? Winner will be chosen on the 26th of August, and announced in that weekend's post. Thanks so much for helping us out, and good luck!

On Friday, I was invited to visit some fourth graders at a local school to talk about horses. Because it was during science, we talked about teeth and bones and hooves and vision and all kinds of cool stuff. Since no one fell asleep - if they did, they didn't snore - or threw anything, I think it went okay. I ended up speaking to three different classes and about 60 kids. I had a great time and although it's been awhile, fourth grade definitely still rocks. I told the kids I had to go back to school next week and mentioned that I was in the fifth grade last year. One of the girls looked me up and down and gave me an "I don't think so lady" look that made me laugh (although she was too polite to say it out loud) and another asked me if I was a teacher. I explained that I was an interpreter for a deaf student and got a collective Ohhhh ;o) I guess most of them paid pretty good attention to what we talked about because they did a bang up job answering all the questions I asked them at the end...

Speaking of school, Mad Max has recently been enrolled in a home school program - albeit belatedly - and I'll have some photos and progress reports for you in the next week or two (I hope). I haven't figured out how to take pictures of myself and Max working yet *laugh* so I'm at the mercy of DD's schedule. When you consider where we're starting, he's got lots of room for improvement. Max is quite possibly the most obnoxious horse I've ever met and needs work on absolutely everything. He does not stand still at all, but dances around in your space (for which he has no respect) and gets up in your face ducking and dodging the whole time because he knows it's annoying. He's like a bull in a china shop, and it's been quite a challenge trying to find something (anything!) to reward him for. I've got bruises all over the place from him dancing around and knocking into me. The other horses bite him, kick him and run him off constantly because he's such a pain in the posterior. It'll be interesting to see what happens (I feel like I'm about to partake in a cliff diving lesson, go alligator wrestling or some other ridiculously dangerous endeavor ;o) I'll let you know how it goes; or maybe I should say IF it goes *laugh*. Have a blessed week everyone!