it is christmas

Have you ever noticed that all the holiday movies that come out every year always have people discovering the true meaning of Christmas, giving, sharing, loving, remembering. But it seems to be a lesson that is never truly taught. Why is it that we here, at least the people I run into in this little Midwestern town, still are missing the meaning of this time of year. I am constantly amazed at the human race's ability to turn something beautiful and wonderful into something controversial. Think about it. Love, we are constantly trying to find it in all the wrong places, and in fact to so much extent that many people it does not exist ( and I am not talking about romantic love, which that word could be considered used incorrectly when two perfect strangers "make love"). Children, little blessings, or so they should be. You have the one child rule in China, abortions all over the world, abused and battered (that of course could tie into love). How about religion, oh this is a good one. Think about all the wars fought on behalf of someone's god. Think about the mental anguish caused by someone attempting to be god-like (or what they assume is god-like). Let alone the people who are driven away from God because of asinine people taking authority and abusing it. Now lets take Christmas, because that is the season we are in, Christmas when first celebrated was a remarkable event. Christians would gather in secret and celebrate the fact that someone cared enough about them to come and save them. You see the whole point in being is that Christ, Jesus was already dead on the cross the very second he was conceived in Mary's womb. So you see Easter was already sworn in stone right there at that point. Now fast forward 2000 years and here we have it, a bunch of people buying gifts that will not be remember the following year. People spending money that they don't have. People complaining about their family members, Begrudging the time they get to spend with one another. Its sad really. In church yesterday Father's sermon was about love. True honest to goodness love. And he quoted from St Ignatius and he said he could just see 3 beings of God looking down on the earth and asking what would it take to teach their creation how to Love. I wish that people did know how to love. I wish I knew how.

Just some thoughts.

You know what is fantastic? Discovering why you are who you are. Thanking the people who helped mold you into an adult, forgiving those who held you back, laughing at the experiences that helped make you stronger, crying at the experiences that made you tougher. Accepting the pain, moving through it to find joy. Its wonderful. It has made me so grateful for the life that I have led. I am so thankful for my parents, while I complained about them being too strict growing up I now know that with out their guidance and without excepting that guidance I would seriously be a messed up soul. And the books that I read, I am so grateful good literature was instilled in me, I am grateful my Mom got me hooked on books. I am grateful for my parents instilling a good work ethic in me. I am thankful that we were poor growing up. I am thankful my parents let me be involved with horses. I am thankful for my sisters teaching me things simply by being a part of the family. I am thankful for my "friends" who used me and trampled on me so that I could know true friendship. I am grateful for Michael M for showing me how to live with a disease and still be one of the happiest people I knew. For Thomas F for showing me that you should always do what you truly love to do because you don't know how long you will have the chance. I am grateful for the cement truck driver for teaching me that life can be pushed off the tracks and that the effort to get it back on is hard but worth it in the end. I am grateful for the people at the "church" who successfully scarred my family and whose repercussions we and other families are still dealing with because with out them I wouldn't have learned about grace. Do you know those books Choose Your Own Adventure? I love playing that game with my life. I like to look back at some event that changed the course I was on and see what would not have happened if I had gone the other way. I always focus on the positive things because bad always comes with the good and if you think that no bad things would have happened while on the other adventure you are stupid. Like, if we hadn't moved to KC, I never would have met my best friends, I wouldn't own the horses that I do, I wouldn't have my dog, I wouldn't have my little house, I wouldn't have my scooter, I wouldn't have my own business. Just some thoughts.

I have decided I hate Blog Titles

Can you believe it is almost Christmas time?? I am so exceptionally excited, i love Christmas. I feel sorry for those who have been burned by the commercialization of the holiday and who cannot enjoy it anymore. I also feel sorry for the people who are caught up in that commercialization and enjoy for the wrong reasons. Yes don't get me wrong it is wonderful to give and to get but the true spirit of Christmas is not that. Funny that the first present of Christmas was the ultimate sacrifice, the giving of a life for a world that did not love that life or understand it and still doesn't. My roomy and I were talking a week or so ago and discussing the fact that so few people just live love and that if everyone in the world was to focus on that one thing there would be no wars, blood feuds, acts of terrorism or the like. But still we focus on our differences and are consistently at odds with each other. Throughout history we can see the repetitive nature of the human race. We think that we have advanced, and we have as far as technology goes but our true nature unfortunately has not advanced as much as I would have hoped it had. I find myself being as judgmental as the next and must ask for the worlds forgiveness. The fact is it is a struggle to really be love that is why it took God himself to show us what that meant. At this time of year we tend to focus on the down-trodden the poor and hopefully attempt to show charity to our fellows but a majority of us (at least American's and i would imagine a good chunk of the affluent world) focus on the presents the money spent and the remarkable amount of food consumed. The fact is the only reason the general population is at all giving in because of St. Nick, he lived love and he showed the the modern world what Christ meant. We can all be Christlike this year by following his example of giving unconditionally (note I did not say uncontrollably) and find the true meaning of Christmas is love.

Summer/Fall Photos

I have nothing to say, so I will just ramble

I really don't have much to say but I feel like talking to someone and you are the only people available at the moment. So sorry.
My mother likes to tell me about myself I have come to notice. She thinks because I have a blog that I am a writer, I don't think so, I am a talker and when there are no ears present I type to get the words out of my head. I love the fact that my mom is a "mother bear". She will still growl and snarl in defense of me even if I am growling and snarling just fine with out her.
My father very often surprises me with the hugeness of his compassion. I saw him the other day helping a huge guy with an empty gas tank along the side of the road. And he didn't tell anyone, in fact he doesn't know I saw him. But it made me proud that he is my Dad.
My little sister is a perfectionist, for that matter so is my older sister. But I love them so much for not making sure I am perfect and loving me for who I am.
I am often surprised at how connected people are with my life when I think that they are far apart. And then sometimes when you think someone is connected they are far away.
I hate the fact that God gave women periods. But I guess we could be like chickens and have to lay an egg a day so I guess I should be grateful. I wonder if they could harvest our human eggs and conduct similar research as they are with embryonic stem cells.
Sometimes I think about life in a way like a which adventure do you choose book and most of the time I have chosen the right path, even if it was rocky. I guess that says a lot about me being happy at where I am in my life, well at least I think I am moving in the right direction.
I generally dislike hormones and the things they make us feel and do. But i guess without them we would be rocks or at least sea coral and that would be a very boring life I would imagine.
I have often wondered about the kid on X-Men who could duplicate himself and I wonder if he duplicates his entire brain or is it just the one brain controlling all the bodies and if so, if one body was say at school while the other one was running a marathon and one was doing housework while the other was at a job, wouldn't the main brain be exhausted? I wonder if he would eventually self-combust.
I was thinking the other day while I was thinking about my future and I was thinking about how much easier life would be if I were married. Like I wouldn't be expected to make all the decisions all of the time. I wouldn't be expected to know a little but about all aspects of home repair. I wouldn't have to clean the gutters. I would not have to rely on all the bills coming out of my paycheck, I might even be able to have spending money. Then I thought about how much life is easier not being married. I can make my own decisions, I don't have to discuss having children or not, I don't have to ask if I can paint the bedroom purple (for the record I would never do). But really truly and honestly I can't decide whether or not I should get married. I am sure I would be just fine being single for the rest of my life but I know I would eventually get lonely and loneliness can be a bad thing.
I really like the friends I have now. I really do, they all have their little quirks that makes them them. But none of them are pathological lairs. None of them would even dream about being a backstabber. They are all genuinely nice people, and I love them. They are much more wonderful people then I have ever know before.
A while ago a guy I liked came into the store. It was a long time ago for people who know who I am talking about, so don't get excited. But anyway, I just thought I would tell you all that I miss talking with him.
It was the second anniversary of Thomas's death the other day. That was sad and crazy to think about all that has happened since then. I still miss him as I am sure many other people do, possibly more so than I.
I really like my scooter, he is very much so fun to ride. But I need to come up with a name for him.
I just dropped a cup that had an ounce of honey at the bottom. It bounced on the floor shot into my eye and drizzled down my pants. So now my eye lashes are sticky and my pants are soaked.

Photos of the horses in the summer

You know what's cool about the summer Olympics?

• They are NOTHING like YRC Worldwide (that commercial really bugs me)
  
• Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, Aaron Peirsol, Ryan Lochte, Natalie Coughlin and the rest of the US Swim Team
• The fact that they are 12 hours ahead of us so we all get to be tired together
• That every year there is a story that inspires somebody to keep moving forward
• That several times this year its been proven desire is stronger than age
• That in the midst of war, famine, drought and communism love and pride can unite the world
• Shawn Johnson and her adorable smile
• You suddenly have something in common with the person in front of you in line and can talk all about how great Misty and Kerry were last night
• The athletes are competing for their nation, not themselves
• That Muslim women are able to participate
  
• That some small country from some random corner in the world can feel just as big and great as the next guy when their athlete wins the gold
• That a girl with one leg can qualify and compete against girls with 2 legs and beat the tar out of 11 of them
• That getting there is sometimes better than winning a medal
• That more people have watched these Olympics than anything ever put on TV
• That patience is a virtue and the reward is sweet
• That for the first time in a long time, I want to be great at my sport again.
  
• 

Congratulations and thank you to all the members of Team USA, their families and their friends.

it is who I am

.I discovered I love...
..the look on salesman's faces when they find out I'm the owner.
...when people look at me funny when I'm singing show tunes as I pass them on my scooter.
...it when people looked up at Marky and say "Wow! He's big."
...snowflakes on my eyelashes.
...watching Scrubs at midnight.
...mowing the grass.
...reading a book by the lake.
...the color blue.
...pink electronic gadgets.
...Gregory Peck more than Cary Grant.
...a warm honey latte.
...a windy day in the summer time.
...footprints in the snow.
...brown boots.
...waking up 5 minutes before the alarm and hearing the total silence of the world around me.
...walking into my shop when its busy and the coffee is brewing and the sandwiches are grilling
and taking a deep breath.
...hiding under my covers when its raining outside.

An Active Mind is Never Bored

but sometimes it might think of things too hard.
A friend of mine from high school is in town and every time he stops by my shop I am not there, a rare occurrence in and of itself but to happen twice is astronomically improbable. So while I was wishing I had been able to catch up, since he is not on facebook, i have NO idea why, I haven't talked with him since he moved out of state. This then made me think of my other friends from high school and chatting with them on facebook and realizing I don't have much in common with them. At all, I never really have. I then I started thinking about who I would call my closest friends and only 1 of them share my main interest. The K's and I share a very close friendship, yet when you boil down to what I hold most important among hobbies and passions, they don't share that bond with me. Of course we have things in common, theater, music, a great love for wine and Italian food, but our conversations mainly revolve around politics, theology, faith, economy, and world issues. Now all of those things I love to talk about but really my passion is in the equine section and only my friend Kel, yet a different K, shares that with me. OK so this has boiled down to the question, why is it that when someone on paper has as much in common with me as the other, they are both nice people, I have never held a grudge against one, have never been in some blow-up fight with either, do i love talking with one while the other I have to struggle to keep a topic going? Is it the fact that the K's (all three) are so brilliant that there is such a wealth of information to glean from there is never nothing to say? You know what is odd though? I want to be the others friends so badly but it seems that I am an out cast and have never been into their circle. Maybe I never will. I call all these people my friends but really I just have 5 friends, the rest are just acquaintances that i chat too on occasion. And that is another thing, it seems so one sided, I have to make all the moves to initiate a conversation or a friendship and they never fully engage. Maybe that is why? But why don't they engage? Am I repulsive, too young, too ignorant? Are we just acquaintances for acquaintance sake? But why do I feel shafted each time they do something with a lot of the people I know that I am not invited too but they proceed to talk about it while I am around, like i could have come if I had known it was going on but nobody bothered to tell me but now for some reason this loser is here and we might as well talk about all the fun we had last night with out her. Oh my heavens I am still that insecure, scared, shy, little nobody, lost and confused in the big crowd of the popular kids in high school. You know somebody told me the other day I was one of the popular kids in high school, i was like what? i barely fit in with them. And she said no, you were pretty near the center. Was I? Then why do i feel like this??? And why do i still feel disconnected? And why am i still trying? if i have 5 really good friends who love and accept me why do i feel like i still need to be included? why do i feel like the bad guy when i am not, i blame myself for them not inviting me to parties, movies, etc. What the blazes is wrong with my psyche that needs to be accepted by one and all!! I need to fix this! Blast it all!! See an active mind over analyzes the snot out of things.

I've been trying for 2 weeks...

...and I am finally getting to sit and chat.
Life is absolutely amazing isn't it?? I am always finding some fascinating thing popping up during my day. Sometimes terribly fascinating sometimes wonderfully so. Hope has been a topic of discussion this week in my head. Someone asked me when it would be improper to hope. I was a bit taken aback by this question and have proceeded to ponder it for a few days. I have come to the conclusion that is always good to hope. I have heard the term false-hope and I am afraid I don't truly understand, or believe it. False hope I was told is defined as something that is impossible to ever achieve. I guess if I hoped and hoped that I would one day fly it could be conceived as false hope, for as a human I cannot fly, however I could learn to fly a plane, and many a person was believed to be insane by trying to fly but their hopes were achieved and now I can hope to fly and I can. This question was posed to me in context of relationships, and I ask should we ever give up hope on another human being, to change, to love or to be loved? I think not. I do believe that however what that person does is entirely up to them and if say someone is abusive we can hope for them to change, however we do not have to be their punching bag.
I think hope is one of the greatest gifts that our Creator has given us. Next to love of course. In a day and age where most questions can be answered by technology and science there are some that cannot. One, our (human beings) ability to love, and the other is our ability to hope for something better. Animals live in the here and now, they have no future, they have no past, they don't feel the passage of time the same way we do. However you can have a very loyal dog that you love, but can you ever say that dog loves you back? Certainly the dog will want to please so it will do as you ask, it will protect it's pack leader to the death, it will provide warmth and comfort, but it does it do these things out of love? No. And thankfully so. You see we humans can think about the outcome of our actions, if we take the blame for someones actions we know what the consequences will be and we still decide to do so, if a dog attacks someone or something that is hurting their master they do it out of duty, out of instinct. And the same goes for hope. If a dog or any animal is in a situation that is wretched it cannot sit and think about the wonderful world over the rainbow that it could one day reach if it tried very hard. It would be content in its situation and carry out the same instinctual loyal duties. While we as humans can dream, imagine and grasp at faint strings of hope. When I posed to this person a question about what he would consider false hope he stated hoping for things that are impossible. But are we not told that with God all things are possible? Certainly, he created the universe. And wouldn't it be very egotistical of us to say we know if something is not possible ever? If we currently only use 10% of our brains imagine what could be done with 11% or 15%? So why should we state that something is not possible, I could agree that many things are not probable, like time travel or say being bitten by a radioactive spider that will do something other than kill you. But would you say those things are impossible? Some would yes, but again I state the fact that we know so little of our world let alone the universe. And so I state that nothing is completely impossible and that we should always hope, it is a gift and we should use it. And if you are hoping to travel through time by jumping off a bridge you should be prepared to die. Because in this moment, that is impossible but you can always hope for the future.

New Baby!

My friend has a beautiful Connemarra Stallion, and his first baby just hit the ground! Isn't he gorgeous!!

i have no idea what to title this post

Have you ever met someone that you can't imagine ever being a child? I guess someone who has no sense of humor or never seems to smile or be happy. But even then you think, wow they must have had a messed up childhood to turn out that way. But really there is this guy who comes into my shop and he not very mature, still act like a kid, but you see its his voice that gets me. I mean he sounds like an old gangster from New York, but looks like a round and chubby kid in an adults body. And then I started to think of him as a round and chubby kid in a kids body and then I thought of his voice and that made me giggle. Picture it, a kid, a chubby blonde kid, walking around talking like the godfather, "hey-you, whatchadoin'" how yous guys?" ken i ghet sum wahtah ouht herh?" scratchy and heavily accented, It makes me giggle, and I just can't picture him ever being a kid. :-)

SUNSHINE!!!

I just thought I would let everyone know that where I am sitting the sun is shining and it is a perfect 55 degrees outside!

Snowy Pictures

Here are my boys out in the snow. Annie and I took these around Christmas I guess. The new additions are the boys' pasture buddies, I don't know there real names so we call them Merry and Pippin. Annie didn't like them at first but i think they grew on her a bit :-) They are so cute! and they are at the perfect hight to hug their little heads. I have a wee bit too much fun with the mini's i think :-) And as you can see Marky and I are bonding quite nicely :-) He's my pal now, but he still poops too much. And of course Stitchy LOVES Annie, he is SO happy when he sees her. I am planning on teaching him some tricks, so that he can do nothing else he can entertain :-) Bodyguard, poor thing, grumpy as always, most of his photos came out with a wretched look on his face and he is not very photogenic as it is so many were deleted. His best photos always were taken over fences. He has fabulous form while he is jumping. Well I guess I'm just rambling on. Enjoy the photos.

Thank God for Espresso and Chocolate

I would not have made it through the day is that little goat hadn't started dancing all those years ago. And I am so grateful that God had created caffeine in the first place :-). In all my exhaustion I am thrilled that these past two days have gone so well. However in the midst of the good chaos there were some serious negativities that took place. Today started out just fine, i was a little late in getting up, but i thought i had plenty of time to get done what was needed. I went into the kitchen turned on Rachel Ray and started my dishes and some chicken on the stove (i haven't gotten a chance to eat said chicken so i don't know if it is tasty or not, but i sauted habanaero peppers and pineapple with tequila until it turned into a beautiful caramel glaze and the chicken was a golden brown - mmmmm). Anyways after this was done I was heading out to see "my boys" and make sure they were comfy in the chilly air when i saw that i had missed a text asking me to make a milk run for the shop. Crunched my time a bit and i was running about 1/2 hour late. Mom and I had a bit of a tiff, of which I am sorry. But that was the first mocha downed, oh so much better. And to make the hectic day even more so the cycle of life decided today was the day she was planning a visit. Which did not help the emotional train at all. ah but the mocha did help so very much :-). As the afternoon went on the shop was BUSY which was great!!! but i hadn't eaten anything since my blueberry muffin at 8 am so at about 4:30 down went the second mocha. At about 5 i found out that my horses board was going up and care was going down, so i was furious, i vented to a friend via e-mail, the shop continued to be slammed (again wonderful) a couple of good friends came in to visit and we talked horses and life for 15 min or so and then a third rush for the day started and so still nothing to eat. It is now 8:30 and i am just sitting down to vent and eat my first full meal of the day. And though now i have been closed for half an hour I still have a mostly full house and it would appear to remain that way for at least til 9, meaning that i won't get home until 10. So as complete exhaustion sets in I am greatful for my mother who brought me food for dinner, my father who came and helped me with the dishes, my friends who have let me vent, given me ideas, and given me hope. I am grateful for the customers who will help me pay my mortgage this month. But above all I am thankful for that little goat who danced on a hill, and whoever decided coffee was better with chocolate, to them I applaud for helping me get through a hectic day!!!