Lake sonoma 50

Lake sonoma 50
Originally uploaded by Julienne:).

Lovely weather at Lake Sonoma

Update: Ride is on! We leave early tomorrow morning for Geyserville.. wish us luck! :)

I'll leave you with this video.. matrix ping pong. Awesome.

So there are two days until the Lake SOnoma ride. Two days for it to rain and be cancelled. Two days for Isabella to somehow hurt herself out in pasture. Two days for my truck/trailer to break down. Two days for me to break the rest of my toes.

Me, nervous?? NAAAAAAAAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

I'm most concerned about the weather. There are showers expected up until Friday and they'll cancel if the trails are too wet to ride on.. not especially for the riders' safety, but rather so not to mess up the trails with 400+ hooves traveling over them in muddy conditions. I've been looking forward to this ride all year... :'( Hopefully the sun will shine (like it is right now!) and keep the wet away.

As majorly bummed as I would be if the ride were cancelled, there is one consolation prize.. Amit + friends have been spending MONTHS getting George's loft decorated for this Halloween party. It should be Off Da Hook!

Last night I put together my Halloween costume.. which I'll be wearing on Saturday regardless if I'm riding 50 miles around Lake Sonoma or partying with 60+ of my closest friends. I purchased a green grass skirt (which I hope Isabella won't munch), and some long garlands on SALE (woop!woop!) from which I plucked out all the flowers and leaves and created: 8 orange flower attachments for Isabella's mane, 1 big orange flower bouquet attachment for her tail, 2 wrist cuffs made of white flowers and leaves, and a headband made of white flowers and leaves.

The headband (also called a 'haku lei') looks kind of like this:


I also have 3 leis from work I'll be toting on the ride. I'm praying I don't get completely sick of wearing everything and ditch them in some ravine in the middle of nowhere because I'd really like to keep them - they turned out so pretty! I was very suprised that my un-artistic ass could produce such pretty things. I even made a headband for Matt (just out of leaves) just in case we go to the party.. ;)

His looks like this, but much better:


Stay out, sunshine!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

I've been busybusy at work. My supervisor has increased her supervisory duties so I've gotten a bit of her workload. I don't mind much, I like being busy because I get bored quickly when I'm idle. Busy is good.

Life outside of work has been a bit crazy as well. I'm busy trying to prepare for the Lake Sonoma 50 mile endurance ride this coming weekend, which I'm sooo excited for. I'm trying my best not to jynx anything.. and have been handling Isabella with kid gloves, making sure she's at her best for Saturday. Hopefully this will be my first *complete* 50 mile ride!

Somehow through this craziness I managed to arrange an impromptu dinner party this evening for my friends at my place. What started out as Walt coming over to hang out and play video games has turned into 3, possibly 5 friends coming over and me cooking dinner for all of them. How did this happen?? Oh well, it's all good.. I'm making chili with beans so if that doesn't get everyone moving along after a few hours, I don't know what will. ;) haha. Seriously though, I'm excited to have everyone over.. if not now, when? I think my motto with keeping in touch with everyone this year is to quit whining (about driving, being tired, too busy, etc) and just do it.. cuz in the end it's all good.

No pooping allowed!

No pooping allowed!
Originally uploaded by Julienne:).

No pooping!

Pretty Orchid

Pretty Orchid
Originally uploaded by Julienne:).

Happy wedding Rajan and Paula!

A tuna roll covered with a dollap of Tapatio Sauce does not make a spicy tuna roll.

Haha, this site just rocks. I don't know why I love it so much.. Make sure your sound is on.

Last night at the barn there were a bunch of little girls running around, screaming and wreaking all sorts of havoc. One was the barn manager's daughter so there really wasn't too much you could tell them to do (STFU bitcheS!! <--no) At one point, a little blonde haired girl ran past me, turned her head right into mine, and coughed like she was a 60 year old smoker. I could almost hear the imbedded mucus in her lungs travel out of her mouth and into my immune system. Ugh. I made my dismay quite apparent.

I think the reason why I don't get sick for years at a time is because I don't have very much exposure to disease-ridden kids, except in cases like these. My immune system probably hasn't built up resistances because of this, which would explain why when I do get sick, I get sick a lot (multiple times over a year), then remain pretty healthy for 3-4 years again.

I'm hoping I feel crappy today because of allergies and not because of that germ-infested little blonde haired girl.

My toe is feeling sooo much better today.. I think that it may have been sprained, not broken, because it seems to be healing very quickly.

I'm turning old, complaining about all my physical ailments like this. If I ever talk about goiters, hemmorhoids, or those pesky neighborhood hoodlums, please shoot me.

Fractured Phalange

Fractured Phalange
Originally uploaded by Julienne:).

Another view of the afflicted toe.

My fractured phalange

My fractured phalange
Originally uploaded by Julienne:).

Picture of my broken toe. Note the pooling of blood under afflicted toe.

Toe + Steel Coffee Table leg = Fractured Phalange.

These past few days have been a whirlwind of romance.. not really, maybe just a whirlwind. Mom flew into town for 3 days starting Saturday and we had a weekend that was chock-filled with touristy goodness.

Mark and Jenn picked up Mom and drove her over to my place around noon on Saturday. She had a suitcase FILLED with Korean food so we had lunch at home (which I had been frantically cleaning ALL WEEK LONG). We then went to Viansa then met up with Matt's parents (yup, the 'rents) and all met up for dinner in Santa Rosa. There was a minimal number of awkward moments, but we all walked away at the end of the evening relatively unscathed and the words "nice people" were often spoken..

Sunday morning we woke up and took everyone to breakfast at Joann's Cafe.. this place is uber-delicious.. yumyum. We spent about an hour at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival but grew quickly tired of the heat and too many people. Matt and I saw a very obese baby being hefted onto a 1200 pound pumpkin.. I'm not sure which one was more grotesque. Mark and Jenn went back to Menlo Park in the evening and we took Mom for a lovely beach hike then to our favorite cheap Japanese place for dinner. Mom spent the rest of evening reading while Matt and I playedr Xmen2: Rise of the Apocolypse. (Awesome game, better than the first.. we're having a lot of fun playing it)

Monday we had more Korean food (which is now wreaking havoc on Matt's cuban digestive system), and went to Fisherman's Wharf for the Alcatraz tour. It was our first times (well, Matt went when he was little), and it was suprisingly very interesting and entertaining. We took the audio tour and it was hilarious watching a whole mass of people doing the same things in succession. You knew exactly what portion of the tape they were listening to by where they were going and what they were looking at. Afterwards we went to the Fisherman's Grotto restaurant and had calamari, clam chowder in a sourdough bowl, and half a crab. It was all delicious, but I feel soo yucky and bloated today.

Pictures to come..

Funny site.. NSFW.

Severe weather alert for Pacifica!

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SAN FRANCISCO HAS ISSUED A HIGH
SURF ADVISORY...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM SATURDAY TO 5 PM
PDT SUNDAY.

DUE TO A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM PRESENTLY CENTERED APPROXIMATELY 500
NM WEST OF THE WASHINGTON/OREGON BORDE, SWELLS ARE EXPECTED TO PEAK
SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY WITH HEIGHTS REACHING 15 TO 19 FT. SWELLS WILL BE STEEP
DUE TO THE RELATIVELY SHORT PERIODS BETWEEN SWELLS.

Surf's up, duuude.

Hehe, an awesome little website stolen from Wayne.

I'm getting very bored of the trails around the ranch lately. With the hwy 1 construction, there's basically 1 trailhead that goes up into the hills where you don't have to cross the freeway, so that's where we go condition during the weekdays.

In an effort to bring some diversity to our travels, I opted to take a side trail that looked promising and interesting. We trotted/cantered up a slight grade then the trail dipped sharply down where it met up with the main trail. Looking down I thought, no problem.. we've been down steep hills like this. The trail was blanketed with those big fuzzy tail plants.. Isabella doesn't mind them when they're flying in the wind, but dead on the ground is another matter. Normally she snorts and sidesteps them like they're going to engulf her and drag her down into the depths of hell, but this time she just trekked through them like it was nothing. Good girl. A big bushy branch stuck over the trail from the right.. I thought, no problem, I'll just brush it away.

Unfortunately the big bushy branch DID NOT MOVE. Isabella scooted down the trail, but I was kind of left in mid-air, holding onto the bush just like in the cartoons. She eventually realized something was up where her rider left the saddle and stopped for her foolish mom to hurry up and get back on. It wasn't that easy.. I was determined NOT to fall off (I'm dangling sideways at this point) so I jungle gym'd it to her mane, gripping tightly so I wouldn't land on my ass. Eventually I was able to land on my feet.. first order was to look around to make sure nobody saw that. Second order was to ascess injuries. Isabella shook her mane at me as if to say, dang mom - that hurt! She quickly forgot about it with a carrot. Aside from a few scratches across the chin and chest and a slight bruise to my dignity, we were none the worse for wear.

That brings my grand total to falling off of Isabella 2 1/2 times out of the almost 5 years I've owned her! Not too shabby.

The first time was in the arena after I first got her, I was cantering her around bareback and stupid China ducked out from under the fence to 'woof' at us as we passed. Isabella teleported to the side, teleported back under me, then stopped as soon as she felt me off-balance. I had done quite a thorough job of brushing her that day so her hair was nice and slick, perfect for me to keep going when the emergency brakes were turned on. I managed to do a perfect 10.0 flying camel layback with a triple lutz and landed right on my tush.

The second time was way out on the trail, miles and miles from civilization. At the time we were still in Walnut Creek so we were in the Diablo Foothills trails and Isabella was still fairly young. It was hot that day and we were out for about 4 hours on a training ride. A big hill loomed before us and Isabella quickly picked up a gallop to run up the hill. Normally I hold her back, but I thought hey.. she's feeling good after being out on the trail this long, why not? She took a few strides then, in her exhuberance, turned on the emergency brakes and started bucking for joy. I repeated my flying camel layback with a triple lutz performance and landed in a nest of burrs that I'm sure were placed in that spot just for that reason. Up at the top of the hill, there was a mountain biker who had just climbed the hill and was taking a breather.. fortunately we were at the bottom of the hill and were out of eyesight. I brushed myself off and hopped back on.. smiled sheepishly at the biker in my now dirty/burry state, and went on my merry little way.

(hopefully this post won't detract those of you out there who have been invited to go trailriding with me.. :) )

Serenity. Go out and watch it now.. it's the best movie I've seen in a while in the theaters.

Matt and I went and saw the matinee of Serenity this past weekend. I'd never seen the TV show, Firefly, that it was based off of, but it being a sci-fi flick, I figured I'd probably enjoy it. And enjoy I did, I love any movie where girls kick ass! In this movie a character named River kicks major flesh-eating monster human ass.

Coming out of the movie theater, I was raving about how River kicked all the "Reefer's" butts and Matt had a good chuckle.

Matt: Reefer..? Do you mean Reever??
Me: What? I could've sworn they were saying Reefer the whole movie.
Matt: "Duuuude, I'm so lit.. Duuude, I've got the major munchies.. I could eat a human face, duuude.."
Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Matt: "Dude, they gave us some crazy shii-it in our water.. half of us were like totally wasted and didn't even want to move or do shit, the other half of us totally got, like, the munchies, man. Duuude, I'm so stoned."
Me: ...

1007052002.jpg

1007052002.jpg
Originally uploaded by Julienne:).

Denny's plastic desserts

Hooray for Nik on 'So you think you can Dance'. He was by far the best dancer.. I'm glad the series is over, now I can watch ANTM Season 5 without having to wait for the rerun on Friday.

4 + 8 + 15 + 16 + 23 + 42 = 108 minutes

Wednesday night = good TV

Funny happenings yesterday.. Matt came over Tuesday night after his design class to hang out. Sometimes we leave little lovey notes for each other and usually the notepad is upstairs in the kitchen, but the pad has made its way downstairs to the little table in the foyer. He left his usual lovey note, and added a little bit of more private spicy details to it.. which was all very sweet. But now my Wednesday afternoon dogwalker knows the intricacies of my bedroom activities. Hooray! :)

Wasn't even trying..

You Are A: Pony!

Who doesn't love a pony? You are one of these miniature horses, renown for your beauty and desired by many. Full of grace, you are a beautiful and very special animal, with a long, flowing mane that blows in the breeze.

You were almost a: Duck or a Lamb
You are least like a: Chipmunk or a GroundhogThe Cute Animals Quiz

I'll leave you with this:
Hay-sus shooting up some b-ball, yo.

OMG you guys are awesome. I'm up to $1.04 in adsense earnings, woohoo! CRAZY! You all rock.

You want assees? I'll give you asses.

Poop on all ya'll that didn't respond to my Friday post! :) Since nobody gave me any feedback, this is the way it's gonna be. Mmmmbien?