A must read. Not unlike the following recap of my weekend.

The weekend was productive and long. Friday night we went out to dinner at Luigi's, praising the lord we found a good Italian restaurant (FINALLY). It's a cute pizza and pasta joint on the other side of town. One of the waitresses is awesome. She saw us holding hands the first time we dined there and gave us an extra meatball with meatsauce because she was so overcome with the cuteness. Super score. Afterwards we checked out Seabowl on our way home. They were having their FRIDAY NIGHT MADNESS!! bowling with flourescent lights and glowing lanes. A little too insane for us but it was pretty funny watching the gay pirates bowl, so we went to the bar for a drink to watch. 'Lo and behold we ran into a bunch of ex-coworkers so we spent most of the evening chatting and drinking with them while catching up. Very fun.

Saturday we didn't do too much. I went for a morning ride and later we went to Tanforan for lunch then Lowe's to do a bit of shopping for Matt's room. I think we spent about 3+ hours in Lowe's.. gah. We were pretty pooped after that so we spent the evening in watching 'The Prestige' with the American Psycho and Wolverine.

Sunday we spent cleaning out the garage for Matt's office space. The before and after of the space is pretty amazing. I can't wait until we can get the sheets up and carpet in.. it's going to look so friggin cool I might just take that space for myself.

Monday was my turn and we spent the day at the barn working on Isabella's shelter. We finally put up the wall with the plywood we borrowed from PG&E. The wall is impenetrable. Built after the likes of Fort Knox. Nothing will take this wall down with its exquisite and sensual engineering. Pictures forthcoming.

After reading a local bay area equestrian article on a woman's experience with an animal communicator and her horse I was intrigued. Heck, it's only $40.. I thought I'd give it a try. I spoke to her last night and she "spoke" to both China and Isabella after receiving their pictures. Here's a summary of what she said:

China
She says she's a family dog and likes to go on outings
I think that's true of any dog

Healthwise she is saying 'back and forth'. She was not well and wants to know if she's getting better. Some sort of bone illness.
Uhmm.. yeah! I started to laugh after she said this because it was so weird. To diagnose her torn ACL they had to manipulate the joint back and forth. They even sedated her to manipulate it and make sure it was torn after taking x-rays. During her TPLO surgery the top part of the tibia is broken then repositioned with the plate to stabilize the joint.

She says thank you for taking care of her. She loves her daddy.
Daddy - Mark or Matt? Probably Matt.. Mark would be her uncle. ;)

She wants to know if you kept her tooth?
What tooth? Puppy tooth? That was 6 years ago.. I don't remember a tooth.

She has new food. She likes it but is still getting used to it.
EEEK! She's been on California Natural Lamb and Rice all her life up until last month when I switched her to California Natural Herring and Sweet Potato.

Likes purple. No, she LOVES purple. She likes bling too.. shiny things.
Uh. ok.

She's says she's not afraid of birds, but she doesn't like getting close to them.
Probably because we'll kick her ass if she does.

Lauren asked if we had an aquarium because China said she likes to watch fish.
No aquarium. Matt reminded me we did go to the pet store and looked at the fish tanks for a while.

The left side of her mouth hurts sometimes. She had an allergic reaction to something, maybe medications. Her tummy hurt, maybe parasites, but it was fixed with medication.
Don't know about the mouth. She had tapeworms about 2 months ago. :/

Really loves going to the store.
I guess we're taking her to the store more often.

She says she's lost weight, about 7 pounds.
Yeah she lost about that much with the surgery! But how does she know what a pound is?

She wants to see the picture/painting you're working on of her.
I have no such thing.

She's very sweet, she fits more into the background with other dogs.
Yup, that's her personality at the dog park anyway.

Ready for more?

Isabella

She asks when she's going to get the new saddle.
I've been thinking about getting another Solstice.. but I don't think I told her that?? The Freeform is fairly new anyway, a year old.

She says her right front hoof there's a problem - she's buckling on it. And her back right hoof.
Tuesday I took her for a ride and she kept buckling and tripping on her right front! Back right hoof.. I dunno.

Spins very well, loves to spin.
We don't spin. I think she would get pissed if I asked her to.

She asks if we have to go back to the other barn?
Hmm.. I don't think she liked the last barn we were at. When she escaped right after we moved to the new barn she headed back to Shamrock, 2 barns ago.

REALLY LOVES CHICKENS!! Chickens chickens.. she keeps talking about them. Loves farm life with lots of different animals.
There's a whole coop of chickens that come into her pasture everyday to eat whatever and lie in the dirt. Morning Star has mini donkeys, ponies, mini horses, goats and sheep. And chickens. Lauren said she kept mentioning the chickens throughout their conversation.

Likes to jump.. she says a 1, 2, 3 pattern
We've never really jumped.. and when I've taken her across caveletti's she really didn't know what to do.

Likes picnics.. going on overnight trips
Endurance rides? Haha, I guess they are a picnic to her.. she is allowed to eat the whole time.

Like to wear the band across her head
Ok?

She wants to know if she came in 3rd place at the last ride? She's competitive and likes to win. She's in good shape.
HAHA! 3rd to last. Lauren told her she did come in 3rd place to humor her.

She doesn't buck.
Nope

She asks if the other gray horse at the barn is her brother? She said he's had big health problems. Something was wrong with his hip.. he was sent home because he didn't do well.
Dusty?? There's only one other gray arab gelding at the ranch and she stops by his paddock every time we walk by. He had colic surgery I think? Some sort of major surgery. Don't know about his hip. He used to be a show horse but now he's a trail/pleasure horse. hmmm...

She has no complaints. Likes the shelter!
Good girl!

Likes music
Hmm.. maybe Al and Diane play music from their trailer.

Very caring, a different personality. She knows what she's doing and tries hard to understand new things.
True

Likes to eat corn
Hmm.. ok.

Wants to stretch before going out for rides.
Haha. ok.




Haha, so I'll let you form your own opinion. She did get some things spot on but other things she said were pretty generic or not true. In any case, it was a lot of fun and I got a big kick out of it. :)

A complete and utter waste of your time.

Went to the bathroom. Sat down. Very loud Chinese woman comes in talking on her cell phone. Proceeds to enter a stall and pee very loudly (she must've had to REALLY go). Continues to talk on cell phone. Flushes (whilst talking) and walks out without washing her hands. YUCK!!!

Popcorn can kill ya.. who knew it was so lethal?

Man vs Wild is one of the most entertaining new shows on TV today. Matt and I love watching Bear Gryllis (his real name) traversing his way through foreign terrain and living off the land throwing out all social boundaries. My absolute favorite part is when he manages to catch a fish and he breaks the backbone by rabidly biting into its back. Bev reminded me of another really great episode where he finds a wild horse in a meadow, befriends it, and tries to ride it. HAHAHA!!!

Anyways, the reason I bring it up is I found this really great product on Amazon I found while searching for a tent heater. Ok, the product isn't that spectacular, but the picture is priceless.



If that photo doesn't show up click here.

I want to set it as my desktop because it just makes me laugh everytime I look at it. I don't know if its the fact that its two guys or the defensive "What're you looking at? Leave us alone!" expressions on their faces!

Gah! I can't believe it's mid-May already. The year has just been flying by.

Lizette and Mom came up to visit us last week. I took Wed-Fri off of work to spend some quality famtime with them. Wednesday we went to dim sum at Hung To. Matt doesn't especially care for this place but my sister fell in lurve like I am.. delicious spicy noodles! Afterwards we stopped by the See's Candy Headquarters where Lizette purchased a pound's worth of dark chocolate along with assorted other chocolates for the family. These were quickly eaten by the dog and we eventually took a 2nd trip back to the store. Free samples galore..

Thursday we went up to a lovely spa up in Calistoga for some nice Mother's day pampering. We had about 3 hours worth of spoiling - aromatherapy bath, sugar scrub, an hour's long massage, and a facial. That was pure bliss. Mental note: get massages much more often! Especially ones with happy endings! j/k. We stopped by Viansa on our way home for some free samples (they've greatly reduced their free sample inventory) and some lunch, then relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Friday Mark joined us and we went grocery shopping for a nice evening Korean BBQ. Mom ordered a huge load of meat from Omaha Steaks (go bank points!) and we picked up several pounds of ribs at the local butcher. There wasn't much left at the end of the night.

Saturday we drove into the city and spent some time in the Union Square mall. I exchanged my Coach purse.. the original I bought from the outlet I realized I wasn't that fond of. The new one I'm not particularly fond of either. So eventually I'll have to exchange that as well. It came with a free sample of Coach perfume which smells divine! For infinitely more Coach information visit Shelley's site.

Good times must come to an end and so we dropped off mom and sis at the airport Saturday evening. I was pretty pooped after all that site-seeing and driving. We stopped by the barn on our way back and poor Isabella couldn't lift her head above her withers. Poor girl. She had gotten her shots in her neck that afternoon (poor communication, I should've told the barn manager she needs them in her chest) so she was horribly sore. 2 g's of bute and 24 hours later she was still pretty sore so she had the weekend off to recuperate.

Last night I hung out with a few friends at the old barn I used to board at. It was freezing cold but fun to watch them jumping their horses and to chat. Brave people! When I jumped I fell off many times. One notable time I went splat into the arena wall after the horse stopped then jumped hugely over the teeny cavaletti in front of us. Ahh.. good times. I've been happy to say my dirt eating days have greatly diminished with Isabella.. only 3 times in the last 6 years I've had her (knock wood!).

THis has been quite a rambly post.. off to the barn!

Baha! Pretty funny story about a found horse.. happy ending.

http://www.netposse.com/stolenmissing/LeoTXmay07.htm

Haha this is sooo funny.. one more.

Oh my god this is soooo horrible (but I admit it, I laughed).

Hello online world. Long time no see. Well, I've been watching you talk, but I haven't been talking back. So here I am.

Life has been keeping me busy. At work I'm actually contributing to what we do, and Isabella has been keeping me running back and forth by gashing up her eye and eating too much grass. I don't know what it is with that horse.. she just gorges herself whenever there is anything green around, like there will never be any more green in the world after that moment. Subsequently, she gives herself quite a tummy ache.

I've been looking at the endurance and competitive trail schedules and I'm slowly getting excited for the summer possibilities of rides. Of course, we are still taking it very easy. Mainly walking on the trail, a brief canter a few weeks ago, and a little trot last night. I think we may have trotted 2 minutes max and my thighs are sore today. I am sadly out of riding shape.

So, Internet, so long for now. I will leave you with disapproving rabbits! for you to enjoy. Or maybe you would prefer nods of approving cats?

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I don't get it.. but whatever..

You are The Star

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