Horses were my youthful passion

horse (free clip art)

horse (free clip art)

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved horses. Unfortunately for me, we lived in a suburban area and my parents had no interest whatsoever in indulging my wishes for pets of any kind, let alone a horse! So I resigned myself to a pet-free childhood, and resolved that when I was old enough to live on my own that I would have whatever pets I could afford to have.

One year my parents decided to go on a week’s vacation without the kids and they farmed me out to a cousin’s horse farm for the week. I was in horse heaven that week! My parents bought me a pair of used horse riding boots and dropped me off at Cousin Betty’s house and I was totally emerged in horse farm life for the week. One of the things that Cousin Betty had me do was to help straighten up and clean the saddlery that was in the tack room. She showed me how to use saddle soap to clean the saddles and halters and reins. She had me muck some stalls, which was hard work, but I didn’t mind at all. I was with horses on a horse farm! She showed me how to groom a horse, and she gave me a few riding lessons. I wished that week would never end!

Happy New Year

Tonight we’re staying in to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We’ve bought some sparkling cider and some fancy appetizer type foods and we’re going to watch the big party on television and watch the ball drop in Times Square. It is bitterly cold out and really windy; I can’t imagine being outside on a night like this! When I was driving home from the grocery store the car was being pushed around a lot on the road; I was really glad to get home! I was upset when I was driving home to find that the road was blocked by a huge downed tree just 1/4 mile from my house. It was too big for me to move it, so I had to do a detour to get home.

That would not be a big deal to someone in the city – just drive around the block! Well, out here, driving “around the block” is about a twenty minute detour! Oh well, I made it home safe and sound – to discover that we had no power! We had no power until about 5pm, so the housework that I was planning on doing (vacuuming and laundry) didn’t get done. So I guess I’ll be ringing in the New Year with a dirty house and dirty clothes! Oh well, life goes on! I’m glad the power came back before it got dark out!

Merry Christmas to all

I hope that everyone had as nice a Christmas as we’ve had today. Our plans changed regarding having friends over for dinner – they came down with the flu a few days ago, so we went to visit our parents; they had a huge family dinner. About twenty four of our “immediate family” were there. The house was crowded, and noisy and full of laughter and fun! Everyone brought some food to share; we brought a really easy cake that I like to make that is basically angel food cake mix with a can of pineapple dumped into it. Easiest cake I’ve every baked! It’s good served hot or cold, I like to serve it with strawberry ice cream topping on it with whipped cream. It’s always a popular dish! 

Everyone agreed to scale down on the gift giving, only giving gifts to the kids under the age of eighteen. I was glad of that because money is so tight right now, gift giving is a problem for us this year! But just getting together with our family was the best Christmas we could have; after all, that IS what Christmas is all about – being with loved ones!

Christmas shopping done

Well this morning we braved the bad weather (freezing rain) and went shopping for our last-minute Christmas gifts. We only had a few inexpensive items left on our list, and we finished it up today. So now we can focus on the gift wrapping and the cooking! We are planning on having a few friends over for Christmas dinner, but not enough to warrant a turkey so we bought an oven-stuffer roaster chicken for our meal. This is the first Christmas I’ve ever had where I can remember NOT having turkey! I’m not sure if it will really feel like Christmas without turkey! But I just can’t justify buying that much meat – there is no way we would ever eat it all before it went bad, and I have a feeling that if we froze some of it, it would just get freezer burnt, so I don’t even want to try that. So, chicken it is!

Catalog questions

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping online looking for some Ruritan club-related clothing items to buy and wear around town, and to club meetings. I was surprised that there was a link to a page that called itself “Supplies” but the page was only a list of items, with a price beside the item. No photographs were on the web page at all! I called the lady in charge of supplies and suggested that they look into sending the information for cheap catalog printing and send copies out to the clubs so that prospective customers can see a picture of what it is they are trying to sell! I don’t like ordering things without seeing what it looks like before I order it, and I can’t imagine that many other people like to, either!