April Recap

And we're back to starting the post toward the beginning and working on it all month.

stuff that happened:

Easter on April Fool's day. Nope. No pranks for us, but we did invite the whole church out to our house (not everyone made it though) for a potluck meal and a short service, so that was fun.

Weather's been pretty nice. A few cold days and a few hot days, but nothing too surprising since it is Texas, after all.

Lydia: "I'm trying to put together a young adults group with people from church, and the only name I have is 'Young Adults from Church.' What should we call it?"
Me: *thinks for a minute* "How about 'YAFC,' you know, like 'YMCA,' but not really?"

Our horse-owning neighbors were gifted a horse from a family member, and OH MY GOODNESS GUYS. She is an absolute dream! Their trainer friend came out to look at her and told them that someone had basically dropped a corvette in their laps. She's tall, pretty well-built, and a fantastic mover.

Farm and Shop class, crash course in learning how to drive a tractor. Professor: "Hit that to kill the engine if I fall off, and please do it before you run over me."
(wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, that really helped a lot.)

I also learned how to back a trailer. I can't do it well, but I didn't knock over any of the cones, so there's that. For the record, a hauling truck is waaaayyyy bigger than the family suv.

Someone saw a mountain lion hanging around their backyard one morning. I guess that's where my birds went. Yeah, I didn't let them out for a while after knowing that.

Our next door neighbor has talked about putting a small steer in our pasture, so I spent one morning setting up fence panels around the chicken coop because it is only by God's grace (and a heap of staples and zip ties) that the chicken wire is still attached to the frame, and I don't know how anxious the steer would be to rub all over it. So now it's all ready for him.

About to drop off the sleep and vividly seeing a huge red semi coming right at me. That was fun. and then a week or two later a red semi was tailgating me on the way home from school.

Camp NaNo started, but I had way too much on my plate to try for it this time. Here's hoping for July! I really do want to get back into writing- it's been so long, and I know just sitting down and typing away is relaxing for me (hence the reason some of my blogposts are mini novels just by themselves), but TIME. And it's been a while since my mind has been forced to be imaginative.

You know you live in a small town when you stop by the bank and there's a new teller, and when he pulls up the account information he goes "Oh! You're one of the Linns! I can see it now." *gestures at my face* "Your Dad was in here earlier." Oh, nice to meet you too, person I do not know.

Christian had a wreck. It was not pretty. It is a miracle that he got out of it alive and without any injuries outside of a few scrapes and bruises. He took a curve to quickly, hit a patch of gravel, lost control and over-corrected, went through a fence, was airborne at one point, got hung up on some trees and ended upside down way off the road. Car's totaled, and he has a healthy timidity about being in the driver's seat, but Dad made him drive again a few days after the fact and he did alright.

We had our second judging contest- up in Oklahoma City this time. We drove up Sunday, and made it back Monday night. Just three of us and our Eval professor. There were fewer competitors than at the contest our school hosted, or maybe it was just because we were in a much bigger facility. Two of us gave two sets of reasons, and the other person gave four sets. We judged eight classes, then were told which ones we'd be giving reasons on, hustled over to a different arena and prepared our first set, gave it, then started on the second set. I stumbled over the order I placed the class for my bottom pair in my first set, and then forgot a grant for my middle pair, and froze up when the reasons-taker gave me an odd look in my second set. I still placed 8th of 18 in the division, so not too shabby. Our professor was oficialing for the contest (so she helped determine the oficial judges scores that we were trying to match), and even she said that a few of the classes were tough. We stopped at Chickfila on the way home for milkshakes. We went through the drive, but I needed the restroom, so I hopped out. By the time I got out (there was a long line) we realized that we hadn't decided on a pick up spot, and I had left my phone in the truck. The professor said that she probably would have forgotten unless the others hadn't reminded her I wasn't in the car.

The week after our judging contest, we helped oficial a 4-H contest out in West Texas. It was a ton of fun! We judged eight classes, then listened to reasons. Some of the kids were really, really good, and there were a few where we just had to smile and say 'Thank you,' and then shake our heads after they left. We learned afterward that it was the contest that determined who was going to go to State. So that was pretty cool!

I got an email from a student I didn't know low-key freaking out because he couldn't register for classes. Sorry buddy, you might just have to go up to the campus.

Riding out in a field during the golden part of sunset. Best feeling ever!

We learned about being in the correct lead in Horsemanship. If you're in the left lead, you will feel your left leg moving ahead of your right, and vice-versa in the right lead. The horse also will move at a slight angle. If you feel yourself moving towards the left, but the horse is going around the arena to the right, then he is in the wrong lead. His left fore and hind feet are hitting the ground first, but it should be his right fore and hind hitting first if he is going around to the right. I also figured out how to not bounce as much while loping, but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right because the next day I felt like my lower back was thrown out and was incredibly sore for the next few days. Then I figured out that it was because I was locking my joints to stay stiff instead of staying loose and moving with the saddle; no soreness for me the next day!

Something snagged one of my ducks in the middle of the day. We are naming the critter The Phantom Menace.

Mia: "I'm choosing Calcium to be my main food, because Calcium makes your bones stronger, and I want mine to get so strong that they can't break."

I'm thinking of living on campus this fall semester. Everyone I've asked about living on campus has said that it's been a very good experience and that they really enjoyed getting to make friends with their roommates. I think it would be a good idea because of the nature of the classes I'm looking at taking for next semester. Most of them are either first thing in the morning or evening classes. There is one class that meets for an afternoon, but otherwise I'd need to get up and drive to campus early in the morning, then find something to do until the evening/late afternoon classes. It would not be efficient at all. Of course, I would probably drive home every weekend to spend time with the rest of my family. I could probably find a job up there or work on campus through the fall.

We're incubating our second set of eggs for the year. We ended up with five chicks (Curious, Eleanor, Marianne, Christiana, and Edward) and two ducklings (Darcy and Bingley). They are getting big and are almost ready to be put in with everyone else. Ava has done a fantastic job keeping up with their care in addition to monitoring the eggs!

We had a really windy day, and Coal isn't allowed in the garage anymore, so he was crying and hanging around the back porch a lot, so I went and had my breakfast out with him. He hates sitting on anyone's lap, or being held, or pretty much any contact outside of petting. Not five minutes of being out there, he was snuggled up on my lap and he stayed there for an hour.

work stuff:

Washing dishes, and I can tell someone is nearby on my right, but I'm more focused on trying to stay out of the way of the person on my left trying to maneuver boxes around the table with all the dishes on it and wash the thing I'm washing, so needless to say, I'm not paying attention to the people on my right. Suddenly, I get this really weird noise right in my ear and almost jump out of my skin. It was the short manager and some other person from up front, and I still don't know what they did, but I narrowly missed slapping the manager.

Coworker brings back a tray. Me (*jokingly): "Aw man, I was just about to get to go on break! I don't know why it surprises me though, it happens almost every time." CW: "Yeah, it's almost like we have customers." Me: "And almost like the dinner rush is about to start." CW: "Almost."

The shift where everyone was dropping things loudly. Yeah. I jumped a lot. Ok, not so much jumped, but more like a tensed-up-whirl-around-what-happened-do-I-need-to-hit-something? move. Me, by the end of the night:

Cleaning out the cage. Almost gets hit by the door twice.

Getting tortillas out of the freezer. They were stacked three boxes high on the top shelf. I can barely reach the edge of the top shelf, standing on tiptoe. I almost face planted getting them down because my shoes were wet and sticking to the floor.

After about an hour and a half of trying to wash lettuce and keep everything stocked, I finally have all the trays done and am about to move on to finish washing the lettuce when we are told to throw out everything that had romaine lettuce in it. All that work. For nothing. Yay.

I put in my two week notice at Chickfila. Don't get me wrong, they are a great company to work for, and I learned a lot- but it boiled down to too much pressure to have everything perfect and complete, when in reality the whole job is completely unpredictable. You wouldn't know how each shift would go until after you completed it. And hey, some people might enjoy that, and I applaud them! But I was feeling really sad, depressed and dead inside, and I could feel almost everyone else's stress in addition to my own and it was impacting how I behaved outside of work as well. I discussed it with my parents while sobbing one night after coming home from what should have felt like an easy shift, but I despised every move I made and really was not happy at all. They told me to sleep on it, so I did, and in the morning things looked slightly better, but I still didn't want to go back in. So I started seriously considering turning in my notice. Three weeks later, I finally did it and felt an immense wave of relief and peace.

So now I'm looking for a new job. The goal is to get back into horses. The break from that sort of work, and then going to school to learn more about them has really motivated me to stay with horses.

My last shift was a closing one. It all ended on a good note, no hard feelings at all, the managers made sure that I knew that if I wanted to ever work there again I would be welcomed. They even asked if I would be willing to stay if they moved me to work a different station. Of course I thanked them. I exited the parking lot with the windows down blasting the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. It was awesome.

music things:

Haha, I was right! I have a few new things this month!

Not a whole lot, but it's better than nothing.

I'm super excited for the Broadway Frozen soundtrack to come out. The few songs they do have already are pretty fantastic!

Dear Evan Hansen has some very talented singers, but I don't really like the storyline, and a few of the songs touch on some inappropriate subjects, so there's that forewarning.

I had no idea there was a Zorro musical. At first I didn't really like it all that much, but then it grew on me. Again, there are a few songs that touch on some mature subjects, but overall it has some pretty cool vocals.

How do you like to write your end of the month posts; 

all in one sitting, or throughout the month?