the time I missed almost two weeks of school or, The October Recap

Hey look! It's decently close to being on time!

Life stuff

Everyone came home from Maui much darker than me, showing very sunkissed faces.

Lydia had her birthday. They had a potluck with all the beach family out on the pool deck. She was completely oblivious to their plans.

Christian is continuing to push through with his ALERT training. They've had a three hour hike, a six hour hike, a twelve hour hike, and a twenty-four (*chokes*) hour hike. Most of them in the rain. Then they had a survival week where they were all tested on their survival skills and spent a week out in the woods taking care of themselves. He was pretty down and out emotionally for a while, but he eventually came around and perked up. He's grown so much. They are really able to find and push all of his buttons to help get him past certain things, and through his letters we can see a whole new level of maturity in him. We are so proud, and are looking forward to having him come home soon.

We have a new temporary resident in our pasture for the next couple of weeks. Little Boy "Casper" is an orphaned bull calf. Our neighbors had to go out of town for a while, so he is being spoiled rotten by the Linn crew. Ava is doing a fantastic job keeping up with the feedings and making sure he's doing okay.

I had to give away the rest of my birds because of that awful critter that kept finding ways to get at them. We were down to four when I finally just called Mom and said I was done with it all. I couldn't keep them alive with the current system and I didn't have the time to figure out a new system. Of course, Fred of the nine lives made it out without so much as a feather out of place. But they are now all safe and happy with a much bigger flock, a couple of goats, and two guard dogs to keep them company.

Sunday Morning
Lydia: "You might want to do something with your hair, you look like you just rolled out of bed."
Me, not caring: "I did just roll out of bed."

"Open Sesame!" -Mom, trying to open a bag of spinach.

Called one of my professors to ask where she was.
Her: "Around that white truck to your right."
Me: *whirls around toward the only white truck I was aware of that so happened to be to my left*
Her: "Your other right."
Me: *sheepishly turns back around and sees the truck she is talking about*

Went to the Quarter Horse Congress up in Ohio for a judging competition. We were gone from Sunday to Thursday, so all of us missed a full week's worth of classes. (post to come soon).

Went to Arabian Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma for another judging competition. We left on Wednesday and got back on Saturday, so we missed a few classes, but it was not even a week after Congress, so homework was still pushed off. (also post soon).

Mildly freaked out when I saw a question on a quiz that I was absolutely positive I hadn't been instructed on. Called the professor over to ask her about it. Didn't even see the big o'l EXTRA CREDIT over it, meaning it wasn't mandatory that I answer it, probably because it was from a lecture that took place while I was gone and there wasn't any homework pertaining to it.

Was very relieved when I got caught up on everything I missed while I was gone.

Mom: "Y'all realize that I can be reading a book out loud to you and have no clue what happened in it."

The Owlcrate book box came. Really liked everything inside, and I can't wait to read the books!


Work things:

I left J/S and went to work for an owner who does reining instead.

J/S was good to me for awhile, but as we got further into the semester, it was made pretty clear to me that it wasn't going to work out for much longer. The other girls were doing the work I had been doing, so there really wasn't much for me to do there, and I could tell that the assistant trainer had her mind on other things and not on giving me tasks. So I talked with my boss and asked her what the expectations were there, and told her that I didn't feel like I was doing enough to earn what they were paying me, but that also there wasn't enough work to go around between three people that I had been doing by myself all summer. So she agreed and said that it was probably time to give it a rest.

Luckily enough, I had just had someone else contact me a day or two before asking if I had been able to find work. So I was able to ask them if they still were looking for someone.

Turns out to be a very nice situation. The owners had gotten into horses through the other trainer that was out of the same barn as J/S, so there was some connection there. They mostly do reining, but they also have a few babies that they are working on as well.

Small, but small is what I need right now.

Very nice people.

They want to teach me things. They've already let me ride some and have said that once I'm comfortable enough on their horses I will be able to start working them from the saddle instead of just on the ground.

Very good communicators. They are very much in favor of education and are happy that I am in college. Flexible too.

Music things:

I didn't make a playlist this month because I forgot and didn't really listen to anything really new. It was mostly country though.

Of course there was music at the horse shows as well. The Arab people are better about coordinating the playlist to each class though. At Quarter Horse, you could hear quiet strains of generic country music, while at Arabian, you could have horses enter to the blaring of Footloose and exit to Pirates of the Caribbean.


Anyway, this recap is kind of short because most of the interesting stuff is going into two other posts.

How was your October?
Anyone crazy enough to do NaNoWriMo this month?
Did y'all survive midterms?