Scary night at Devon...

So, earlier today I caught part of the Hunter Derby at Devon and learned that the Grand Prix would be starting at about 8:20pm, which is 5:20pm Arizona time. Perfect since I would be at home and not really having anything to distract me from watching the Grand Prix. Or so I thought. I couldn't even tell you what occupied my attention, but it was about 6:30pm by the time I finally started watching and by then there was only about ten or so riders left. I got to watch McLain Ward ride his 2nd horse of the evening and jump a clear round. Yay. He would end up having two horses in the jump off as would Paul O'Shea, the eventual winner, and Laura Chapot. But that's not the scary part.

The last rider to go was a girl named Lisa Jacquin aboard Chapel Z. She already had a couple of rails down when Chapel Z took off and, the best I can describe it is he dropped his legs mid-jump and kind of flailed. Lisa fell off, which was instant elimination, and Chapel Z partially fell. Lisa tried to hold onto the rains, but he broke free and took off running. For probably a good minute he ran around the Devon Oval with his bridle dangling underneath him, getting tangled up in his legs. That was the scary part. I was so scared he was going to get hurt, but fortunately the bridle came off entirely and someone was able to catch him. He didn't appear to be injured, which was a relief. Certainly not what I'd like to see.  I know serious injuries are always a possibility.  I don't watch Steeplechase because of all the injuries and I stopped watching thoroughbred racing mainly for that reason, too.  That and I don't like them racing 2 year old horses.  But that's a different matter entirely.

So, congratulations to Paul O'Shea and his horse Primo de Revel. Todd Minikus and Quality Girl for their 2nd place (by 7/10ths of a second!!!) win and McLain Ward and Rothchild for coming in third.  It was definitely an exciting jump off.  Here's a photo of Paul and Primo at a competition in Palm Beach, FL in 2013.  The image from Mancini Photos
 
Tonight is the season premiere of North Woods Law on Animal Planet.  It's a reality show, similar to Cops, about game wardens in Maine.  Sometimes it's hard to watch, but I'm always happy when they catch the bad guys.  It comes on in about 40 minutes and I'm hoping I'll be able to stay awake long enough to watch it.

Tomorrow is Friday.  Yay.  I anticipate another busy day at work.  We changed job duties on Tuesday and I've been busy every ever since.  I like being busy, but not so busy I worry I won't get everything done in time and that's how I feel right now.  Add to that we start training next week on a new system we're about to roll out and I'm starting to get a bit stressed.  Oh yeah, and my unit is moving to another building in a month.  Things won't lighten up for me for quite some time.  <sigh>

Til next time!

The Weather in Phoenix

Last night, at 10:10pm, the official temperature at the airport in Phoenix (Sky Harbor for those curious), was 99 degrees. 3 local news stations had that same temperature graphic in the bottom righthand corner of the screen while one was unviewable and the other had it listed as 95, which isn't much better. 99 degrees at 10pm is unacceptable in late May. Well, I find it unacceptable any time of year, but in May it's a little too early. We don't usually see that high until July, but it happened last night. And people wonder why I dislike Arizona so much. Today it's supposed to reach 107 for the high. I. Quit. I've had enough of this crap and it's just getting started. Now, before you go saying "At least it's a dry heat...", please don't. Yes, right now the heat is very dry and you feel like you're in an oven set to "broil". However, in about 6 weeks or so, that will change. In about 6 weeks, when the monsoon season ramps up, we're going to have 107 degree temperatures AND high humidity. Arizona isn't always dry heat. If someone tells you that, they're lying or they've never been here during the monsoon season. Heck, people in other parts of the country think Arizona is nothing but desert and cactus, which is probably why they think all we have is dry heat, but Arizona has so much more than desert and cactus. We do have trees. Mountains. Lakes. It snows here, too, believe it or not. It's not all just brown and flat, but the people who think it is also are the ones who will tell you it's a dry heat.

The heat, dry or monsoonal humid, is only going to get worse. Phoenix Metropolitan Area is the only place in the country where it can be 110 degrees at 2 in the morning in the shade. That's not possible, you say, since it's already dark and there is no shade? Come to Arizona in late July and find out for yourself.

Happy Hump Day, Everyone, from the surface of the sun...er...Arizona.

9 questions about me...

One of my followers, Alyssa, nominated my blog for the Liebster Award, but since I can't really follow the rules because I don't know enough other bloggers to nominate, I will just answer the questions.

Before I do, however, I'll give an update on my weekend...today is Sunday.  My mom and I went grocery shopping super early to beat the heat since the a/c is out in my car.  I watched some tv then took a nap and when I woke up I noticed how warm the house was so I want out to look at the thermostat and it said it was 86 degrees.  Whoa.  It was working fine before so I asked my mom if she'd turned it off for any reason.  She hadn't so I went to ask my brother.  Nope.  We tried re-setting it with no joy.  The batteries and filters were both replaced last week so we knew it wasn't that.  The unit is only about 4 years old so it shouldn't be that.  My brother put in a call to our landlord, but we haven't heard back yet.  He may be out of town for the holiday weekend, which means we are probably screwed until at least Tuesday.  Not good.  Hopefully he's just out with family today, but even if he isn't, I don't think he's going to pay for a weekend service call.  It's "only" about 87 outside and it's 6:00pm so the worst heat of the day is over today.  We've had to make changes in our dinner plans so we don't need to use the oven.  Fortunately we can do that today and tomorrow, but beyond that we will have to see.

So, onto the questions...


1. Do you sing?  Yes.  Real well?  Probably not.  But I love to sing.  When one of my favorite songs comes on the radio I crank it up real loud if I'm alone and sing along.  In high school I was in the choir.

2. Do you prefer ice cream or frozen yogurt?  Ice cream

3. What is your favorite musical genre?  80s

4. What is your favorite color?  Teal

5. What is your favorite horse color?  That's a tough one.  I like bays, flashy blacks, appies and paints

6. Do you ride horses?  Not currently, but I'm working to change that.  I have ridden a lot in the past, though, and was an Equine Science major in college...for two whole semesters lol

7. Do you live in the city or country?  City residential. (City, but in a purely residential neighborhood)

8. What is your favorite food?  Prime rib

9. What is your favorite movie?   I don't really have one

10. Do you enjoy pizza?  Oh yeah...had it for dinner tonight

11. Have you ever been to Spain?  Nope, but I have been to Mexico. ;)

Devon Horse Show

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I really love technology.  Being able to watch, on a tablet or smart phone, something happening live in another state or country is just amazing.  Today, while I was at work, I watched parts of the Devon Horse Show on my computer.  I couldn't see any classes from start to finish, but that's okay.  I learned the difference between Large Junior Hunter and Small Junior Hunter, which is the size of the horse.  "Smalls" are for horses under 16hh, although I can't imagine an animal being just under being considered 'small' and "Large" (larges?  Not sure I head that word used although I did hear them say 'smalls') are over 16hh.  I like learning new things.  When I got home from work, I whipped out my iPad Mini to see if they were still going and they were.   It appeared to be an equitation class, although I can't find anything on the schedule for it.

After a couple of equitation-type classes they got ready for the Jr Hunter Gambler's Choice and that's where the purpose of this post comes about.  I'll be the first person to admit I don't know a whole lot about horse shows.  Mostly about scoring.  I do know that generally, a fence down is four faults in most events and a refusal, I "think" is four as well unless you have three refusals and then it's an elimination.  A fall is usually an immediate elimination in many jumping sports, if not all.  The classes of "Larges" and "Smalls" they kept changing the minimum score to be eligible to return for what sounded like a Trot Off.  I'm sure I heard wrong but that's what it sounded like.  So, when I saw the next class was a Gambler's Choice I looked it up on Google to see what it was all about.  There wasn't much information, but I think the basic gist is that a bunch of jumps are set up and the riders are able to choose the direction and order of jumps.  It looked like they had to jump so many fences then stop and do something then jump a couple more.  One girl backed her horse up a few steps then continued her course.  I imagine it's a timed event but I have no idea how it's scored.  So, there I was, watching the Gambler's Choice and this one horse and rider combo was going, for lack of a better word, balls to the wall.  Most of the riders were going at a canter, but this one was practically a gallop.  On  a couple of jumps she almost fell off and I had a feeling something was going to happen. And it did.  Two jumps later her horse decided he'd had enough and slid to a stop.  The girl didn't.  She sailed over her horse's shoulder and face-planted into the jump.  She landed on her feet, though, and didn't appear to be hurt.  She was lucky.  If I were her trainer or parent I would have given her a lecture for taking unnecessary risks, but that's just me and, again, I'm no expert.  Far from it.  But when you're watching a competition and it looks like something bad is about to happen, it likely will.

Something I saw during the day today fascinated me.  Many of the riders were from the East Coast.  Connecticut.  New Jersey.  New York.  Rhode Island.  Virginia.  Some of the girls were riding two or three horses per event with some of them being self-owned while others being owned by someone else.  That's not a major thing at the professional level, but surprising at the junior level, in my opinion.  But that wasn't the most surprising to me.  No.  It was the riders who came all the way from California.  I understand that showing at Devon is a big deal, but I can't imagine my parents ever allowing me to miss school so I could attend a horse show on the other side of the country.  And while riding and competing is the most important thing to these kids right now, what happens when they age out of Juniors?  Sure, they could turn pro and make a go of it, but what about college and life?  I wonder how many of the kids in today's classes will turn pro and keep going?  I'd be interested in knowing the percentage.

Well, it's Friday.  It didn't start out too good.  I stopped at Jamba Juice to get a smoothie, but they weren't open yet.   There was a guy standing outside waiting, but I didn't get out of my car so when an employee opened the door and said something, I didn't hear what it was but the guy got into his car so I left.  I was too far away from he other two places so I decided to go to Circle K to get breakfast.  I got my soda and a bottle of milk but couldn't find any cereal cups.  They don't have cereal cups!  So I put the soda and milk away and left.  There's a Burger King in the same plaza so I went there and got one of their smoothies, but it's not the same.  Oh well.

 I have a 3 day weekend because Monday is Memorial Day.  I like 3 day weekends.  I have no plans.  I have to go get lottery tickets tomorrow and grocery shopping Sunday.  Yippee!  Hahaha.  I still haven't uploaded my horse-hunting pictures from last weekend (Friday the 16th actually).  Maybe I'll do that. We shall see.

This is a PERSONAL size pizza...?

I know, I know, I don't usually do more than one post in a day, but I had to today.  I think Pizza Me! is on some sort of drug if they think the pizza in the below picture is for ONE person. 

Maybe if that one person is a Sumo Wrestler or an athlete who eats a lot but burns a lot of calories, too.  This so-called personal pizza is the size of a small at most places.  It has 6 slices and covered in stuff.  Well, not really covered.  I got what they call a Trilogy which has sausage, pepperoni, crumbled meatballs and cheese and red sauce.  Huh.  Interesting concept to put cheese and red sauce on a pizza.  Especially one that comes with sausage and pepperoni.  I can see the need to list the type of cheese and sauce if it was a "white" pizza or something with chicken on it, but not a standard topping-type pizza.  The price was decent.  The employees were friendly.  The pizza isn't all that spectacular, though.  I think I'll stick with Pizza Hut and Papa John's.  Oh, and the way they cooked it left black stuff on my fingers.  Like charcoal powder.  That's no fun when you spend the day typing on a computer.  The sausage is a little too spicy for my liking, too.  Maybe my mom will like it.

In unrelated news, it's hot outside.  Very hot. 

Reading...and a book review...

I've loved to read for a long time.  I can't pinpoint learning to read or where I officially became a "Reader", but I am one.  Both of my parents are/were (my dad is gone), but not so much my brother.  He'll read magazines and that's about it.  I was at a new job once during break and I was reading the back of a cereal box.  One of my co-workers said something to the affect of "Oh, you're a reader, aren't you?" like it was a bad thing.  How can reading be a bad thing?  Oh well.  Anyway, I was one of those types that had lots of books at any given time plus a bunch of magazines and I was often found reading something, even if it was just a cereal box.  Then technology started happening and I bought my first e-reader, a Nook 3g/wi-fi.  From there I graduated to a Nook Color and now I have an iPad Mini.  My taste in books hasn't changed a whole lot over the years.  Mostly true crime stories and horse books.  I used to read a lot of romance books, but I don't so much anymore.  At least, not the Harlequin Romance-type that I used to gobble up like there was no tomorrow.  Anyway, my main story topic choice, of course, is about horses, but therein lies a problem.  Most horse stories are written for pre-teens and teenagers so what's an adult horse nut do?  Well, sometimes you read the books aimed at the younger person because they're not horribly bad.  I've started a couple of series that ended up being way too young for me, but for the most part the stories and characters are relatable in that we share a love for horses.  There's a couple of series I read right now because I know there'll be another book coming down the pipeline in the future and that's something to look forward to.

Usually, the best kind of horse stories are the ones written by people who have horses or have had them in the past, preferably the recent past, but that's not always the case, which is why I'm writing this review.  Let's face it.  I've been around for awhile.  I'm over 40.  I know a thing or two about horses so I get offended when an author talks down to her (I almost always prefer books written by women) readers or makes stuff up.  Too many authors write huge tragedies into their stories such as a horse having colic and dying, usually during a major weather event or just having colic and the main characters having to save the horse in some drama-filled chapter.  I know they write that stuff to keep the reader engaged, but does EVERY author have to have a colic episode?  No.  One story I read, one of the characters had a riding accident.  Not out of the realm of possibilities.  I know from experience riding accidents are unpredictable and quite common.  That wasn't what I had the problem with.  It was when one of the characters called for a medical helicopter on his cell phone and they landed it in a field full of horses.  For one thing, a private individual can not just call up the airport or hospital and request a medical helicopter to come.  That's something done with a coordinated effort between the fire and police departments.  Also, they wouldn't land a helicopter in a field full of horses.  With all the debris that is kicked up plus the noise, they'd cause more harm than good because there'd be a lot of injured, panicked horses as a result of that.  I *think* I finished that book.  I don't like to not finish a book since I pay money for them.  Every now and then I'll have to put it down.  The last one I got for free, though, so I had no problem not finishing it.  In that one, the main female character was always complaining about how she'd resented her mom for letting men walk all over her and she herself ended up getting bullied by her new boss, whom she was also having a sexual relationship with.

This latest book I started I paid more for than I generally do and that's when I really dislike having to give up on it.  The book is called Kick On and it's by Kelly Jennings

I had it sitting in my Amazon wish list for awhile so when I finished The Next Door by Gayle Sliva I bought this one.  It started out decent enough and I thought it might be a good story, but then it started getting a bit ridiculous.  Basically, the story was about a young woman who'd been a successful eventer in the US, but then her mom died and her fiance died and she sold her horse and she and her little sister moved to Panama where their dad had moved for a job.  She quickly discovers a training barn and makes friends with some of the other riders and she decides to start competing again, but this time in Dressage only.  There were lots of details written into the story, which can be good or bad.  I know I struggle sometimes with my own writing and knowing how many details to include.  Too many and you annoy the reader, but too few and your reader never gets a good picture of anything.  Details help tell the story and show how things look.  But what ended up being the stopping point for me, the proverbial Straw That Broke the Camel's Back, was when the main female character was having dinner with someone and she was telling him about eventing.  Her favorite part of eventing was Cross Country and that's what she was telling him about it.  She said it was a timed event and if you cross the finish line too soon you were given time penalties and if you crossed too late, it was like a speeding ticket.  Huh?  Since when do you get time penalties for finishing the course too early?  I decided I was going to write a review on Amazon, but before I did that, I looked up the rules for Cross Country just to make sure I wasn't saying anything incorrect and it was there in the rulebook...the only time penalty is for crossing the finish AFTER the time allowed.  I mentioned that in my review and the author replied and said that when she was eventing, that's what the rule was.  Okay.  Maybe a LONG time ago.  But this is supposed to be a MODERN story so she should have made sure she knew the current rules.  Maybe she didn't expect her readers to know anything about the spot and that she could get away with it.  Who knows.  Maybe I should just stick with books about little kids so I'm not expected to know anything about horses.   hahaha.  I just wish someone would write a decent story about adults and horses that isn't full of hate-filled terrorists who kill horses for revenge or yet another horse that has colicked (that spelling doesn't look right) and had to be put down.

Congratulations to Brianne Goutal for winning the Old Salem Farm Grand Prix yesterday.  I was hoping McLain Ward would win on Zander because he's been around awhile.  He was first to go in a field of 8 for a jump off and had a VERY good time, but Brianne managed to beat him.  She actually had 3 horses in the jump off and I knew if anyone could beat him it would be her.  She beat him on her first horse Nice de Prissey.  Her 2nd horse I think she had a rail down and her 3rd she ended up retiring after having two early fences.  Veteran show jumper Leslie Howard also competed as did Georgina Bloomberg, who was celebrating her first Mother's Day.  She's now a horse owner as well as rider.  I don't remember who rode one of her horses yesterday but I remember wondering why she wasn't riding her own horse.  That was before they mentioned she'd had a baby "recently" and figured that's why she wasn't riding, but then a couple of riders later there she was.  She rode two horses out of the 40 that were competing, but I don't remember how she did.  This coming weekend will be another show at Old Salem Farm and Beezie Madden is supposed to compete.  I can't wait.  I've long admired Beezie, Leslie Burr-Howard and Margie Goldstein-Engel.

Well, I guess I'd better get to more serious work than a few things here and there.  Happy Monday!

Platinum Star

***very odd...I wrote the below post Friday afternoon but this morning I came to look for something and saw it never published.  Oh well.***


So, I was just checking Blab and saw someone had started a thread about the final SR release for Breyerfest 2014 and O. M. G!!!!!  He is beautiful!  His name is Platinum Star and he's on the new Latigo mold.

You know what I find funny about this, though?  We (collectively...on Blab) found out about this new mold a few months ago when someone saw Breyer had done a portrait mold of Harley D Zip and so the wait started for him to be released.  Then, the Premier Club released Latigo.  Still no Harley.  Now there's Platinum Star and there's STILL no Harley.  Or is it Harvey?  hahaha.  I don't know.  The mane looks...off.  Look haw it just suddenly starts and ends.  Not a nice, clean flow but rather BAM!  The mane starts and BAM! it ends.  A little odd.  And there's a tiny "hole" in the mane.  I don't normally like manes with "holes" in it, but I'll make an exception for this guy.  My pick-up person was willing to let me know when she found out about the Pop the Cork surprise so I could let her know if I wanted that one as my 2nd SR model, but unless it's a really awesome Lady Phase, I MUST have Platinum Star.  MUST.  HAVE.  hahaha.  He's just super cool-looking.

Today is Friday.  It's been kind of one of those days.  And a co-worker just came over and asked if I've heard.  Well, my first reaction was "Have I heard?  Have I heard the word?  The word about the bird.  Bird, bird, bird, bird is the word" (if you ever watch Family Guy, you'd understand).  Needless to say, I got a lot of strange looks.  hahaha.

I have no major plans for the weekend.  Sunday is Mother's Day.  I don't know if my mom wants to go somewhere special.  Last year we went to breakfast, her and I.  My brother works Sundays now so he won't be coming with us if we go out.

I guess that's it.  I just wanted to share about the new Breyerfest SR model.

Food Truck Wednesday...and Breyerfest Single Day Stablemates

Food Truck Friday has a much better ring to it, but the trucks come to my office building on Wednesdays.  They used to come on Fridays to the complex across the street, but usually there's some sort of food truck vendor faire going on somewhere and they all gather there for eats.  They certainly make a lot more money than they do at my building because we are rarely told when they'll be here.  I work on the 3rd floor and my office area overlooks the area where they park so it's just a matter of looking outside to see who's here.  When we do get emails about it, they're not always accurate.  Two weeks in a row we were told the names of the two trucks that were supposed to be here and only one of them would show up.  Oh well.

So, today's food truck was called the Roasted Shallot.  A nice pretty green truck

I had looked online at their menu and had in mind three different things I would like to try.  Also, the website states they only have 5 or 6 items at any given time so I wanted to make sure I had options.  I ended up getting a sandwich called Schreiners Ball Park Grilled Cheese.  They claim it's a hybrid of grilled cheese and a hot dog.  It was one of my options from the website so...It's a hot dog with Tillamook Cheddar, ketchup, mustard (I asked for that to be left off),  and truck-made pickles on grilled sourdough bread.  The menu board mentioned another kind of cheese and maybe one other ingredient, but it still looked pretty good based on the list.  Here's what it looks like...

I had such high hopes for it.  I love grilled cheese and I like hot dogs so what wouldn't there be to like about this?  After the first bite, though, I don't really like it.  I can't place what it is I don't like, but I'm thinking it's the cheese.  I just tried a second bite and it's a little bit better so I'll give it a 3rd chance and I'll let you know at the end of this post what my final opinion is on it.

So, yesterday Breyer FINALLY released the pictures and prices of the One Day Ticket Stablemates for Breyerfest and we finally get to see a tie-in with the Silver Anniversary theme!  Yay!  Last year I only bought two of the Stablemates because the other two molds didn't interest me.  With this year's, I only collect one of them, but I will get the entire set because I think the paint designs they used are pretty cool.  It would've been nice if they'd had new molds again this year, but I shouldn't be greedy.   These pictures are all from the Breyer website

Sequins

Silver Star

Sterling

Some people have "complained" that Sterling is too plain-looking, but I like him just fine the way he is.  I think the solid color suits him.  Of course, none of them hold a candle the the Standing Stock Horse Stallion.  He is definitely my favorite


Glimmer

 He's the only one of the four I actively collect and I've got a pretty good conga going on of him so I must keep it up.  hahaha.  I already have someone who is willing to pick the entire set up for me and we negotiated a price.  I believe I mentioned recently about concerns over that, but I needn't have worried.  Also, she is willing to pick up my Celebration Model and send him along plus, if my Special Run time works with her schedule, she'll pick me up a Bonne Fete and call or text me when she finds out what the Pop the Cork surprise model is and I'll either tell her to get me one or have her get the bear mom and cub set.  I wouldn't mind a couple of other things, but I don't want to go overboard money-wise or taking up too much of her time.  She's already doing me a favor by sending me the Celebration Model (I'll pay extra for the additional shipping, of course).

Today has been an eventful Wednesday.  It started out with us coming to work and finding out there was no water to the building.  So people started thinking about the closest place to use a rest room and were told the water was out in the whole area so the convenience store up the road was out.  Well, my office has their main building up the road about a mile, but it's on city water since the building I work in is on an Indian reservation and wouldn't be affected.  Well, then the fire alarm went off.  We just had a fire drill two weeks ago so we were confused why we were having another.  While we were outside, we were told the fire department had to come and clear us to go back inside, but a minute or two later we were told we could go back in.  So we were all filing back in and I mentioned I was getting ready to make a trip to Gainey.  A manager heard me and said there was a van 'over there' getting ready to go and I could go with it, but then someone else told us the water was back on.  Apparently, the two were related.  When the water came back on it caused a surge into the sprinkler system which set off the alarm.  Good thing the building wasn't really on fire since there aren't any fire hydrants around and I don't think the SRFD has enough water on their trucks to put out a fire in a large, 3 story building.  SFD has tanker trucks, but they're a minimum of 3 miles away, at the regional airport and further north where there's potential for brush fires.  Anyway, the water was back on and it was back to work.  I can do without that kind of excitement, I tell you what.

Before I give the final report on the grilled cheese sandwich, I want to welcome my newest follower.  I was so happy when I saw my number had gone up by one.  I hope you find my blog interesting enough to stay.  :)

Okay.  Well.  The sandwich?  Never got a third bite and is now in the garbage.  It had a weird after-taste and is making my tummy feel oogie.  No fun.  I hate wasting good money on bad food.

Have a great Wednesday, everyone!

New Additction...

A couple of months ago we had our quarterly awards ceremony/ division meeting here at work and they had provided us with smoothies from Jamba Juice.  I think there were two or three different flavors.  I don't usually like smoothies unless they're banana, but I decided to try one.  I don't remember the flavor other than it wasn't the mango (or was it peach?  I just remember it was kind of orange-ish looking)  Anyway, I had never had anything from Jamba Juice and I thought it was pretty good, but that was that.  I didn't think of it again until last week.  I decided to see where the closest one was on the way to work and stopped by.  After reading the different types, I chose a Razzmatazz.  I don't remember all the ingredients, but I know there was "berries", "bananas" and "orange juice".  There was at least one other ingredient, but that escapes my mind.  My long-term memory is ridiculously good, but short-term?  Not so much.  Anyway, I ended up buying a smoothie 3 days last week on the way to work.  Yum!  But they can be expensive.  Well, a few months ago my brother bought one of those Nutri-Bullet thingies.  For weeks he made smoothies every morning, but now it's sitting un-used.  We have a bunch of strawberries from a recent sale and I knew we had raspberries, blackberries and blueberries in the fridge and I kept meaning to make a smoothie out of them, but never got around to it.  Then Sunday I bought some bananas, both for eating and to throw in a smoothie.  I did that this morning when I would ordinarily be playing "snooze tag".  Yay me!

It's not quite as good as the ones from Jamba Juice (I think they use yogurt, too), but it's cheaper for sure.  I couldn't find an appropriate lidded container to put it in so I used a mason jar from an adult beverage product.  Hahaha.  No straw, though, so I have to remove the lid every time I want to drink it.  WalMart has these plastic mason jar-looking things with built in straw so maybe I'll get one of those this weekend.  We'll see.  I don't think I'll make them daily, but it'd be nice to have a better container to drink them out of when I do.  And I feel like I'm making a healthier choice than my usual Peanut Butter Crunch when I have one of these.  Well, of course I am.  There's no added sugar to this thing.  hahaha.

So, a picture of the Single Day Stablemates for 2014 Breyerfest has been posted.  I won't put it here because it's not an official picture and it's really REALLY tiny.  And while I only conga one of the molds they're using, I think I'm going to try to get the entire set.  There's a Silver Filagree, a Silver Charm and two Silver Charm Paints, one with white mane/tail and one with dark mane/tail.  I can't wait until the tickets are finally released and the pictures so I can share them here.  I have a person willing to do pick-ups for me, but she posted an "ad" saying she'd do them and her price has gone up $10 from last year.  I think the Single Day tickets are only $20 and I paid $25 per Stablemate last year, which included shipping.  I do think her time spent tracking them down deserves compensation, but I'm not sure I want to pay an extra $10 per horse.  Her ad did say there'd be a discount if the entire set was purchased and she and I haven't talked cost yet so maybe she'll cut me a deal for being a repeat customer.  She sent me a message last night and said she'd be willing to get the SMs for me this year (she wasn't sure before if she was going to try for them) and I said we'd have to see how much the tickets were etc etc so there was the opportunity to discuss costs.  I didn't feel comfortable to just flat out ask her how much it would be, especially since the price hasn't been released yet.  And last year they did some kind of Groupon thing so we'll see if they do it again.  There's too many variables without the release of the models to help with things.

Well, yesterday the new puppies met the cats.  We had them on a leash...the dogs...and let the cats out of my room.  The cats just kind of sat there while the dogs sniffed and whined.    Then we put the dogs in another room and let the cats out to roam for a couple of hours.  A couple of times when I had to leave that room (the living room where we were watching TV), the dogs managed to get out and promptly chased the cats back to my room, so that isn't very good.  We figure we'll do leash introductions for the first few days then take them into the other room and let the cats out and hopefully by the end of the week the dogs won't chase them anymore.  We'll have to wait and see.

My allergies are KILLING me today.  I sneezed almost all the way to work.  We had several days last week of really windy days and it was a little windy yesterday, too, and since I live in the desert, a lot of dirt gets stirred up.  It's supposed to be windy today, too, but with a temperature of only in the mid-80s.  Tomorrow it's only supposed to be 78 or 79, which is really unusual for this time of year, but I'll take it!  But this sneezing is driving me nuts!

Time to get to work.  Happy Tuesday!

New Babies...!!!

Yes, I said babies. As in plural. So, here's what happened. On Friday my brother and my mom went to AAWL, which is a no-kill shelter not far from our house. There were lots of neat dogs, but none that really jumped out at them. A lot of Pit Bulls, too, and my brother has no interest in getting a Pit. I have no problems with them, but my brother...no way. So they went to Maricopa County Animal Care & Control aka dog pound aka Rabies Animal Control. You know. The baaaad place. Some neat dogs. Lots of Pits. Lots of Chihuahas. Lots of Pit and Chihuahua mixes (not really, but that became my brother's joke). None that really spoke to them. That evening my brother commandeered my iPad mini and was looking online. He looked on CraigsList and found there was an adoption event at a furniture store called the Dump the next day. They showed about 8 dogs and said they'd have those plus more. On Saturday, my brother called a couple of people on CraigsList that had puppies for sale. One he left a message and the other wanted $175 per dog and they weren't willing to give a discount for taking the last two puppies. I guess they figured since they'd sold the others at $175 each they didn't need to give a quantity discount because they'd be able to sell the other two with no problem. Anyway, I reminded my brother of the adoption event at the Dump and encouraged him to go there and after some hemming and hawing, he finally decided to go. Our mom went with him. I went into my room. Took a nap. An hour passed. Took another nap. Two hours passed. I figured maybe they'd ended up going to the Humane Society but figured my brother would've texted me.

More than 2 1/2 hours later, my brother knocks on my door and says "come have a look".

They'd gone to the Dump but they only had 2 or 3 dogs. Either they'd adopted the others already or they only brought a few to begin with. So they'd gone to a nearby chain pet store which usually has an adoption event on Saturdays. Total score. An  animal Rescue was there with a bunch of dogs and my brother picked out a couple of pups.  The paperwork is why they were gone as long as they were. I asked my brother what their names were and he told me, but said they weren't keeping those names. His dogs weren't going to be named after cars, although one was originally named after the rock band, apparently. So we tried to think of some and someone jokingly mentioned motorcycles and I said I would not be opposed to APPROPRIATE motorcycle names. Harley was easy to come up with, but the other was a little more difficult. Steve (brother) wanted to call the other one Dynaride, which I nixed. Even though they're not really my dogs (they're family dogs, I guess, but still...), but I agreed on the shorter Dyna. So, which is which? One dog was slightly smaller than the other so I asked my brother which of his motorcycles was smaller than the other and he said hold on and started calling out the name Dyna! Dyna! And One of them came running. So, She became Dyna and we were calling her Dyna Red because of her red collar. So we had Dyna Red and Harley Blue. But we kept calling them Dyna Blue so my brother decided she  would be Dyna and The would be Harley. I call them Frick and Frack and collectively they're "Puppies!". They will come when you call out "puppies" and they're starting to learn Dyna and Harley as their.

So, without further ado, here are Harley and Dyna (pronounced with a long "I")

Harley

Dyna

Harley

Dyna and Harley

They're about 13 weeks old and are thought to be Lab and Australian Shephard. The Lab is definitely obvious. My fiend at work, who has an Aussie mix, sees the Aussie in them, which is mostly the color on their feet since Labs are solid colored. Anyway, they're just little bundle of energy. Little? Did I say little? Silly me. These girls are pretty big. And they're going to get bigger. But they're settling in nicely and I think they'll make great additions to the family. My mom's 14 year old Lab/Wolf mix isn't real sure what to make of the new intruders. She's always been a loner and hasn't had to deal with puppies since she was one. They leave her alone if she's lying down but as soon as she gets up they see that as an invitation to play. Fortunately, they have each other to play with. They just need to work things out between them.

Well, I'd better get back to work. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of the girls in future posts. Especially once they settle down since it'll be easier to photograph them. hahahaha. Happy Monday!