All that glimmers is...silver...

Yes, a cheesy title, I know, but what can I say?

Tonight's post comes to you via my cell phone.  Why, you may ask.  You can go ahead and ask.  I don't mind.  Haha.  Anyway, this red-headed Pollock took her iPad mini to work to read with and...forgot it.  I didn't realize it until I was almost home.  I feel kind of naked without it.  Don't worry about it walking away because it's in a locked cabinet.  You would think I would've noticed it there as I was closing it to lock it, but no.  So now I have to make do with my phone.

Anyway,  a week or so ago I got one of the Breyerfest single day stablemate...the only one I really, really wanted so I got it off eBay.  I was going to have someone do pick-ups for me but I had to back out.  But after waiting for more than a week, my model finally arrived today

She's  not perfect, a couple of paint flaws here and there, but she's still pretty neat.  Kind of glossy but not 100%.  I like the little drawstring bag that came with her.  Not as neat as the denim pocket last year's had, but still nice.  I wonder what next year's stablemates will come packaged in.  Yes, I'm already thinking that far in advance.  What can I say?.  I like to plan and be prepared.

So, the other night my mom had woken me up about 10:30pm and said I needed to come out and help her with something.  So I got dressed and went into the kitchen where I found a big mess.  One of them had pulled my tote bag off the chest freezer and scattered the contents all over the family room.  Papers from my stories.  Caps for coke points.  Pennies.  Pens I use for writing the stories.  The contents of my wallet.  They chewed one of the straps on the bag and made it unusable as well as my wallet.  I've already replaced the wallet but not the bag.  I've only been to look at Target, which is where I got the wallet, but I didn't like any of the bags.  One was a possibility but then I thought it looked too much like a purse and I don't 'do' purses.  Hahaha.  I'll look at WalMart this Sunday, which is where I got the original and if that doesn't net me anything I'll go to Amazon.  They have some that are okay.  It's just a bummer, though, and one of the reasons I think I forgot my ipad is because I didn't have a bag to put it in when I was done with it for the day.  Keep your fingers crossed that they'll still have the bags this Sunday.  On the plus side of that, though, is that it forced me to finally empty the bag off all the pennies I'd accumulated as well as the bottle caps.

So, last night was the premiere of Sharknado 2.  I usually love all those cheesy monster shark and reptile movies, as I've mentioned before.  But this one...this one took the cheesiness to a whole new level.  I could only watch about 15 minutes before having to change the channel.  Granted, it already had the start time against it.  9pm.  After the first 15 minutes there was no way I was going to stay up til 11 to watch it to the end.  I will, however, give it another chance...when its on at a more reasonable time.  And would you believe they're already talking about a Sharknado 3???? Ugh.

Well, that's it for now, I guess.

It was bound to happen...

I don't buy a whole lot of models from third parties, but occasionally I do.  I've been pretty lucky about not having anything arrive damaged nor have I gotten particularly mangled boxes...until today.

Last week I won an auction for Treasured Moves.  She's a long-tail Lady Phase mold for my conga and I got her for a steal.  She isn't in perfect condition, but she's better than a shelf-sitter.  Possibly PSQ with some creative photography.  The box, however, well it's a good thing they don't judge boxes.  Hahaha.  When I saw it, I feared for the horse contained, but the lady I bought TM from wrapped her really well

 Well, you can't really see how squished the corner of the box is, but trust me, it was pretty squished.

Fortunately the horse wasn't damaged in any way.  My mom doesn't like the color of the mane and tail.  She said the color ruins the horse.  Oh well.  Good thing it's my horse and not hers.  Hahaha.

Work is still pretty stressful.  I spent much of the day trying to get a bulk billing to balance and I'm off by .55!  Ugh.  Finally I had to give up and I'll have to resume my search tomorrow with fresh eyes because I had other things that HAD to be done by the end of the day today.  I'll be glad when things settle down a bit, but in the meantime I need to just not get so stressed over it.  I need a day or two off.

Hurray.  A judge in Arizona has refused to accept a lawsuit by some veterinarians agains Equine Massage Therapists.  They want the therapists to go to vet school and the work to be regulated, but the argument by the therapists is that human massage therapists don't have to go to medical school so why should equine therapists have to?  The vets plan to appeal, but hopefully they'll lose that, too.  I definitely side with the therapists.

Well, before I sign off for the 'day' I just want to gripe about something.  I don't mind if 'you' have your blog comments set for moderation...odds are, there's a legitimate reason for it.  But don't approve a comment then turn around and delete it the next day then not even let the commenter know you're doing it or why.  Something similar happened on Facebook a few months ago.  The person I was writing on her wall it was about the movie Blackfish.  She used to be a whale trainer but is now a professional photographer, but still has a lot of friends who're still trainers.  I made a comment in reference to something someone else had posted and I referred to a particular current trainer by name.  The gal whose wall I posted it on ended up deleting the comment then sent me a PM to tell me why...she didn't want the other trainer to get into trouble.  I asked her if I could comment again but leave the trainer's name out and she said that was fine.  No big deal.  She was concerned for a current trainer and let me know why she felt it necessary to delete it, which I understood.  But this particular case, the one behind this vent, was on a blog.  I made my comment on some pictures and she approved the comment.  Yesterday I was looking at her blog and the comment was gone and she didn't bother to drop me a note to say she was going to do it or why.  She shouldn't have approved the comment to begin with, in my opinion.  And she'd emailed me before so I know she had my address.

Oh well.  Hope everyone's Monday was a good one.  Until next time...

Frozen Coke...

On the way home from work yesterday I stopped at Walgreens to get some oil for my car and to check out the school supplies. It's Back to School Season and while I'm not in school myself, this time of year was always my favorite while growing up because it meant getting to shop for new clothes and getting new supplies. I'm still a nut for school supplies, although now I call them 'Office Supplies' since I work in an office.  Hahaha.anyway, before leaving I grabbed a bottle of Coke and headed on home.

I like ice cold Coke so when I got home I stuck the bottle into the freezer with the intention of taking it out in an hour or two.  If I leave it in just the right amount of time the Coke starts to ice up and becomes a little slushy.  Yum.  So I got to watching TV and the weather report.  I didn't forget about my Coke but I just kept putting off going to get it.  Well, fast forward to 7:30 and I was going to my room for the night and I finally got the bottle out of the freezer.

It was frozen almost solid.  Oops!  I should've taken it out sooner, but there've been times I've left it in for 90 minutes and it was only really cold and not even icy.  It took maybe 30-45 minutes before it had melted enough to even attempt to drink it.  Initially it tasted like really watered down soda and I almost tossed it, but then I took another sip and it tasted fine so it was only the stuff at the very top that was negatively affected.

For the past couple of weeks we've noticed the dogs have somehow gotten stuff off the table and we figured they'd just got up on their hind legs and grabbed whatever was closest so we made sure to put stuff more in the center of the table plus my mom put in an extra leaf and put up a couple of other deterrents.  Well, a few minutes ago we were here at the table when suddenly Harley jumped up on the table!  Just jumped right up and didn't want to get down.  Now we know how they've been getting stuff off of it.  I'm sure my brother will try to use this as another reason to get crates for them, but there's a flaw to that..Harley got up on the table while my mom and I were sitting here so we can't keep them in crates 24/7 to  keep them from stealing stuff.  I wish I'd thought to take a picture.  It was really quite a sight to see a 60 pound puppy standing on the table.  Silly dog.

Well, I guess that's it for now.  I hope you all have a good weekend!

Wild Weather...

What a way to start the weekend!  On the way to work this morning they said on the radio that if you were out and about this evening there was a potential for a dust storm.  Something you learn real quick around here is to not believe the weather reports and should just look out the window.  Well, around 4:30pm when the news came on channel 3 (an independent channel, formerly affiliated with ABC) and they started talking about a dust storm that had formed in a town about 30-45 minutes south of me.  They weren't sure if it would last long enough to affect he Phoenix Metro area and said they'd keep us updated.  It was cloudy outside, but nothing to be too concerned about.

When the wall of dust reached I-10 and Pecos, we started to take more notice as it had moved pretty quickly.  My mom and I started talking about where to go to get dinner as the storm was inching its way closer and closer.  I was going to go get something from Rally's and we were talking about what we wanted when I looked out the window to the backyard and saw it was now very dusty and windy. That quickly changed our plans to getting something closer and we decided on Jack in  the Box.  These pictures were taken on my way there and back

The last picture was taken near my house and is actually the backside of the Desert Lives exhibit at the Phoenix Zoo. Sometimes I can see the Big Horn Sheep on my way home from work or from my house when they're on this side of the hill. It's pretty neat.

Silver Special Misty

In all the excitement last week about getting Platinum Star, I completely forgot about the Breyerfest special being offered to both people at Breyerfest and those who weren't able to attend. I received mine on Friday, just like the UPS tracker said. I was a bit envious of the people who got theirs after only a few days. Why mine had to take a full week to arrive is beyond me, but I'm pretty much just happy I was able to get one since they sold out so quickly.

The Silver Florentine Misty is sort of a 25th Anniversary re-run of the very first Breyerfest auction model, which was a Gold Florentine. The silver one came with a neat satiny bag plus a Save the Date magnet for Breyerfest 2015.

I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to go or not.  The theme is Viva La France and it's been fun speculating what models they might come up with such as a Stablemate quartet named Baguette, Fromage, Souflee and Eclair.  Eclair was my contribution to the names.  hahaha.  And possibly one called Creme Broulee and a Rose'.  There's a whole thread about it
http://www.modelhorseblab.com/forums/showthread.php?160403-Let-s-Speculate-Early!-What-Do-You-Think-The-2015-Celebration-Model-Will-Be

Anyway, it's a rather expensive trip to go to Breyerfest with just traveling and hotel costs alone.  I know I've mentioned that before.  Then, to add in models and other things, it would be a pretty penny to go.  I'd really, really like to, but I also want to go to San Francisco and do a lighthouse "tour".  I haven't been to a new lighthouse since about 2010, I think?  And even that one I didn't get to get real close since it was on one side of the border fence and I was on the other

photo by Jana Baran

The above photo isn't mine because I don't have access to mine right now.

But what good is a Lighthouse Nut if she never visits lighthouses?  And I'm also a Zoo Nut, but I haven't been to a zoo in more than a year.  I haven't been to a new-to-me zoo in 4 years, I think.  I'm sadly lacking in both.  A trip to Breyerfest would net me two zoos I've never been to, but San Francisco would not only net me zoos I've never visited but also lighthouses I've never been to.

Whoa.  How did this post go from being about the Misty Silver Florentine to one about lighthouses and zoos?  hahaha.  It's the heat.  I blame the heat.

Happy Thursday!

I think I missed something...

I saw on Facebook a post about a new Collector Club special called Demeter so I went to my email to see if there was something there from Breyer about it and there was...

They say Demeter is the 4th and final model of the Goddess series, but what happened to #3?  Hera was first, correct?  Then Aphrodite.  Who was #3?  Was I asleep?  Not that it really matters since I didn't win the others, but I feel like I'm missing something.

Demeter is the Goddess of Harvest and the Earth and is also called Mother Earth.  I'm not sure what I think of the model or the mold...the dapples look a little "fish scale" in the picture.  I'm going to enter for her, but likely will pass her off to someone who is collecting the whole series.  There's a few out there in Blab-land who got all 4 Gods and are also trying to collect the corresponding Goddesses.  But odds are, I won't win.  hahaha.

Silver Platinum Star or...?

Okay.  So.  I got home from work last night and discovered my Platinum Star had arrived from Kentucky.

I had bought it as an unopened package from someone who attended Breyerfest and put it up on eBay for a set price or Or Best Offer so I offered about $20 less than the asking price and a few minutes later I got an email saying my offer had been accepted.  Yay!  So I opened the box and dodged all the packing peanuts to get to the blue bag inside

Now the fun part would begin.  Because the package was unopened, neither myself nor the seller knew if it was a regular Platinum Star or one of the solid silver ones.  I think I'd mentioned previously that if it turned out to be silver then I was going to see if I could sell it so I was pretty excited about what it would end up being.  But first, I had to decide which end to open it from and went with the head

Hmmm.  No clue as to what was inside.  Other than a model, of course.  So I pulled him out of the bag and....and...

I see color.  I see white.

Unfortunately it was the regular one.  I'm still happy.  I wanted him before I knew about the special silver ones and now I have him and for a decent price.  He's not perfect.  He has a couple of flaws.  That's okay, though.  He's still pretty neat.  I don't like that they changed the mane, though.  The tail I don't care about, but the mane looked better on the Harley and Latigo models.

 After disposing of the box and wrappings I took him into my room to get a picture with Harley D Zip and put them up on the same shelf.

Now I need to hunt me down a Latigo.  I'd like to get the Breyerfest auction model, but that would be waaaaay out of my budget.  Hahaha.

Well, I guess that's it for now.  I hope you enjoyed unwrapping my new horse with me!  Have a great weekend!

Monster Dogs Strike Again!

So...yesterday I got home from work and took care of a few things then went to grab my iPad Mini before going into the living room to join my mom.  Usually I leave it on the table, in the middle and out of reach of the dogs.  Or so I thought.  My mom told me the dogs had gotten a hold of my Cat Fancy magazine and tore it to shreds.  I had already read it so it didn't bother me.  But then I couldn't find my iPad.  I looked on the table, the breakfast bar and everywhere in my room it would be, but nothing so I went into the living room and my mom and I were talking.  She suggested I check my brother's room.  I said I hoped it wouldn't be in there because it's not something he should feel free to just take and use whenever he wants.  And certainly not in his room.  After more talking about the dogs and the magazine, I decided maybe I should check outside because my iPad had been on top of the magazine.  We have a HUGE backyard (big enough for a horse except for the fact that it's two 'levels' and wouldn't be safe for one) so I decided to start closest to the house then work my way down towards the back fence.  I didn't get very far before I noticed something black in the grass up against the house so I went over and...yup.  There it was...minus the cover/case

The scrap of black in the upper lefthand corner is what's left of the case.  So I picked it up and took it inside.  The glass wasn't damaged so I turned it on and got this...

Because it had been sitting outside for several hours it was too hot to work so I took it into the living room and a few minutes later tried again.

HURRAY!  (sorry the picture is blurry).  It appears to have suffered no ill-affects from its time outside, which is a huge relief.  If it had been damaged, it would've been awhile before I could replace it since I have higher priorities for my money at the moment.  I'm just glad it's okay, though, and I'll now be more careful where I leave it.  I really didn't think they could reach it on the table where it had been, but likely they grabbed the magazine and since my iPad was on top of it, that fell on the floor, too.  I don't blame the dogs for chewing up the case because I was the one who'd left it on the table.  After all, who can be mad at these "little" mutts?

 That's Harley lying on her back and Dyna at the top of the photo

The tufts of white in the lower right hand corner of the image is the stuffing from another toy they've destroyed.  They really need to make toys that puppies can't destroy.

Well, we went live with our new system at work on Monday and things have been going pretty well, but today we come in and about 15 minutes into our shift it crashed.  It had been slow, but then it stopped entirely.  In our old system, if something went down we had other work that we could complete while we waited for it to be fixed, but with this new system, we pretty much can't do anything. 

The Platinum Star from Breyerfest that I bought off eBay over the weekend is supposed to be here today.  I'm excited.  It's supposed to be an unopened package so the seller has no idea if the model is one of the silver ones or not.  I've already decided that if it is, I'm going to put it up for offers.  There's some people out there willing to pay a tidy sum for one of the silver editions.  If it's the regular one, though, I'll keep it.

I guess that's it for now.  Have a fun Thursday!

Attack of the Big Heads...

A couple of weeks ago Breyer had a special over the weekend where they offered free shipping. They were also having a "Warehouse Finds". I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time they've had "Warehouse Finds", but they'd never really had any models that appealed to me, but this time they did. With the Warehouse Finds they basically take a retired model and maybe do a minor change or two then re-release it with a different mold number. In the case of mine, it was originally mold 1310 - Prancer (from the Saddle Club) that was re-released as #430010 - Thoroughbred - Chestnut. From looking at the picture on ID Your Breyer and comparing it to my model, it looks like they may have darkened her color a bit, but it could just be the lighting. I don't have the original Prancer to compare it to. Anyway, I've long been a fan of the Halla/Bolya mold, even though I only have the original Halla so I jumped on this one, especially since it was at a reduced cost

I also finally got my Collector Club model Rajah, who is pretty neat-looking

It took a little while to figure out how the halter was supposed to go, but I finally did. Obviously.

So then I got a couple of dolls. Not for showing since I don't show and I don't have decent tack to use and, well, let's face it. The Breyer dolls aren't exactly the best things out there, but I wasn't going to drop a boat-load of cash on something I just wanted to have fun with. If I showed then maybe I'd consider a nicer doll, but these are just for fun.

Here they are terrorizing the new companion animals I got off of MH$P...

But then the animals strike back and they bring in reinforcements...

See anything unusual in this picture?

You don't look so menacing now, do you? hahaha.

Anyway...Breyerfest was this past weekend, as many of you know. I was supposed to get a couple of models picked up, but I ended up having to cancel that, which totally sucked, but all is not lost. I was able to get a Platinum Star off ebay for a good price and it'll arrive unopened so I'll still get the thrill of opening it...and the possibility that it might be one of the rare silver edition ones. If it is, I might look at putting it up for offers...just to see what I can get. But if it's a regular one, I'll keep it. I don't know when he'll arrive. I got a shipping notification yesterday, but no exact arrival date. My Silver Florentine Time To Party Misty should be here on Friday. I'm still debating whether I'm going to try to make an honest run at going next year. I heard some horror stories about this year's crowd and the rudeness of people, but I also heard some nice stories, too, so we shall see. The theme is Viva La France so it'll be interesting to see what kind of models and stuff they come up with. For the cost of a trip to BF, though, I can go to San Diego in November, like I have already planned, and San Francisco next summer for the opening of the new Africa exhibit at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. Going to Lexington would satisfy my zoo "requirements" (Louisville and Cincinnatti Zoos) and horses (oh boy horses galore!), but San Francisco would satisfy zoos, beach, lighthouses and possibly some horses. Plus it's a shorter plane trip. I have time to decide, though.

It looks like I didn't win one of the 5 farrier dolls off the Breyer website that I posted about last week.  They were supposed to notify people yesterday and I didn't get an email.  Oh well.  Congrats to those who got one.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Happy Wednesday!

Time To Party!

Hahaha.  That's a bit of a double meaning title.  Today...right now, in fact, thousands of people are descending upon the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington for Day 1 of the 25th Annual Breyerfest.  The first numbers have been drawn for who is first in line for the Special Run tent and soon we will know which model is the Pop the Cork mystery model.  If it becomes available before I finish this then I will reveal it at the end, otherwise it'll have to wait.

The 2nd meaning for the title is this... during one of the many Breyerfest threads on Blab yesterday, someone posted this picture...

It was in the commemorative program special for the 25th anniversary.  What made everyone so excited, other than that it's a popular mold and silver filigree, was that it was being made available to both people at BF AND people online.  Problem was, nobody knew when it would be on sale online.  There was a lot of excitement and hair tearing out.  I'm really happy that Breyer has made something available for purchase to those who aren't available to attend.  If I recall correctly, they had some raffle items online last year, but I didn't enter anything.  But this is the first time they've offered something to stuck-at-homers that's also available at BF.

Because BF officially started at 10pm EST, most people figured the special wouldn't be available before 9am.  Well, I usually leave for work around 6am (9am EST) and while I could hold off leaving for a few minutes to see if it went live at 9am, there'd be a gap of time left unprotected while I drove to work and got my computer up and running.  I figured with my luck they'd make it available during that time and it would sell out before I ever had a chance.  Luckily I was wrong.  Not long after posting about the 45 minute gap, a blabber posted that the Misty had already been made available and how to find her on the website.

Needless to say, I jumped on it real quick.  I couldn't believe they were offering a limited edition for such a low price.  The Silver Florentine is in commemoration of the very first raffle model 25 years ago, which was a Gold Florentine Misty.  I'm not normally very big on decorators, but I had to get it.  I just hope they don't end up overselling and I don't get my model.  I don't know what time she was made available this morning and she wasn't sold out, yet, but you never know.

Well, apparently the Pop the Cork model is on a Nokota.  I haven't seen any pictures yet so I'm trying to stall...

It's been confirmed.  Pop the Cork is Nokota in 4 different colors.  Bay, Palomino Tobiano Pinto, Chestnut Overo Pinto and Chestnut Appaloosa.  

My favorite

 

I don't collect the Nokota mold because I don't care for it's pose, but the glossy appaloosa is really neat-looking and I wouldn't mind having it in my collection.  There's a girl on Blab who is nuts for Nokota models and she's going to flip, I'm sure.  Hopefully she'll be able to get all four of them.  Or, I guess it would be 8 if she wanted both glossy and matte.

Today is Friday.  I have very little work to be done because we can't pay invoices like we normally do so we've been helping put W9s in numerical order.  Tax ID numbers are 9 numbers long and you have to start with the first number and go from there.  Trust me.  It's not as "fun" as it sounds.  hahaha.

No major plans for the weekend.  Laundry tomorrow.  And I need to go to the post office.  Someone on Blab posted a thread looking for Mini Whinnies for a project so I'm sending her the ones I have.  I'll also be stalking Blab for Breyerfest activities.  It's always fun.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Random Cool Video

Okay.  So maybe I won't do these weekly, just whenever I happen to see a neat video.  And this one definitely qualifies as a neat video.  It comes from Jodie H on YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX1LNtR1U4rC0OjLPCdhSBA and is from the World Cup in Las Vegas, NV 2009.  I'm a nut for Freestyle Dressage and really appreciate it when the moves the horse and rider are donig matches the music, but this is the first one I've seen where the horse and rider pair are in almost perfect sync with the music.  It really is cool to watch.  I'm not sure it qualifies as "The Cutest EVER", but it is pretty neat to watch.  And apparently the crowd thought so, too, because in certain parts of the video they're cheering and clapping because the moves are so perfect with the music.  I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did.


I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but last week I bought a "lot" off MH$P.  Not "a lot" as in a bunch, but "lot" as in a group from one seller.  3 dogs and a cat.  Companion Animal size, not the big ones.  I guess I should mention they're Breyer animals.  Anyway, when she sent me the tracking information on Monday she said it would be here Thursday.  Well, I just checked the tracking number and it's out for delivery today.  HURRAY!  I always like getting things ahead of schedule.  I'll have to get pictures of them, along with the two new models I got recently and haven't shown pictures of.  I'll try to get those up tomorrow or Friday.

Work is weird right now.  Because we're doing a huge system change, there's little we can do.  I work, basically put, in accounts payable and currently we use this one system to issue our payments in.  Well, at noon today, that system is being taken off-line in preparation for the new system to come in on Monday.  What that means is there is VERY little work we're allowed to do.  We can issue payments to be printed today, but only until noon.  We can't do anything on a control because that posts on a nightly cycle.  We can't pay anything where the check prints tomorrow because of the system being shut down at 12pm.  What we CAN do is typewriter checks.  No fun.  It'll be interesting to see how many requests we get tomorrow and Friday for them.  We have 2 typewriters so I guess two people can do them at a time, but we shall see.  So what am I doing for work...?  Auditing.   Rather than give us the option of time off, we've been given busy work.  Have I been doing any of it?  Some.  hehehe.  Breyerfest starts Friday and a lot of people are already there so I've been reading blogs on Blab and it's making me really want to go next year.  <sigh>  We shall see.  I have a plane ticket to go to San Diego in November, but if I end up buying a "new" car in October or November, I won't be able to afford San Diego AND Kentucky so I'd have to "eat" the $98 plane ticket, which isn't that big of a deal.  I might be able to go to see a friend in Las Vegas in October and still go to BF, but I don't know.  I wouldn't have to pay for a hotel, but I'd still have to pay for a car rental (I wouldn't want to be at her mercy for rides while there) and the difference it would cost between my current ticket and changing it to Las Vegas since I got the current ticket on sale and it'd be $75 to change it to Las Vegas since the fare is higher.  We shall see.

Well, I guess I'd better get to work.  Or something.  hahaha.

We are decorated...

So, for those of you who read yesterday's blog asking for help in decorating my new desk space, I have returned with the horse(s) I selected to be at work with me. I also asked for assistance on Blab and one person said a pony breed or my semi-custom Stone Arabian while a couple of others suggested Bouncer. I don't really collect pony breeds so to do that would mean Sgt Pepper, my 2 CWP or my 2 Bouncers. Since Bouncer got the most votes, I decided to bring those two in and set them up and see how they looked. I could always take them back home and bring in someone else.

Without further ado, I bring you my new shelf decoration

I think they fit in just perfectly there, don't you?  They are the right size and they go well with the background color.  Seeing these two on the shelf made me realize that a Traditional size model would overpower everything else with its size and a couple of Stablemates would kind of get lost amongst the other stuff.  The Bouncers are perfect in size for what's already on the shelf.  I'm quite happy with how it all turned out.  Every time I look at the shelf or think about them there, it makes me smile. 

Staying on the Breyer theme...yesterday I got an email from them about it being National Farrier Week or Month or something and in recognition of that, they wanted you to buy their farrier doll.  Or, at least, that's what I thought it said.  Then I realized they were GIVING one away.

 Now, I don't really care much for the big-headed dolls let alone a boy doll, but who can pass up free?  So I had to enter.  I set a reminder on my email program at work to make sure I enter every morning until Friday.  If I win, great!  If I don't...no big deal.  But free is free, right?  Well, it says you're responsible for taxes or whatever, but it's still free.

So, now we come to the part in the program where I get to gripe.  I haven't been very good at bringing my lunch to work since we moved to the main building and the past couple of days I've gotten something from our on-site cafe thing.  I've gotten a Chicken Salad Wrap twice now and didn't really feel like another one.  Originally I was just going to raid the snack machine, but when I saw neither of the two closest to my work area had Coke in the soda machine, I decided to go over to the cafe.  A salad seemed like a yummy choice and there's a salad bar there so I selected my ingredients and went to get dressing.  That's where things got complicated.  They had 6 choices.  NONE of them were labeled!!!!!!!!  2 of those choices looked absolutely identical.  I thought one might be Ranch and one Blue Cheese and was close enough to one (they had them side by side in twos going away from you with a sneeze guard thrown in for good measure) to drip some on my finger and taste it.  It tasted like Ranch.  But the other one, which I couldn't reach to drip onto my finger, LOOKED like Ranch.  Well, I had a line growing to my right and I didn't want to hold them up much longer so I grabbed a little container of each of them and went on my merry way.  When I got to my desk, I tasted the one furthest back and it was Ranch.  I dumped it on my salad.  Then I tasted the other one again...Ranch.  One might be low-fat, but they both tasted decent.  That went on my salad, too.  So I shook up the container and now there's dressing spread throughout, which is what I like.  But seriously, folks, why aren't your dressings labeled?    What a PITA!  I really need to get my tush into gear and start bringing my lunch to work again.  I hate having to scrounge for lunch.

NAN/ North American Nationals started today.  People are already showing up to Breyerfest, which is Friday.  I've been enjoying seeing the mini-blogs people have been writing on Blab of their activities so far, but it won't really get going until this weekend.  I wish I'd been able to afford to get my pick-ups after all, but you do what you have to do. 

I guess that's it.  My lunch break is almost over and I have tons of work to do.  And I've only taken one bite of my salad.  It isn't all that good.  <sigh>

Help Me Decorate!

Okay.  So.  Today is the start of our 2nd week in our new work space and I feel like my shelf is lacking.  When I was packing up my old desk I had decided I didn't want as much stuff on my new desk, but now I feel like it's kind of naked and it needs something.  But what?

I think it needs a horse or two.  But what kind?  Should I put in a Traditional?  A couple of Papo/Schleich/Safari LTD (I'm not sure of the maker on the ones I have)?  Maybe a one of my SM congas?  I don't have many so it wouldn't take up a lot of space.  What do you think?   Or do you think adding a couple of horses would make it look somehow off-balance because the Cheetahs, Scorpion (my dad made that out of copper wire) and orca are all wild animals and horses would be domestic?  I'd like to know your thoughts.

July 5th...

So, I actually stayed awake long enough to watch the Big Bay Bash in San Diego on my iPad mini.  Initially I watched in with the 'timed music' on one of the radio stations, but I quickly grew bored of that and switched to channel 16 to listen for distress calls.  I then also switched camera angles.  There's five camera on sundiegolive.com and usually the camera moves and the view changes.  I was wondering how that would work for the fireworks and figured I'd catch it as the camera switched to a position where it was pointed in the right direction, but then I realized the camera wasn't moving.  They'd put it on hold so the camera stayed pointing towards the Bay band you were able to watch the fireworks, but the view was kind of boring so I tried a different camera and found one I liked better.  The below pictures are static images from sundiegolive.com camera I was watching.

Unfortunately, I missed the Grande Finale.  My mom said there was so much smoke outside from the fireworks at Tempe Town Lake you couldn't see across the street so I went to look.  Good thing I had because it turned out one of the dogs had gotten out and my mom didn't even realize it.  While both dogs are microchipped and have tags, they're mostly black and that would be a disaster waiting to happen.  Anyway, the Finale happened during that time.  Oh well.  It was recorded and put on YouTube so I watched it this morning.

After the Finale I watched the gazillion boats that were on the water navigate around each other and head for their respective marinas and launches.  The smart people stayed put and waited for things to calm down a bit.  I kept switching between channels 16, 13 and even 12 whenever one boat hailed another to switch to a 'talk' channel so I could hear what they were saying.  One of the harbor excursion boats told another boat they were going to stick with them until they reached a certain point then break off for their pier.  A few minutes later Harbor Patrol called the harbor excursion and asked them to switch to ch12 so I did, too.  Apparently the excursion boat had a light out and the HP told them it was a hazard because other boats couldn't tell which side they were approaching.  The excursion boat didn't seem to care because they basically blew the Harbor Patrol boat off.  A short while later a competing excursion boat tried to raise them on the radio, but they wouldn't answer.  Something tells me they thought the competing boat was going to tell them about the missing light and they didn't want to hear it so they just ignored them.  Makes me wonder if they knew the light was out when they took the boat out and they were annoyed with people telling them what they already knew.

It was neat watching the fireworks, even on a streaming webcam.  I haven't been to San Diego for the 4th since the 1980s and then we were down in Imperial Beach with just one set of fireworks as opposed to the six displays for the Big Bay Boom.   In 2008, I think it was, I was at Sea World on the 4th, but where I was standing I could only really hear them and not see because of the trees. The Phoenix Zoo has had a party for 4 years now called the 4th of Zoo-ly that looks like fun, but I've never been to it.  In San Diego, the Cabrillo National Monument has allowed people to watch the fireworks from Pt Loma for $35 per passenger car for just the 2nd year now.  A pretty good deal if you can get 4 or 5 friends to chip in, but not so good if you're by yourself.  Still, it would be a pretty neat viewing place.

Well, I guess that's it for now.  I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th.  And welcome to my two newest followers!  I appreciate everyone who follows my blog.

What a storm!

Around here, you quickly learn not to believe much in what the weatherman on the news says about the weather. They will tell you the high temperature of the day will only be 55 but it ends up reaching almost 70. They tell you there's a 20% chance of rain and it's already pouring down. They say there's a huge dust storm moving into the valley but nothing ever materializes. In this particular case, it was the opposite. There was no mention during the evening news about any sort of dust storm, but shortly after 6pm my phone made a horrible racket...it was a weather service alert to notify me of a severe dust storm warning until 8pm. Oddly enough, I didn't remember signing up for the alerts and I wasn't  even connected to the internet when I got it. No matter.  A look out the window showed no evidence of a dust storm barreling down on us.  A short while later there was another alert saying the warning had been extended to 9pm.  Yeah sure.

At 7:15 I went into my room and the wind had picked up some.  My mom was watching the news in her room and one of the stations had people out in the field and where they were it was raining and there was some dust, but still nothing in my area.  On my scanner, the police reported zero visibility at a location about 2 miles away, but still nothing in my area.  I kept looking out my window, which faces north (the storm was coming from the south), and while it had gotten a little darker it was still nothing major.  Then, in the span of only a couple of minutes, I looked out again and it was super dark.  I could barely see the small tree-like shrub right outside nor could I see the Saguaro Cactus five feet away.  It was pretty crazy.  We got some rain, too, but I couldn't see or hear it.

When all was said and done, there was a pretty big storm that knocked out power to a lot of people, but while our lights flickered a couple of times, it didn't go out.  Several pre-4th of July celebrations had to be canceled and Sky Harbor had to ground both outbound and inbound flights for awhile.  It was too dark for me to go out and get any pictures so these ones come from azfamily.com/ 3tv news.  We are supposed to have a repeat performance today and the sky to the south is looking a little grey and dusty.    Channel 3 is getting a lot of grief for allowing their field crew to be out in that weather.

We don't know, yet, if the dogs will be afraid of thunder, but they had no problem with the dust, lightning and rain because they wanted to be outside playing in it.

11 questions...

Sometimes I like to visit the blog of someone I follow and see who they follow and see if I can find new ones to follow or just check every now and then.  Well, that's what I did just a little while ago.  I decided to check it out because the title intrigued me...Fantasies and Fountainpens (blogspot).  I'm often caught up in one fantasy or other and combined with 'fountain pens' I got to thinking it might be a blog by a writer or wannabe-writer.  And it is.  I just have to say, I've never written with a real fountain pen, only a ballpoint that resembled a fountain pen, but they make me think of the old days.  Before computers and word processors and all that stuff.  You might be interested to know that while I love my techno-gadgets, I write my stories old school...meaning, long hand.  There's just something so wonderful about the crinkly feel of a piece of paper that's been written on.  Also, a small pad of paper and pen are more portable than a computer or even a netbook.  Of course, when people see you typing away on a laptop or desktop, nobody really bugs you, but when they see you writing on paper, they assume you're writing a letter or a diary.  Another reason why I like to write longhand is because of my love for ballpoint pens.  I have a strong like for hotel pens and have a pretty good collection.  I posted a picture of some of them on a prior day.

Anyway, on this blog Fantasies and Fountainpens, there was a list of questions different than the ones I answered before and these were a little more geared towards writers/writing and I decided to copy them here and answer them.  So, here you are...

1. Describe your perfect day----not having to go to work and just hanging out or taking my camera out and try to find some wild horses

2. Who's your favorite movie/book sidekick?-----I don't really have a favorite sidekick.  I don't go to many movies and a lot of the books I read have multiple characters.  Maybe Greer Swope in the Bittersweet Farms series.  She came from a privileged background and while she started out a horrible person her character has grown and evolve over the course of the series

3. What's your favorite kind of sandwich?----roast beef with mayo.  Simple, but yummy

4. When did you first start writing/blogging and why?----I started writing my freshman year of high school.  A friend in my group was writing little fiction stories about celebrities and such and showed a couple of us.  I started writing and haven't looked back.

5. If you only had one day left to live what would you do?----sorry, but I don't know how to answer that.  Probably spend it with my family.

6. What's something from your childhood that was not as good as you remembered?----Orange Julius drinks

7. Have you ever been to the ocean?----many times.  I love the ocean!

8. Did you ever move someone deeply with something you wrote?----not that I've been told.  I know I've made them laugh or experience other emotions, but I don't know that I've 'moved' them

9. What's your favorite holiday?---would you believe I don't really have one?  Any holiday I'm with my family is a favorite one

10. What food would you say represents your personality?----a food to represent my personality?  Now that's an interesting question.my personality changes with the weather.  Hahaha.  Hmmm. Potato.  Because it's so versatile

11. What do you like to do on rainy days?----rainy days inspire me to write.  They also inspire me to curl up with a good book or take a nap.  I don't know.  It just depends.

***I've added my own***

12.  What is a little known fact about you?-----I come from Polish royalty and while I'm only part Polish, it's the only nationality of myself I acknowledge and embrace.

I hope you enjoyed the answers to my questions

Better late than never, huh?

Ok.  So.  I took these pictures during my last horse hunting expedition back on June 12th.  It's definitely too hot to be out there looking for them when I don't have air conditioning in my car, even if I go early in the morning like I always do.  I can't wait for it to start to cool down so I can resume my trips.  What I really need to do, though, is get a new car.  One with a/c.  I think I'm going to look into that through CarMax next week.  I was on their website last night and found a couple of vehicles I like.  One of them even has satellite radio capability, which is cool.  So I'll keep you updated on that.

So, on this particular trip, I didn't see any wild horses as I mentioned in another post when I saw the roadrunner and the horse transport.   As I've said before, I don't always see them and I think it makes me appreciate them more when I do, but sometimes I really wish I'd see them every time.  Even if they weren't someplace where I could take a picture, just seeing them is exciting.  But since I didn't see any wild ones, I decided to stalk domestic ones.  My usual spots didn't net any ones that were very photograph-able so I tried some different roads and found a few. 

I loved this little grey Arab.  Such a pretty face

This picture would be perfect except the wire fence.

 

 This horse was with 2 others and was the first time I'd seen what could only be described as a "backyard pet".  There was the house and the fenced yard and that was it.  The horses were using the house for shade, which was kind of sad.  There was also a wheelbarrow they seemed to be eating out of.  Not sure I liked the whole thing, but what can you do.  They obviously were being fed and taken care of because this one is pretty well fed-looking.  hahaha

I also saw some other wildlife.  A squirrel and some quail

I see Quail all the time around my house, but it's always neat to see them running around in different areas.  Quail are neat birds. 

One one road I was driving down, I had to stop and turn around because there was an equestrian gate and there was no way my car was going to make it through.  Plus, one of the signs says 'no motor vehicles'

I didn't know there were riding trails on the south side of Rio Verde Dr so it was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad the horse owners on that side of the road have places they can ride without having to cross Rio Verde to get to the trails on the north side.

I also have a couple of more pictures of the horse transport.  This first one was taken just after it had stopped.  I didn't know what it was going to do so I turned down a road I've been able to photograph horses on.

Then, as I was heading back towards the road, I saw realized it was backing up (like in the other pictures, but I didn't know where it was going yet)

You can see an equine nose sticking out the window on the door.  I still don't know if they were delivering or picking up.  Hopefully delivering.  :)

  We've been in our new work space for 2 days now.  This being the 2nd day.  It's nice having the underground parking so when I come out at 3:30 my car isn't all heated up already.  But we've been having problems.  3 of our web-based systems went down yesterday so there was little work we could do.  One of my jobs is to stop payment on checks we've issued and since the bank system is web-based, I couldn't do that.  I sent the claim reps who'd requested the stop pays an email to let them know we couldn't do them and fortunately none of them came over and gave us heck for it.  That's a drawback to the move...the claim reps are just around the corner from us and so they can come over anytime they want.  This morning the power strips on at least 4 computers failed so we got to sit around for 90 minutes and wait for new ones to be purchased and brought in.  So much for coming in an hour early to get caught up.  At least I still get paid for that hour.  I volunteered to work overtime for the rest of the week this week and by Thursday my brain will be liquified due to a messed-up sleep schedule.  That's why I don't do OT.  That and we don't work 40 hours so you have to work 1.25 hours regular time before OT kicks in and it's rarely worth it, but if I'm thinking of a new car, I'll need the extra money.  hahaha.

I guess that's it. I should get back to work.  I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday.  And if there's anybody from Canada who reads my blog...Happy Canada Day!