Groovy Weekend

Wow! I had the weekend off, and we were at home! No shows, clinics, trips, etc. Whew!


I think that we really needed a break.


I did take Ronan out to Pine Hill on Saturday for our lesson, which was awesome! He was perfect. Jumped a whole bunch of new cross country jumps on the novice course. No problem! Just like it was nothing! Very relaxed....Go Ronan!




Otherwise, it was an eclectic mix of things this weekend....lots of fun.




1.) Went to see Ratatouille....


Awesome flick. Loved it! loved it! Loved it!! Pixar's done it again. Too cool. So funny. Had cooking for Grant, and Rats for me, what more could we ask for?





2.) Rode bareback on Sunday AM for over an hour. I just love doing that.





3.) Saw a preview for the new "Underdog" live action film....oh no. Unfortunately, it has a beagle, which I guess the real underdog was, but still....

The movie looks pretty bad, but had some great tag lines...


"One Nation Under Dog!" - Love this one! How great!

Coming this August..."Evil Gets Licked!" - that's the best.

4.) So, because of Underdog, I'll probably get stuck seeing more beagles (Arrrgh!), but hopefully, because of Ratatouille, I'll get to see more RATS! (That would be awesome!)

5.) Had corn on the cob for dinner last night. Mmmmmm. My favorite. Got it from this little farm on the way home from the horse farm....so good. Also got some new potatos, which Grant made with garlic and rosemary to go with the corn..... Now I'm hungry.

6.) Got new pajamas! Cute ones with Marie the cat from The Aristocats

7.) Went to brunch at Jasper's Sunday with Grant....Vanilla French toast with bananas and nuts....mmmmmmm.

8.) Tried to do some scrapbooking, failed miserably.

"

Play

Been working on my PSE skills.
Here's some pics from one of last month's lessons....
(can't figure out how to get the picture to be larger in the post but if you click on it, you get the full effect.)

Photos by Grant Goodyear

She

"She" I'm talking about the song...(not Heidi Swapp) that goes....

She may be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
Maybe my treasure or the price I have to pay

....and so on.

Well, it was originaly written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer.
Anyway, Elvis Costello does this awesome cover of it on the soundtrack for the movie Notting Hill, (one of my favorite films, by the way.)

So, I've been wanting to get a copy of that version of the song for years now, and the only place that I've seen it is on the Notting Hill movie soundtrack, which I refuse to buy, mostly because I absolutely hate Ronan Keating's version of "WhenYou Say Nothing at All". Yes, lots of people have covered that song, and there are some out there that I feel are even better than the original( Alison Krauss), but the reason that I hate the Ronan Keating version (and yes, he does have an awesome first name) is because he changes some of the lyrics, (and I know that this happens a lot, but it bugs me with this song) and takes out one of my favorite lines...

"Old Mr. Webster
could never define,
What's been said
between your heart and mine"

Yes, I know that it's cheesy, but hey, it's a country song! Anyway, he changes it to....

" Try as they may
They can never define
What's been said
between your heart and mine "

Which to me, is significantly less memorable...I mean, what the heck is wrong with Mr. Webster? He is the expert on defining now isn't he? Was Mr. Keating afraid that perhaps a definition would surface if you pointed people to the man at the top?

But forgive me, I digress....

Anyway, the point is that I refuse to buy the stupid soundtrack. So, I think that Elvis Costello has some 2 disc greatest hits collection or something, but I already have tons of Elvis Costello, and it's like $20.

So....I think, a-ha! Steve Jobs can help me with this dilemma....so I go to itunes, which is where you can purchase just one song off of an album (pretty much the only time I buy itunes over traditional CDs, unless it's some unreleased rarity etc.) and guess what...

They don't have it. Grrrrrrrr.

I'm sure that there are other MP3 sites that carry it, but I'm not in the mood to go checking all of them today. I'm also sure that I could easily download it illegally....and my defense would be that "Steve Jobs let me down!", but I'm not willing to mess with all that either.

So basically, "She" will have to wait.....probably another 6months till it pops into my head again, and think, "Man, I really love that version, I should get that..."

It's Raining Again....

Well, it rained again this weekend, so what were we doing? At a horse show of course! I swear that every show that we've done since getting Ronan, except for the combined test. the weather's been bad. In the last month alone, we got poured on at Meadow Creek, I got rained on all week at Horse camp, and then we got poured on again at the Pine Hill show on Sunday. The trailer's an absolute mess on the inside. It's going to need some serious cleaning. Lovely...but hey! Ronan's great in mud and wet.

He was awesome again this show. Such a good boy.

So, I've decided to move him up and give him the chance to kick butt at the Novice level in eventing! We don't show again until end of September, so we'll be ready. But for now, I at least am looking forward to a much needed break.

Other events.... (ripping off a blog style from Karen Russell)

1.) Just playing with my new iphone.
That thing is just so awesome. I'm completely enthralled. Loaded some music, a movie, and some pictures on it last night... No Lilo and Stitch, It wasn't available from itunes. Bummer.

2.) Imersing ourselves in Harry Potter...we've already got our movie tix for the 12:01 AM showing of Order of the Phoenix....watched Goblet of Fire on DVD last week. Can't wait, and then there's the final book....
I'm listening to the Half Blood Prince on my ipod to give me a refresher before the new one comes out. Grant of course re-read all of the books (again) in the last 2-3 months so he's going to be ready. Oh, and Grant also got me a book entitled something like "Severus Snape, Friend or Foe" which has some theories by a few people including the sci fi author Orson Scott Card. Really cool.

3.) Diogital Scrapbooking... Taking a new PSE class from Digital Scrapbook Place this month, and I've got a digital/hybrid album class from Big Picture Scrapbooking coming up this month too.

4.)Fireworks.....2 times within the year, I am gloriously reminded of the number one advantage to living in Houston outside of the city...Can't wait.

5.) Hermione month...yes, the little wild and crazy, whippersnapper is back! Dad's gone on and off all month, so Hermione is back at Camp Goodyear. She and Ophelia were chasing each other around the loft and down the catwalk last night at 1 AM. Such energy.

Do you know anyone who got an iphone? Oh WAIT That's ME!

I am the coolest....well, actually, Grant is the coolest, well, he was the coolest before, but regardless....he bought me an iphone!
He swears it isn't just because he felt guilty about washing my cell phone earlier this week.....

After giving it to me, he took me to the apple store (which was open until midnight tonight for the iphone launch) so that I could play with one. Yes, I saw Steve Jobs when he premiered it, and it looked flipping cool, but Steve Jobs makes everything look really freaking cool!
The stuff that you can do with the touch screen is unbelievable!
And, if you're listening to your music through the headphones and you get a call, it will fade your music out and pause it, then you can answer the call, and then it fades your music back in when you're done! How wicked is that?

Oh, and another incentive for Grant to have get me one....it has Google maps, so Grant won't have to be my personal GPS anymore!!
Pictures to come!!!

He's FANTASTIC!

I just have one thing to say about my past 4 days at the Area V Adult Rider eventing Camp.....

I have the Greatest horse EVER!!!!!!!

Ronan showed me that he's really coming into his own now, and just loves jumping. He is like a transformed horse since he had his jumping epiphany on Memorial day.

The camp was taught by Rainey Andrews from VA, and she was extremely good. I just loved her, and I learned so much. I would highly recommend her to anyone of any level of riding. She was very positive, energetic, and did a lot of lecture and theory on everything that she had us do. She was so good at simplifying things and breaking things down....really cool stuff.

Oh, and Ronan, because he was so good, got put into the Novice group, and finally got to jump BIG!
After months and months of little X-rails and small verticals over and over again (Ok...well it's only been since February, but still...I was getting pretty bored.) He finally got to jump some much more interesting and challenging stuff. We did tons of combinations, gymnastic sequences over what were all at least 3' fences, and then lots of wide oxers, narows, and even a huge triple bar..( Believe me, that sucker was WIDE!) No problems what-so-ever. He jumps like it's effortless....well, with him being so huge it probably is, but anyway....

We both learned a lot, and I don't think that I've ever been so proud of one of my horses before.

GO RONAN!

Off to Horse Camp!

Well, Tomorrow, Ronan and I are off to camp. We'll be going to the USEA Area V adult rider's eventing camp with the trainer, Rainey Andrews. She used to be a trainer under Jimmy Wofford, one of the most famous eventers in history.

So, hopefully, it'll be fun and relaxing for me, and good training for Ronan, who I'm afraid will just be hot.

But....in the meantime, I thought I'd leave with this....

Ronan came in first at the Meadow Creek Horse Trials (Event) last weekend.....after an amazing cross country round, and a quiet, relaxed, show jumping round that did not incur any time penalties!

GO RONAN!!!!

He also did a jumpers round for practice the day before the horse trial and came in 2nd! (For going clear and being closest to optimum time.)

Woo-hoo

Ok, so my wonderful husband has ironed out all of the bugs and given my blog a behind the scenes overhaul/makeover. I just wanted to leave a quick post just so that he knows that I'm very happy now!

More updates on life, the vet world, Ronan and other random stuff to come......
Oh! and new pictures of Ronan!

Cheers!

Finally blogging again

Ok, so I'm going to try this again!
I've been so exceptionally busy, and every time I've tried to access my blog, google was having some problems or something. Or my network at work was being wiggy. I've still got some old posts that never published period and I have no idea where they've gone, and some that didn't publish, but at least I have the draft form although without the pictures, so I'll have to fix those, but anyway.....

It's Almost Here!!!

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow at 7AM, Grant, my husband, will be starting his very first marathon.
I can't wait.
This is absolutely the most exciting thing ever!!!
We went to the runner's expo today to pick up his chip. (something he wears on his shoe that allows them to track him, and also to determine his time and speed.)
Wow. I mean WOW!
There's a chance that it's going to be cold and raining tomorrow, but Ophelia and I are ready!
We have at least 2 places that we're planning on watching for him at, and then of course meeting him at the finish line! Woo-hoo.
I just can't believe that we're finally here. Ophelia plans on wearing her Incredibles costume, by the way, and I'm going to be bringing my wellies!