Hey Katiebird, I ordered my book on Tuesday. It is on the way! I am looking forward to reading it and joining in on the review of it. Thank you very much for your help in this matter. HUGS
Olivia, Girl, yo have the most lovable pictures ever! I do not know how you do it, but please send them our way as much as possible. YOu are wonderful. Thank you. Hugs.
We hosted for the holidays, and I didn’t get a lot of time to get online. It was a nice break though — good to step back for a breather every once in a while.
Now, I’m busy with work though, and when I get home I’m so tired that I fall asleep by 9pm!!! 🙁 So that cuts down on the online time too…
Hope that you had a restful and relaxing time off. 🙂
Well, actually I had the call all month long. I did get a day to enjoy with my family for Christmas, otherwise, I worked most every day. As you know, my job requires me going in at all times of the day/night. So I was kept busy with work. I was told that it I will have to take call 24/7 for yet another 4 to 6 months. I said, no not, if I can help it. I am taking a vacation in June! This is they way it goes working in a small town in such a specialty
…..:o( Are you doing anything interesting in your job of research that you can share with us?
I watch the 700 Club sometimes just to laugh. This morning we are talking about how all diseases can be cured by taking supplements. They’re starting to sound like tree hugger health food store nuts, which I sort of fit into that category though I don’t believe all my ills can be fixed at the health food store. What the hell are trying to do? Split the base……the pharma companies aren’t going to like this at all. They had better knock this off, but I suppose they are running a little short on miracles and they have all been working their asses off trying to get Raptured and that hasn’t happened yet, and the new Religious Revival leaders are starting to get old. What the hell would they do if Dobson just keeled the fuck over? I mean really? What did he do to anger the Lord so? What did they all do? Oh God, we are all just fucked and it must be someone’s fault damn it!
What the hell would they do if Dobson just keeled the fuck over? I mean really?
They’d do what they always do — find a way to pin the blame on gays, feminists, and liberals. The saddest aspect of that from my pov is there’s always a sizeable chunk of bigots good & ready to believe it.
On the lighter side, I find it ironic and hilarious that the fundies are starting to sound like Tom Cruise: Total Nutbar Scientologist.
It’s the standard fundie view of the world — good things happen to me and mine because I am good and deserve it; bad things happen to me and mine because everyone who isn’t like me is bad and I was just collateral damage.
It never ceases to amaze me, the extent to which people will alienate all forms of logic and fact, all manners of compassion and humility, in their desperate attempts to continue to believe themselves superior to everyone else. As if Jesus would totally groove on the idea of a hierarchical social structure lashed together with vanity, lies and greed.
How sweet of you to mention VB and so nicely done too.
Hi everyone! Busy day for me today so won’t be able to post till tonight.
Have a great day Sally and all who dwell in the frog pond.
Thanks SallyCat! That is a fabulous pic, isn’t it. The credit goes to the artist Rassouli. We have hundreds of them equally as WOWsome as this one. Do hope during the course of your busy days you all will stop by when you have a chance if only to take a gander at the great artwork displayed there.
Diane and I send our love to you all, and are happy to have you visit us at the Village whenever you get the chance or need a little break from the crush of depressing, rage inducing news and comment.
Well, good morning to all. I have not one thing new to say about anything. It is the same ol thing over and over in my life….
The cats are doing the same routine as I do the same routine. I need to change something to keep life interesting….:o) for us all…humans and felines….
I love the pictures presented here today. NO sunrise to enjoy to…;o( It is simply yet another dreary day here in Tennessee. It is warm to a degree of confusion of what time of the year it is. I am not wearing a coat only my lab coat when going to work. One of these days, I feel, I will get the most horrible surprise of my life when I come out of the hospital and it is so cold.. I usually carry a coat/jacket but leave it in the car.
Andif, thanks you so much..at least we can enjoy the old sunrises to try to remember them…:o) I am so sick and tired of being dreary all day long. I need some sun to make my day…:o) I suppose I should be thankful we do not have ice or something to that effect. January is usually our bad time of the year for such horrible things. I am just thankful we do not have that and I get called out in the middle of the night to drive in it. I usually stay at the hospital if I know things are going to get that bad..but as you would have have it, it does this during the night when we are sleeping and have to wake up to find it there in the morning. Oh well. Thank you so much for your lovely pictures. It really makes me love the most favorite time of my day.
The sky in this one looks like it might be willing to deliver something not nice. Do you remember if you got rain that day? Anyhow, what lovely colors..The hues are simply amazing, aren’t they?
Sunrise photos this time of year are really easy since I’ve been up a long time and as long as nature is cooperating, all I have to do is to step out on the deck.
The Pac North Wet is staging another Californians Go Home Month, although evidently California has been holding a Californians Go to Arizona at the same time.
Click to enlarge:
We’re economizing in January, just using shades of blue. The Olympic Mountains are slowly beginning to build up their snow caps as balmy southwestern Pineapple Express winds mizzle through day after day. We’ll enjoy 50’s today, the grass is all green near the Sound and we have wild daisies & occasional dandelions blooming.
We saw a large, very delicious looking dungeness crab snoozing on the bottom near shore when we walked our doggies a few nights ago. This year I think we’ll get a crabbing and a shellfish/seaweed license and try our luck.
This is Roy and Bella and was taken on New Year’s Eve. (Notice the carrot sticking out of his pocket?) The snow was pretty until we had to drive in it later. Thank heavens I wasn’t this year’s designated driver!
Andi, I am grateful to you for forcing me to finally set up shop on hubby’s computer. I had to set up Firefox before I did anything else; I had forgotten how cumbersome and almost useless IE is. Any other commands, my intrepid internet leader?
Alas, if only my scanner were working, I could keep y’all in the horse pictures for months. My last horse, I swear I was so excited about her that I took a picture every day I owned her.
She was purty. Spazzy and kind of dumb sometimes, training her was quite an adventure, let me tell you… but purrrty.
Nothing remotely recent, though… college student poverty doesn’t mix well with equine obsession. Someday…
I just bought my 2006 calendar, and apparently the theme this year is Flashback To 1979. One of the only stereotypically “girl things” I ever loved as a kid was horses, and I now have a horse calendar that my 9yo self would’ve shoved another 9yo into the street for.
Yet another karmic connection, although my horse-craziness started at 6 and never really went away, though during college it got buried under a lot of other ‘distractions’ and never quite dug itself out.
I was my parents despair for a couple years when I refused to go see any movie that didn’t have horses in it (then I discovered scifi and horror movies and broadened my horizons).
Mine started when I was 5. My mother remarried this very nice man whose parents had a farm upstate. On the farm, the man’s mother would make me fresh strawberries with sugar & fresh cream, and there were horses (so really, I probably would have married this man or his mother myself). The man’s father was sweet enough to tell me that one of the horses was “my” horse, which at 5 made me wiggle more than sugar.
The marriage didn’t last more than a year or so, but my love affair with horses continues today. And yeah I made my mom pretty crazy with it, too, but since it was one of the few girly things I ever did, she was more indulgent than usual about it. One of the funniest things I ever saw was my ultra-femme mom atop the oldest horse they had at the riding stable, when the Old Gray Mare (the horse; my mom was only about 27 at the time) suddenly refused to keep taking directions and carted my howling mom off the trail and deep into the bushes so the mare could have a snack.
a minor pick — riding horses may be a thing that some girls do but there is nothing girly about it. In fact, I think that girls in my cohort were attracted to it partially because it was an ungirly and very powerful thing we could do w/o hearing the dreaded ‘be a lady.’
I use “girly” to describe both traditionally feminine things as well as things that girls tend toward, so this appears to be another one of our semantic differences.
Sometimes a horse is just a horse. I don’t know one girl from my childhood that didn’t love horses. Of course, it could manifest itself in one of two ways: either you owned and trained or rode horses, or you loved “ponies” which is way different and usually entailed drawing pastel ponies with flowing tails and naming them Precious or Buttercup.
The My Little Pony types do not fit the category I’m talking about — if you haven’t mucked out a stall or at least brushed down a horse, you aren’t in the poll group.
My recollection of which girls loved horses from my peer group is an interesting sociological exploration on its own. I think the poles of it are probably represented by me, the future queer and genderfucker, and my friend Beverly, who was then (and still is now, I think) a fashion model/beauty pageant sort. I have no idea whether she’s a feminist. The other girls ran the range everywhere in between; we were a group of little girls with very divergent tastes/interests, which I didn’t appreciate as much back then as I do now.
Along the symbolic/identity line, one of my favorite scene openings from The L-Word is horse & identity themed. (For those who don’t watch, the opening scene is not necessarily connected to the plot or the regular characters, but is almost always a portrayal of someone’s more or less hidden queer identity.) The scene was about two teenage girls circa 1960something who were horse-riders, obvious horse-lovers, and clearly shared a compelling sexual attraction to one another. But one of the girls was cowed by the ‘impropriety’ of the whole thing, and the message of her agency in the scene was that they’d feel increasing pressure to give each other up as they matured, just as they’d have to give up the ‘adolescent’ way they were relating to the horses. Later in the episode, it was then suggested that this was the actual past of the traditionally feminine & homophobic mother of one of the main characters.
Fortunately since there is no way to check this out, I’m free to imagine that I’m right.
I watched L-word a couple of times but the “straight woman” character was so off-putting that I stopped. But maybe I’m glad I did if they are going to do things that remind me I’m supposed to be identifying with the mothers of the main characters.
Not to try to speak for the writers or creators or anything, but I’m fairly certain that you’re not “supposed to be” identifying with anyone other than whoever you identify with. That’s part of the whole ethos of queer identities — less exclusionary bullshit, fewer requirements to adhere to some category just because you may share some external signifiers.
And I thought Kit, the straight character being played by Pam Grier (who I think is smokin’ hot), was a cool character. They did some fun things with her in the second season, where she explored possibly getting into a relationship with a FTM character.
I took riding lessons and used to wear my riding boots to Junior High on Tuesday and Thursday because I had lessons right after school and they smelled like horseshit badly but ask me if I cared. This punk who broke a state track record used to give me a hard time in geography everyday too because I was such a smelly girl unimpressed with him. He dated me all our Senior year and I never did tell him that I was that same geeky girl in Junior High and he’s such a dipstick he never did figure that out. He loved looking at himself in the mirror too much to notice. I also broke things off with him and he never did get over that either….he just wasn’t a lot of fun though. Now he works for the NRA (I wonder what that actually entails that he do?) What can I say? I dated a lot of losers! Should have stuck with horses! He was a pathetic piece of ass too and of course he had to try and make a class reunion uncomfortable for me so I had to make sure that I made it uncomfortable for him and now everybody knows what a pathetic piece of ass he was.
Every horse in the stable knew it could ignore my mom, she was freaked out just walking into the place. It was a nice thing she did for me, taking me riding even though she’d clearly rather have suspended her vegetarian rule to eat horse-steak, and I’ll always appreciate that she did that. 🙂
There does seem to be something about young girls and horses. I spent my very young years riding “pretend” horses in my imaginary adventures. I was 12 the first time I ever got on a real horse. Our church group of 12 and 13 year olds used to go riding rented horses several times a year.
For me it was one of those magical things I just inherently knew how to do. Just got on and rode the horses like I had been doing it forever. Great fun. Hard to think of anything more free feeling than a gallup across an open field, or a gentle meandering walk along the trails.
Thanks for jogging the memory. Don’t know that I have thought about those 12 year old jaunts on horseback for 20 or 30 years.
Because I refused to pay $15 for a calendar before Christmas, and the one from the auto insurance place is way too commercial for me, I was left with a selection of 75%-off calendars at Barnes and Noble, which included Pugs, Shitzus, frogs (thought of that one but you can only look at so many frogs before you tire of them) Keith Urban, pressed fairies, and the one I picked out, Provence. I am now in love with fields of lavender as far as the eye can see, and brightly colored, though weathered, doors and windows surrounded by pots of flowers that I would kill within a week.
I was delighted last year, when we had a foster kid living with us, at giving her her first ever horsey calendar. Her parents are probably cursing me for feeding her 6 year old horse obsession.
I was actually one of those kids who was not into horses at all as a little girl… it didn’t hit me until my parents decided randomly to get me some riding lessons for my birthday. Damn, I bet they regretted that decision pretty quick… though to be fair, riding is probably the thing that kept me sane (or at least alive) through my teens.
I really can’t wait to get back to it. I always either have the time but not the money, or the money but not the time. I used to get paid to train, but I’m too out of shape at this point to do that, at least for a while.
Hey, Spit… Welcome to the paddock!! Sounds like you NEED to start riding again. Tell me about the ‘out of shape’ thing. People always think that riding isn’t much exercise… tell that to my screaming leg muscles after the first spring ride. Oh, please please try to get your horse pics posted.
I spent my childhood drooling over anything horsie. Didn’t get my first horse and finally learn to ride until well into adulthood. It’s fulfillment of a childhood dream for me.
Wouldn’t it be a hoot to do something nuts like all meet somewhere and go riding? I bet Andi would be the first one there. 😉
I’m about to hit the point where I just sort of show up at stables and start begging. My poor girlfriend has to deal with me occasionally going through these times where I feel like I’m going to die or explode if I don’t get on a horse again — something she totally just doesn’t get. Sometimes other hardcore athletes, like my ex-serious-soccer-playing roommate, are the only folks I find who get how hard it is to be stuck without one’s obsession-of-choice for a while.
I have never before or since been in the kind of shape I was in back when I was actively training 3 or 4 horses a day. Last time I rode, I got all ambitious and spent (only) about 15 minutes trotting around no-stirrups, which caused me unbelievable amounts of pain for about a week… so when I finally find a way to fit riding back in somewhere, I know I’m going to have about 6 months of sheer pain before I’m anywhere near decent again.
People who think riding is easy just haven’t ever really ridden, which is vastly different from sitting on the horse’s back while it takes you places.
Training 3 or 4 horses a day!!!!!! Thighs of steel! I’ve found that the best way to do it is to start easy, but to keep riding every day. Once you start you have to keep it up. The only way to get in shape for riding is to ride (and don’t stop).
I bet that you will find a way to start riding again. It truely can be an obsession, and it feels wonderful to be able to crush a bowlingball between your knees. 🙂
I will have to try that, though my camera isn’t terribly good at close range stuff (which is a damn shame, as I also have an obsession with photographing every bizarre plant I come across for later identification).
That’ll provide me with stuff to fuck around with for a while today, though.
if it isn’t already, set your camera for its highest resolution — that will let you shoot from farther away but leave you with plenty of pixels left after you crop the image down to the actual photograph.
Nag, Bella sure is lovely. I love horses too. You did a very fine job in getting it to us for viewing. Does she enjoy the weather with the snow? How old is she?
Thanks, Brenda! Bella has only been here a few months. She’s 6 years old and is a real Momma’s girl. I’ve only been on her a few times so far; I don’t ride in the dead of winter anymore. She’s trained English and will go over low jumps. I’m not really interested in jumping anymore, just riding through the countryside is good enough for me. She’s got a sweet personality and I just love her to pieces.
Horse pictures are always welcome! Dogs and kitties are fine, but it’s nice to see something else once in a while too — and horses are beautiful animals.
We’ve had a streak of gorgeous sunny weather. Here is a young boy (ok, ok, I admit it’s my child) standing on a huge old oak tree. Note the blue sky…nyah nyah.
We’re finally drying out a little here in Sacramento, though the rivers are still well over their banks in a lot of places. Yesterday, the sun came out and I thought our little dog was just going to keel over from the excitement of finally getting to Go To The Dog Park. Today looks to be beautiful again, so I plan on basking as much as I can before the next system hits us.
Good afternoon, all! Sorry no horsey pics here, just the slushy remains of two storms. (Actually our filters here at work have removed all photos from this thread.) I hope that the new and improved snow dino is still standing when I and the boran2 boy get home later today.
If there’s anybody here who is set up to “do” a froggybottom unhosted cafe and you have never done one before, and you would like to give it a try, today would be an excellent time to test your wings. I’ll (who is this “I”? heh heh)leave this one up a long time to give you your chance. Or you could do it any time, even now, if you want to, just to test your powers.
p.s. any regular visitor who is interested in being froggybottom-enabled is totally welcome to volunteer. If you do, we’ll put you on our “future volunteer list.” Right now, we have a few new volunteers and they’re the ones I’m calling to, as a mama goose to her goslings. HONNNKKKK.
Being froggybottom-enabled, btw, simply means that you have the capability to help out on unhosted days by posting anonymous cafes, and you can also help out on regular host days if the cafe gets too crowded while the host is away.
I would, froggybottom, but I’ve been feeling like absolute stankass for the past week or so and thus I have not even unpacked the files to examine them. It’s not likely that this will happen soon, either, as Roomie is leaving town again (for a short time) and then I will be having a molar extracted. Sorry I am so lame, alas, it is a fact of my life.
Her Highness Froggybottom is distressed that you feel stankass. Stankass is not, generally, encouraged in the Kingdom, and so we are sending the Court Physician (ask her to juggle stethoscopes, you won’t believe it!)to heal you.
The files will always be there. Don’t let them guilt you. If they do, erase the fuckers! One day, when you feel well, you will magically turn into Froggybottom just at the exact moment when you’re needed the most.
OK, Froggybottom, (your highness) here’s a question: are the necessary files/templates posted in the usual place or were they all emailed to volunteer froggies? I could just bop on over and look, but I’d rather bother you. 😉
I am definetly interested in becoming a volunteer froggybottom.
They were all emailed to froggy volunteers, oh Royal Nag of Narnia, and they’re also in the Usual Place. Which you can get to, I believe?
You wanna give it a try today?
(Don’t feel you have to be anonymous if you don’t want to be. You can post it under your own name, or change the images or words, or whatever you want to do.)
Hey there, everyone. Stepping in to say hello on an absolutely dismal, rainy winter’s day. How nice to see so many truly lovely images! It certainly helps the mood a bit (which currently matches the weather).
I’ve just turned toward the window here; we now have alternating rain & snow.
Woke up at 4:30 with an abysmal headache, so got up and showered then went back to bed. Just got up a short time ago — finally going to get dressed and head out to do the assorted errands I’ve been putting off the past two days while I vegged. Decided the crap in the living room is too much for one person (me) to deal with, so spouse and I will tackle it over the weekend — he’s on vacation next week so we can both attend MacWorld thus increasing our chances of scoring freebees. 🙂 The state of the economy can usually be judged by the quality of freebees at tech shows, I’ve found; if they’ve upgraded from pens back to T-shirts, Bush will be able to sleep well. lol
Oh, must apologize for my Texas remark last night — I just think that a crystal football should not be in a state where Bubba and Jethro are going to take it in the backyard and throw it around… 😉 (Pete Carroll needs a real defensive coordinator besides himself, IYAM…)
for the locals: January 2-9th Countdown Festival at the top of our driveway! 7:30-9am and 4-6pm daily
Tryon Life Community Farm is a sustainability education center nestled into Tryon Creek State Park. Hundreds of committed volunteers have come together to serve at-risk youth and educate thousands of people about sustainable urban living.
Visit the farm any day, dawn to dusk.
With the land we rely on now at risk from the blades of bulldozers, we are raising money to purchase the land and prevent it from turning into brownstones.
With a target of 1.6 million dollars, we still need $100,000 in donations by January 10
This is an unhosted cafe. Ghosted, you might say. All you can see is the smile.
🙂
Please recommend the previous all-night cafe, and recommend this one.
On the email thing – check your junk mail file, that’s where my message went.
Hi, katiebird. It’s not in the junkmail folder either. This is fueling my longheld suspicion that I don’t actually exist except in my own mind.
(and mine! and mine!)
We can check to see if you’re in there and set up a temp password for you. And we can add you manually if the registration didn’t take.
But, it might be a while. We’ll email you when we’ve got it worked out. I wonder if a log file could tell us what the problem was?
:::sniff::: I’ll try not to take it personally. BTW, it looks really good, I just can’t log in.
I just set you up a password and sent you email. Let me know here if you don’t get it.
Hey Katiebird, I ordered my book on Tuesday. It is on the way! I am looking forward to reading it and joining in on the review of it. Thank you very much for your help in this matter. HUGS
Good morning! A couple of green pictures … from the archives. It’s entirely too white out my window this morning. 🙂
Water droplets on honeysuckle leaf, taken 8.10.2005(view large)
Water droplets on daylily leaf, taken 9.17.2005(view large)
Olivia, Girl, yo have the most lovable pictures ever! I do not know how you do it, but please send them our way as much as possible. YOu are wonderful. Thank you. Hugs.
Good to see you, and hugs to you too! {{{Brenda}}}
🙂
Where ya been lately? Missed you. HOpe your holidays were good.
We hosted for the holidays, and I didn’t get a lot of time to get online. It was a nice break though — good to step back for a breather every once in a while.
Now, I’m busy with work though, and when I get home I’m so tired that I fall asleep by 9pm!!! 🙁 So that cuts down on the online time too…
Hope that you had a restful and relaxing time off. 🙂
Well, actually I had the call all month long. I did get a day to enjoy with my family for Christmas, otherwise, I worked most every day. As you know, my job requires me going in at all times of the day/night. So I was kept busy with work. I was told that it I will have to take call 24/7 for yet another 4 to 6 months. I said, no not, if I can help it. I am taking a vacation in June! This is they way it goes working in a small town in such a specialty
…..:o( Are you doing anything interesting in your job of research that you can share with us?
I watch the 700 Club sometimes just to laugh. This morning we are talking about how all diseases can be cured by taking supplements. They’re starting to sound like tree hugger health food store nuts, which I sort of fit into that category though I don’t believe all my ills can be fixed at the health food store. What the hell are trying to do? Split the base……the pharma companies aren’t going to like this at all. They had better knock this off, but I suppose they are running a little short on miracles and they have all been working their asses off trying to get Raptured and that hasn’t happened yet, and the new Religious Revival leaders are starting to get old. What the hell would they do if Dobson just keeled the fuck over? I mean really? What did he do to anger the Lord so? What did they all do? Oh God, we are all just fucked and it must be someone’s fault damn it!
And the supplements are all “Pat Robertson’s special vitamin shakes” etc. I swear he is the worst, most obvious kind of huckster.
I agree with you. Tracy, I do not know how you can stand to watch the program. It is so full of hypocrisy! YOu are one brave woman…
What the hell would they do if Dobson just keeled the fuck over? I mean really?
They’d do what they always do — find a way to pin the blame on gays, feminists, and liberals. The saddest aspect of that from my pov is there’s always a sizeable chunk of bigots good & ready to believe it.
On the lighter side, I find it ironic and hilarious that the fundies are starting to sound like Tom Cruise: Total Nutbar Scientologist.
It’s the standard fundie view of the world — good things happen to me and mine because I am good and deserve it; bad things happen to me and mine because everyone who isn’t like me is bad and I was just collateral damage.
It never ceases to amaze me, the extent to which people will alienate all forms of logic and fact, all manners of compassion and humility, in their desperate attempts to continue to believe themselves superior to everyone else. As if Jesus would totally groove on the idea of a hierarchical social structure lashed together with vanity, lies and greed.
In a very rare show of tact and discretion, I’m going to leave my thoughts about organized religion unsaid.
For those that haven’t been by recently – check out the interesting diaries and photos that Diane101 and Shirlstars post at Village Blue.
When the news and updates on the blogs get to be too much and you need a respite….drop by for a restful few moments…and gorgeous pictures!
Another long day at work…so I’ll drop by occasionally…
That is such a great picture. All I can say is WOW!!!!
I thought my collection and links to pics were good – well Diane and Shirl always wow me!
There is something that lightens the heart when I look at the pics they post!
How sweet of you to mention VB and so nicely done too.
Hi everyone! Busy day for me today so won’t be able to post till tonight.
Have a great day Sally and all who dwell in the frog pond.
Great pic. Looks like it could’ve come from Hubble!
Thanks SallyCat! That is a fabulous pic, isn’t it. The credit goes to the artist Rassouli. We have hundreds of them equally as WOWsome as this one. Do hope during the course of your busy days you all will stop by when you have a chance if only to take a gander at the great artwork displayed there.
Diane and I send our love to you all, and are happy to have you visit us at the Village whenever you get the chance or need a little break from the crush of depressing, rage inducing news and comment.
Have a great day all!
BIG HUGS,
Shirl
Well, good morning to all. I have not one thing new to say about anything. It is the same ol thing over and over in my life….
The cats are doing the same routine as I do the same routine. I need to change something to keep life interesting….:o) for us all…humans and felines….
I love the pictures presented here today. NO sunrise to enjoy to…;o( It is simply yet another dreary day here in Tennessee. It is warm to a degree of confusion of what time of the year it is. I am not wearing a coat only my lab coat when going to work. One of these days, I feel, I will get the most horrible surprise of my life when I come out of the hospital and it is so cold.. I usually carry a coat/jacket but leave it in the car.
has been for 10 days (which a brief noon time respite yesterday for about two hours) so I don’t have any new ones. Here’s an older one for you.
Andif, thanks you so much..at least we can enjoy the old sunrises to try to remember them…:o) I am so sick and tired of being dreary all day long. I need some sun to make my day…:o) I suppose I should be thankful we do not have ice or something to that effect. January is usually our bad time of the year for such horrible things. I am just thankful we do not have that and I get called out in the middle of the night to drive in it. I usually stay at the hospital if I know things are going to get that bad..but as you would have have it, it does this during the night when we are sleeping and have to wake up to find it there in the morning. Oh well. Thank you so much for your lovely pictures. It really makes me love the most favorite time of my day.
The sky in this one looks like it might be willing to deliver something not nice. Do you remember if you got rain that day? Anyhow, what lovely colors..The hues are simply amazing, aren’t they?
Love your photos Andi!
It’s a mutual admiration society 😀
Sunrise photos this time of year are really easy since I’ve been up a long time and as long as nature is cooperating, all I have to do is to step out on the deck.
The Pac North Wet is staging another Californians Go Home Month, although evidently California has been holding a Californians Go to Arizona at the same time.
Click to enlarge:
We’re economizing in January, just using shades of blue. The Olympic Mountains are slowly beginning to build up their snow caps as balmy southwestern Pineapple Express winds mizzle through day after day. We’ll enjoy 50’s today, the grass is all green near the Sound and we have wild daisies & occasional dandelions blooming.
We saw a large, very delicious looking dungeness crab snoozing on the bottom near shore when we walked our doggies a few nights ago. This year I think we’ll get a crabbing and a shellfish/seaweed license and try our luck.
This is Roy and Bella and was taken on New Year’s Eve. (Notice the carrot sticking out of his pocket?) The snow was pretty until we had to drive in it later. Thank heavens I wasn’t this year’s designated driver!
Andi, I am grateful to you for forcing me to finally set up shop on hubby’s computer. I had to set up Firefox before I did anything else; I had forgotten how cumbersome and almost useless IE is. Any other commands, my intrepid internet leader?
What a peaceful picture. If anything could make me miss snow it is this.
It was a particularly pretty snowfall. The flakes were huge and stayed that way for the whole storm.
Yes. Keep posting horse pictures. Duck and cat pictures are okay but horse pictures should get priority.
(Are you going to put the picture up in the dog blogging too? It’s such a nice picture a double posting seems like a good idea.)
I was a little hesitant to double post, but maybe just this once…
Alas, if only my scanner were working, I could keep y’all in the horse pictures for months. My last horse, I swear I was so excited about her that I took a picture every day I owned her.
She was purty. Spazzy and kind of dumb sometimes, training her was quite an adventure, let me tell you… but purrrty.
Nothing remotely recent, though… college student poverty doesn’t mix well with equine obsession. Someday…
I just bought my 2006 calendar, and apparently the theme this year is Flashback To 1979. One of the only stereotypically “girl things” I ever loved as a kid was horses, and I now have a horse calendar that my 9yo self would’ve shoved another 9yo into the street for.
Yet another karmic connection, although my horse-craziness started at 6 and never really went away, though during college it got buried under a lot of other ‘distractions’ and never quite dug itself out.
I was my parents despair for a couple years when I refused to go see any movie that didn’t have horses in it (then I discovered scifi and horror movies and broadened my horizons).
Mine started when I was 5. My mother remarried this very nice man whose parents had a farm upstate. On the farm, the man’s mother would make me fresh strawberries with sugar & fresh cream, and there were horses (so really, I probably would have married this man or his mother myself). The man’s father was sweet enough to tell me that one of the horses was “my” horse, which at 5 made me wiggle more than sugar.
The marriage didn’t last more than a year or so, but my love affair with horses continues today. And yeah I made my mom pretty crazy with it, too, but since it was one of the few girly things I ever did, she was more indulgent than usual about it. One of the funniest things I ever saw was my ultra-femme mom atop the oldest horse they had at the riding stable, when the Old Gray Mare (the horse; my mom was only about 27 at the time) suddenly refused to keep taking directions and carted my howling mom off the trail and deep into the bushes so the mare could have a snack.
a minor pick — riding horses may be a thing that some girls do but there is nothing girly about it. In fact, I think that girls in my cohort were attracted to it partially because it was an ungirly and very powerful thing we could do w/o hearing the dreaded ‘be a lady.’
I use “girly” to describe both traditionally feminine things as well as things that girls tend toward, so this appears to be another one of our semantic differences.
to find out what percentage of horse-crazy girls of my generation self-identify as feminists as compared to all women of that generation.
Sometimes a horse is just a horse. I don’t know one girl from my childhood that didn’t love horses. Of course, it could manifest itself in one of two ways: either you owned and trained or rode horses, or you loved “ponies” which is way different and usually entailed drawing pastel ponies with flowing tails and naming them Precious or Buttercup.
The My Little Pony types do not fit the category I’m talking about — if you haven’t mucked out a stall or at least brushed down a horse, you aren’t in the poll group.
My recollection of which girls loved horses from my peer group is an interesting sociological exploration on its own. I think the poles of it are probably represented by me, the future queer and genderfucker, and my friend Beverly, who was then (and still is now, I think) a fashion model/beauty pageant sort. I have no idea whether she’s a feminist. The other girls ran the range everywhere in between; we were a group of little girls with very divergent tastes/interests, which I didn’t appreciate as much back then as I do now.
Along the symbolic/identity line, one of my favorite scene openings from The L-Word is horse & identity themed. (For those who don’t watch, the opening scene is not necessarily connected to the plot or the regular characters, but is almost always a portrayal of someone’s more or less hidden queer identity.) The scene was about two teenage girls circa 1960something who were horse-riders, obvious horse-lovers, and clearly shared a compelling sexual attraction to one another. But one of the girls was cowed by the ‘impropriety’ of the whole thing, and the message of her agency in the scene was that they’d feel increasing pressure to give each other up as they matured, just as they’d have to give up the ‘adolescent’ way they were relating to the horses. Later in the episode, it was then suggested that this was the actual past of the traditionally feminine & homophobic mother of one of the main characters.
Fortunately since there is no way to check this out, I’m free to imagine that I’m right.
I watched L-word a couple of times but the “straight woman” character was so off-putting that I stopped. But maybe I’m glad I did if they are going to do things that remind me I’m supposed to be identifying with the mothers of the main characters.
Not to try to speak for the writers or creators or anything, but I’m fairly certain that you’re not “supposed to be” identifying with anyone other than whoever you identify with. That’s part of the whole ethos of queer identities — less exclusionary bullshit, fewer requirements to adhere to some category just because you may share some external signifiers.
And I thought Kit, the straight character being played by Pam Grier (who I think is smokin’ hot), was a cool character. They did some fun things with her in the second season, where she explored possibly getting into a relationship with a FTM character.
I’m talking about the obnoxious next-door chicky with the boy friend.
OH! Jenny. Yeah, she drove everyone nuts at first; I think that was part of the point of her character. She’s not straight, btw.
I took riding lessons and used to wear my riding boots to Junior High on Tuesday and Thursday because I had lessons right after school and they smelled like horseshit badly but ask me if I cared. This punk who broke a state track record used to give me a hard time in geography everyday too because I was such a smelly girl unimpressed with him. He dated me all our Senior year and I never did tell him that I was that same geeky girl in Junior High and he’s such a dipstick he never did figure that out. He loved looking at himself in the mirror too much to notice. I also broke things off with him and he never did get over that either….he just wasn’t a lot of fun though. Now he works for the NRA (I wonder what that actually entails that he do?) What can I say? I dated a lot of losers! Should have stuck with horses! He was a pathetic piece of ass too and of course he had to try and make a class reunion uncomfortable for me so I had to make sure that I made it uncomfortable for him and now everybody knows what a pathetic piece of ass he was.
In my experience, the old horses are often the ones most likely to realize when and how they can ignore people to go get a snack.
It’s like the pinnacle of horse wisdom or something.
Every horse in the stable knew it could ignore my mom, she was freaked out just walking into the place. It was a nice thing she did for me, taking me riding even though she’d clearly rather have suspended her vegetarian rule to eat horse-steak, and I’ll always appreciate that she did that. 🙂
There does seem to be something about young girls and horses. I spent my very young years riding “pretend” horses in my imaginary adventures. I was 12 the first time I ever got on a real horse. Our church group of 12 and 13 year olds used to go riding rented horses several times a year.
For me it was one of those magical things I just inherently knew how to do. Just got on and rode the horses like I had been doing it forever. Great fun. Hard to think of anything more free feeling than a gallup across an open field, or a gentle meandering walk along the trails.
Thanks for jogging the memory. Don’t know that I have thought about those 12 year old jaunts on horseback for 20 or 30 years.
Because I refused to pay $15 for a calendar before Christmas, and the one from the auto insurance place is way too commercial for me, I was left with a selection of 75%-off calendars at Barnes and Noble, which included Pugs, Shitzus, frogs (thought of that one but you can only look at so many frogs before you tire of them) Keith Urban, pressed fairies, and the one I picked out, Provence. I am now in love with fields of lavender as far as the eye can see, and brightly colored, though weathered, doors and windows surrounded by pots of flowers that I would kill within a week.
I was delighted last year, when we had a foster kid living with us, at giving her her first ever horsey calendar. Her parents are probably cursing me for feeding her 6 year old horse obsession.
I was actually one of those kids who was not into horses at all as a little girl… it didn’t hit me until my parents decided randomly to get me some riding lessons for my birthday. Damn, I bet they regretted that decision pretty quick… though to be fair, riding is probably the thing that kept me sane (or at least alive) through my teens.
I really can’t wait to get back to it. I always either have the time but not the money, or the money but not the time. I used to get paid to train, but I’m too out of shape at this point to do that, at least for a while.
Hey, Spit… Welcome to the paddock!! Sounds like you NEED to start riding again. Tell me about the ‘out of shape’ thing. People always think that riding isn’t much exercise… tell that to my screaming leg muscles after the first spring ride. Oh, please please try to get your horse pics posted.
I spent my childhood drooling over anything horsie. Didn’t get my first horse and finally learn to ride until well into adulthood. It’s fulfillment of a childhood dream for me.
Wouldn’t it be a hoot to do something nuts like all meet somewhere and go riding? I bet Andi would be the first one there. 😉
I’m about to hit the point where I just sort of show up at stables and start begging. My poor girlfriend has to deal with me occasionally going through these times where I feel like I’m going to die or explode if I don’t get on a horse again — something she totally just doesn’t get. Sometimes other hardcore athletes, like my ex-serious-soccer-playing roommate, are the only folks I find who get how hard it is to be stuck without one’s obsession-of-choice for a while.
I have never before or since been in the kind of shape I was in back when I was actively training 3 or 4 horses a day. Last time I rode, I got all ambitious and spent (only) about 15 minutes trotting around no-stirrups, which caused me unbelievable amounts of pain for about a week… so when I finally find a way to fit riding back in somewhere, I know I’m going to have about 6 months of sheer pain before I’m anywhere near decent again.
People who think riding is easy just haven’t ever really ridden, which is vastly different from sitting on the horse’s back while it takes you places.
Training 3 or 4 horses a day!!!!!! Thighs of steel! I’ve found that the best way to do it is to start easy, but to keep riding every day. Once you start you have to keep it up. The only way to get in shape for riding is to ride (and don’t stop).
I bet that you will find a way to start riding again. It truely can be an obsession, and it feels wonderful to be able to crush a bowlingball between your knees. 🙂
“…I now have a horse calendar that my 9yo self would’ve shoved another 9yo into the street for.”
That was you?
Oh wow, you mean that was you? Sorry ’bout that. Let me write you a check, I know I have plenty of checks… 😉
Because if you do, you can take pictures of your photographs.
I will have to try that, though my camera isn’t terribly good at close range stuff (which is a damn shame, as I also have an obsession with photographing every bizarre plant I come across for later identification).
That’ll provide me with stuff to fuck around with for a while today, though.
if it isn’t already, set your camera for its highest resolution — that will let you shoot from farther away but leave you with plenty of pixels left after you crop the image down to the actual photograph.
Nag, Bella sure is lovely. I love horses too. You did a very fine job in getting it to us for viewing. Does she enjoy the weather with the snow? How old is she?
Thanks, Brenda! Bella has only been here a few months. She’s 6 years old and is a real Momma’s girl. I’ve only been on her a few times so far; I don’t ride in the dead of winter anymore. She’s trained English and will go over low jumps. I’m not really interested in jumping anymore, just riding through the countryside is good enough for me. She’s got a sweet personality and I just love her to pieces.
Horse pictures are always welcome! Dogs and kitties are fine, but it’s nice to see something else once in a while too — and horses are beautiful animals.
Lovely pic!
We’ve had a streak of gorgeous sunny weather. Here is a young boy (ok, ok, I admit it’s my child) standing on a huge old oak tree. Note the blue sky…nyah nyah.
such gloating is terribly unbecoming and will bite you in the ass the next time you whinge about the horrors of living in The South™.
Whinge? Is that a hybrid word you have made up that combines my two greatest strengths, whining and binging?
It is the british equivalent of kvetch — definitely whining but raised to an art form.
We’re finally drying out a little here in Sacramento, though the rivers are still well over their banks in a lot of places. Yesterday, the sun came out and I thought our little dog was just going to keel over from the excitement of finally getting to Go To The Dog Park. Today looks to be beautiful again, so I plan on basking as much as I can before the next system hits us.
Now THAT is just the shade of blue that makes me give a long sigh as my eyes glaze over. Of course, you have to rub it in, don’tcha!
Good afternoon, all! Sorry no horsey pics here, just the slushy remains of two storms. (Actually our filters here at work have removed all photos from this thread.) I hope that the new and improved snow dino is still standing when I and the boran2 boy get home later today.
If there’s anybody here who is set up to “do” a froggybottom unhosted cafe and you have never done one before, and you would like to give it a try, today would be an excellent time to test your wings. I’ll (who is this “I”? heh heh)leave this one up a long time to give you your chance. Or you could do it any time, even now, if you want to, just to test your powers.
p.s. any regular visitor who is interested in being froggybottom-enabled is totally welcome to volunteer. If you do, we’ll put you on our “future volunteer list.” Right now, we have a few new volunteers and they’re the ones I’m calling to, as a mama goose to her goslings. HONNNKKKK.
Being froggybottom-enabled, btw, simply means that you have the capability to help out on unhosted days by posting anonymous cafes, and you can also help out on regular host days if the cafe gets too crowded while the host is away.
I would, froggybottom, but I’ve been feeling like absolute stankass for the past week or so and thus I have not even unpacked the files to examine them. It’s not likely that this will happen soon, either, as Roomie is leaving town again (for a short time) and then I will be having a molar extracted. Sorry I am so lame, alas, it is a fact of my life.
Her Highness Froggybottom is distressed that you feel stankass. Stankass is not, generally, encouraged in the Kingdom, and so we are sending the Court Physician (ask her to juggle stethoscopes, you won’t believe it!)to heal you.
The files will always be there. Don’t let them guilt you. If they do, erase the fuckers! One day, when you feel well, you will magically turn into Froggybottom just at the exact moment when you’re needed the most.
Gentle hugs.
OK, Froggybottom, (your highness) here’s a question: are the necessary files/templates posted in the usual place or were they all emailed to volunteer froggies? I could just bop on over and look, but I’d rather bother you. 😉
I am definetly interested in becoming a volunteer froggybottom.
Yes in the usual place in a zip file called froggybottom.zip (which includes a readme.pdf)
They were all emailed to froggy volunteers, oh Royal Nag of Narnia, and they’re also in the Usual Place. Which you can get to, I believe?
You wanna give it a try today?
(Don’t feel you have to be anonymous if you don’t want to be. You can post it under your own name, or change the images or words, or whatever you want to do.)
Hey there, everyone. Stepping in to say hello on an absolutely dismal, rainy winter’s day. How nice to see so many truly lovely images! It certainly helps the mood a bit (which currently matches the weather).
I’ve just turned toward the window here; we now have alternating rain & snow.
Woke up at 4:30 with an abysmal headache, so got up and showered then went back to bed. Just got up a short time ago — finally going to get dressed and head out to do the assorted errands I’ve been putting off the past two days while I vegged. Decided the crap in the living room is too much for one person (me) to deal with, so spouse and I will tackle it over the weekend — he’s on vacation next week so we can both attend MacWorld thus increasing our chances of scoring freebees. 🙂 The state of the economy can usually be judged by the quality of freebees at tech shows, I’ve found; if they’ve upgraded from pens back to T-shirts, Bush will be able to sleep well. lol
Oh, must apologize for my Texas remark last night — I just think that a crystal football should not be in a state where Bubba and Jethro are going to take it in the backyard and throw it around… 😉 (Pete Carroll needs a real defensive coordinator besides himself, IYAM…)
Back in the evening…
please help spread the word!
for the locals: January 2-9th Countdown Festival at the top of our driveway! 7:30-9am and 4-6pm daily
Tryon Life Community Farm is a sustainability education center nestled into Tryon Creek State Park. Hundreds of committed volunteers have come together to serve at-risk youth and educate thousands of people about sustainable urban living.
Visit the farm any day, dawn to dusk.
With the land we rely on now at risk from the blades of bulldozers, we are raising money to purchase the land and prevent it from turning into brownstones.
With a target of 1.6 million dollars, we still need $100,000 in donations by January 10
.