I MIGHT BE MARRIED!!

It's hard to tell really. Martha didn't know about mailing the marriage license in a set amount of time so I sent it off this morning. So, in about a week...I should know if I'm married! I can't thank everyone enough for the help setting up and taking down and eating all of the leftovers. It was so good to have a week away to re-boot. I hope everyone got some good sleep after the long hours of setting up. John and I moved 2 of the cats over to the house yesterday. We took Rocket and Frederic. We plan to take Stevie but he is recovering from some horrible/deadly cat infection that we had to deal with the week of the wedding (thank you to Miranda for handling THAT for me). As soon as I can get some photos up I will. Now I have to catch up on office work and eat my hot-pocket.

Quote of the Day: "I would say I kind of have an unfair advantage because I watch reality dating shows like a hawk. And I learn. I absorb information, from the strategies of winners. And the losers! Actually I probably learn more from the losers." -Michael Scott

Honesty 101

Ok, so ten things...But, what if I don't have 10 things...

1. I'm getting married in few weeks and I'm scared. Mostly of having to run a house and having to not cook nasty food.

2. I eat burritos for breakfast...with hot sauce. (refer to honesty question #1)

3. I have kept most of my stuffed animals from childhood and they now reside in John's attic.

4. I like "Parks and Rec" better than "The Office."

5. I am WAY more competitive showing horses than I let on. I like to eat professionally trained horses for breakfast!

6. My hearing in my broke ear is getting worse. I make up for it by nodding and smiling. Maybe I should get chalk and a piece of slate.

7. I am afraid to have children. Labor mostly. Anything I can't put out to pasture and walk away from for the evening scares me.

8. My favorite day was the day John left for Iraq. Not like it sounds! It was the most meaningful day we have ever spent together.

9. I love living at home with my parents. I'll miss my left corner of the couch.

10. I think American Idol is stupid...yet...I continue to watch it...

Resuscitating Nemo

When Martha and Mike where in Ukraine you might remember I bought Noah a blue beta fish as a bribe to keep him happy. Well, my mom kept Noah yesterday for a few hours at the house. He was playing by himself for awhile and then he came in and told my mom, "I pet my fish!" What? Should I be worried? I didn't think he even knew how to get the lid off the tank! Maybe he just meant he fed his fish...or he looked at his fish. If he really did pet his fish we'll be needing a new one soon. As of this morning, Nemo seems happy. Let's keep it that way.

Wedding plans are winding down. Activities are cranking up. My mom found a new cat at my grandma's house. He needs a home. Cutest kitten ever born. He is getting tested for all things cat today and if he comes out ok he will be given to the first person who raises their hand.

Quote of the Day:
Michael Scott: Ho! Ho! Hooo! Contraption! She's contrapting...! Ok, you know what? I think that I should drive you guys to the hospital and here is why; I am a licensed, Class C driver in the state of Pennsylvania. I gassed up the car--actually I put diesel in this time, trying to save some money--
Jim Halpert:You shouldn't have done that.
Michael Scott:Happy to do it!

Cow Day!

Yesterday was cow day at John's farm. We started early and surprisingly we ended early. The cows decided to be cooperative (which is pretty much unheard of). We always have fun on cow day. The little girl cows get ear tags and the little boy cows, well, they get to not grow up to be bulls and live happy lives as steers. John only got kicked a few times by a mad little heifer that didn't want to be messed with.
Oh, the flowers for the wedding have been ordered. The florist was really nice and was much less expensive than what we originally thought it would be. We went and registered after that. That was fun. I did have to wrestle the scanner away from Martha a few times so I could try it for myself. Now, on to the cake. Georgia, I would like to meet with you. I'll find your email address and maybe we can set something up. How exciting!!

Quote of the day: "Jo, I don't know how things work in Florida. Which from your description sounds like a colorful, lawless swamp..." -Michael Scott

AND.....GO!

Dress, done. Carriage, done. Caterer, photographer, chair rental, pre-marriage counseling, hair/makeup...mostly done. I still have flowers (scheduled for tomorrow), registering (scheduled for Thurs-Saturday), and cake (not even close) left to do. We are less than 2 months out now so it's really time to get crackin'. The stress has set in. The only good aspect to the stress is that I have no craving for fast food. At all. Chips, yes. Not fast food. This week started off rough with John having to put Max to sleep and losing a boarder at the barn due to the trainer leaving. It looks like it could be picking up with several calls from new potential clients. On the up-side a lady came in the office and offered to help with the exploding feral cat problem. So, the root of all of my orange cats at my house is safely at the vet getting kitty parts removed and her ear notched. That was a huge blessing. The rescue is paying for all of it. No more blind kittens! Wow, I think I just got a craving for a taco.

Quote of the Day: "Well that's not the David Wallace that I remember. That, is some sort of... weird creature, that lives in David Wallace's house. Get me out of here..." -Michael Scott

He's Home!!!!!

He actually came home on Thursday afternoon but I've been too busy to post anything. We spent all weekend catching up with family and horses. Saturday night we had Christmas for him. It was a lot of fun. Now we are finally settling back in to everyday stuff...well...until the wedding stuff cranks up. This weekend John gets to jump back into working cows. I'm sure he's excited. We'll have plenty of pictures to share. Right now, I'm just glad he's around.

Quote of the Day: "I had a very good thing going with David Wallace. He was a good guy, was somebody I could trust. There he is. You can really see that he is ok taking a picture with me. Even though I was there for disciplinary reasons." -Michael Scott

En Route

By next week John should be trail riding Scout! I'm so excited. We just got the last of the boxes he sent home in the mail yesterday. Everything was covered in a weird dust. Today...we converted from Peachtree to Quickbooks. My accountant (a very patient man) blocked out 2 hours to get the job done. He came in at 9:00am and by 3:00pm the conversion was complete! I hated to waste his whole day...but...I wasted his whole day. I asked him 50 billion questions and I'm sure I'll have lots more. Maybe John knows how to print 941 forms. Now I'm playing catch up with my paperwork. Or, I could just leave for the day....

Quote of the Day: "There's a bunch of messages waiting for you about a bunch of things I don't understand." -Ron (Parks and Rec.)

Stupid Technology

I just got my new printer/fax/scanner/walkie talkie/riding instructor. They sent me a new one because mine kept saying "Deve Home Sensor Error." No one knew what that meant and after spending 45 minutes on the phone with a guy that was reading a manual to me they said they would send me a new one. Well, I just hooked the new one up and it said...immediately..."Transfer Belt Error," followed by "Invalid Imaging Unit" and "Invalid Yellow Toner", "Invalid Magenta Toner," "Invalid Black Toner." I called the people you're supposed to call when your office stuff dies under warranty and read him all of the error messages. I literally heard the i.t. guy have a stroke on the phone. Then he tried to sell me.......SELL ME.... a repair kit that was nothing but a plastic box for catching excess toner. I already have one. He told me to go empty it out. I told him I just had. He told me to go do it again. Just before I told him to make his mom go do it he followed up by saying he doesn't know what the problem is and that I need to call the distributor. Whatever. I called someone else and went through the entire saga again and he just put me on hold. When he came back he said the hard drive was fried and they would send me a new one. The brand new shiny never used printer's hard drive was FRIED. So, I have 2 huge non working printers sitting here in the office. They make you return the broken ones so someone has to have a car big enough to put the stupid thing in and drive it to the UPS store, twice! The one thing I'll say is that the people I've talked to have been super nice. But, super nice doesn't answer my faxes.

Quote of the Day:
"You just wait for next year's supply magazine to come out and find someone who's not dead." -Dwight Schrute

The Fuzzies

I've never liked the part of winter when my horses get scruffy. I've been trying to be a good mom and keep their hair braided and neat but it's becoming impossible. It's also been too cold to do anything about it. I'm so ready for warm weather. I love my new kitty...Brian's old kitty. She is working out so well. I'm extremely allergic to her but that hasn't stopped her from following me around the house and sleeping on my feet at night. She will be going outside as soon as it warms up but if anyone is looking for the perfect indoor cat (she is not declawed and will pick the heck out of your furniture) let me know.

Oh, the tables and chairs have been reserved for the wedding. One less thing.

Quote of the Day:
Bully: Give me your winter doodle.
Jeff: If you're trying to be menacing, maybe you shouldn't call the cookie by its name. -Community

Packin' Up

Guess who's coming home? In just a few more weeks I get to see my best friend again. I'm sure he'll have to "defrag" a little before he's presentable to the public. I'm very excited to see him. We have to do a marathon Christmas before we immediately move on to Valentine's Day! He thought running patrols was hard. Now he has to cram all the holidays he missed into about a week. I'll try not to overwhelm him but there's so much to do. And that doesn't even include finishing planing for the wedding. Hopefully by tomorrow most of that will be out of the way also. On a side note: how have the new taxes affected your paycheck? Stupid liberals.

Quote of the day: "My name is Ron. You don't need to know my last name. Whoever wants to talk, go ahead and we'll be out of here in a tight fifteen." -Ron (Parks and Rec)

Faces Of Christmas

I decided to ditch all the perfect Christmas photos everyone took during the season and show the family in it's true light. We had a very fun Christmas. Enjoy!

Quote of the Day: "Tom-cat, pull up a mouth. This buffet is unstoppable." -Ron (Parks and Rec.)

Forgotten Updates

I completely forgot about my blog. With all the holiday stuff going on it never even crossed my mind. I don't have any recent photos to post. I'll add in a random one in a minute. Hop on over to Carroll's blog to see how I spent my last day of work freedom. If anyone wants 4 stupid horses please let me know. I have a new kitty! Brian came back from Maryland with Rocket. She was trashing his carpet and needed to come back to the land of less yankees. I hate it for Brian but I really like this cat. She is, however, available to adoption. Frederic and Tank will be sad to lose their sister again but not sad enough to impede the adoption in any way. I'm babysitting 5 cats for a family in my church until next week sometime. Some of them are also up for adoption. Very cute cats. I'm surprised they get along with my cats so well. John is almost on his way home. They have shipped their junk home and consolidated rooms. Now all he has to do is get on a plane...in a few weeks. I'm sure it's more complicated than that but after 9 months I'm getting pretty tired of the hindering details. We skyped Christmas morning so he could see all of his presents. He even got to open one. We will have his real Christmas when he gets home. Ok, enough catching up. Now for the random picture.


Quote of the Day: "And just like that. The one tiny aspect of government I enjoyed was clubbed to death before my eyes." -Ron Parks and Rec

Afton and Collin and Parades

I have no reason for posting these photos other than I'm running out of good ones to use. Afton (or as the lady at the vet calls him Af-taaaan) has finally found a buddy that he actually likes. Collin Feral hearts Afton and doesn't take no for an answer. When I feed them in the morning he shoves Afty away from the food bowl to get to it first and he doesn't even get smacked for it. We went to the Christmas parade!!! I can't wait for John to be here next year to experience the all the wonder...like..."I wonder why she fell off the float?" Hopefully Carroll will have photos up this week of all the interesting things the parade had to offer. Some of the floats didn't even have names on them! It was still fun sitting on the curb eating gummy worms and sour patch kids watching all the strangeness. We are already planing our float for next year. It might involve a tractor and a horse topiary.

Quote of the Day:
Ian: I'm a Professor. You can't talk to me that way.
Jeff: A 6 yr old girl could talk to you that way!
Ian: Yes, because that would be adorable.
Jeff: No, because you're a 5 year old girl and there's a pecking order!
-Community

Chicken

So, Noah's new favorite song is "I Play Chicken With the Train." It's obvious he only likes it because it talks about trains. I was at Martha's house the other night and he wanted to hear the song again. Then...he started dancing. He was moving so fast the camera couldn't keep up with him. Laurel couldn't figure out what was going on. Christmas is almost here...which means John will only be a month from coming home. Look at me starting rumors. His house is nice and decorated. I'm still not sure if he'll like is new Christmas tree but I really don't want to drag down the one from the attic...especially since I have a bad habit of falling down the attic stairs. Hurry up John. I need help putting all this stuff up!

Quote of the Day:
Dwight Schrute: Michael, what is the meaning of this email that everyone got?
Michael Scott: You'll have to be more specific, Dwight. I get like eight e-mails a day.

I Heart Snow Globes

Carroll and I have a problem. That problem is TJ Maxx Homegoods. When we went on Friday night I was very careful to put my blinders on and not look at the sparkly things. Suddenly I realized that I could find really cool Christmas presents for people. That was a huge mistake. I let my guard down for 30 seconds and I lost all control. I found awesome presents for people but held off buying myself something....until....I hit the snow globe aisle. It was so beautiful!! Carroll and I have a rule that if you are going to buy something you pick the first one that jumps out at you. We had an experience earlier in the evening while Carroll was shopping for Operation Christmas Child at Dollar Tree. We couldn't decide on a teddy bear for the box and then one literally jumped off the shelf at her. He definitely wanted to be rescued. So, I picked the first shiny silver snow globe I saw. And on the next aisle Carroll found her other rescue. You'll have to go on her blog to check him out. Or, he might make a surprise appearance in the video. Christmas is fun!

Pam Beesly: Don't do the twirl.
Phyllis: Lose the twril.
Dwight Shrute: The twirl is stupid!
Kevin: Michael, I hated the twirl.
Andy: Hate the twirl!
Michael Scott: Ok obviously I'm not going to do the twirl I only did it because I nailed the wave.
Phyllis: Yeah, good. Don't do it.
Michael Scott: I am not going to "do" the "twirl," alright? It's not even a twirl, it's a spin. I might do the spin.

Dollar General and Me

John, this is what you get to look forward to coming home to. My mom and I went to Dollar General (or Dollar Weoweo)last night and bought a fiber optic Christmas tree for no reason other than the fact that it was pretty. I also started decorating your house for Christmas and threw a lot of old ornaments out. I still have a lot to do. When I'm done I'll have more photos for you!!

Quote of the Day:
"Agri-tourism is a lot more than a bed-and-breakfast. It consists of tourists coming to a farm, showing them around, giving them a bed, giving them breakfast." -Dwight Schrute

"Rags!"

I'm so excited. We just got the rugs John sent back from Iraq. They make the house look finished. It was hard to get sizes and colors that would work in the house but John's interpreter took on the task and got us what we needed. Now I go in the house and just stand and stare. I'm pretty sure the house is done. Well, except John's army stuff we have to go through in the yellow room and maybe moving more furniture in the green bed room. And more pictures to hang up. Nevermind. John, I need your help.


Quote of the Day: "Let's say two people are in a class together and one wants to ask another one out on a grownup date... but within biking distance of his parents house..." -Troy (Community)

SAY WHAT!?

Sunday morning at 5:00am I took my horses out of this beautiful area......

Loaded up some friends,an extra horse and all of our junk....

And scampered off to a horse show 2 hours away.

We got to the show and realized that our classes were about to start so we frantically groomed the horses and ourselves.

Just as we were about to ride to the arena they announced that they were delaying the show for 2 1/2 hours. We knew then that we would have problems. At that point we were informed that the judge didn't know anything about Spotted Saddle horses or what gaits they were to call for in the ring. Uh oh! Jessica almost tackled the gate keeper. Then the fun started. Lilly was the best she has ever been at a show. We placed next to last. After being able to watch a few classes I realized that if the horses were shaking their heads (the dominate trait of the Tennessee Walking Horse) he didn't like them. The announcer kept calling Lilly "Imagine of Battlecry." Then, someone "corrected" her and she called her "Imaageee of Battlecry" for the rest of the show. In my frustration and utter rebellion I put Jessica (the mom of the very large brown horse shown above (that they kept calling "Judge's Golden," which is also not his name) on Imaageee for the last class. She truly should have won. But, it's hard to get Lilly into a Quarter Horse gait. I may sound very sarcastic...and I mean too...but I ended up having a good time. Just look at all the ribbons.....CUPS.....we came home with. That show will have 3 less exhibitors next year.