Proud Parent

I'm so proud of my youngest daughter. She participated in a horse show this morning and did really, really well.

She's been in school shows at the county barn where she's taken lessons for the past seven (?) years. She has won ribbons in her events, first place ribbons through sixth place and even sometimes no ribbon at all. Once she even won reserve champion of the overall show. Today's show was a little different for us.

This show was held at a private barn where she's had a few lessons. It was much smaller and very low key but winning or placing in the events earns the riders points towards competing in larger competitions. I don't understand all of it but this was a step up from the county school shows.

My daughter rode in five classes in her division, she won three 1st place ribbons, one 2nd place and one 4th place as well as division champion.

Yep I'm proud of my daughter.

Excavation

I've had an on-going project over the last few months of trying to organize my desk. I started by gathering up everything on the top of it and carrying the mass to the dining room table. I've been slowly sorting through it, putting recipes in binders, filing tidbits of information and throwing a lot of it away.

The advantage of the project being dragged out over months is some of the stuff that gets unearthed I can't remember why I thought I needed it or it's out of date. Those I just toss in recycling.

The disadvantage of it going on so long is now there is another mound on my desk to deal with.

It's That Time Again

It's getting warm, the sun is shining stronger and the birds are singing. What does this mean? It means GOLF SEASON!!!!!!!!

I love golf.

I'm not good at it. Not awful either, but not good. What I lack in talent I make up for in enthusiasm. Or so I'd like to think.

Today I went down to Town Hall, to the Rec Dept. and re-upped my membership at the town course.

Our town course is a nine hole job. It's narrow, has ball-eating trees and sometimes requires wearing a helmet. But it's my course.

My husband belongs to an 18 hole golf club. Tee times are required there. Not at my course, it's first come first served.

Over the years I've learned some of the tricks of the course. Not just the strategy of the course itself but the first come first served part.

Timing.
Don't even consider a weekend. It goes without saying it's crowded but this course attracts a lot of golfers like me; the less than stellar players. The helmet comes in handy on these days. Remember I said it's narrow.

Early mornings the older men like to play. Tuesday morning is the women's league; avoid Tuesdays. Other mornings mosey on over around ten the wait shouldn't be too long.

Afternoons are avoided too because that's when the hot-shot Tiger Woods wanna-be kids like to play. They don't have a lot of patience with moms playing golf. Although some can be intimidated if you do some good warm up stretches and practice swings.

Arrange a four-some ahead of time.
You can get away with a three-some but if it's busy with just two players you run the risk of having a couple of guys join up with you. I'm not against meeting new people but I've had a little trouble with men that aren't my husband feeling they can be free with the golf tips. Avoid this by bringing a foursome.

Course management
I'll leave that up to the pros. Okay, okay here's my insight on how to manage this course. It's simple try not to go down the hills on 2, 7 and 8. Oh and watch out for the ball-eating trees on 6.

Let 'er rip!

Boy Was My Face Red

When I was a kid (Hey! It wasn't that long ago. All right maybe it was longer than I'd like to think about.) anyway, a regular column in a teen magazine was "Boy was my face red" . Girls wrote in with their embarrassing experiences. It was always one of our favorite columns. We'd read the entries and have a good laugh but be relieved nothing terrible had happened to us. Yeah right, it was only a matter of time.

In the town where I grew up there is a park on the edge of the downtown shopping district. It has a bandstand, playground, and a picturesque bridge over the little stream that leads to the pond.

A number of wild and domestic ducks called this pond home. People would come with their little kids to feed the ducks or fish in the pond. This was before they found out feeding the ducks in the pond caused a fatal bacteria growth in the stagnate water which killed most of the ducks and necessitated dredging the pond and attempting to improve the water flow. Anyway before all this happened the park could be a very busy place. Especially on one of the first days of spring.

I walked to the park with a friend. We were strolling around, checking out the guys and trying to look cool.

A group of boys was hanging out by the pond tormenting the ducks so we casually strolled to the vicinity and stood on the rocks around the pond's edge eyeing them. Remember I said we were trying to look cool. That ended with a splash as I lost my balance and fell into the pond. To make it even worse (How could it possibly be worse?), I expected the pond to be deeper than it was so when my feet hit the bottom I further stumbled and fell full length into the scummy water making a second, even larger splash.

Laughter erupted from the boys and "Boy was my face red".

I sqooshed home, my teeth chattering because although it was spring it was still nippy, especially if you were wet. To add insult to injury my friend refused to lend me her sweater even though I promised to wash it before returning it. I will never forget that day.

The Ring of Keys

My daughter locked her keys in the trunk of the car the other day. She called me to come and help her out. She had unlocked the car itself before opening the trunk and throwing in her golf bag and other gear (including the keys).

It is strange the only way to open the trunk is with the key fob. Perhaps you can manually (gasp) unlock it with the key but those were safely in the trunk.

Any way, she called me to come with keys to unlock the trunk. Driving to the golf course made me think of the times my parents rescued me from similar situations. I ran out of gas numerous times. (In my defense my first car did not have a working gas gauge.A sawed off broom handle was kept in the VW's bonnet to stick in the tank to attempt to judge how much gas it had.) I, too, locked keys in the car, this was way way way before key fob remotes. Also way way way before cell phones. My car broke down multiple times and never close to home. And usually at night. In fact the running out of gas and breaking down were always at night.

So I was thinking about my father teaching me to drive in the Sears parking lot on Sundays because stores way way way back then weren't open on Sundays.

He taught me to drive a manual transmission. First we practiced on the automatic, as he drove down the street he'd have me listen to the engine, he'd have his fist out on the seat with his thumb sticking up as the gear shift. I would listen to the engine and shift gears with it, pretending to press down the clutch and lifting up on the gas then reversing the sequence. When he thought I had the idea we tried it out, in the Sears parking lot on Sunday, with the real thing. The dry runs must have done the trick because it wasn't too ugly. We practiced everything in that parking lot, backing up, parallel parking, k turns, stopping on hills, everything. Then he'd let me drive home.

So it seems I'm coming full circle. I've taught one daughter to drive and I'm rescuing her from locking the keys in the car. Hopefully she won't run out of gas. But that may be part of the ring of keys.

I Like..

I like...

Listening to the rain on the roof while lying in bed
Old movies
Summertime
The feel of the warm sun shining on me
Reading a book outside with a glass of iced tea next to me
Breakfast with friends
Goofing around with my daughters
Singing with the radio
Cake - make that food in general even brussel sprouts but that's for another time
Snuggling with my husband
Golf
Exercise
Wine

...Most things

Ready?

Now, after much urging from my sister I have created a blog. Now what? Now I have to sit and type/write and see my thoughts on paper and they could possibly be seen by others. That's intimadating.



My dear sister said I'm a good writer, a funny writer. Oh no pressure now. Just a vast empty space to fill up with good witty prose.



Enough whining.