New Year New Me: Pony Progress

Today I thought I’d mix up my morning “internesting” ritual (coffee and computer time, usually comfortably nested on the couch); I brought my laptop and my coffee into the horse pen. It's one of my New Year's Resolutions: spending more time hanging out with the horsies to work on gentling them. 

Progress up to this point, I'm sorry to say, is minimal. Our winter thus far has been virtually nonexistent, but their pen has lots of shade and what little snow we've gotten takes a long time to leave, resulting in a muddy, icy, frozen poo wonderland. This environment is, shockingly, not that enticing to spend time in. 


Currently it's about 35 degrees out, and cloudy, but my travel mug “bubba”--that’s the brand name, not a weird nickname for a cup--is excellent at keeping my coffee hot. My fingers, however, are chilly as I type, and my computer won’t connect the the wifi from the house. Dangit. I need some kind of slender-fingered gloves that would still allow typing, however, a) the house is far, and b) I don’t think I have any.

The horses are staring me down so hard. I put grain buckets at my feet so they HAVE to be my friends. (LOVE ME!) Petunia promptly cleaned out the one farther away from me, but both she and Lady Mike refuse to eat from the closer one. Maybe the computer is scary. Or the typing. God, horses are jumpy. The other day I brought out my actual clicky-shutter camera out to take photos of them and it was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.

Of course these ladies are particularly sensitive as they are Actual. Wild. Mustangs. that I got way ahead of myself in taking on, having no experience horse training and all, and now I’m super impatient and why won’t they let me pet them for the love of God let me pet you I promise you’ll like it! I tell them all the time how much they’ll like it. Why don’t they believe me?

[Aside: we aren’t completely stupid and/or inept, F.Y.I. While we (*I*) were very impulsive in rescuing the ladies, Dooley does have a horsey background—rodeo, riding, starting colts, etc.—and I am learning all I can about natural horsemanship from other mustang trainers. Don’t fret. Also, I've been told it can take over a year to get "untouched" mustangs touchable. 😒 We're around 5 months.]

Bruce the dog is eating horse poop again. Dogs are so gross. Whenever I’m scooping manure, I sing songs to the horses about capturing rogue poop nuggets and such; one day I had a song about Bruce the shit-eating mutt. I think it was to the tune of a Christmas song, but I can’t quite remember. It was so catchy. 

Speaking of shit-eating...thank you, faketrumptweet.com

[Unrelated: the other day I realized Trumpspeak is eerily similar to a Dr. Suess book, but much less clever. If only this speech generator could rhyme.]

https://trump-speech-generator.herokuapp.com/

My computer finally found the internet! And ponies be creepin’. Lady Mike is 100% Professor Petunia’s shadow—always by her side, always behind her. She will be bummed out when we put up panels to split the pen. SUCH GOOD, BRAVE GIRLS are now eating the near grain. But I stupidly itched my nose and Lady Mike spooked. So Fat Petunia got most of it.

I don’t think Fat Petunia is pregnant after all. She’s just a Lil’ Roundy (her rapper name). Or was wormy when she got here and just looked pregnant. While I am disappointed, it’s probably for the best since we still can’t handle her. SO instead of a baby horse, I’m pulling for a miniature mule, courtesy of my sister-in-law in Georgia. They just have to plop her in the back of their Cadillac SUV and drive her to Colorado. (After I get my husband to consent. But he vetoed getting another cat so…mini mule it is!) Maybe “Dandelion”, aka “Dandy”, will help convince the mustangs to love us.

~

I am inside now. My fingers are still a little numb but now I’m using a ceramic mug and a coffee warmer and it’s the best thing in the world to hold a hot mug in your cold hands. I want to become one with this warm mug.

So. My resolution to spend more time working with the ladies is part of a bigger resolution to better manage my time. Since I quit working, my days get away from me and I am sucked into a vortex of lack: lack of motivation, lack of productivity, and lack of energy. So I've resolved to spend a certain amount of time every day on the following (in no particular order): 1. Horses, 2. Fitness, 3. Art, 4. House. Since my NYNM didn't really start until the kids finally went back to school this week, I'm still slacking in the art and fitness categories. In my defense on the latter, I am still recovering from a killer workout class my friend dragged me to on Friday.  

When I was a hardcore badass with diet and exercise three years ago (how has it been that long?!), I lost all the weight I’d gained with the surrogacy and then some, but once we moved from the prairie to the city and I started slacking it all came back…and then some. I have 30 pounds to lose and am dreading getting back to the diet and exercise routine, but NEW YEAR NEW ME, right? At least scooping manure and hiking to and from the bus stop is a bit of exercise; now if only I could quit the beer and cookies. 

I got a knockoff Fitbit for Christmas, which is fun. I got over 11k steps yesterday, mostly doing chores and wrestling the Christmas tree into submission. When I hit 10k steps my little fitness watch started buzzing up a frenzy and flashing a little trophy. WINNER! (That’s the spike on Tuesday on the far right.) Today I went on a short walk after taking the kids to the bus stop and then cleaned the horse pen and already have 4,605 at 10am. WUTTUP.

My favorite part is the line graph on the days after Christmas, although it was by far my least favorite in real life. So Christmas was Monday, hence the no steps. The day after it, the looming cold finally hit me, and I sat around most of the day blowing my relentlessly productive nose (3,206 steps—surprisingly more than I’d expect for such a lazy sick day). That night, howeverrrrr, I got hit with the *stomach flu*, and spent the ENTIRE next day in bed. Literally. The 831 steps are apparently what it takes to get up and go to the bathroom and get water a few times.

Anyway, it’s kind of neat to track. Looking forward to wearing it on some hikes. 

It also has a *sedentary alert*, which, coincidentally, is going off right now, reminding me that I've been sitting too long and need to get my too-big-for-my-old-pants butt up and moving. 

Until next time (when I hope to have actual pony--and self--progress to report). 

Donkeys and Elephants and God

HEEEYYYYYY! It's been over a month since I blogged. I've either been busy, lazy, uninspired, or forgetful. Probably all of them. But this is squishing my brain and I must get it off my chest. Or brain. [Noted: do not google images for "squished brain".]

I fear that I must enter into some brief politicking. Not at all professional, articulate, painstakingly researched and well-thought-out politicking, but I am just a little at a loss, so bear with me… Hopefully any readers are open-minded enough not to disown me for holding a different opinion than they may or may not hold.

Facebook. Oh facebook. You have been abuzz with politics—both intelligent, thought-provoking posts as well as uber-dumb ignoramus rants. K…mostly the latter. I am not above suspicion in this. I put some political stuff up during the election, and some of it was on the serious side, some on the silly side, or possibly the inflammatory side, but, but…I digress…

Recently I came across a page called Christians Against Obama’s Re-election, whose objective is to “Inform the Uninformed about Obama's Radical and Unconscionable Attacks on Christianity and Catholicism, and his Total Disregard for our Constitution.” [Also listed as a “church/religious organization” is Liberals: The Assholes of America, whose slogan is “waking up the people to how the mentally challenged liberals want a socialist society”, although they only have 27 likes. Suckers.]

At this point I am hearing/imagining SNL’s Seth and Amy going “REALLY?!”

Are you freaking kidding me, people? [Aside: stare at the word PEOPLE for awhile. It looks super duper weird to me right now. It looks like poeloepe. Or something.] Obama seems like a pretty openly Christian president to me. Attacks on Christianity? How so? Is it just the abortion and gay marriage issues? Why are Democrats historically thought of as non-Christian? Why is Republican the only acceptable way for “Christians” to vote? (On a mostly unrelated note, how does Mitt's Mormonism fit in there?)

Everyone seems to dern extreeeeeme. Extreme left or extreme right…I guess it’s the extremists who normally voice their opinion. Loudly and stupidly. On both sides. I am what some would call a moderate but I’ll say it: I voted Democrat. I’d love to vote Libertarian or Green or Anarchist or Please-Throw-Away-Your-Vote-ist, but, yeah. I don’t really want to discuss the things that made me vote that way, I’m only at a loss about the political/religious/cultural extremes. (Not to say there aren’t facebook groups for liberal Christians or Christian Democrats, because if it exists of facebook it’s obviously real and valid. Like everything on the innerweb is totes legit. Duh.)

I’m gonna post an excerpt from an article that is writ gooder than me on the subject:

 “When we hear some proclaim that voting ‘biblical values’ only means voting against abortion and same-sex marriage, we wonder what Bible they are reading. Apparently, not the one in our hands -- the one with 2,000 verses about the poor and marginalized, injunctions to regard the earth as God's precious gift to us that we must carefully steward, and appeals to the efficacy of peacemaking rather than the an idolatrous trust in military might -- all values that come from the Scriptures…”
 Read the rest of the article here

I don’t know of many people who are on the fence like I am, or maybe since we’re not extreme, we just don’t talk about it. Though I currently lean left, I am not pro-abortion. I am not anti-gun. I am also for the death penalty in many cases. I seldom go to church, but I am not an atheist or an agnostic. And I’m not Vegan. (Joking, people. Chill.) I don’t like how religious references have been forced out of Christmas.

I am, however, for equal pay and equal rights for women and minorities and, yes, homosexuals. I am also anti-war, in most cases. I am not opposed to evening the playing field and taxing richies more. I’d like for the rich-poor gap not to widen. I also feel like more importance ought to be placed on education, pre-K through college…our country is like 805^th in smarts, and kids get shot in school. Geeez. I’m not even opposed to borderline socialist (*GASP*) healthcare. It seems to work well for countries like Sweden and Canada. All I know is, healthcare and insurance could stand to be made more affordable, because it is reeeee-dic-u-lous. Also, even though I'm pro-life, I'm also a fan of other forms of birth control. And yeah, let’s hug a tree and save the environment and drive battery cars and stuff. Sounds sah-weeeeeet. Can we figure out how to drill oil domestically striving for oil independence and still enjoy solar panels and wind turbines?

 EVEN THOUGH…we own a big annoying diesel pickup and live in a very Republican-dominated rural area. Dooley is into rodeo. We have guns and dogs and horses. We are eating a delicious elk that he shot while hunting. He works for an American beer company. We believe in God (despite our absence from organized religion). YET…(cue sinister music)…we’re liberals. Sort of. With Dooley it’s kind of a gimme cuz his folks are lefties and very politically minded, but I was raised in a religious, Republican home…I think…we never really talked politics, but they’re definitely conservative… whatevs. So I'm a pro-life, pro-gun liberal.

Our condescending realtor thought it was a good idea to discuss WHO we voted for and WHY, and I was too much of a tard to avoid the topic. I’m also a super tard at verbalizing, period. I am famously bad at articulating my feelings via those things called WORDS, verbally. I’m still rather indirect in writing, but I feel like I make my point better than when I open my mouth. So even though I make no claims about being the most informed expert on politics, I have many good reasons for voting how I do, but cannot coherently state them when I’m on the spot, just like how I always lose arguments with Dooley cuz he’s all dumb and eloquent and full of many many many many words that say exactly what he wants to say exactly when he wants to say it, and I just stammer and cry. Even though I’m right. Always.
 
…Digression…

So thank you Christians Against Obama’s Re-election for forcing me into this rant. How some people call themselves Christians I will never understand. Religion as a weapon of bigotry. Nice. Just as I make no claim to being the most informed expert on politics, I make no claim to being an expert on religion, but didn’t Jesus preach love and acceptance and helping the poor and all that jazz? I’m 130% fine with people being against Obama, or any other politician or political platform, but for crap’s sake, don’t make it your own personal religious crusade. “God is not a Republican or a Democrat!” 

That said, I love all my conservative friends and family, and if you’re reading this, please know that I am not at all at all grouping you in with these few ignorant righties. In fact I would not at all mind a discussion on the topic, as long as you forgive me my slowstupidspeak.

Let’s end with a poop story to keep it real.

Dirt poops on the potty like a champ all the time now. Like a boss. He proudly shows me all of them. Some of them are massive, and then he is very very proud. Tuesday says “bay lutty” (very yucky). Sometimes I still take pictures when they are impressively adult-sized and send them to my husband and sister. If anyone else wants to join the poo mailing list, let me know.

I know it’s been well over a month since my last post, and I promise to get back to the normal mommy stuff soon. I also have some artist fodder coming up, as I am crunching to finish a badass horse painting by Thanksgiving (gulp) next week. Furthermore, I’d like to formally announce my candidacy (okay candidacy is the wrong word, cuz it’s bona fide—can anyone say “bona fide” without a southern accent?!) for gestational surrogate. For shizzle. Unless something goes awry, everything is in the works for a February embryo transfer. (How that fits into politics and religion I don't really know.)

Just so y’all know…I’ll have interesting things to discuss. And no, I will not be starting a separate blog for all of that different stuff, cuz that’s just too hard. So stay tuned.