Spring Break

Last week was spring break for us. I took the week of and we had a bit of a stay-cation. I loved it but I think a few of the other family members felt a little cheated out of a trip. Sometimes its nice, REAL nice, to not have to worry about packing and driving and flying and activities that vacations usually entail. Sometimes its just nice to stay home and do not much of anything.

Monday was spent riding and dealing with the drama of pre-teen girls. My oh my. We had five girls of varying experience trying to ride two horses. It actually worked out pretty well. Beamer and Ebony were very well behaved and generally did what the rider wanted them to do. Mariah was a freak a usual but I didn't mind. She has really taught me balance. As to the drama, a sixth girl was invited but felt that she was invited out of order and was mad at everybody else. For the whole week. *sigh* That's all I think I'll say about that.

Tuesday was spent putting a new window in the bathroom. Just as winter was starting Kira went to open the window one night. We heard this terrible crash and ran into the bathroom to find Kira in the corner surrounded by broken glass. The windows are so old that when she went to open it the top of the pane fell out of its track and towards Kira. She tried to stop it but missed so she got out of the way. In accordance with long standing household rules regarding the breaking of glass, she did not get in trouble. It wasn't her fault and we were glad she was not hurt. Interestingly, it only broke the inside pane so we stuck the window back up and dealt with a cool bathroom for the winter. The new window is a vinyl frame and really brightens up the room. Plus, I was able to use the project to justify the purchase of a new tool (toy)!

I spent some time in my shop trying to unpack it and get it organized. It has been in boxes for nearly two years now so I am kind of excited to see it actually start to take shape. Mostly it was puttering with purpose.

We made three trips to the video store so we spent a lot of time being lazy and watching movies. We rented some good movies like "Inception" and a positively terrible movie "2010: Moby Dick". It was so bad it was fun.

I love watching bad monster movies. When Nori and I were first married we were living in a 350 square foot apartment that had a small video shop across the street. It featured a huge selection of fantasy titles of the ilk "Warrior Women from Mars". We were living on one income of $7.00 per hour and the movies were only $0.99 each which was about all we could afford. We played them a behemoth of a VCR that was a hand me down from Nori's cousin. We had the best time watching those movies. Good memories.

Anyway, Saturday was spent at Westernaries. 9am to 5pm. Kumi was selected for the White Grand Entry team which is limited to about 16 kids selected from about 30 or so that tried out. She was excited when she got the e-mail that she made it and I don't mind the extra time. There is so little of it left. She graduates in three years and then off to college. It was a beautiful day with a high of about 80°. I even got a but sunburned. (No mom. you may not scold me again!)

Sunday was a bit different. It snowed. Great big fluffy flakes. It was actually quite pretty and relaxing. As soon as the ground got wet enough to make some decent mud, down went all three of the horses for an extra long roll. So much for relaxing. Now we have mud to clean out of tails and manes and cheeks. Now, Kira was feeling a bit disappointed that we didn't go some place so she said all would be forgiven if I would take her to the pottery place. Pretty good hustle. So we went and painted pottery Sunday afternoon. We spent a couple of hours and just enjoyed painting and talking about nothing in particular. The results will be available on April 10th. If they look half way decent I will post a picture of what we made.

Since it snowed on Sunday it reminded me of a poem Kira wrote in 3rd or 4th grade. Its a bit out of season but here it is.