Crochet Me Crazy

Today is my son's birthday *AND* we have the day off today! Hmmm...he's supposed to be all grown up now, isn't he?

I turned off my alarm this morning and managed to sleep late...until 7:30! How disgusting that is that I can't sleep later than that....well, I'll work on it after the summer is over! LOL! I cleaned up the house some more today...made a pot of soup to leave on the stove for the girls when they get back from riding. Mrs. Grain had some friends over with their own horses and they were going riding and playing on horseback today. When they left, I saw about 8 horse back riders. I'm assuming they will be gone for awhile so Michael and I are going to head to town for a birthday trip. I'm going to get ingredients to make him whatever birthday treat he wants.

Here's some pictures of some more of Michael's leather. He's seems to be keeping busy with orders. I don't always get to see everything he makes but I managed to snag these pictures.

We had a BIG rain shower come through today. It was quick but it dumped enough water to make the stables into a muddy, slippery mess. It wasn't safe to ride so we closed up shop and came home. I hate coming home to my messy house when I have some time off. The last thing I want to do is clean so I just catch up on laundry and try to get all the dishes washed. The clutter and mess is driving me crazy. Husband is off today but he's feeling bad and has a headache so he's got his head buried on the couch. I'm so ready to have a place of my own. There's no rest here. I'm praying that God will move us on soon.

The Morgan and Alison situation is a tough situation since our families are so intwined so the break isn't clean. They don't hate each other...they are just too young to deal with all of it. I'm not letting Morgan come over anymore for the time being. We'll just have to see how it all works out. His sister is happy as she can be because now she gets us all to herself....I don't know what it is about those kids but I love them both very much. They both managed to get themselves into my heart somewhere along the way....

A trail ride coming in...

Horses playing...

Only one more week to go and we're done! Alison didn't get to ride Honey tonight because she was limping today.

It's been a busy week at the stables. Our two men helpers went off this past weekend and never came back so Alison and I have been on our own this week. Serenity has been helping us and leading bigger rides for Alison. We just do what we have to do around there.

Also, Alison and Morgan broke up on Tuesday. That's been an unfolding drama to contend with. I'm not upset they broke up but it's all a pretty sad story. I think Alison mainly liked him because of her soft heart...she thought she could help him. He's had a hard life and it's still hard. It just wasn't going to work with someone as stable as Alison with someone like him. There's a lot to it that I can't go into but Alison is handling it pretty well. It's been a learning experience. We care about what happens to Morgan a lot. We're really, really close with them and we have to figure out how to get past this and move on.

Tomorrow is another busy day ahead. We have rides on the board already and the ferrier is coming tomorrow morning! Must go to bed!

Different horses at horse club this week....



Alison had way too much fun riding Honey at horse club last week. We brought Hidalgo for Morgan instead of Silver.



We've about decided that Princess is best suited for Western Pleasure. Alison wants to try some Western Pleasure shows. She's got some warm blooded Percheron in her so she's not really built for speed. We're going to look into how to go about trying some Western Pleasure in the fall. Honey did really well at the horse club this week. She's Quarter Horse and she's ready to boogie.

We've been pretty busy this week in the mornings at the stables. Yesterday afternoon Alison and Serenity started digging in the barn and found a bunch of old saddle pads. We started cleaning them off.



Alison cleaned up an old saddle she found in there. We've decided we're going to organize and clean out the barn. Too many men have been running that place for too long and it's a complete mess.

Life goes on...however, moving on from the caretaking job is on the horizon. You just know when it's time to move on and the time is coming very soon.

Gardener's Ramblings: PDF files for my crochet patterns

Here's a great link to a fellow blogger who has posted pdf's of her free crochet patterns!  

We've been getting some good rain showers this week! Good news!

We got a trampoline. The kids have been having fun with that when we are home.

Serenity and Alison having some fun girl times....




A cute picture of Alison and Serenity...



Today was Princess's first bareback ride. Princess has been learning a lot of new stuff lately!





Alison has been working with a horse at the stables named Honey. She's a fairly new horse that hasn't been ridden a whole lot. We are discovering that she is quite talented and fast. Alison is going to try bringing her to horse club this week and seeing how she does on the barrels.




Alison and I...



I saw this pattern the other day and am thinking this is a good small project to do when I ever have a small amount of time to crochet.

Snowman Mug Hug Crochet Pattern | Red Heart

Except that it hasn't been so normal because we've had the past two days off! No trail rides yesterday or today due to heavy rains! It's way too muddy to ride. I actually crocheted a tiny, tiny bit yesterday. I made a couple of motifs for Alison's card making business. I thought about getting my Wedding Ring Afghan out but decided I better not try to get into something so involved. Today, Alison and I went to town to get our hair trimmed and I got my eyebrows waxed. We went to one of the only department stores in the area... Bealls. I bought Alison a couple of things. It was a more leisurely trip than the normal grocery trip. I locked my keys in my car at the first stop at Tractor Supply. We had to wait an hour and a half for my husband to get there and open my door. It wasn't too bad of a wait. We went to Dollar General and walked across the street and had lunch at Pizza Hut.

Horse Club was rained out tonight as well. Well, we all needed the rest so it's all good. Well, back to work tomorrow! Have a nice weekend!

I managed to get someone to take our picture while we on our float. I should have taken a picture of it before we left but things were so chaotic, I didn't get it done.

Alison lined up to go out with the parade.

Waiting to come in the rodeo arena...

Alison and Morgan....I love these kids....


Well, I know Alison had the time of her life this weekend but I'm glad it's behind us! The parade went well today. It was a lot of fun! We had a flat bed trailer that we decorated and we had 3 baby goats and a sheep sitting with us on the trailer. My goat, Buster, is the sweetest goat I have ever seen. He literally just sat there on my lap like a dog the entire time. Michael walked Danny Boy, our Welsh Pony, and Morgan walked Little Boy, our miniature horse, behind the trailer and Serenity rode Dumpling. Alison rode Princess in the front as the Rodeo Queen and then circled back and got in the back behind our Stables float so she got to the ride in the parade two times.

The rodeo was just plain fun for her. There was only one other girl entered into the youth barrel racing tonight and she was pretty good so Alison placed after her. We weren't going to enter but then Alison decided to when we found out there was only one entry. She was guaranteed to win at least some money since there was only two of them in the Youth Barrel Racing. She placed behind the other girl and got $23. Well, at least it was fun and she's got guts to do it being so new to all of this. I'm proud of her. The rest of the rodeo was just fun riding around everywhere, here and there. We brought a horse for Morgan to ride and they ran around on horses all night.

During the day on Saturday the town was all a buzz with booths set up with food and crafts. Michael set up a leather working table and has himself about $250 worth of orders to fill. People really love his leather work and he now has 3 stores in town that want to carry his stuff. Hmmmm...he keeps all of this mostly to himself but I really need to get some pictures of some of his latest works. His belts, cell phone cases and wallets are very popular. He took an order for a cell phone case at the rodeo and made it and gave it to him before we left! He pretty much carries his leather everywhere with him.

I slept in a little this morning because we have the day off to rest today. So here I am drinking my coffee and letting the kids sleep as late as they want today. My goal is to get my bathroom cleaned today. There is so much dust in there, I can't take it much longer.

Here's a video of Alison's Rodeo Queen Introduction...

Things went fine....Alison is so proud of her horse. It was a huge amount of activity and scary things for a horse that's never done this before. Princess is happy and content with Alison riding her and she didn't spook one time. Getting ready to head out for the parade this morning! We're more confident that ever that Princess will do go in the parade! Pray that everything goes well!

We went to horse club to practice for the Grand Entry for the rodeo and found out that Alison is not carrying the flag to the song God Bless the USA like we thought she would. That is what the rodeo queen usually does and that's really the reason she wanted to do this. Another girl is doing it and then, her ex-best friend is riding out with the other girl and holding the Texas flag. Alison comes in on her horse when they are done and stands in between them to get introduced as Rodeo Queen. Then, they walk out. Not sure what the point of Rodeo Queen is if that's all you do. I guess she can just look pretty with her sash and crown on! LOL --- Oh well, I'm pretty sure some strings were pulled and we are new around these parts so that's the kinds of things that go on in small towns. The best friend that was shunning her is now trying to be nice again....it's all messed up now because Alison is such a sensitive and loyal person that she can't really participate in these types of games. A lot of things that never made sense when they were close friends are making sense to her now and Alison is pretty convinced she was just being used. The friendship is pretty much over now or at least it will just be a more shallow friendship....not the best friends they were.

Well, I hate to air all the personal laundry here but it really doesn't matter....it's all the truth and it's an age old story anyway. This is all part of our life and this blog is my record of it. Growing up is hard to do....

We had a late one last night...well, late for us anyway! After closing up the day at the stables, we went to some of Mrs. Stables daughter's house and decorated our trailer for the 4th of July Parade on Saturday. After we were done with that, we went back to Mrs. Stables and had dinner...then we went back over to her daughter's house and popped fireworks. They put on quite a display. I don't think I've ever seen home fireworks that big before! We got home just in time for a storm to roll in and give us a nice, heavy rain last night. I'm up a little later this morning because we decided to go in an hour later than normal since we didn't have a 9 O'Clock ride on the board. Tonight is horse club and Grandy Entry practice for the rodeo this weekend. The week is buzzing by quickly! Tomorrow night is our first rodeo and Alison's big night! Saturday morning is the parade. Eeek....a little nervous! I'm not even going to be able to watch Alison the whole parade because I will be on the Stables trailer. We're having a trailer with baby goats, a pony, and a miniature horse. This should be fun!

I really need to come up with another name for Mrs. Stables for the purposes of my blog here. It always feels so formal and strange to write that here. We are so close with her and love her so much, she feels like family to us. I'll start calling her "Bee". Now, to clear it all up...."Bee" will now be the name of the sweet lady and friend that owns the trail ride stables that we work for. She is also the "owner" of Princess, Alison's horse. Mr. & Mrs. Grain are the owner's of the ranch that we live on and care take for.