Saturday Selections

This was going to be Friday Favorites but I forgot to post it on Friday erp.

This is in no particular order and is a non horsie list, otherwise I can assure you Sora would be on it <3




1. Battlestar Galactica

My favorite tv show of all time! The extremely human way that they portray people really amazes me. There isn't a single character on the show that you like all the time because they are always making decisions that you may or may not agree with. There isn't the "evil" character that so many shows have. Plus there is a healthy dose of hotness lol. My brother, who I've been watching the show with (for the second time) is a Sharon fan, I really like Lee and Kara <3 although Helo and Sharon are some of my favorite characters.




2. Diet Coke

My drink of choice. <3


3. DeviantArt - http://www.deviantart.com/

Incredible website with some incredible artists. One of my favorite places to get gifts from plus I just love browsing around drooling over the art.


4. Imogen Heap

My favorite musical artist would vary depending on when you asked but Imogen is always at or near the top. I've been using my 1 1/2 hours on the light rail to listen to her new album, Ellipse, over and over =D


5. My ipod touch

Which actually contains three of my other favorites on it, doesn't get much better than that! My favorite app is the kindle book reader. I read so many books on it it's not even funny =X


6. Jacqueline Carey

One of my many favorite authors. Her writing is like poetry and even the political parts of her book are written so beautifully they could be lyrics to a song.


7. The smell of Apoxie Sculpt

This is what I use to sculpt and when it heats up from my fingers or when I'm sanding it the smell is intoxicating. It's sort of earthy/musty and like nothing else.





8. My Netbook

I seriously don't know what I'd do in my classes without this little computer. I write extremely slow but I type very fast so this thing saves my life. Especially in accounting where I swear my teacher covers then entire white board in under a minute =X This picture isn't of mine but it's a good illustration of the size.

9. Wraeththu

A surprising last minute purchase from Half Price Books this has turned into one of my favorite books. Very unique =D


10. My Cello

From 12 to 20 this thing and I had a love hate relationship but I spent thousands of hours of my life with it and much of who I was/am is tied up in it. I haven't played it since May 2008 because it's just too painful, and I don't have the time, but I hope to pick it up again in a few years when I do have more time.

Even Worse Weather

This is what Weather underground is telling me today

"Breezy. Widespread snow. Blowing and drifting snow in the afternoon. Visibility one quarter mile or less at times in the afternoon. New snow accumulation around 1 inch. Highs around 25. Northwest winds 20 to 25 mph."

To me a Windchill of 10 °F is not "Breezy". That along with the fact that all the melting we were having turned back into ice and has been further polished smooth by snow blowing across it makes even walking difficult.
The horses are warm and cozy in their shelter. No one's hair was standing up and there was no shivering this morning so I didn't blanket but I will be tonight, if I can remain standing up long enough to do it =X
A few days ago we spread cat litter, the only thing that works that they won't try to eat, all around their pens to help with the slipperiness. It works well but with the melt it simply sank to the ground and now is caught within the ice. Verrrry Helpful *snorts*

Here is a short video clip that I caught while taking the pictures trying to show the desolation. It's hard to capture just how strong the winds are though.


Finally, an update on Model Khepri. Last night after I posted my previous entry the artist that was donating a paint job on my donation to Show for the Cure emailed me this picture.
This is, as far as I know, the first copy of Khepri to have been painted. Cassie Black, the artist, paints in oils and acrylics and her website can be found here.

Of Nasty Weather and Plastic Ponies

After my last post I got really sick for a week but I'm finally feeling better.

I went out today to work on Sora's hooves again and she was a really good girl about it so I took her out of her pen to our arena for a while so she could run around and explore a little. I got a couple of pictures of her on my phone since my camera is acting up =P

It's hard to tell but she's having a good shake in this one, it was cute =) You can also kind of see the awful weather we've been having. It's warmer than it was but now there's been freezing rain for the past three days =3

Because I haven't been able to do anything with Sora recently I thought I'd post a little more about my other hobby. I started collecting model horses, specifically Breyers, when I was about five =) At that point of course I just played with them but by the time I was sixteen I had twenty or so. When I went to college, however, I left them behind and didn't really think I'd ever get more.

In my second year of college I discovered Artist Resins =D More detailed than Breyers there are also many more available. I was hooked! The only problem was the price. Even unpainted the largest scale, referred to as Traditionals, run between $100-$1000 or in some cases even more. Then, on top of that, paint jobs cost $150 - $5000? or even more. There was no way aI could afford this =X

For a while I made do. I bought a broken "classic" scale (slightly smaller than traditionals) model for a good price and had him repaired.
I also bought a couple of Stablemates, the smallest "popular" size. Here is a picture reference of the different scales (the picture isn't in scale however lol).

Traditional Classic PaddockPal StableMate MiniWhinnies

I was still having trouble affording the models I really wanted but then I discovered the tiniest scale which are called Mini Whinnies by Breyer or Micro Minis by most others. I've always loved miniatures and micros are TINY. About the height of a Quarter there were enough different models to keep me busy for a while. You can see some here.

The only problem was that there just weren't that many models available since there are really only one or two sculptors that sculpt in that scale. I decided that I would try making one myself and Paris was born =D After about a year I made a stock horse mare named Khepri and am currently working on Nafre
Hopefully I'll be able to spend some more time with Sora tomorrow and, if I'm able to, I'll try to borrow a camera to get more, better pictures.

I'm Still ALIVE: part 3

New Years was great this year especially since we invited family over that I hadn't seen in a long time. My cousin Jenna and I were like sisters several years ago but since she recently started her own family I haven't seen her. We used to spend weeks at our farm either riding stick horses, before we had real ones, or riding Bucky and Jackson once we had them. It was wonderful to see her again!

On New Years Eve I noticed that Sora was uncomfortable chewing. She had just been floated in April so I hoped that wasn't the problem. Because of the grinding sound I heard I was 88.8% sure that she was just having some problems loosing some baby caps. I decided to wait for the next day before I decided what to do.

On New Years Day I was disappointed to see that Sora actually seemed more uncomfortable and during the evening feeding she didn't finish her hay. I told her the next morning that if she wasn't better by Monday I would call the vet. She decided to follow through and by Monday, if anything, seemed slightly worse. I called the vet and set up an appointment for the next morning.

It turned out the stubborn pony just wanted to see the vet because the vet found that she had JUST lost two baby caps, just as I thought lol, and said that she should be feeling better. He also found a few points on the back, but nothing he thought was causing discomfort, and took care of them.

Over the next few days she improved remarkably and not only hoovered up the hay I gave her, but also cleaned up the extra hay that she was leaving from before. Today she was bouncing around bucking, rearing and doing all kinds of acrobatic manuvers while flirting with Jackson over the fence. It was nice to see after looking out to see her standing miserably by her shed last week.

In parting, since I don't have any recent pictures, I decided to post this one. This is the picture that Robin took for me after I told her I was interested in Sora. It was partly this picture that caused me to fall in love with her <3

I'm Still ALIVE: part 2

Christmas was also wonderful, if very quiet this year. My brother has joined the Marines and will be heading off to Basic in April so it will be my last Christmas with him for about five years. I'm very proud of him and it's something he's really happy about so I'm glad for him but a little worried and sad at the same time.

On Christmas Eve the horses got lots of hay and extra grain because we had a huge blizzard/snowstorm. Luckily being Minnesota born and raised our horses took it in stride and with their blankets, shed and extra food weathered it out all right.

The bad part of the snowstorm is that it was above freezing when it started so along with a couple feet of snow we got ice, ick! Because of this ice although I sometimes could be riding otherwise, I simply don't want to risk Sora or myself in these conditions. This means that it will probably be months before I get any riding in again so I'm planning other types of work so that I can at least spend some time with her. She's great with her ground training so I would be happy to take cold weather training suggestions =D

Also I'm hoping to use this time to work on myself, namely loosing the weight I gained over Christmas *blush* lol and working on more core strength.


Picture of a happier (ie. Warmer) time rofl!

I'm Still ALIVE: part 1 =)

I am actually still alive, even though the weather is trying it's darnedest to make that a lie (-10 to 0 degrees for the past five days ) lol. I have a lot of catching up to do so instead of one big blog I'm going to divide it up a little. This post will be the first of a series of three or so.

Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. Our celebration consisted of only my direct family but it was nice and quiet and enjoyable. The horses got special treats in the form of Carrots and Apples in their grain bins which received mixed reviews =D

Sora, who LOVES Carrots very delicately picked out every Carrot while only taking a few teeny tiny little bites of Apple (I think just to make me happy lol). Khepri hoovered everything but spilled little bits of everything everywhere *rolls eyes* and Jackson didn't eat any of the treats, simply gave me a look that clearly said "why oh why on the one day I get grain do you torture me by putting all this weird stuff in here that I have to pick around?" Luckily we have a goat who is realllly not picky and who was happy to clean up all of the unwanted fruit and vegetables.

Pictures of the treat bins =D

Sora's carefully sorted treats when she was all done with them, lucky goat ;-)