Merry Christmas to all of you!

Well I was really thrilled when Janet called me and suggested that we go riding together next weekend at the farm. The only thing about riding with Janet is that she is always trying to get me to learn to jump. Jumping scares me a little bit, and I have no desire to compete with Beezie Madden for any gold medals! I just enjoy a nice walk, trot, or canter. More excitement than that I don’t need! Janet has always been a thrill junkie, and she just can’t even imagine being content to NOT jump. I’m more than happy to provide her with an appreciative audience.

We haven’t had the chance to ride together at all this year, what with all of the health issues that Janet and her family have been going through. Janet told me that she needs to pick up a new pair of durable riding boots this week before we go riding though; the surgery on her foot has made it too hard to get her old boots on. I don’t think that it was the surgery itself; I think that it is because she has been so inactive that she put on a little bit of weight and it has mostly gone to her calves, making her old boots too tight to pull on, even with the boot hooks.

I told her that I’d like to join her at the tack shop to drop off my ariat boot bag for repair. The zipper is broken and I’m tired of fussing with it. Hopefully they can get it fixed for me.

I was reading the site, and it claimed that PETA puts down thousands of dogs and cats every year in Virginia instead of finding homes for them. And the reason for that is because it is cheaper to kill them than to take care of them and find homes for them! Can that be true? Is this website telling the truth? If this is true, what a hypocrisy! I think I’m disillusioned!

It took one riding lesson when I was 7 to make me realize that I was allergic to horse hair. So I made a point of avoiding the animals at all costs since that discovery. But when we went to Charleston, SC for a romantic weekend, I knew that I wanted to deal with the allergy and take a tour on a horse drawn carriage because all the guide books and websites I’d read said it was the best way to see the charming southern city.

On the day that we had planned to go on the carriage ride I took my husband in the drugstore and picked out some allergy medicine, I went with the one he suggested. But then I was so drowsy in the afternoon carriage ride that I fell asleep! I was so disappointed!

When we went to dinner after that he told me that I shouldn’t have bought that kind of medicine. It ends up he told me not to get that kind and I heard him wrong. That night I looked up miracle ear hearing aid prices on my laptop in the hotel room lest something like that happen again.

Besides the carriage incident our trip was wonderful and I can’t wait to go back!

Our kids have tried their hands at a variety of small pets, such as hamsters and gerbils. I don’t know why, but they didn’t have very good luck with them. They seemed to get sick and die very quickly. I don’t know if we used the wrong cleaning products on their cages, or what, but they seemed to die right off. After about six tries with them, we gave up. It got too traumatic for the kids to keep losing their little pets.

One of my favorite products for cat care is the self-cleaning automatic litter box. It was an expensive product to buy, but well worth the investment. We found that by lining the disposable trays with plastic shopping bags, the trays lasted for several months at a time. This was my wife’s idea, and I think it was a really smart one!

I ended up living in a two bedroom house with one other guy and two girls.  There wasn’t much privacy there, that is for sure!  Pete had a pet snake that he kept in an aquarium in the living room.  He used to feed it gerbils, which upset the girls a lot!  I can remember one day when we discovered that the snake was missing!  The girls were extremely upset!  We couldn’t calm them down for love nor money!  Fortunately we found the snake before bedtime that night, curled up in a corner of the laundry room.  It wasn’t long after that Pete moved out of the house!